Changwon First Birthday Photo Shoot, Under the Gwangyang Plum Blossoms

This is a case study showing how I do first birthday photo shoots in Gyeongnam (South Gyeongsang Province), including Changwon. These are photos of a family with a 14-month-old baby, taken over 1 hour 40 minutes at the Gwangyang Plum Blossom Festival.

Hi, I’m author S.
These photos are of a family with a 14-month-old baby, taken at the Gwangyang Plum Blossom Festival. These weren’t first birthday photos, though.
I don’t yet have a wide range of first birthday photos to show, so for now, I’m using these photos, taken in the same style, to show you how I approach first birthday photo shoots. Of course, I shoot first birthdays in style too 😀

That day’s shoot was in Gwangyang.
The idea was a family out visiting the festival, but the baby has strong stranger anxiety and burst into tears the moment they saw me. Usually babies warm up after a little while and just stare at the camera, and that’s actually what worries me more, but anyway, mom and dad had way too much stuff, so we left some of it at the stroller storage booth. The Gwangyang Plum Blossom Festival practically copies the Japanese matsuri system, so among the Korean festivals I’ve seen, the standard is very high.

I covered my walk around this festival in detail in Gwangyang Plum Blossom Festival, from Tickets to the Green Plum Orchard.

I’ve shot a lot of first birthday keepsake photos in Prague and Okinawa. These days there are lots of shoots in hanbok too.. but I do a lot of shoots, as a keepsake, of parents playing with the baby somewhere with flowers or in a special building.
First off, my basic stance is.. I don’t try to make the shoot into anything elaborate. So if you don’t have a particular idea in mind.. please don’t worry about getting it right. Just do what you normally do when you play with the baby, and I’ll take care of framing the shots.. please, don’t worry about getting it right.. that’s the kind of request I make.

And honestly, those are the prettiest photos.

This was originally meant to be a one-hour shoot.. but the baby cried whenever they made eye contact with a passerby.. so it took about 1 hour 40 minutes in total..
Still, as time went on, I could see the baby gradually getting less scared of people, which was nice. At first they cried the moment they made eye contact with me, but later they didn’t even care.. With babies who are said to have strong stranger anxiety, it usually disappears within 10-20 minutes of me shooting, but this baby took about 40 minutes. Still, the photos get better and better toward the end.

The baby saw a man passing by and cried again..
Well.. that’s a story to remember too. So that when they’re grown up and wonder “why am I crying in this one?”, you can show them the photo and tell the story? Pretty photos alone are nice, but this is a memory too.

Still, my style calls for getting right up close to the baby for photos, like a boxer fighting at close range.. but if I get close they cry.. so I’m only shooting from far away.
When you search for first birthday photo shoots online, the photographers shoot from too far away, so mom and dad look huge and the baby looks tiny, right? That’s because they’re too far from the baby. For me the baby always comes first..

I don’t use filters or composites. It’s more of a pretty documentary feel.
Because if you use lots of filters and compositing.. um.. by the time the baby is an adult, the photos will look so tacky they won’t be able to bear looking at them

So unless I’m working with sunset photos.. I generally don’t alter the colors; I just preserve the atmosphere of the scene and make it a little prettier.

I shoot from about 20 meters away.
In a spot with no one else around, the baby really starts smiling again.

Touching the flowers for a moment,

and trying on sunglasses for a moment, too.
Well.. if you ask for something fancy I can do it, but this is my style. Letting the baby do what they want.. that’s what makes the prettiest photos.

I provide 20 edited photos per hour of shooting, and for this shoot I edited 26.
It’s just.. whatever I feel like on the day. I’ve done 58 recently too, but again, whatever I feel like.

The plum trees are low, which is great for shooting babies,, but they often block dad’s face.

At the very beginning.. the baby was crying so hard.. that the woman selling things next to us put a tomato in their hands.

Something like tossing the baby up in the air would work well too.. but that day I figured they’d just keep crying.. so I shot with a focus on the baby interacting with mom and dad as much as possible.

Dad ate the tomato that was left after the baby was done playing with it 😀

I edited this photo separately by request. I removed all the people around.
I don’t normally do this ~_~

I get one under the hanok, too.
It’s nice to shoot from a pretty angle, but there are so many people.. the angles are quite limited.

The expressions are getting better and better 😀

Still.. a 14-month-old.. doing something nonstop for 1 hour 40 minutes.. they must have great stamina. About 40 minutes of that was crying.. so I bet they’ll be amazing at running or something later..

It looks as though the family is taking in the view of the plum fields. This is the last location. I originally wanted to explore further, but it was nearly 2 hours and the baby seemed a bit tired, so I wrapped up around here.

Still, we managed to end on a pretty note like this. I hope to see your family again on a blossom-viewing outing when the baby turns two or three 😀
Wishing you continued good health!

For first birthday photo shoots in Gyeongnam (South Gyeongsang Province), including Changwon, and in Busan, I charge 500,000 KRW for about 2 hours, and you receive 20 edited photos and 300 original photos per hour of shooting. I can also do a keepsake shoot like this one, capturing the baby playing with mom and dad in a place with flowers in bloom or in front of a special building. You can read about the tickets, parking, and walking route for the Gwangyang Plum Blossom Festival, where these photos were taken, in Gwangyang Plum Blossom Festival, from Tickets to the Green Plum Orchard. For booking information and contact details, see the Sarangbi Snap page.