Okinawa Photo Shoot, from American Village to the Beach

Photos from American Village in Okinawa, walking past the Christmas street and the Blue Seal ice cream shop to the beach

Hi, I’m author S.
Today it’s an American Village photo shoot. The colors there are really vivid.
As recently as the end of 2024, American Village had a pretty bad reputation among Koreans. Everything’s expensive and it’s nothing but shopping streets.. I think those negative perceptions have faded quite a bit by now. For one thing.. the photos are pretty. And I put a lot of effort into changing those negative perceptions myself, you see?

Anyway, these photos were taken at American Village in December 2025. As always.. this is more promotion for Tongyeong photo shoots than for Okinawa. I don’t even need to market Okinawa anymore, so it doesn’t matter..

This is the kind of vibe I start with. I’ve noticed quite a few kids like that whale shark seat..

I take photos of them browsing the shopping street too.
As soon as Halloween is over, American Village switches straight over to a Christmas backdrop.

As always, I take lots of candid shots. There’s hardly any staging.. with babies.. they look their best when they’re doing whatever they feel like.

I get a shot of them running like this too.

Too hot, so the coat came off..
I liked the red because it looked like Santa.. Okinawa’s winter that time was much milder than in 2024.

Capturing each of these little moments was a way to improve American Village’s image when so many people viewed it negatively.

Almost all girls respond to intensely saturated colors. Round shapes. Flowers, that kind of thing.

I have a spot and framing planned for here already.. but the baby keeps moving, so it doesn’t come out the way I picture it. So I improvise and switch to a different shot idea.

At Blue Seal, strawberry is the tastiest.

For photos, Blue Wave is the prettiest. It looks like blue sky and white clouds, which makes it a lovely choice for photos. Quite a few families wear white T-shirts and jeans for family group photos, and it goes well with those outfits too.

Ice cream for babies.. I’ve noticed they usually start around their first birthday at the earliest. Even eating ice cream for the first time takes some know-how. When they eat the first ice cream of their lives.. their eyes go round, and it’s so cute..
They like it.. but they usually don’t eat much, I’ve noticed.

For Blue Seal photos, forget the waffle cone.. a plain cone looks the prettiest. A waffle cone is awkward to frame for an ice cream shot.. and so many crumbs fall off.

It’s a sunny afternoon, and we hurry off to take photos. As always.. I don’t tell them to do anything.

The reason photographers in the baby photo shoot market close up shop early.. is that it’s hard. For kids’ shoots.. whether it’s a good eye or technical skill, none of it matters as much as stamina. When a baby runs, you have to run too.

You know.. photos as ordinary as these don’t look awkward even 20 or 30 years later.

Jumping.. surprisingly tricky to shoot.
Lots of kids lift their heads to look at the sky when they jump, so the odds of failure are very high. So instead of correcting what the kids do, I ask mom and dad to lift them low. If they’re lifted too high, the photo doesn’t look as nice.

If the baby’s into it, I just take the photo, that’s all.

When babies and kids.. take time away from daycare or school for an overseas trip as a learning experience.. they have to submit a few photos showing a landmark plus their face from the front. So you need photos like this too.
It automatically goes viral among daycare and kindergarten teachers..

When the sun is strong, I take photos like this too. Until about my fifth year in Prague, I found shooting in strong sunlight daunting.. but from my sixth through my eleventh year, I felt comfortable shooting even in strong sunlight.

The textbook approach is to use reflected light in the shade, which is generally best.. but I don’t really set up my shots carefully. It’s more of a see-how-the-day-goes, if it works it works, if not, let’s shoot something else kind of thing..

Just a photo taken in passing.

As always, I just tell them we’re going over that way and capture them looking relaxed.

This is a spot where I used to shoot Okinawa photo shoots a lot. It was so popular that I kept shooting this kind of shot here.
I have a rule for shooting this one too, and it depends on how young the child is. The older they are, the wider I shoot, and the younger they are, the closer I get, like this.

When I photograph a baby.. I always try to make the baby the star. Mom and dad are the supporting cast.

I’ve studied a lot of photos of kids, and in most of them mom and dad look like the stars rather than the child. It’s because.. the angle is high.

The photographer is always taller than the child and the camera angle is high, so a small child looks even smaller, and mom and dad, who are bigger than the child, look even bigger.

So.. the kids end up looking like props.. As the sharp-eyed among you will have noticed, I usually position my camera at the child’s height.

Put another way, for a shoot of the bride and groom getting ready for the wedding, I’d position my camera at the height of the bride’s navel. That’s my own standard. A shooting style that favors shorter people.

That’s why I show up to shoots in shorts and flip-flops. December 2025 in Okinawa was much warmer than 2024, so I just charged into the sea to shoot.

When mom and dad hold the child’s hands from both sides and there’s little gap between them, kids usually look down at the ground. I don’t know why, but that’s how it usually is. So if mom and dad hold the child’s hands and stand a bit apart, the kids look ahead more often than at the ground.

If they still look at the ground, when one of the two lets go, they look forward again. It seems there’s something different about the nerves in kids’ shoulders.

I’ve shot so much that I feel like I can see kids’ muscles move..

If I were an early childhood education student, I think my thesis topic would be something like ‘Children’s muscle responses during photo shoots and their psychological relationship with having their parents present’..

The sunlight is lovely and the sea is emerald.. but the child was absorbed in playing in the sand.. so I just shoot as they are. Once again, I mustn’t interrupt what the kids are focused on.. I wanted the sea as the backdrop, but the baby kept staring at the sea, which made it hard. Then, right on cue, the baby turned around, and I got the shot with the sea behind them.
And then I fitted mom and dad in around whatever the baby was doing.

A baby only does what they want to do, no matter how you try to shoot.. so I just move myself and change the background.

I’ve never studied child psychology.. but after photographing babies all day from morning to evening.. I feel like I’ve developed an instinct for these things
..

Somehow.. these turned out to be photos from 2025.
I hope they always grow up happy and healthy!

I’m not currently taking bookings for Okinawa photo shoots. These photos were taken in December 2025, and this portfolio shows the kind of feel I go for on a street or a beach. Photo shoots in Gyeongju are in full swing now, and I’m continuing to expand to other areas. This kind of feel is entirely possible in Korea too, and my base is Tongyeong, Geoje, Changwon, and western Busan 😀
An outdoor shoot is 250,000 KRW for 1 hour in daytime and 300,000 KRW for 1 hour at sunset or night, with the same 20 edited photos and 300 original photos. You can find booking info and contact details on the Sarangbi Snap page.