How to Recruit, Shoot, and Gain Great Repute with Korean Models and Shoot Excellently in Korea
Korea, Land of Models, Republic of Photographers
I have shot a lot of Korean models, from agency to amateur, in Korea. The reason I even put together this post is because I get asked by some non-Korean photographers how I shoot with with many Korean models, since apparently, they’re hard to come by. (?) That had actually never occurred to me until I had a conversation with an American photographer who shoots bikini and many other racy pictures of models from the Phillipines through Thailand and everywhere in between. I was actually a bit surprised to hear from this photographer that he marveled at my ability to pull Korean models as he found it next to impossible to do so, even having lived in Korea for decades. I’d never had any problem doing so, and have been since circa 2005. So, after talking to this photographer and others, I realized that this was a thing and that I do specific things that make it so easy to find models in Korea — the fashion/beauty/aesthetics capital of Asia and the world — I decided to write them out here.
There’s clearly a problem and a demand for this kind of post in that photographers tend to have trouble finding models (defined as photography-worthy humans who are more aesthetically pleasing than most normal humans). To meet this need in the west, Model Mayhem is a thing that popped up to connect models, makeup artists, and photographers. However the problem with MM is that it’s basically warm garbage in terms of the “talent” it attracts. Mercenary models, horrible MUAs, and mediocre photographers with bedsheet-on-wall “studios” are the norm there. I once recruited a MM model in Seoul (whyyyyyy???, I know) and it was awful. She showed up LATE to my photo class and while changing into her first outfit, suddenly and inexplicably demanded $100 USD in cash (after we had agreed on time-for-pictures beforehand, along with the time). And even if I had had the cash, it wouldn’t be in USD since I live in Seoul and use KRW just like everyone else. That was pre-Instagram, though, and since 2014 there is absolutely no need for MM in a place like Korea, which has since developed a vibrant and bustling modeling subculture based largely on Instagram.
Go “Native” or Go Home
If you’re gonna shoot in Korea and take advantage of the throw-a-rock-in-Seoul-and-you’ll-hit-a-model environment, you have to know the lay of the land and speak the language. I think this should almost go without saying, but if you were in Paris and looking for Parisian models and be considered a good shooter in Paris, you’d be expected to know how to take the bus, order yourself a cup of coffee, and know how to talk to and work with Parisian models. The same can be said for Seoul, which is not only a world design capital, but also a powerhouse in beauty, fashion, and aesthetics. In fact, a telling fact here is that when I’m shooting in Vietnam, I sometimes say to Vietnamese models, “Say, you look really Korean,” to which the response is always a gushing, “Omigosh, thank you!” Korea simply is the world capital of cool. Ask a Parisian if that’s true, right now. She’d set you straight.
Before we even get to talking about the specifics of your working-with-models mojo, the first question(s) remain:
- Do you know the geography? Do you know the basic (cultural) terrain? And this is generally the best way to focus the issue: Can you take the bus in Seoul? Can you even get to (let alone scout, select, and plan out) a site to shoot your model in Korea?
- Can you go in, talk up a proprietor, and get permission to shoot a model in Korean? You need to be on top of that, cuz that ain’t the model’s job.
- Do you keep up on visual trends, hashtags, and memes on Instagram, at the very least? Do you know what people are shooting, what the style notes are, and how to light and set all that up?
All that’s basic, the foundation of the building. This is what a proper model (or someone with modeling intentions) wants to know when working with a photographer they can place their artistic trust in. In cases in which there is no editorial team, the photographer is generally expected to also be a location scout, main photographer/lighting expert, and fixer in the same way many amateur (male) photographers expect an amateur model to be model/makeup artist/clothing stylist/hair stylist. In the case of Korean models working with a (foreign) photographer, (s)he doesn’t want to also wear all the other hats plus be your interpreter/tour guide/fixer on top of it all.
That’s reason one she doesn’t want to deal with foreign photographers. Because she already assumes you can’t handle all the stuff a Korean photographer would normally handle. You don’t know the terrain. Now, if you’re the stereotypical hobbyist GI photographer and you’ve recruited your military base-familiar Korean model from Seoul Craigslist or Model Mayhem, she’s likely already used to playing the roles of interpreter/tour guide/fixer to clueless GIs in general, so that kind of model usually works out ok. But you also have to realize she’s working with (mostly clueless) hobbyist GI photographer types for a reason, just as you’re likely looking to recruit one of the zillions of talented models from the competitive Korean market instead of going with the Craigslist/MM models for a reason. If that weren't true, you wouldn’t be reading this.
Reason two she is looking you hard up-and-down, all around is based on your actual photographic skills and style. In a nutshell, get your Instagram game together. Just do it. You don’t have to have 50,000 followers, as in fact, even in the cutthroat Korean Instagram world, even well-respected, very capable photographers rarely have follower counts over 3,000, let alone 10k. (And many of the OK Instagram accounts of very competent Korean photographers often have well under 1,000 followers). It works like this — the model accounts tend to be judged by looks and follower counts, whereas the photographers are basically judged by their pictures, with lower standards being held for the numbers.
But that being said, your feed better look niiiiice. It better have strong pics that are testament to your overall skills, but it should look like a photographer’s feed. Have a professional feed, just like most of the Korean Instagram models have dedicated feeds that reflect what they want to do. So, a given Instagram model in Korea is going to have a model feed with only modeling photos, and all her pics of her V-signing with friends, her carbonara pasta on that big date with oppa, her graduation photo with dad, or her Danang trip photos will all be on her personal account. Since you’re going to be expected to be at least (if not more than) professional as she is, you should get your Instagram in order as well. So, pics of your new car, your kids being kids, iPhone snaps of your Siberian Husky — they shouldn’t be in that feed. Go make a separate Instagram feed (you can make up to five) with just your photo stuff on it. It’s your portfolio and you will be judged according to it. And remember, most of the models you’d actually want to contact have 10+ DMs a day from legit shooters and non-legit Slim Shadies posing as photographers with nefarious intent, so at least look like a legit photographer. Cuz that might get you looked at for a few seconds. It might.
So one thing to think about when thinking about what models are thinking about you is the first concern, as outlined above, which is basically are you someone worth working with and expanding the energy on, before getting into the next question (reason 3 she balks at you) which is of equal importance: Are you a safe person to work with, especially since the dynamics of the model/photographer relationship in most places, but especially in South Korea, tends to make it so that we’re talking about male photographers 95% of the time, and female Instagram models to almost the same extent. And when it comes to the concerns of mostly female models, I missed a sea of male Photographers, the main terms of any discourse around that subject inevitably becomes those of sex and physical security.
One thing male photographers have to think about is the extent to which photography itself — and the sexual politics between heterosexual male photographers and female models — has played a huge role in setting the tone for the #metoo Movement. Now, touching back on the point of knowing the game here in Korea, if you’re shooting here as a photographer, you need to know the huge role that amateur photographers have played in the Korean #metoo social conversation. A seminal case in beginning the public debate about sexual politics and male power was the Yang Ye-weon case, which was the case following almost immediately on the footsteps of the groundbreaking #metoo case here involving prosecutors and heavy, heavy hitters in Korean society — the Seo Ji-weon case. This isn’t the place to really get into the specifics of either case, but you should know that the latter case (Seo’s) was the one that broke big and opened the floodgates for further accusations that would touch every field of Korean society, from film directors, university professors, authors, and every kind of artist. It was just the beginning. Pretty much on the heels of that case was the Yang case with Yang having been a pretty active and seasoned “pay model” who often posed for chul-sa photography club shoots. Without getting into the details all too much, suffice it to say that it became a “she said, they said” kind of situation. And before even further getting into any discussion on this incident, we’re going to have to talk about what a chul-sa photo group is along with the concept of “fitting models” as they fit into the big picture.
This incident hasn’t really been dealt with in English, nor has its impact on the photography world here, but it was a pretty huge incident, something every living South Korean knows about and likely has an opinion on. Just so you know, everybody factors in the impact of this YouTube based confession/accusation into how they comport themselves, and this has affected no one more greatly than amateur photographers just like yourself. Yang was a self-described “fitting model” (피팅모델) or technically, a model who would be used for fittings and practicing either hanging clothes on a person or sitting in for the real model for rehearsal photo shoots and such. Really, the notion that there is a fitting session or shoot before the actual event is a pretty old-fashioned notion and the idea of a fitting model has basically come to describe anybody who isn’t officially a signed model and the main focus of the designers or photographers attention. Basically, it’s synonymous with "amateur model." As for the Notion of an chul-sa-photography group, these groups are basically groups of (mostly male) amateur photographers with very expensive and advanced equipment that rival anything pros might carry in their bags, who pool their photographic interests and personal budgets into photographic events/shoots that usually take place in rental studios, which Korean society is chock-full of (North America doesn’t have very many high-quality rental studios outside of large cities, meaning fully equipped studios with backgrounds, advanced lighting equipment, and all the accoutrements of that kind of studio photography, but not run by a studio photographer there but designed for the use of outside photographers and usually charging quite low hourly rates, especially when they are split between say 20 people).
So what happened with Yang was that a chul-sa studio event was arranged by a private studio owner, with around 20 amateur photographers splitting the fee for the studio and the model combined, which probably didn’t amount to that much in the end, and is a pretty efficient way to split resources. What happens in these groups is that generally the photographers line up to take shots in short bursts with the model concentrating fully on his camera such that the shots look like it was a private one-on-one. Generally, before the advent of Instagram, desired and desirable young models would be often well known as a “racing model” (the scantily clad models that work the cars and crowds at car shows) or an in-demand fitting model. Nowadays, such models are often recruited from Instagram, which has a thriving environment of "pay models" who are usually invited to such events. Now, In the Yang incident the key issue was that she claims to have been invited under the standard conditions and pretenses of simply shooting a few looks and leaving, but quickly realized that she was expected to strip and shoot not only nudes but sexual poses and that when she balked and said that she hadn’t been told that this was going to happen, she was threatened and coerced into doing the poses, And that she was touched and sexually molested, all obviously without her consent. Of course, the studio Middleman claimed that everything had been discussed upfront and that the model was getting cold feet and she was the one who was screwing things up and causing a misunderstanding, whereas the all male and middle-aged group of photographers claimed that no threats of any sort were given and that the photographs taken were done with consent and Yang was outright lying. It became a clusterfuck of he/she/they-said and ended up being a huge cornerstone of the #MeToo movement in South Korea. And depending on whom you ask, you’ll get a different emphasis in the story and likely a very different opinion.
But the funny thing about this incident with Ms. Yang is that almost every side of this equation views her in an extremely negative light, whether fairly or unfairly. Now, the executive summary version for the foreign male photographer is that amateur photography and amateur modeling continues with much fervor and vigor here despite the Yang incident, and it has completely changed the way that photographers interact with models, at least mostly on the level of the chul-sa groups. The long and the short of it is that amateur models are much more careful and skittish and suspicious these days – and rightly so —with many of the photographers and these photography groups having had to become much more careful about how they proceed and how they shoot. Many of them have responded by making up new, elaborate rules to hopefully prevent such incidents from recurring in the future. From having observed some of the member terms and conditions of these groups these days, the key guidelines are as follows and are guidelines it would be prudent to follow as a photographer yourself here. It also sort of defines the de facto etiquette nowadays for photography in Korea:
- Never touch the model while shooting, for any reason. If you need to direct her, direct her with your mouth and not your hands. "I need to pose you like this" or "let me move this hair out of your face liiiike so" are things you can do by simply suggesting that motion by indicating it on your own body or with words.
- You don't get to privately shoot with any model from group shoots before you’ve shot with the group at least three times.
- There are various rules about retouching and sharing photographs, but sharing photographs without expressed permission is usually prohibited, and models and photographers are very touchy when it comes to sharing or altering photographs without expressed permission.
Here’s a link to a pretty good example of satisfied customers on both sides of the model/photographer equation, from a typical chul-sa shoot with a chul-sa model. But before you can even get to that situation, you'll have to first find a model to arrange a shoot with. If you were a Korean photographer, I would suggest to get into the game by first getting into some of these photography clubs and getting your feet wet there. However, since these clubs tend to be full of Koreans who don't speak English very well since they're not directly involved in foreign affairs as they are everyday folk, I’ll actually suggest that doing it on your own with a good Instagram game is going to be most efficient and least irritating. I'll suggest here some practices and guidelines for not only recruiting domestic Korean models but also for making shoots go smoothly and with as little miscommunication and misunderstanding as possible. The list, which incorporates some of the chul-sa group guideline changes:
- Don’t be (or appear to be) creepy. Since your goal is going to be purely and photographically professional, you want to set up an environment that is as purely photographically-oriented and professional as possible. If you shoot in a fancy, preset studio with a known address and name, that's gonna be easiest. But if you're like me and generally shoot outdoors or not inside studios, it's still very doable. I generally set a place in a coffee shop and meet there to talk and map out what the shoot will look like, before moving to the location that should be pretty near the initial venue. Also, a coffee shop is a great place to have the model set up or get made up. Crucially, coffee shops generally provide bathrooms in which the model can get changed and get herself safely and comfortably squared away. The emphasis here is safely and comfortably. No matter which way you go in terms of studio or outdoors venue, you want to initially meet in a public place and in a place that's socially comfortable for Koreans to meet new people, which is a coffee shop. Now, although typical Korean etiquette for an older male in general is for you to buy the coffee or a little cake or what-have-you, but generally I found that the really professional-style models from Instagram don't expect that to happen and find that many expect to pay their own way by “going Dutch.” And generally I think this makes them feel more professional, and you offering to pay for all that stuff may actually send the wrong (this-is-a-date) signal. This tip comes in handy a bit later, especially if they're going to be multiple people in her party. But in the end, meeting in a coffee shop sets the tone quite well and also is of great practical utility because of make up, dressing, and simply being a great place to start the planning for the shoot. But most importantly, it's a way to start the shoot off and not give off creepy vibes. Absolutely, positively, do not try to start off a first shoot in your private space with your bedsheets as backdrops or anything like that. That is a monumentally creepy move even if you don't have creepy intentions. So, for many reasons, coffee shop is the move. PERIOD.
- Provide for a female chaperone. Encourage the model to bring a friend, or provide the presence of a female assistant. For seemingly obvious reasons, female Korean Instagram models will feel more comfortable if a female is present, even if that relies on hugely heteronormative assumptions. However you want to slice it, practically and on the ground, having a female in the mix is going to be much better because of these seemingly obvious concerns, but also it likely might make the shoot progress better since you can get the big, creepy elephant in the room out of the way. Caveats: If you’ve got a language barrier issue, you can actually kill two birds with one stone by having a bilingual female assistant in the mix, and that’s going to be a great move if you are a non-speaker of Korean or your Korean is non-conversational, and you need to get some actual communication done. However, another caveat is the danger that if the model brings her best friend who is not into modeling and is simply a best friend who doesn’t take her modeling seriously, I’ve sometimes have the problem of that best friend actually teasing the model and making her uncomfortable enough that it became a problem in shooting. I’ve generally had better luck with the model’s boyfriend coming along or even the mother in a couple cases. And when faced with questions such as those, as in "can I bring my boyfriend" or even "can I bring my mother along?" The answer is always a non-hesitant YES. And the funny thing is, I’ve had much less problems – actually no problems – as compared with boyfriends than with best friends in the mix, since generally if the model’s boyfriend is the overprotective macho type, he would've never agreed to "allow" her to shoot nor come along. In fact, the biggest problems I've ever had, on multiple occasions, with “best friends” along for the ride was those supposed “friends” actually teasing or mocking the model enough for her to be unable to shoot. So if you can provide your own female chaperone, that's often better than whomever your model might bring along.
- Make sure you can communicate with the model in Korean. This is Korea, and even if your model happens to be a quite well-educated graduate student in business administration and seems like she should be able to acquit herself quite well in English, it's gonna be an added stressor if she has to meet a foreign, new, male photographer and have to handle everything in English unless she herself has stated that she is comfortable and completely fluent. Which ain't gonna happen too often. And this can be a great upside, with the addition of a single additional person, because this person can be your female chaperone as well. (At this point, you might see the utility of “going Dutch.” Because iced Americano runs for about four bucks a pop in Seoul city.)
- During the shoot, don't touch the model for any reason. If you need to pose the model, or get help posing or conveying the idea that you have, you can do it by posing yourself, which can add a bit of comic relief, or you can have your female assistant/translator/chaperone help you with that. And a slight brush or touch can be construed as 성추행 (“sexual touching/molestation”) and isn't something you want to have to deal with if it was unintended. Best way to avoid any misunderstandings is just simply to not have any contact at all. Actually, the coronavirus situation has offered a great protocol for doing shoots, since I still shoot these days during this pandemic but simply follow social distancing protocols, since the normal photo shoot shouldn't require you to actually come within 2 meters of the model in any case, and if you simply follow social distancing guidelines, you should be fine on the no-touching point.
- If you can, create a digital “witness.” I can’t always do this all the time and I’m not super organized in this direction, but I do know of Korean photographers who either set up a GoPro video camera in one corner of the venue or room and just let the thing run for the entire shooting session. In my interviews and research on the subject of the Korean Instagram modeling underground, one Korean photographer who had a run-in with an unscrupulous model once relayed a story of how a “digital witness” helped him squash some bullshit before it even became a real or legal problem. Since in Korea, enterprising con artists can often leverage sensitive situations and things having to do with reputations in this face-concerned society, the smart money is on people who think ahead and don’t place themselves in compromising positions – and this includes photographers, along with models, too. In this photographer’s case, he had a rule of hitting the audio record function on his phone before entering into any potentially sensitive shoot with a model, as little breadcrumbs to light his path back to the Truth. He did this in one shoot in which he entered a motel room with a model to do some boudoir shots – which isn’t that uncommon with the way people shoot here, as 대실 (aka “short time”) in a love motel is around 30,000 won for 3 hours since decades ago, and he hit audio record on his phone and made a point to mark the date and time (just in case anybody tried to say that he had altered the digital time date stamps). Upon entering the motel, he made the slightly unusual but very smart move of asking the front desk attendant if he knew the date and time, and once he had that in the recording, he had a fairly simple timestamp. I myself don’t feel comfortable going into a motel space with a model without accompaniment, but since she was game even though my assistant had bagged on me at the last minute and I didn’t want to cancel the shoot, I did the same thing that the Korean photographer had and started the “tape” but actually made a timestamp by turning on the television news while the model was getting ready in the bathroom and clearly established a timestamp that could be easily and objectively verified. The point of all that was that the Korean photographer who had given the idea to me had been accused in an online forum by the unscrupulous model of unscrupulous things, at which point he didn’t even argue or lash out at said model, but simply sent her email with the MP3 of their shooting session. Without any other words being said, the accusation miraculously disappeared and the model made herself scarce real fast. Apparently, the model’s plan had been to extort money out of this photographer in exchange for her keeping silent about something that had never happened, but he squashed that little plan by simply sending over the MP3. Problem solved. I myself haven’t run into this particular problem, but having a chaperone and/or even creating a digital witness with a chaperone in tow is never a bad idea. In fact, making the habit and gesture of setting up your GoPro video camera on a little tripod in the corner can make a lot of bullshit preemptively disappear. It doesn’t have to make you look weird or overly suspicious, because you can easily make the valid argument that you’re just getting a little bit of B-roll of the shoot.
Get Yer Game Face On
I have prepared this little section to provide my unfiltered and often a bit abrasive opinions on photographic skills and shooting styles that I only offer because I’ve subjected myself to these standards over the nearly 2 decades during which I’ve been shooting in Seoul. Korea is a tough market to shoot in as the general modeling and photographic skills standards are pretty high. Although there are a lot of clichés and lazy shots that rely on technical impressiveness more than creativity, the ajussi hobbyist photographers take as their starting point $8,000 camera bodies and $5,000 lenses. You will not see any entry-level bodies nor any kit lenses out there. That shit is just downright embarrassing to Korean photographers, to the point that in many photo clubs and groups online, there’s a rule against "equipment bragging" and that such “equipment braggarts need to take that shit to the camera store and leave that at the door.” Korean dad photographers aren’t like American dad photographers who are overjoyed at fooling around with their $2000 camera/kit lens and that’s the most you’d see being sported at the average American Sunday picnic By dad enthusiasts. Korean dad style is straight up pulling out the $7500 Canon EOS 1-DX with $15,000 800mm 5.6L lens to “watch” the kids play soccer while shooting at 12 fps continuous mode. And that’s just the “amateurs.”
Your new baseline.
Just cuz you can take some well-exposed pictures does not make you good. If your baseline is a bunch of people who don’t know much about photography saying how UH-MAZING your shots are on Facebook, that’s cuz all people say photos are UH-maaaazing cuz their baseline is cellphone cameras. Just know that these Korean folks consider this Uh-maazing cuz this dude is pretty fucking amazing. Here’s your new baseline. Not saying you have to be this good but just that this helps define the talent horizon for Koreans on Instagram. KNOW THAT.
These kids got talent. They don’t impress easy.
You know how to use Lightroom. That’s cool. You’ve shot some models from Model Mayhem or a wedding for a friend. Cool, cool. You’ve seen some bad face editing on Instagram and think “the kids” overdo it. That’s nice. But know that a lot of these models do Photoshop better than you. Or they’re fashion design majors and have taken graphic design courses in art schools. Or they’ve worked or (work) on actual, commercial campaigns occasionally and with professional photographers already. Or have high-quality, 198K followers and already earn more money than you earn from your photography or even your full-time job from just holding up makeup products given by marketers aiming at micro-influencers. Don’t get too impressed with yourself. Which is said here so you have some respect for the game here. Do not take these younguns as conjurors of cheap tricks!
Take these younguns seriously, as highly skilled and professional Adepts, and collaborators who can greatly add some needed grounding in good ideas to your middle-aged, often outdated sensibilities. Meet them where they are and you’ll often end up with much better work than if you had conceived of and controlled everything yourself.
In the picture directly above, I really wasn’t feeling the model’s continuous attempts to keep trying a trendy, hand-in-the-lens shot, because it often comes out corny or is simply a failed shot. Here, I was concerned that it would simply blow out her hand in terms of over exposure, or it would block too much of the flash that was necessary to light her against the bright sky background, but I just went with it, because really, there ain't no money lost in digital shots, and it will be more trouble to not do the shots she wanted to do than to simply go with the flow. But in the end, it resulted in the most interesting shots of the series.
TRDR: Meet your model halfway, and be open to picking up what she’s putting down. It’ll often make your work easier, anyway.
