Night Life, Seoul Street Photography

Back in 2016, I was living abroad in South Korea. I moved to Seoul in 2012, began exploring the city every chance I got, and fell in love with the culture, traditions, and people in general. It wasn’t long before I started documenting my journey, and my start in photography also began in 2014 with the purchase of my first DSLR camera. From that time forward, I never looked back. At this particular point in 2016, I had already been doing photography for a couple of years and started to lean heavily towards what I found to be called street photography.

I now consider what I photograph somewhat of a mix between a street/documentary-style work. Yes, I will document the moments I see unraveling before me, capturing that ‘decisive moment’ to the best of my ability. But beyond that, I began to photograph much more of the environment, trying to capture in a series the overall feeling of the area I was in at any given time, along with various details that caught my attention. Most of my work leans toward my taste in high-contrast, black-and-white photography, which continues until today.

The following images are from one specific night in a university area in Seoul, South Korea called Hongdae. The nights there are lively and booming with youthful energy, with many shopping locations, restaurants, cafes, bars, and clubs! I remember coming in the evening and spending hours walking around until well into the early hours of the morning, taking photographs.