Photo-booth in Korea

Hello friends, today I was scrolling through my camera roll to see which experience I should talk about this week. And I realized it would be interesting to explain how common is to take pictures in photo booths here in Korea, and how organized the little shops are.

Before coming here I knew finding photo-booths was really easy, however, I did not know everything that came with it. I used the machines two times for now. For my first experience I was with my group of friends while for the second one, my friend and I took some pictures with two Korean guys who wanted to talk to us to improve their English. I thought that it was actually really entertaining as I realized it is something common for them.

The Main Street in Hongdae, a neighborhood in Seoul, is one of the places you can find most shops, and it is crazy how you get into a little building, where usually there’s nobody, but you can find accessories, hats you can wear, or even hair straighter to get ready for the picture. The stores usually have three or four small rooms with the actual photo-booth, however, there are mirrors all around so that you can take selfies with your phone too. It is so convenient how you can select how many people are taking the photo so that everyone can get their own paper copy.

When I went with my friends it was hilarious because it was the first time for most of us, so we were just wearing different hats or accessories and we were taking funny photos,  as well as some group photos-booth pic. I like the idea of having an actual paper photo as memories of people I’ve met here.

The second time, when we bumped into the two Korean guys, was also funny because they just wanted to speak English, so we took photos together as a way to hang out and my friend and I were copying their poses, as I think all Koreans are used to take so many pics so they know how to make the photos more original. I wonder if it is actually as common as they make it look.

It is such a fun experience and in the end, you end up having memories from the time you took them. And there are usually stories behind those photos that are nice to think about when you look back at the little paper picture you kept.

I really like how easy is to find a lot of photo-booths around, and they all have so many different themes too which makes it even more fun and original. I will probably take more photos, so I’m really curious to see how many of them I will end up bringing back home. I see this experience as a really Korean thing, so it is a way for me to do something popular for the culture.

Enjoy my photos and I hope I can get you to laugh at some of them. I have now more things to add to my memories box I have at home and I’m so glad they actually come from Korea and are not just some photos printed out after coming back!

This is all for now, as usual, stay tuned for more updates,

Ica

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