I think it's funny that I find myself going around in foreign countries and asking people if I can take their photograph. It was challenging shooting in Seoul for the first time as I didn't really know what to expect, whether I'd get 5 or 10 or 20 photos a day or whether I'd struggle to get any. The style in Seoul is amazing, so many well dressed people and so many individual styles as well as fashion and trends. But within a very short time of being there, or actually after getting my first couple of photographs, I found that most people in Seoul spoke very little English if any so it was most challenging in the way that I couldn't engage the people like I usually do. Instead, I was relying on the Korean translation written on my iPad to ask if I could take their photo and I felt myself using my hands a lot to do the talking. I often wonder what I look like when I approach people cos I think I use my hands to talk a lot anyway!
This is Hana Jo who I photographed in Hongdae, Seoul. When I showed her my iPad and asked for her photo, she was just really happy and smiled and nodded. And after I finished shooting away she goes "can I see?" followed by "I like it!". I thought that was pretty cool. Sometimes it's the little things, or in this case a few spoken words, that make for a really neat experience.