Nicole Vaunt in Bukhansan National Park (Korea)

Without a doubt my hardest shoot this year was Nicole and I's shoot in South Korea for We Were Wanderers.  I've done a lot of traveling across the United States, and a little bit of international travel, but none of it really prepared me for what being in South Korea was going to be like.

A lot of the things I rely on when traveling didn't really work in South Korea, which I haven't really encountered before traveling through out most of the world google maps has pretty much become my best friend for directions, and while I could type in two places in South Korea and get directions, those directions would only work if I could fly in a straight line, or walk through walls.  Mostly I had to make up my own directions based on super lo-res maps.  The threat of a North Korean invasion is one that seriously influences maps, and gps in South Korea, ironically in North Korea I've heard google maps works just fine.

Knowing this ahead of time I also planned to get around entirely on foot and public transit.  Shooting for We Were Wanderers while taking public transit as you can imagine is a little difficult.  There isn't really a great way to take public transit to a national park.  You wake up at 5:30am and your incredible hosts help you navigate public transit all the way to the very edges of Seoul, you catch a cab at the last train station on the line, and he drives you as far into the National Park as possible.  Then you hike as far as possible into Bukhansan deciphering maps by the photos at each trail head.

Our usual plan of sleeping at a trail head in the car, and hiking in before sunrise to be the first people at a place to shoot was impossible, and even that plan can be nerve wracking.

We are always pretty nervous shooting in a new place.  Honestly we are always nervous shooting at an old place as well.  What we do is not really legal, with the exception of Oregon, being publicly nude can range from a small fine to being labeled a sex offender.  In Korea just looking at pornography is illegal, and so producing it is even more so, and while we don't consider our work porn, that doesn't mean that authorities would agree.  Having an easy out with a vehicle near by always does a little something to put our minds at ease.  Knowing that we have a long walk out on foot, and then trains and trains as a way out had quite the opposite effect.

Still with all of this in mind we were all determined to make this shoot happen.  Five hours later, fifteen miles of hiking and countless miles of trains, and taxis later we found ourselves alone on a river bed deep in the park with the right light for a photos.  Breathing a sigh of relief we shot until the sun burned off our cloud cover, and started the long walk back into Seoul.  At the foot hills to the park we found a small Korean BBQ restaraunt on the edge of town where we were treated to an incredible feast while we guessed at what was happening in the Korean soap opera playing on TV.  We drank some water, we drank some soju, we drank some makgeolli, we let the stress and worry of failure be put to rest with our first meal of the day.

Our goal for We Were Wanderers is to shoot on every continent over the next few years.  2016 we added Australia and Asia to the continents we have taken pictures on.  South Korea was definitely our first shoot for Asia, but I don't anticipate it being our last.  I'm hoping for many more succesful shoots on this amazing continent, and to experience many more intense, but beautiful shoots in its nature with my love.

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