Seoul self photo studio solo shoot with 160 raw photos: Areye Studio

I came to the studio to record my younger days before more gray hairs show up 📸 I wanted to take photos alone, so I went to a self photo studio. 💞

Where is Areye Studio? B1 of a building on Dongyo-ro

Areye Studio is in the basement of a building at 188-1 Dongyo-ro, near Hongik University Station, in the same building as an art academy! The signboard is black so it's easy to miss! The studio was way bigger than I expected.

Studio A cyclorama or Studio B: which room to book at Areye Studio

Studio A (cyclorama)

Type A had a ton of lighting. Both A and B were bright and white overall, so I thought the photos would come out well haha. There's Type A and Type B, and I picked Type B.

Studio B

B is bigger than A and has more props.

There's even a light fixture hanging from the ceiling? I'd never seen lighting hung up there before, so it was fascinating. I think that light might be the reason the photos come out so well...

What props and outfits does Areye Studio have?

Studio B has a wide range of props to use while shooting, from fake flowers to sunglasses to headbands. There's even a cute cake shape and balloons (red, pink, sky blue, and black balloons too). The cake was so cute I was going to hold it for a photo, but the text on it said 'Marry me,' so I passed! Hahaha

There are clothes next to the props too! Shirts and blazers! There's also a full-length mirror next to the props so it's easy to check how you look.

Areye Studio's powder room fits six people at once

Powder room

Areye Studio's powder room is really spacious!! (Even bigger than it looks in photos.) I've never seen a studio with such a big powder room in my life... You know how the mirror battle gets intense when taking photos with friends? There are only 3 chairs, but it's roomy enough for six people to do makeup together. It'd be perfect for taking photos with friends before heading to a party room in Hongdae for a girls' night. 🌃

There are coat hangers in the back too

The lighting is so pretty that selfies come out great here.

You can't go into the white studio with outdoor shoes on, so you switch to slippers. 👟

A 30-minute solo shoot and how the remote works

30 minutes of shooting 15 minutes to select 15 minutes to retouch and print

There's a full-length mirror and a screen where you can see exactly how you're being captured by the camera, which made shooting alone easy!

You shoot with a remote control!

Press it lightly and it focuses, then you need to press it firmly once more~ and the flash fires and the photo is taken! 📸📸 At first I was pressing the remote too gently and nothing was happening, so I asked the owner in the next room, and they explained really kindly. They even checked that the photos were coming out well and the framing was good before leaving. Since the owner is in another room, the great thing is you can ask right away if something's not working or you have a question!

Backdrop colours: light pink, deep pink and mint

Backdrops

There were light pink, deep pink, and mint colored backdrops. I was actually shooting without a backdrop, but the owner let me know (so sweet), so near the end I set up the mint backdrop and took photos.

How the self shoot went: raw photos already look good thanks to the lighting

Self shoot review

I've taken all kinds of photos before — resume photos, profile shots, passport photos — but I think Areye Studio's lighting makes me look the prettiest. (For real.)

Something about it: before the flash goes off, I'm like ugh, my face looks... not great, but then once the flash fires and I look at the photo on the monitor, it looks pretty haha.

Maybe it's because it's a basement? The lighting was so pretty I kept wondering why. Thirty minutes of shooting flew by so fast it felt like it was over too soon, which was a bit of a shame, but when I looked at the raw files, there were 160 shots haha. I'd do one pose, click!, think about the next pose, click!, so it felt like fewer shots than that.

Look up various pose references before you go!!

Even just changing your top gives the photos a totally different feel, so I think it's a good idea to bring two tops and shoot two different versions. (That's what I did.)

Selecting in 15 minutes: picking 4 photos from 160 was the hardest part

Selecting

More than 10 shots came out looking like career-best photos, so selecting was incredibly hard. Usually looking at unedited photos is a mental gut-punch, but here the lighting is so pretty that even the raw photos looked good!!!!

Ugh... I had to pick 4 out of the raw photos, so I first narrowed it to 16, then to 12, and then I couldn't narrow it down any further, so I called the owner over and we picked together. 📸📸

Retouching and printing at Areye Studio: 2 main and 2 sub shots

Printing

Once you pick 4 photos, the owner retouches them for you. Choose 2 main and 2 sub photos, and they print the main photos large, plus a print combining the main and sub shots like a four-cut photo booth strip. They said retouching would take about 10 minutes, but it took less than that. They retouched everything really quickly, and the results looked like celebrity photoshoots, which made me so happy.

I'll show this to my kids someday. (Not even married yet though ;;;) If you're a bit shy about striking cute poses in front of a photographer, a self photo studio is perfect for you haha. If you're looking for a studio with pretty lighting, I recommend this one~