Family photos with a kid at Your Photo, a Bundang self-photo studio

Your Photo Self-Photo Studio: the basics

Your Photo Self-Photo Studio lets you leave with precious memory photos at a great price. It's located at 156 Gumi-dong, Bundang-gu, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do, with restrooms separated by gender. Parking is in the building's basement lot (registration required). It also offers reservations, group use, a baby chair, and Wi-Fi.

Why an unmanned photo studio is a good weekend outing with kids in Bundang

While figuring out what to do with my kid on the weekend, I visited Your Photo, a solid unmanned self-photo studio, as a fun thing to do in Bundang. Since it's unmanned, I made a reservation ahead of time and they sent me a usage manual. More than any skill for taking pretty photos... 🤔 knowing this manual well seemed like the most important thing!

How to get to Your Photo, and where to park

Get off the elevator on B1 and walk straight down to the right — the Your Photo storefront is at the very end. FYI, you can also register for 1 hour of free parking using the store's tablet 🚘

Since I have to turn the lights on myself when I come in, of course the lights were off haha. I entered using the door lock code sent via KakaoTalk and the entry instructions in the notice.

How much does a shoot at Your Photo cost?

₩35,000 for 4 people for a 55-minute session! For an unmanned self-photo studio that lets in up to 4 people, that's a really good price. Plus the time even includes editing time, close to a full hour... For an unmanned self-photo studio, generous time and no extra-person fee is about as great value as it gets 💁🏻‍♀️

Inside the studio: changing room and props

The shooting space and the editing/printing space are together in one place. If it's your first time at an unmanned self-photo studio you might fumble a bit 💦 but you'll get the hang of it quickly and be shooting comfortably before long.

There's a simple pop-up changing room for outfit swaps, a mirror and tools for quick hair and makeup touch-ups, and all sorts of props to add variety to the shots — a really well-equipped place. My kid wanted to try on the costumes provided in the studio too, but just changing into the outfits we brought already made time tight, so that'll have to wait for next time haha.

Lighting, camera settings and the preview monitor

When you stand in the shooting spot, the lighting and camera right in front are already set to the correct values. The preview monitor isn't sharp, but it's there just to roughly check your position. You actually need to check the real shots on the PC monitor in between, and adjust your pose or position from there — good to keep in mind!

Getting the remote shutter timing right with a child

The remote has a long enough cord that you can press it yourself 🧏🏻‍♀️. You can drag it into your pose and press the button yourself, or if you don't want the cord visible, have someone else press it for you. The manual said to press it every 3 seconds, but once I actually shot, factoring in the time for focus to lock and the flash to fire, each press ended up needing about 5–7 seconds of waiting. Especially when shooting with a kid — since the photo isn't taken instantly — it worked better to not have her pose right after the button press, but instead start getting into pose and expression about 3 seconds later.

I'd studied the usage manual beforehand, but it's easy to get confused once you're actually there, so check the manual booklet on site again to make the shoot go smoothly! Maybe because it was my first visit, even though I followed the steps in order something seemed to be missing — the lighting didn't fire properly at the start of the shoot, so only the shots from partway through, once the lighting was firing correctly, got saved haha.

Three outfits in 30 minutes: how the shoot actually went

It was a simple self-shoot, but I wanted it to look nice so I even brought my own shooting props 🎂. Time for our family to have a cozy little shoot together at the unmanned self-photo studio!

Early on, feeling a bit awkward led to a sulky-looking expression that got in the way 🤣. I kept telling her to smile enthusiastically, but a kid's mind doesn't always match mom's ^^

We'd brought three whole outfits to change through, and trying to get through all of them in 30 minutes was really hectic. Holding an expression and pose while waiting for the shutter to fire seemed a bit tough for my kid 🥲. As we went, I picked up my own trick — press the button, then have her get into expression and pose about 3 seconds before the shutter fires.

With about 5 minutes of shooting time left 😇, we rushed to change into the last outfit. I tried to grab some family photos with mom and dad mixed in here and there too, but as expected, getting a shot where both adults and the kid all look good at once is tough... so I gave up on that and refocused on just getting solo shots of my kid, going full sprint at the end haha. Busy busy 💨

FYI, if any questions come up during your session you can ask in real time, so feel free to reach out to the owner for help. Before long, the 30-minute session was over. They said that if the shoot goes smoothly you usually end up with around 150 original shots, but with a kid... and a few hiccups along the way, we didn't even reach 70, which was a bit disappointing 🥹. But the important thing is there were still plenty of shots I liked in there! When shooting with a kid, even 3–4 keepers is plenty. You can bring a USB to save the files, or have them zipped and sent by email or KakaoTalk 🤳🏻

How many prints do you get at Your Photo?

The number of available prints changes depending on headcount — since there were 3 of us, we chose the 4-print set. That's included in the base shooting fee! If you need extra prints, there's a separate 4-print set for ₩10,000 in the bottom left option.

The final photos and how the filters look

Given how much I had to juggle at the start — positioning, getting my kid into pose, relaxing her expression, prepping outfits and props, and shooting it all in a rush — I'm quite happy with the results 🤍. Every saved shot comes with a filter applied, but the filter itself isn't overdone and it's high resolution, so it should look great even if you add your own extra editing on top.

While mom spent the editing time picking photos and printing, dad took some phone-camera shots of our kid, and honestly this kind of photo isn't bad either 🖤. No lighting, no filter. But since the background is still the studio, and the kid looks more natural and relaxed than when posing formally, it works. Whether the shoot goes perfectly or not, either way this time itself makes for a great memory!

Who Your Photo in Bundang suits best

• Anyone who wants to take fun photos with friends
• Couples who want to make memories on a date
• Anyone who wants to take family photos with their kid
• Anyone who wants to mark a birthday or anniversary in a special way

I'd recommend Your Photo Self-Photo Studio as a fun thing to do in Bundang :-)