High Street Fashion Inspired Styled Photo-Shoot in Buan, South Korea

Hi everyone! Not only do I use this blog to share business and blogging tips (click here to read more on that) but I also use this space to showcase my photography portfolio, especially the Styled shoots I love creating here in Korea.

This High Street Fashion shoot was shot on location in my small town here in Korea. I had so much fun working with my stylist friend Sam (who blogs over at There She Goes Again) and our two wonderful model friends, Heejoung and Stephanie (who blogs over at Hedgers Abroad).

This shoot was originally planned around the snow, but as tends to happen when you plan for a particular kind of weather, you usually end up with the opposite. So instead of soft, white snow, I got harsh, bright sunlight. But, we have to work with what we have and I'm really happy with how the photographs came out. 

This shoot was something very different to what I usually do (click here to see some of the other styled shoots I have done), but I really enjoyed the challenge. If you have any ideas in mind of a story or theme you'd like me to capture, then please don't hesitate to get in touch with me. Click here to read more about my photography and to find out about my rates. I will only be available here in Korea until June this year (when Farmboy and I head back home to South Africa...yippe!). 

The shoot would not have been possible without the following incredibly talented ladies. Thank you to all of you for all your help, for all your talents and for being so easy to work with:

• Model: Stephanie Hedger from Hedgers Abroad 
• Model: Heejoung Park
• Stylist: Sam Gross from There She Goes Again
• Photographer: Roxy Hutton (me!) from CityGirlSearching

And now the result of our High Street Fashion Inspired Styled Photo-shoot.

Enjoy!

Thank you again to each and every one of these ladies:

• Models: Heejoung Park & Stephanie Hedger from Hedgers Abroad 
• Stylist: Sam Gross from There She Goes Again
• Photographer: Roxy Hutton (me!) from CityGirlSearching

My blog holiday - See you in a couple of weeks!

I'm writing this from a spot of wifi I found here in the North of Goa, India. I'll be away from my blog for the next 2 weeks, stuffing myself with curry and naan and trying to capture the beauty of this country with my camera so I can share it with you when I get back at the end of January. 

Currently I'm in Goa, soaking up the sun sea and sand but head to Delhi next to explore the Golden Triangle (Agra and the TajMahal, Jaipur and the Jodhpur) from then it's west to JaiSalmar where we will be staying in the dessert before finally heading to Nepal for our final few days.  

If you'd like to follow our adventures, pop on over to Facebook (@CityGirlSearching) or find me on Instagram (@RoxyHutton). I can't wait to share my photographs of this incredible place when I get back.

See you soon!  

Roxy

xxx

My 2015 Highlights

To everyone who was in front of my lens this year, thank you. Thank you for your support and for your encouragement. I have grown so much as a photographer, and I have loved working with every single one of you.

Here are a few of my favourite photographs from client shoots , family adventures & from styled shoots where I've worked with teams of wonderful creatives.

Here's to many, many more shutter clicks from me.

Wishing you all a happy and safe festive season, and a very Happy New Year!

To a new year full of more challenges, more adventures and more smiles.

With love,

Roxy

x

Help people find & connect with you on Disqus: Why you should update your Disqus profile

Are you a Disqus user? Do you use Disqus as your comment managing system on your blog or website? I've been using Disqus to manage my comments for the past 4 years and just LOVE the interface (and the fact that its FREE!) as well as how easy it is to leave comments on other peoples blogs. I also love how easy it is to track and reply to comments left my own blog. Before Disqus I was using the standard Blogger commenting system which was terrible at dealing with spam, and was just terrible with 'loosing' my comments. Disqus has made my life so much easier, and worked flawlessly when I was on Blogger and works perfectly with SquareSpace.

Apart from being a great system for storing and managing the comments on your blog, Disqus is a fabulous place to find and connect with other bloggers & readers. I haven't spent too much time delving into their voting system (you can recommend commetn discussions as well as 'upvote' comments) but what I do often is go through the comments on my site and click through to find the bloggers and lovely people who have taken the time to leave me a comment.

This is where I start pulling my hair out.

I can't tell you the number of times I've been left frustrated with people who make it so difficult for me to find and connect with them. Basically, if you don't update your Disqus profile and include links to your website & social media platforms, you are basically closing the door on future connections and possible business. And it's so easy to fix! 

If you're a blogger or business owner, you know how important it is to have all your links (website/facebook/twitter/instagram) in an easy to find place so that people can connect with you and ultimately contact you if they like what you are all about. If you don't provide them with your details how are they supposed to find you? The amount of time I have wasted copying and pasting Disqus usernames into Google, only to have to sift through hundreds of search results leaves me stone cold and ultimately I click away and forget about them. Not out of choice but out of frustration. 

So why not make it easy for people to find you. Disqus allows you to include your Facebook Account (at this stage only personal profiles can be connected), Twitter & Google accounts, as well as your website. Not only does this increase your chances of connecting with other like minded people, but it's great for SEO! The more your brand name and blog/business accounts are online, the more exposure your brand gets. It's basically free advertising.

So what are you waiting for?

Pop on over to your Disqus dashboard and get to customizing your profile. Change your name, avatar (the little picture that shows up when you leave a comment) & try to keep it consistent with your brand. Add in your links (under the 'Account' tab on the left hand side of your dashboard), write a quick blurb (biography) about who you are and what you do and then you're good to go! Drop a comment below once you've done so as I'd love to pop over to your site and leave you some social media love too.

Here's to helping you connect with more people, and to making your site easier to find for others.

Happy blogging!

Merry Christmas from Korea!

Wishing all of you a wonderful Christmas from Korea. Thank you for all your support this year. I'm looking forward to starting the new year with a bang, as I have lots of exciting new projects lined up that I can't wait to share with you all.

Be safe and see you all again soon!

x

Winter in Korea and our latest snow fall!

I have been complaining for the past few weeks about the lack of snow this Winter in Korea. Facebook kept reminding about all the snow we had here last year, and all we got was a measly few centimetres at the end of November. Well, the weather man finally heard my pleads for snow and we had a non-stop flurry of snowflakes which started last thursday afternoon and only let up Friday night, nearly a full day and night later.

While this was wonderful for me and my camera, it wasn't so great for my car. Poor Cherry (the VERY old red Matiz) had to spend the night at the bottom of the driveway after she failed (on more than one attempt) to get up the drive way to park. She spent the night under a tree and woke up to her handbrake and wheel frozen solid.  Farmboy and I spent a solid 15 minutes trying to pry her from that icy grip but to avail. Luckily the 1 degree increase in temperature during the day had thawed her a bit and we were able to get her started again...come on Cherry!

Here are some photographs from our early morning walk with Shadow, who simply adores being out in the snow. This will be one of the things we miss the most when we return to South Africa. 

7 Days of Beautiful Skin...#CGSFaceMaskChallenge

Last week I started up a fun Instagram challenge to help us combat the icy cold Korean wind and the havoc it wrecks on our skin. It's not just the outside elements that lead to dry skin, but even more so, it's the air-conditioners in our classrooms and apartments that leaves our skin feeling tight flaky.

I started a facemask challenge to make use of all those facemask most of us have lying around at home. I created the hahstag (#cgsfacemaskchallenge...the CGS stands for CityGirlSearching, the name of this blog) and then asked everyone to snap a photo of themselves with their face masks, and tag their photos with the hashtag for the challenge. I really didn't expect so many of my friends and followers to take up the challenge, and was blown away by all the photographs everyone uploaded. It was so much fun to see everyones different poses and to hear their views of the different face masks.

South Korea is famous for their 10 Step Beauty Routine (blog post to come soon!) and one of the steps that Korean women advocate is the use of a face (or rather, sheet) mask. You can buy these masks in every beauty store here in Korea, and they are so affordable, with prices ranging from W500 (+- US$.50) and upwards. The skincare stores here often have specials where you can pick up a pack of 10 for a few KRW1000. I used a mixture of masks from Innisfree (around W800 a pop) and my new favourite brand for sheet masks, Mamonde (each mask was about W1500). 

At the start of the challenge I was worried that I would end up breaking out from using a different mask every night, but that didn't happen at all! Instead, the few pimples I had from recently changing my skin care routine cleared up dramatically and my skin felt baby soft and full of moisture every morning! I was shocked! Before this challenge I had used a sheet mask maybe once a month or so, but after using them every night for the past week I think I am going to start using them regularly, at least 3 or 4 times a week. I was worried about the time it would take to apply the masks, but after the second day I was in a good routine and simply popped one on at night, carried in with whatever I was doing (watching series, doing he washing, eating dinner) and then took it off just before bed. 

My skin definitely looks brighter and I have no more annoying flaky bits of skin around my nose area. Another thing I have noticed is that my foundation and BB cream no longer 'sits' on top of my skin, but rather sinks in properly like it's supposed to. I was having to use a primer to prevent the foundation from streaking and and sitting in my pores, but now it goes on effortlessly and looks far more natural. I was even able to use a BB cream I had long ago cast aside because it was so thick and I was never able to get it to blend into my skin. These sheet masks are just the best thing!

Thank you to all the ladies below who took part in this challenge. I hope you all had as much fun as I did and that your skin loved the masks too. I think this needs to be an ongoing challenge, especially in winter!