Shot Lists for December

December is a time to bring the year to a close while preparing for the year ahead. From year-end gatherings with loved ones to everyday moments of reflection and planning, the month offers a wide variety of scenes to capture.

This December, we are highlighting photography themes that reflect the atmosphere of winter and the year-end season, along with evolving lifestyles and new pursuits.

Look beyond special occasions to the natural moments of everyday life. Bring your own perspective to images that can be used across a wide range of advertising and content.

[Winter City Nightscapes and Year-End Scenes]

Explore the year-end scenes around you. From the evening commute in Gwanghwamun and Jongno to the walking paths along Cheonggyecheon, city nightscapes, and snow-covered neighborhood streets, capture the winter atmosphere in familiar places. Bring together city lights, winter scenery, and people on their way to year-end gatherings.

Focus on elements such as candles, Christmas trees, and gift boxes while keeping people softly out of focus in the background. The key is to convey the atmosphere of the year-end season.

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Suggested Shots

• The Winter Evening Commute: Capture streetlights, illuminated office windows, and bare trees in business districts such as Gwanghwamun and Jongno. Compose your shots to convey the overall atmosphere of the street.

• Evening Scenes Along Cheonggyecheon: Convey the year-end atmosphere through large Christmas trees, decorative lighting, walkways, railings, and reflections of nearby lights on the water.

• Snowy Evening Scenes: Capture Korean winter scenery, including snow-covered stone-wall paths around historic palaces, residential lanes, and roadside trees. Use streetlights or neon lighting to create atmospheric images.

• Heading to Year-End Gatherings: Stage scenes of people wearing coats and scarves, walking along the street with shopping bags, or meeting others at an arranged location.

• Close-Ups of Winter Accessories and Lights: Use city lights as a backdrop for gloved hands holding a warm takeaway drink. Include gift boxes, scarves, and other items that evoke winter and the year-end season.

Tip

Not every decoration or artwork in a public space is available for unrestricted commercial use. Check the relevant rights for character sculptures, media art, brand-sponsored lighting installations, and similar works. Avoid making an installation the main subject unless the necessary permission has been obtained. Permission to photograph at a location and permission to use images of an artwork should be checked separately.

Keep passersby out of the frame wherever possible. For scenes requiring people, use models who have consented to the photography and to the use of their images for stock licensing and advertising. People may still be identifiable from a rear view or silhouette, so do not rely solely on whether their faces are visible.

[Seasonal Winter Foods and Warming Meals]

During the colder months, hot soups and dishes made with seasonal winter ingredients feel especially comforting. Capture the season by highlighting the distinctive qualities of these ingredients. For this theme, focus on meals and table settings featuring seasonal produce and seafood.

Create a visual sequence that follows the process from preparing and cooking the ingredients to serving and enjoying the finished dishes.

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Suggested Shots

• A Winter Table Featuring Oysters: Photograph oyster rice, oyster soup, and oyster jeon—pan-fried oysters—as separate dishes. Include close-ups that clearly show the oysters, as well as complete table settings with side dishes.

• A Yellowtail Sashimi Meal: Highlight the sheen and cut surfaces of yellowtail sashimi, accompanied by neatly arranged leafy greens and other accompaniments. Capture hands lifting a slice with chopsticks or preparing a wrap.

• A Warming Bowl of Cod Soup: Photograph cod soup simmering with radish and green onions, a ladle scooping up the broth, or portions being served into individual bowls.

• Gwamegi with Accompaniments: Arrange gwamegi, or semi-dried fish, with dried seaweed sheets, sea mustard, scallions, and napa cabbage. Include the process of assembling a wrap, adding the ingredients one by one.

• Winter Solstice Foods and Seasonal Dishes: Photograph foods that evoke winter, such as red bean porridge for Dongji, the winter solstice, and dishes made with siraegi, or dried radish greens.

• Hands Preparing Seasonal Ingredients and Kitchen Scenes: Show ingredients becoming finished dishes through actions such as washing produce, chopping vegetables, or coating oysters in batter and pan-frying them.

• Everyday Meals with Seasonal Ingredients: Vary the number of diners and the table settings, from a meal for one to dinner for a couple or a winter meal shared by a family.

Tip

Rather than crowding several dishes into one frame, allow the distinctive qualities of a single dish to stand out. Include close-ups of ingredient textures, overhead views of the full table setting, and hands serving or picking up food. For hot dishes, capture rising steam without allowing it to obscure the ingredients or the shape of the food.

[Self-Improvement and Goal Setting for the New Year]

Portray preparations for the new year through practical everyday planning rather than grand resolutions. Capture someone opening a new planner, adding recurring events to a calendar app, or organizing monthly goals into a checklist.

Focus not only on the person making plans but also on the planning process itself. Explore a variety of compositions, from wider shots of someone seated at a desk to close-ups of hands writing, fingers tapping a screen, and still-life arrangements of planners and stationery.

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Suggested Shots

• Transferring Plans to a New Planner: Place a current planner beside a 2027 planner and capture someone copying over important dates or goals they intend to continue pursuing in the new year.

• Hands Writing January Plans: Take close-up shots of someone entering specific goals into a monthly planner, such as “Exercise twice a week,” “Read for 20 minutes a day,” or “Attend a weekend hobby class.”

• Adding Plans to a Calendar App: Photograph hands entering workout times or class schedules on a smartphone and setting up recurring events and reminders.

• Organizing Weekly Plans on a Tablet: Capture someone using a stylus to write in a digital planner or mark out separate times for studying, exercising, and resting.

• Tracking Progress with a Checklist: Show someone checking off an item on a paper checklist after reading or exercising, or marking a task as complete in a habit-tracking app.

• Still-Life Arrangements for New-Year Planning: Neatly arrange a planner, desk calendar, pens, sticky notes, and a smartphone on a desk, and photograph them from above. Add a hand turning a page or placing a sticky note for variation.

Tip

Prepare all on-screen and written content before the shoot. Use sample schedules and text created for the photography rather than real personal information. Before including an app screen, check the terms governing its use in commercial imagery. A custom-designed planning interface is another option.

Capture both seasonal images that clearly show “2027” and “January” and versions without visible years or dates. Vary the compositions with close-ups of hands and written plans, upper-body shots, and images with copy space for advertising text.

[The Joy of Hands-On Experiences: The “Try-It” Economy]

In its forecast of consumer trends for 2027, Trend Korea 2027 identifies the “Haebom Economy,” or “try-it economy,” as one of its key themes. As AI and digital tools lower the barriers to trying something new, this concept emphasizes taking action and learning along the way rather than preparing everything perfectly before starting. Express this “try it first” mindset through everyday scenes of learning new hobbies and making things by hand.

The new year is a good time to explore hobbies that have long been of interest and begin learning through classes or workshops. Photographing introductory hobby sessions and first lessons in December provides images for new-year course enrollment campaigns, one-day workshop promotions, and self-improvement advertising and content. You could also create a story in which a year-end trial class inspires someone to continue learning in the new year.

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Suggested Shots

• A First Lesson in a New Hobby: Capture students listening to an instructor, learning how to use basic tools, or repeatedly practicing an unfamiliar technique.

• The Pottery-Making Process: Photograph someone kneading clay, shaping it on a pottery wheel, or painting bisque-fired pottery. Include close-ups of clay-covered hands and tools.

• A Perfume-Making Experience: Show participants comparing scents with fragrance strips, recording their selections, and blending fragrance ingredients in small containers.

• Learning to Bake: Capture the process of weighing ingredients, mixing batter or dough, and decorating baked desserts. Place more emphasis on making and learning than on the finished products.

• Hands Working with Flowers and Craft Materials: Highlight actions specific to each activity, such as trimming flower stems to make a bouquet, stitching leather, or casting on the first stitches in knitting.

• Examining a First Creation: Photograph someone looking closely at their finished work, sharing it with a friend, or comparing an initial attempt with a later version.

Tip

Rather than showing only polished, expert technique, capture the natural progression of listening, following instructions, making adjustments, and completing a piece. Include focused expressions alongside close-ups of hands holding tools, material textures, and works in progress.

Obtain permission to photograph at the workshop, as well as consent from instructors and participants for both the photography and its commercial use. Use original designs prepared for the shoot rather than creations that reproduce existing characters or well-known artworks.

If submitted content includes recognizable faces, a model release form must be provided. If the content features locations, objects, pets, or other property requiring permission from the relevant owners or rights holders, a property release form must also be submitted. Submissions without the required releases may not be approved.