The first year of a child’s life goes by extremely fast! As parents ourselves, Laura and I understand the importance of documenting the milestones and magical moments. One grandest moment is when a child turns 1! We were honored to be able to capture Emie’s joyous occasion with a mini-shoot in the woods located in Yorba Linda Regional Park.


Doljanchi 돌잔치 is the first birthday celebration for a Korean child. As Emie’s Korean, she wore a Hanbok a traditional clothing piece as one of her outfits during the shoot.


At Las Dos Creative, we aim ‘to celebrate humanity it all it's beauty and diversity.’  As we are a bi-cultural team living in a highly diverse area, equity, diversity and inclusive are pillars for our small, female-led company.


Finding ways to celebrate and honor our client’s culture and values is one of the ways we practice being inclusive as a company. As women, we know firsthand representation matters and we strive to represent our client’s as fully as possible in our work. We want all those important pieces that make up who are clients are seen and apparent in our work.


Here are 3 ways we practice being culturally inclusive in our sessions:


   1.   Practice Curiosity + Ask Questions: Being curious about others and your clients is a great way of getting to know them. It’s common practice for photographers and videographers to have a pre-session with their clients and/or a pre-questionnare as part of their process. You can add questions around your client’s culture and values here. For Emie’s session, we asked things like: 

  •     Can you share with us more about what turning 1 means in Korean culture?
  •     Can you send us photos of Hanbok ahead of time?
  •    Is there anything we should know ahead of time to make sure to capture?


   2.   Do your own research: Avoid making assumptions and do your own research. Once your clients have shared with you some important aspects of themselves, like their cultural values or customs, do you own research to learn more. You want to be as knowledgeable as possible to make sure you are stewarding the session as best as possible. For Arie’s shoot, we had many side conversations with some Korean friends to hear more about what this traditional outfits means to them, as well.


   3.   Integrate: You want to make sure you take into account what you have learned and what your clients have shared and find ways of incorporating that into your sessions. You want to avoid being curious and doing research and that’s it! For Arie’s session, we know documenting her in her Hanbok was important, so we began our session with this outfit to make sure we get it!


We hope this was helpful. Now, enjoy some other adorable photos of Arie.


xoxo -

Laura + Priscilla