# Korean four-cut photo booth (classic frontal strip)

> The classic frontal form of Korean four-cut photography: self-directed portraits made against a plain booth backdrop and assembled into a four-frame vertical keepsake. Friends cluster close, or a lone sitter changes expression and hand gesture between countdowns. Bright frontal light opens facial shadows; digital colour or monochrome is clean and often flattering. Coloured or illustrated borders surround the pictures, while physical copies and downloadable files connect the souvenir with the social feed.

- Period: 2017–present
- Where it began: South Korea's self-operated digital photo-booth revival, led by Life4cuts from 2017
- Kind: Vernacular & studio
- Also called: Four-cut photo, Ne-cut sajin (네컷사진), Korean self-photo strip
- Page: https://lumogeny.com/styles/korean-four-cut-photo/

## How the look is made

- Fix the camera in front of a plain coloured backdrop and frame faces and upper bodies close enough for expressions and hands to read.
- Invite consenting sitters to direct themselves: cluster together, meet the lens and change a gesture, expression or relationship for each countdown.
- Light from near the camera with a broad source and generous fill, keeping eyes readable and facial shadows open rather than sculpting a dramatic dark side.
- Select four distinct moments and stack them in a vertical strip; preserve the changes between poses rather than repeating one portrait four times.
- Keep colour clean or choose a gentle monochrome treatment; make any skin correction optional and never change someone's skin tone or facial structure by default.
- Use an original, unbranded border and provide a physical keepsake as well as a digital copy; get permission before sharing either.

## How it is lit

- A broad diffused light just above or around the fixed camera, with white booth walls or a reflector returning fill into the eyes and under the chin; use a plain coloured background and retain its colour rather than burning it white. This is a reconstruction of the bright, open-shadow appearance, not a documented equipment diagram.

### A light plan from its choices (schematic)

- Key: a softbox, about 40° to the camera’s left, high, soft.
- Reflector: a white card or reflector, about 55° to the camera’s right, soft.

## Camera settings

35–50 mm · f/5.6–f/8 · 1/200–1/125 s · ISO 100–400 (on aps-c), inferred. A practical reconstruction for an APS-C camera under sufficient studio light, not measured booth settings: moderate perspective, enough depth for closely clustered faces and a short exposure for held gestures. The checked sources do not establish booth sensor formats, lenses or exposures; individual specimen capture settings are therefore omitted.

## Directing people

Let sitters self-direct facing the fixed lens: friends lean close or embrace, and a solo sitter fills the same space. Change between hands cradling the cheeks, V signs, hearts, head tilts and smiles over the countdowns; allow quiet poses too, and keep hands inside the chosen crop.

## Styling

Use everyday or self-chosen outing clothes against a simple coloured backdrop; offer optional shared headbands, hats or other dressing-up accessories. Keep the set uncluttered and allow the sitters to choose their presentation. Keep the printed border separate from the photographed set, using original graphics only.

## Before you shoot it

These are real people's shared memories, often involving teenagers, and named booth operators are living businesses, not anonymous styles to copy. Use and credit the local operator for an actual booth session; do not reproduce its logos, distinctive frames, licensed characters or celebrity panels as your own. Obtain every sitter's consent before keeping, uploading or exposing a download QR code; publication of a strip does not grant reuse rights or permission to identify its sitters. Beauty correction must be opt-in: do not lighten skin or reshape faces as a default. A licensed celebrity frame is a composite, not evidence that the celebrity met the customer. Do not generate imitations of these operators’ portraits, branded frames or customers; for an actual session, use and credit a working booth operator and obtain every sitter’s consent.

## Photographs

- Aya Narikawa and friend, Life4cuts trial strip, 2019; presentation photograph by Aya Narikawa, Asahi Shimbun GLOBE+, published 6 July 2019, image 16972871. In copyright; link only; no reuse permission established for the booth output or its documentation. In copyright, linked: https://globe.asahi.com/article/12514544
- Unidentified self-portrait sitter, Insaeng-nae-cut four-cut strip, published 3 January 2023; documentation photograph credited to Lee Da-eun, Korea JoongAng Daily, image 10020614. In copyright; link only; underlying booth-image authorship not specified. In copyright, linked: https://www.koreajoongangdaily.com/korea/get-snap-happy-korean-style-at-a-fourcut-photo-booth/10020095

## Sources

- Aya Narikawa, '韓国でプリクラ再ブーム？ 「人生４カット」日本にも進出へ', Asahi GLOBE+, 6 July 2019, https://globe.asahi.com/article/12514544 (first-person trial, four vertical panels, ten-second cadence, two prints, installation from 2017 and sticker-photo antecedent; image 16972871 inspected).
- Lee Da-eun, 'Get snap happy, Korean style, at a four-cut photo booth', Korea JoongAng Daily, 3 January 2023, https://www.koreajoongangdaily.com/korea/get-snap-happy-korean-style-at-a-fourcut-photo-booth/10020095 (self-service workflow, competing operators, props, correction, QR downloads and seasonal borders; image 10020614 inspected).
- Hanum Nur Aprilia, 'Experiencing the four-cut photo craze in Korea', Korea.net Honorary Reporters, 26 June 2023, https://www.korea.net/NewsFocus/HonoraryReporters/view?articleId=234443 (first-person experience, albums and sharing, Singapore and London branches, Indonesian Photograms and Palette ID; not evidence that every self-photo studio uses this precise look).
- Park Jun-hee, 'Say kimchi: How photobooths have filled Korean streets', The Korea Herald, 7 June 2025, https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10503226 (automated cameras, lighting and backdrops; countdown, selection and prints; interview on skin correction; named artists' frames are licensed commercial products, not free imagery).
- Channel PNU, 'Four-cut Photo Click-and-Keep Alteration', translated by Thadar-Soe, 27 March 2025, https://channelpnu.pusan.ac.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=37089 (Daegu April 2017, multiple operators and later high-angle/themed-room variants; inspected image 37089_19821_718 is an empty frame advertisement and was rejected as a photographic specimen).
- Chloe Pui Ying Savannah Yu (closing byline), 'Korea's photo booths offer creative ways of leaving memories', Korea JoongAng Daily, 17 October 2023, modified 19 October 2023, https://www.koreajoongangdaily.com/korea/koreas-photo-booths-offer-creative-ways-of-leaving-memories/12031344 (operator ranges and differences; inspected Photoism image 12032416 and Haru Film image 12032903: both show frontal portraits with bright faces and shallow shadows, but both use two-column four-picture layouts, not the bounded vertical strip; neither was added as a third specimen).
- Korea Tourism Organization, 'The New Trending Hotspot to Meet Friends? The Four-Cut Photo Craze in Korea', VISITKOREA, 16 July 2025, https://english.visitkorea.or.kr/svc/sp/HallyuNew/contentsView.do?dataSetId=70&vcontsId=228864 (operator and themed-room range; inspected images 20250716_01, 20250716_02, 20250716_03_1 and 20250716_03_2: booth interior, preparation counter, frame-selection screen and a single portrait on a capture screen, respectively; none supplies a complete independently documented four-frame strip).
- Revision 1 evidence limit: the requested third independently documented classic strip could not be confirmed in the additional JoongAng and VISITKOREA material inspected above. Retain the two original specimens rather than count a two-column layout, shop interior or single preview as a third strip. This declines the third-specimen fix only; the re-review must decide whether the remaining facial-light evidence is sufficient. The supplementary frontal portraits corroborate bright, shallow-shadow faces but do not establish specific hardware or justify changing genome weights. Landing follow-up: add korean-four-cut-photo to SKIP for named living operators; revision scope does not permit editing that code list.
- Research limits: no exact-file open licence was found for the two selected strips, so both remain link-only. No booth camera model, exposure settings or specimen EXIF was confirmed. Lighting and settings above are explicitly inferred reconstructions. The palette is descriptive, not a brand specification; printed borders are not the vocabulary's visible-film-border trait.

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From Lumogeny (https://lumogeny.com/), a service of Van Riel Online Services. The shoot sheet for your own camera, lenses and lights is on the page: https://lumogeny.com/styles/korean-four-cut-photo/#sheet