Photographer Ky Luu jumped at the chance to photograph a steampunk themed wedding.
As a wedding photographer it’s always fun to work with a couple who are keen to try something different. This couple decided very early in the process to keep themselves well removed from the traditional spheres of wedding ritual. After all, they have both led lives far too colourful to constrain themselves to the conventional palate!
Victorian Steampunk blends industrial, floral and oddly juxtaposed modern and historic textures. It is colourful, risqué, oddly sophisticated and a little bit grungy, which is kind of how the bride and groom saw themselves.
I knew that the wedding was going to be something special, but little did I know it would be out-of-this-world special. I wanted to shoot the wedding differently and from this a particular style took shape. I wanted the photo to reflect the fun, colourful and sophisticated steampunk era and the groom suggested a fighting scene. I loved the idea so I choreographed this scene.
I wanted to show that they are so in love that whatever happens around them no longer matters. This was the message I wanted to get across with this image.
I decided to use a 14mm wide-angle for this shoot so I could include more people and create a more chaotic scene. However, wide-angle lenses have a distorting effect near the edges of the frame. This was fixed in Photoshop using the Transform Tool. I decided to keep the photo in natural colour to demonstrate the colourful, floral and oddly juxtaposed modern and historic textures of the clothing.
To make this photo ‘pop’, I simply used Lightroom in post production and increased the contrast, clarity, vibrance and saturation sliders. I finished the image with the noise-reduction slider to give it that nice glossy look. This was certainly a wedding I’ll always remember and it’s one that has helped me in developing my own style in wedding photography.
Nikon D3S, 14MM LENS, 1/1250S @ f/4.0, ISO 400. Photoshop to correct Lens Distortion. Lightroom for contrast, clarity, vibrance, saturation and noise reduction.