Filipino Photographer Will Teach You How To Take Aesthetic AF Vaporwave Photos

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If you have an affinity for chill electronic music, marble busts, Windows 95, ’80s/’90s consumer culture, old Japanese cartoons, aesthetic shades of pink, sadness, and AriZona Green Tea, you might like vaporwave and its many sub genres (I’m a huge fan of Simpsonwave myself).

There’s a very specific aesthetic to vaporwave that fans of the genre(s) continuously try to design; many creatives spend hours taking the perfect photos and making flawless edits. Perhaps this is why Filipino photographer Gab Loste’s video on how to take stunning neon portraits went viral.

Gab Loste and his good friend Steffi took to the streets with a Nikon, a CD, and a “Toblerone-looking prism”, found a great neon sign, and got to work taking gorgeous photos.

via FaceBook / Gab Loste

Loste says the most important key in taking the photos is in the settings.

“You wanna put your aperture at your widest, meaning f/1.8 or f/1.4. On this lens, the Nikon 50mm, we’re gonna shoot at 1.8 today. For shutter speed, I usually recommend 1/125th, but usually just what you wanna hand hold in dark situations. Lastly, your ISO. Try to get as clean as possible so set it to the lowest ISO that you can while still exposing properly. Note, however, when you expose properly that you should know your camera because depending on what camera you have you can underexpose a bit and then bring back details later in post.”

via FaceBook / Gab Loste

Next, Loste discusses how to choose the perfect location for the shoot.

“Make sure that the sign is low enough so that your model will be lit by it and that it’s not too high so that it won’t be seen in the photo.”

via FaceBook / Gab Loste

After that, Loste says to get shooting!

via FaceBook / Gab Loste

An optional part of this aesthetic photoshoot is to use props. Loste goes into detail about how to include a CD, “Toblerone-like prism”, and a “diamond-like prism” to enhance the effects of the neon lighting.