たんけん
Minato Mirai Terrace Building. I’ve always liked the look of vintage photography—the kind that mostly comes from film cameras—the texture… the colors… the look I’ve been trying to recreate lately. I did a similar exploration before with VSCO, but now I use Adobe Lightroom.
It’s not easy so far. I still don’t grasp much about color editing—I wish I could think more logically during exploration instead of kind of brute-forcing. But I’m sure this kind of sense sharpens over time with more practice—as well as feeding myself with more references!
Then I made my first three vintage presets.
RAWPreset 1
The first one is too yellowish—dull and washed out. But I’ll keep it and improve it. I feel like it could work for photos that need a warm nostalgic feel.
RAWPreset 2This one is an improvement over preset 1 with a cooler tone—more balanced. I’m okay with this one for now—tried it on other photos and it works well—though still not satisfied yet.
RAWPreset 3I like the colors on this one—it somehow works with this photo. The problem is it doesn’t quite work with other photos.
It’s kind of ironic—and a hassle too—using a digital camera but chasing the look of vintage photography. I even had to do a workaround on the lens side myself—my camera isn’t high-spec, but it still produces crisp photos.
Never wanted to own a film camera—rather recreate the look instead!
My delightful irony.
Footsteps echo and pages turn—a lovely morning in Yokohama (2023). These two photos are completely different, but they have some similarities. These were my first experimental shots in exploring my visual style. Inspired by the editorial aesthetic of 90s magazines—that soft, matte look often associated with film photography. I’ll call it vintage magazine here.
The main pattern I noticed in the vintage magazine style was low contrast—creating a matte effect where the photo doesn’t go pitch black in the shadows.
Unlike the typical vintage magazine pattern, I set the sharpness a bit higher here because I found it more appealing.
I’ve also added some grain—big fan of it. It makes the photos feel a bit old, but it fits the vintage feel I was going for.
I used VSCO for editing. At the time, I didn’t want to spend too much time on complex color grading.
