I’m gonna have a blast taking shots of Cyberpunk 2077 and its cyberpunk world. But until that comes out, one photographer has found a way to take shots of Seoul that would fit right into CD Projekt’s world.
Noe Alonzo is a photographer with a penchant for taking photos at night, usually on aperture priority with a bunch of different cameras. He also runs a YouTube channel, and has done some video tutorials on shooting, editing, and so forth.
One of his preferences has been taking shots of the city at night, giving it a touch of cyberpunk:
A lot of the effect is achieved through some clever editing. Alonzo, in a video outlined below, describes a lot of his base technique: tanking the whites and highlights in Lightroom, while boosting the shadows and blacks. The white balance (at least for these night shots) is typically around 3500K, with a bluer tint to taste.
The photos are usually shot a -1 exposure, and Alonzo then plays with the hue, saturation and luminance of various colours. Tanking the hue of reds, for instance, gives a neon-esque effect to lights on buildings.
Alonzo also did a quick tutorial on cyberpunk photography with an iPhone 7, outlining how to expose correctly at the start and going through the editing process with Lightroom CC on the phone. (You can do something similar with Snapseed as well, although you get more power with Lightroom.)
To fill your feed with more shots of a cyberpunk Seoul, and maybe give you some inspiration for a holiday or Cyberpunk 2077 should that game ship with a photo mode, head to Alonzo’s Instagram. You can also find some wallpapers and tips on his official website.