Throughout the month of November, our Photo of the Day series will be taken over by each of Rangefinder‘s newly minted 30 Rising Stars of Wedding Photography in 2019. The 30 honorees are featured in our November issue, and each of their full, 30-photo submissions, reviewed by the competition judges, can be found in our online gallery. For more behind-the-scenes insights, follow us on Instagram.

Lukas Leonte, based in Linz, Austria, likes to mix a romantic sense of adventure into his documentary-style wedding photography. He skews to warmer colors “that spark that fuzzy feeling,” he says, but Leonte is also careful to edit a wedding according to how it felt during the celebrations (albeit staying consistent for the sake of his clients’ expectations).

“I do love to direct my couples, especially in the beginning of our shoots,” he says, “but then let their personalities unfold as they feel more and more comfortable in front of the camera.” Leonte likes to incorporate Polaroids and steers clear of retouching.

In the gallery above are Leonte’s behind-the-scenes insights on three of the photos from his submission this year.