Street Lights And Neon Signs

Taking photos in the heart of any city can be a daunting task on any day of the week. With all the traffic and people wandering around, finding areas that are photogenic without blocking people's paths can be challenging. But that’s also what makes it so much fun.

Shooting at night takes it to a whole other level, especially on a Friday night.

Downtown Pomona is just a few small blocks, but it has a vibrant nightlife with the Fox Theater, the Glass House, and several popular bars and clubs. There are always people walking around until the whole scene closes. This makes photoshoots feel a little safer because of all the foot traffic.

Syreta and I met up for a quick shoot in the heart of the downtown area. There's a four-way intersection that has some cool lights and areas perfect for night photos. The spaces are big enough to avoid blocking walkways and bright enough that we don’t have to crank up the ISO too high.

Despite all the bright areas, I still brought my small LED light bar so I could have good light on Syreta no matter which direction she was facing. The only downside of the light bar is that it’s about 2 feet long and doesn’t illuminate the entire body. Since I was shooting with the 35mm lens, I was going to capture her whole body along with much of the environment, so I had to be creative with the lighting.

It was incredibly hard to keep her eyes well-lit, and that was a constant struggle. The light just wasn’t large enough to light everything evenly while also targeting her eyes. When she was standing, the light had to be far from her, which caused her eyes to go a little dark. But when she sat down, the light bar was closer, and it was enough to really light up her eyes.

Next time, I plan to use an 85mm lens and do more three-quarter body shots. It’ll cut back on showing some of the environment, which is a bit disappointing, but I’m confident we can still get some great shots.

The other alternative is to use a softbox, which I don’t mind doing either. However, it’s more of a hassle, and this shoot was meant to be fun and casual.

Halfway through the shoot, the manager from the Shisha Room asked if we wanted to shoot inside the building. It was practically empty, with only one person doing hookah. We decided to take the opportunity.

We shot wherever we wanted and got some incredible images. The light bar was more than sufficient indoors. With all the neon signs giving off an array of colors, the light bar struggled a bit to keep warm light on Syreta, so color consistency wasn’t going to be possible. After I gave up trying to control that, we experimented with the colors and poses. Some of the colors were harsh and proved overpowering and unflattering.

I ended up discarding a lot of photos because of that.

But the ones we kept were incredible, and we were really pleased with them. We even managed to capture some videos too.

The shoot went in a completely different direction than what we originally planned, but it turned out for the best.