neo houston (2020) (Patreon)

If I've ever taken a "famous" photo, this has gotta be it. I've seen it around the internet quite a bit by now. 

Not long after I bought my Aerodeck, the pandemic hit, and so I'd sometimes go for cruises around the then-vacant always-lit city of Houston, with the stereo up and the windows down to attempt to, you know, stay sane. One night I was out cruising and I think my ex-girlfriend and I got ice cream at a DQ drive-thru? And this shop was right there next to the ice cream place, and I had been listening to synthwave basically non-stop since I got the Accord, and so I immediately knew what I had to do. It felt like a gift from God to have this building just appear from the night; I'd never even scouted it. I just saw it fully-lit and ready for me.

Process shot 1 of 4. 

Since I was prepared for anything back in those days, I actually had a tripod and a Ryobi battery-powered work lamp in the backseat to shoot night photos if I found a cool spot. I set everything up and absolutely bathed my car in light (I think I used four different shots for this composite?) attempting to offset the ridiculously bright neon shop. It took a total of twenty minutes after seeing the building to have all my photos.

I have largely moved away from light-painting, because I think while it can be technically impressive, I've never been a Webb Bland whose mastery of night-lighting and digital editing is literally beyond comprehension. Light painting without an incredibly strong vision or God-like execution ability (which I don't have) just feels like taking very nice product photos, so I've gotten bored with it. I also very rarely take a picture of a car in front of a building like this; there are so many shots of my old cars in front of various murals and street art installations in Houston, and I almost never shoot pictures with a wall as a backdrop anymore. It's lazy. On the face of it, this picture should no longer really do much for me. 

And yet despite this, as I re-edited this shot today with better color grading, I was like. Yeah, actually, this one was good anyway. Just goes to show that a shot with some good neon will let you get away with anything.