This recent shoot with Studio Alexander took place in a compact flat tucked into the Castro in San Francisco—a warm, layered space designed as a kind of urban retreat for the client and his friends. It was recently featured in RUE, and while the design felt effortless, the shoot itself was anything but.
We had no time to scout. Just a phone call, a packed car, and a few hours on site. Tight angles, shifting light, and five of us moving gear and dodging reflections in real time. That’s the kind of thing that comes up a lot in interior photography for designers—especially in small, detail-heavy spaces like this one.
The design was full of strong choices: deep green walls, oak cabinetry, curved forms, soft textures. And then, of course, the neon sign at the base of the stairs—DISCO DISCO DISCO—which gave off a powerful green glow that lit up everything around it. It became one of the most visually striking elements in the space, and also one of the trickiest to photograph. We ended up building the image from multiple plates: one to expose for the neon itself, and another for everything else around it.
If you’re a designer working in small spaces—whether in SF or LA—you already know that shooting interiors isn’t always about making things look “perfect.” It’s about holding onto the mood of a space while balancing all the technical details: color shifts, bounce light, fixtures that don’t photograph well unless you guide them.
In post, we spent time refining all of that—especially the lighting, which was built into the architecture and layered with bar fixtures and added strobe. This is where interior design photography gets nuanced. It’s not just about what the camera sees. It’s about what it felt like to be there, and how to bring that into the final image.
These kinds of projects are some of my favorite to shoot. The ones that are a little chaotic, a little fast-moving, and full of layered choices. If you’re a designer working on a residential space in San Francisco, Los Angeles, or anywhere in between and want the photos to reflect the actual energy of the work—you know where to find me.
