Ande Castaneda Makeup & Photography: LA Cityscape on Whitney's Rooftop

I met gorgeous Whitney at a shoot with Ray John Pila. While doing her makeup, I fell in love with her Southern accent and telephone purse!

After doing a test shoot with her, I told her I wanted to do another night shoot that tests my abilities to use a basic external flash. I usually shoot outdoors, during the day. I have no problem manipulating natural light, but artificial light has always been tricky for me. At this point, I had the basics down, but I wanted to challenge myself.

Whitney mentioned she had a rooftop available to shoot on. From the rooftop, you can see the LA cityscape and lights. Since I was comfortable enough with the lighting, and I wanted a challenge, I figured I would play with the bokeh the city lights would create. I wanted the horizon to glow enough to see the silhouettes of the California palm trees. I had no idea what her rooftop looked like at this point, but I knew I would be able to just go with the flow once I saw it.

When she showed me the rooftop, I fell in love! There was a perfect combination of palm trees and city lights. There were riots going on in the city that night. I don't remember the case, but something happened so there were also several helicopters in and out of the shots, which I think added to the great bokeh.

We had no idea what wardrobe, hair, or makeup were going to look like. When Whitney invited me to check out her closet, I couldn't resist! Anything sparkly already catches my eye, but when I saw this particular dress I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. I wanted the bokeh I was challenging myself with to compliment the sparkles in the dress. I know bokeh isn't really much of a challenge. It's easy to create, which is why I see it overused. I wanted to use it just enough. Bokeh is often used to convey that a surface is sparkly. I didn't want to over light the dress to create more sparkles. (Unfortunately, it is possible to have something be too sparkly, lol.)