Valeria

And Valeria makes it this year's second threepeat.

I was downtown a bit too long tonight, so the sun was rapidly going down when I got back to the Riverfront. Walking through, though, I had the thought of asking someone if I could photograph them as an experiment under one of the streetlights dotting the trail. So Valeria was a lucky encounter.

Initially I tried two shots without bringing in any external lighting, and neither of us liked the result. The shot you're seeing here used a short wand light for front lighting, the streetlamp above and behind her. And it... kind of worked. It definitely gave a result more preferable to using a speedlight - see Anabelle's shots for what I mean.

I have a larger wand light, but it's a bit... cumbersome to try to carry since it's almost 3ft long. And I have a brighter light still that isn't a speedlight, but I'm not about to carry that around for street photography as it's a bit unwieldly and really needs a softbox or diffuser panel to use.

Perhaps I need to build something custom. Anyway...

You can see the two other encounters I had with her here and here. I featured her on the cover of 2025 - No. 2, and you'll also find her in No. 1.