Houston ‘nightcrawlers’ changing game of street-art photography
At first glance, one of Houston-based photographer Jafet Soto’s photos of the Houston skyline might look Photoshopped.
Soto, who more commonly goes by his Instagram name infphy , short for “influence,” often posts photos of downtown buildings that can play games with your mind. Some of his shots make him appear like he is hanging off the edge of a Houston skyscraper, feet dangling thousands of feet up in the air, as if he were a giant that could walk directly onto the buildings beneath him.
Soto and a group of local artists he considers his “crew” specialize in this form of urban photography that makes the viewer wonder: Are these photos even possible? Sure, they may be edited for lighting sometimes. But Soto’s feet you see dangling off the ledge of a skyscraper are really there.
“Your body just kind of conditions itself to, like, becoming accustomed to that feeling of being on the edge,” Houston photographer Raymond Perez said. “If you can sit on a chair, you can sit on a ledge. It’s the way your mind works whenever you are doing it.”
For Soto and his friends, downtown is the ultimate playground. During their “night-crawling” or “rooftopping” adventures, they weave in and out of the crowds of Houston nightlife, masterfully sneaking into buildings they know they have no business being in. They shoot from the tops of parking garages, luxurious hotel bars, abandoned buildings and even from the top of cranes at construction sites.
“We never let fear get into our heads,” 26-yearold Juan Hidalgo said. “We want to get the shot.”
Most buildings are a hit-or-miss. Sometimes they can get to the top of an exclusive hotel rooftop with no one noticing, slipping past security and climbing up flights of stairs in restricted areas to do so. When they get lucky and make it all the way inside, they never leave out the same door they came in.
Once at the top, they use bricks or anything they can find to prop open doors so they don’t get locked outside on a roof. They are used to setting off alarms, arguing with parking-garage security guards and even sometimes running from cops (which is rare, they said.) They are adamant about lying low, respecting their surroundings and keeping their spots secret.
“‘Trespassing’ is such a dirty word. I’d prefer to call what we do creative exploration,” photographer Jason Bundage, who goes by the name Jaybun, said. “One of the most important rules of roof-topping: Never let them know you were there. Respect the spot, respect the building.”
After two years of photographing Houston’s skyline, Soto has his favorite spots to see the skyline down to a science. Though he may be bad with cardinal directions, he knows downtown like the back of his hand. He remembers where to go based on the looks of the buildings, not the street signs.
“Every day I find something new; there is no day I am bored,” Soto said.
‘Never a game’
Some of Soto’s crew he met online, some he met while shooting in Houston. But they all share the same love for what they say is a new form of street photography few are pursuing in the city right now.
“There was a time when there was only me and three other guys that did this, took pictures at night,” Jaybun said. “Now it’s just exponentially grown.”
Jaybun has been photographing Houston for decades. Dressed in a gray hat with “SUPREME” on it, red shirt and gray fanny pack, the 41-year-old’s face lights up when he talks about his craft.
“I am not saying I am invincible … when I do it, I have to be really careful,” Jaybun said. “I don’t want to get to the bottom floor and regret not taking the photo. That is the worst feeling.”
One of the youngest members of the group, 18-year-old Philip Emerson, has made headlines for his daring photo shoots. This August, he and a friend climbed the Montrose bridge over U.S. 59 to get shots from one of Houston’s busiest freeways.
“With some of the photos, they are all real, but I do put the camera angle at a certain degree, so it looks riskier,” Emerson said. “Little things like that make you look so much more dangerous than (it) actually is.”
For most of them, their work is about showing the city’s own residents what is right under their nose.
“What we try to do is capture that for them,”
Jaybun said. “You walk by this a thousand times a day, you just never take time to notice this.”
While most of Soto’s crew members are more than comfortable making their way into construction sites, scaling narrow and rusted stairs, to get the shot — they do not encourage amateurs to do the same. (And, beyond the possibility of physical danger, they sometimes do illegally trespass to get to the roofs of buildings.)
“Know your limit, but also push your limit,” photographer Elvis Alvarez, 24, said. “If it’s safe, then go ahead, but if you know you are going to be risking yourself for your photo, don’t do it.”
We own the night
Soto’s crew is not taking credit for starting the street-photography movement in Houston. Urban photography has been around for decades.
“It (street photography) is embedded in photography; there is a real long history of it,” Houston photographer and Lawndale Art Center Artists Advisory Board member Emily Peacock said. “I think that it’s cool that they are continuing that tradition of street photography but in their own way.”
An experienced photographer and photography teacher at Sam Houston State University, Peacock said she has seen myriad different styles over her career. But the super-specific style Soto and his crew are creating is something she said she has not seen much of before.
“I do think other people are doing something similar but not exactly like these guys,” Peacock said.
Instead of taking credit for owning the street game, Soto and his friends said they view their daring shots as a way to breathe life into the community again.
“People were doing this before us, but they didn’t have Instagram,” Soto said. “There are good and bad sides to it. Now it’s being recognized, but it’s also getting a little bit harder for us to go out and explore.”
Thanks to the loyal followings on their socialmedia platforms, the crew’s skyline photos are catching the attention of artists from across the country. The group also helps run the Instagram account weownthenight_htx, which is modeled after other street-photography pages in cities such as New York and Los Angeles, they said.
For artists such as Perez, the page is a peek into what roof-toppers are able to find in Houston.
“People are very curious, they want to see what night-crawling is really about,” Perez said. “It’s influencing a lot of new people to try something different in the Houston community. It’s very hard to come across a page that is as specific to street photography as this one is for our city.”
Social media and pages such as We Own the Night HTX are helping street photographers make a name for themselves in the community while also helping them pay the bills. Soto said most artists cling to portrait or event photography in order to make a living, but urban photography has slowly become more profitable thanks to social media. His strong social-media following has helped him sell skyline photos to downtown companies and hotels, and some of his friends are slowly starting to sell their photos by impressing marketing executives with their own social-media followings.
Organizing events
Peacock sees social media more as a doubleedged sword. Though it does help struggling artists gain exposure, she argued it can also be stifling.
“Everyone’s a photographer with their cellphone … it’s easy to blend in with the millions of people that are taking photographs on social media,” Peacock said. “I try to not post a lot of my work on social media because I want people to see it in person, but I also have the advantage of being able to show my work in a gallery — not everyone has that.”
Soto has organized artist pop-up exhibits in the past and hopes to host an art exhibit showcasing local photographers he featured on the We Own the Night account. Plans for that show are still in the works, but another show, “The Influence Showcase Vol.
3,” he has planned for Sunday at Trap House HTX will showcase 12 local and out-of-state artists, from photographers to sculptors to DJs.
Soto and his friends’ advice for aspiring street artists is simple: Go and explore.
“The first step is to come out and not worry about what we are doing, just worry about working,” Perez said. “If you are working hard and you are coming out every night, you are going to run into one of us, at least.”
Hundreds of feet up in the sky, Soto peers down over the ledge of one of his favorite parking garages. With a slice of Frank’s pizza in hand, he quietly looks over downtown, eyes drawn down at the blinking lights and tiny moving boxes of cars sitting in traffic. One wrong move and he could end up dead, body splattered on the concrete. But he looks right at home.
“This became my rehab,” said Soto, who suffers from anxiety and sometimes panic attacks. “For me, it’s just being here and living in the moment. It’s pretty amazing.”