KSC Night Launch
A night launch seen from the Space Bar, across the Indian River from Kennedy Space Center. Nobody had a proper picture of it, so it was built.
The brief
Galactic Medallion runs space-tour experiences on Florida’s Space Coast. Across the Indian River from Kennedy Space Center there is a hotel with a rooftop bar called the Space Bar, and from up there tour-goers can watch launches.
The best of those launches are at night. And launches don’t keep a schedule — delays, scrubs, weather. So there was almost no proper picture of what a night launch looks like from that bar: a few people’s phone photos, and nothing you would put in front of a customer.
What I made
The picture nobody had managed to take. Not a photograph of one launch, but the experience of one: the plume lighting the sky, the smoke, the shallow depth of field, and the whole thing reflected in the Indian River — with a touch of the surreal left in on purpose.
I tried to make the experience come to life photographically as much as I could.
How it was made
Generated in pieces with several image generators, then composited and finished in Photoshop — the launch, the smoke, the depth of field, the reflection. The aim was photographic: something that reads as a night at the Space Bar, not as an illustration.
What happened
Kennedy Space Center — and the Space Bar across the river — are still the hub for everyone who works on, follows, or tours the Space Coast. This is what a good night there looks like.