Featured on Unsplash: A Night at Barcadia, Cape Town

There are photographs you go looking for, and then there are photographs that find you. This one was somewhere in between.

I'm pretty stoked to share that one of my photographs has been featured on Unsplash's Photo Feed, selected by the Unsplash editorial team from thousands of photographs submitted to the platform. It's currently sitting alongside some seriously good work, and I'm also sitting in the top 10% of Unsplash contributors.

Is this going to change my life? Probably not.

Is it pretty fucking cool? Absolutely.

A photograph from Barcadia

The photograph was taken at Barcadia, Cape Town's retro arcade bar on Hout Street. It's the kind of place that practically asks to be photographed — neon, old arcade machines, strange little pockets of light, colour and plenty of character. Barcadia is built around that nostalgic arcade atmosphere, with classic games and a deliberately retro visual identity.

I wasn't there specifically to photograph the space.

I was just there for the night.

And that's probably what I like most about this image.

There wasn't a lighting setup or a carefully planned production behind it. No location scout. No assistant. No shot list.

Just a camera in my hands, interesting light, and that instinct photographers get when something suddenly looks worth capturing.

I was shooting on my Sony A7C II with the Sony FE 50mm f/1.8 at f/2.

The 50mm is one of those focal lengths that just makes sense to me. It's intimate without being invasive, wide enough to retain some context, but still capable of pulling your attention towards a subject. Shooting at f/2 gave me just enough separation while keeping the atmosphere of the room alive.

And that's important with nightlife photography.

I don't really want to photograph a person inside a place.

I want to photograph the feeling of being there.

Cape Town nightlife, photographed as it happens

A lot of the photography I enjoy making happens this way.

Unplanned. Observational. A little imperfect.

Cape Town is particularly good for it.

There is something about photographing the city at night — the artificial light against the darkness, reflections in windows, neon spilling onto faces, people moving between bars and restaurants — that gives even ordinary moments a slightly cinematic quality.

Barcadia has that in abundance.

It's a visually distinctive place, but I didn't want to make the photograph feel like an advertisement for the venue. I wanted it to feel like a memory of being there.

That's a subtle difference, but I think it's an important one.

From an impromptu photograph to the Unsplash Photo Feed

The photograph was originally just one of a handful of spontaneous shots from the night.

Some of the other images from the evening ended up being shared and collaborated on through Instagram as well, which was a pretty nice bonus.

You can find more of my Cape Town photography, nightlife photography and personal work on Instagram at @kade.tyack.

Then, somewhat unexpectedly, Unsplash selected this particular image for its Photo Feed.

That was a nice reminder that you never really know which photograph is going to resonate.

Sometimes it's the image you spent hours lighting, directing and editing.

Sometimes it's the one you took while you were out having a drink.

Why I'm grateful for it

I'm not going to pretend an Unsplash feature is the ultimate validation of a photograph.

It isn't.

Photography is subjective, and there are plenty of technically brilliant images that don't connect with me at all.

But I do think there's something meaningful about having an image selected by an editorial team whose job is essentially to look at an enormous amount of photography and decide which images deserve to be seen.

For me, that's enough.

It's a small marker in the journey.

Another photograph made.

Another frame that worked.

Another reminder to keep carrying the camera.

Sony A7C II.

Sony FE 50mm f/1.8.

f/2.

Barcadia, Cape Town.

One spontaneous photograph.

And apparently, someone at Unsplash liked it too.