Grab a coffee at Surbeanton and take time to enjoy David Jacobson’s exhibition Night Gallery, which captures the magic and allure of London after dark.

David, whose vibrant, colourful and mesmeric photographs fill the art gallery wall at the café in Victoria Road, Surbiton, has been walking the streets of Chinatown and Soho and other edgy parts of the capital with his trusty Fujifilm X-T3 in hand, ready to snap captivating, yet fleeting, moments in time.

He jokingly said to the crowd who had gathered on Friday last week for the launch of the exhibition which will run until January: “Five months before the silent menace struck I would don my bobble hat and grab my camera and would say [to wife and author Sharon Wright] ‘I’m just off to take some photos in Soho darling – I may be a little late’, to which she would say every time ‘try not to get yourself arrested!’”

David, who has been passionate about photography since he was “knee-high to a Kodak Instamatic”, said despite being experienced in travel, portrait and wedding photography, he had never cracked street photography because of its candid nature and the unpredictability of the subjects, but realised night-time photoshoots gave you a “cloak of invisibility”.

“I started wandering around and I was struck by, at night, the colours. Everything becomes intensified, shadows become really mysterious, faces peer out of steamy windows… it is about capturing that one moment and freezing it in time. From there I was hooked.”

The photographer, who helps organise Surbiton’s Farmers’ Market in his spare time, would walk between 25,000 to 35,000 steps in each of his evening forays to get one near-elusive shot. Subjects include taxi drivers, people sitting at steamy windows in shops, cafes, restaurants or on buses, windows, doorways, shadows, reflections, lone figures, and colourfully dressed pedestrians who either stand out from or match their surroundings in a moment of coincidence and serendipity.

His photographs are for sale as framed or unframed, limited edition prints and he has also produced a book of his vivid and striking photographs which can be bought at the café (open Tuesdays to Sundays, morning to late afternoon). Proceeds will go to Kingston Carers Network which cares for young carers.

The exhibition is a Surbiton Art Trail event which aims to bring more creativity into the town. Its director Stephen Norman Young, a photographer himself, said: “I had a look at his [David’s] work and saw it was fabulous and I thought this guy needs to be seen.”