Signs of the Times: Vegas Neon

There are some things that video just does better than still photography. I started figuring that out around the midnight hour on Fremont Street in Las Vegas.

That's when they turn on all the vintage signs and since both my wife and myself LOVE these signs, we were looking forward to photographing them.

You are not going to get a better exposure or a tighter crop than the picture on the left. It was an amazing sign. The colors came on in impressive waves and, by prefocussing and judging the time exactly, I was able to hit the shutter button when all the lights were on.

It's still not a very interesting picture, is it?

Neon and flashing lights are about...well...neon and flashing. You can't convey that in a photo. You can just capture that one second and hope that is able to give your viewer a taste of what it was like to be there.

Even when the sign itself is interesting, like "Smoking Good Times" you still won't get a great image. It's like taking a picture of a picture, or someone else's artwork to me.

If we are taking pictures as graphic artists, we need to take pictures that show our subject in a new light, and hopefully convey a sense of that subject. Otherwise it's a picture of a picture, neon or not.


I am told that the name of this neon girl is "Vegas Vicki." She is currently working over a "Gentlemen's Club" in Fremont Street.

As I stood there late in the night, I had a sneaking suspicion that my neon sign graphics weren't going to be all that interesting. So I started taking pictures at odd angles, with strange close-ups.

I wanted to take the neon out of this picture so FIRST I copied the original layer and blured it a little. I wanted to take the harshness of the flat neon lines out. Then I added a blur around the outside of the graphic, since I wanted only her face to be featured.

I copied the original again onto it's own layer and worked adding a brush-stroke texture my graphic. Reducing the Opacity on this layer to about 40% allowed me to have a whisper of that texture come through to make the picture have a "painterly" effect.

Finally -- I flattened the layers and took the whole mess to Virtual Painter's Watercolor filter. I use this plug in all the time and it did a great job on de-neoning the whole graphic.

There's another multi-layered "saloon type neon girl" a little further down Freemont. I looked at this sign for several minutes before I started shooting.

I was trying to see it in a different light.

"What else could she be?" I asked myself.

"She's a superhero," I answered me -- surprising myself with the observation as well as drawing some odd looks from passersby.

So I shot her that way. When I was done, her hand is in the air and she looks like Wonder Woman about to kick someone's butt.

I worked with a Contrast Adjustment Layer to bring the colors down to five or six primary colors. I added a halftoned look and finally took the whole graphic to Alien Skin's Snap Art Comic Book filter. I added a brick wall texture very gently behind the main figure and am very pleased with the final result.

Here are 5 Kick-Butt Tips for Shooting Neon Signs at Night:

1) Brace Your Camera: A tripod is a great idea. But, since I am pretty lazy about what I carry, I have also found fence posts, light standards, garbage cans etc. wonderful places to put my camera down to avoid the dreaded "night shake" syndrome.

2) Use Your Delayed Shutter: This is the setting you use when YOU want to be in the picture. Usually it's a three to ten second delay after you press the shutter button. This allows you to avoid camera shake since the camera is no-doubt-about-it still and stays still after the shutter's pushed.

3) Make Sure You Consider Your Scene Modes or a High ISO: A common problem with night is the...ummm...darkness. So you need to give your camera every break. I'd much rather get an exposure that is a little dark because I can tease the detail out using Photoshop. If the exposure is too light -- that detail's not there.

4) Take LOTS of Pictures From Odd Angles: You never know how you are going to be using the shots. But if you take LOTS of shots you have a very good chance of seeing one you can use for whatever strange and wonderful treatment you have in mind.

5) Study your Subject BEFORE You Start Shooting: What else could it be? Is there one part of the image that would make a great close-up? Could the picture be of something other than what it is? Could a soldier be a superhero? Could a sunset be an atomic explosion?'

How We Wound up Watching Roller Derby on our Anniversary

Let me set the scene: it's our 21st wedding anniversary and Sheree and I have reservations at a great Las Vegas eatery called "The Bootlegger."

We've just finished photographing The Boneyard (I think it's two blogs back), I am recovering nicely from a minor heatstroke and we have decided to poke around Fremont Street.

Fremont is often called "Downtown." It's where Old Vegas is. Downtown was first -- the garish Strip came after. I like downtown. It's got a bunch of old stuff. It's got great signs. It's got a massive video screen on the ceiling that goes for three blocks.

But best of all it has interesting people.

"I want that one," says a girl off to my left. The voice is so loud and hard that I turn to look.

The woman has green and purple hair. She's dressed in black -- and it looks like she is wearing her underwear over top of her clothes. Not quite goth. Something tougher. There are many piercings: her nose, her lip and her eyebrows. I am wondering how she manages metal detectors at the airport and little things like blowing her nose. She wears a brightly colored shirt -- but when she moves I notice that it's not a shirt at all. She's got tattoos running up her arms and across her back. There are Japanese warriors and dragons. There are flowers and dates. There are names -- and it's all woven together in this symphony of color.

She's intent on looking at necklaces and earrings. The clerk is beside himself putting things into bags for her. You can tell he's willing to overlook a strange appearance in favor of a well equipped credit card.

She turns, sees me staring (something that probably isn't real unusual) then she smiles, waves and goes back to her shopping.

I look at Sheree and shrug. She shrugs too and we continue exploring Fremont.

A little further down the way a round little man (who looks a lot like the road manager from "Almost Famous") is painstakingly putting down tape on the cement floor in the direct middle of Fremont Street. He's being helped by another tattooed girl who is wearing a yellow shirt that is about two sizes too small. It is not not a good clothing choice.

"I wonder what they're doing," Sheree says.

I shrug and pretend I am not even remotely interested.

"Why don't you go ask them?" she asks.

I shrug again. Sheree sighs and walks over and talks to them. They are having an animated conversation and all three wind up laughing. She comes back to me and starts walking.

"Well?" I ask.

"Well what?" she says.

"What are they doing?" I ask.

"I thought you didn't care."

"Just curious," I say, unable to come up with a more witty rejoiner.

"It's flat track roller derby. There's a roller derby convention in town," she says. Then she laughs and says "We just keep walking into great stuff! We're going to get great pictures!"

Sheree charms some of the athletes to pose for pictures and before long one of the men, wearing a tutu and a flower in his hair, is mugging for the camera. How does she do it? I watch in wonder. My wife can get pretty much any stranger to do anything. I've seen it a hundred times and I have no idea how she manages. (You should have a look at her blog as well: http://blog.picajet.com/ )

We promptly cancel the Bootlegger and settle in to watch them set up a flat track roller derby. Before long the ladies of roller derby are taking the... ummm ... concrete.

It's a very challenging thing to shoot. We're under a canopy that runs the whole length the main Freemont area. The women move very fast and the only way to get any kind of half decent shot is to use my telephoto with a Continuous Focus sports mode. Even then it's tough to get.

These women are not pampered princesses. They're tougher than some of the bikers we've seen. And they have colorful names. There's Daddy's Girl and Cherry-licious and many more that I can't put here on the off chance children will read this.

But it's fascinating to watch. It smacks a little of WWF or a Monster Truck rally and, as I see them go past, I realize I have only a faint idea of what they are doing. My knowledge of roller derby is limited to watching Raquel Welch in "Kansas City Bomber" years ago...and I didn't understand it then either.

But apparently roller derby works like this: the people skate in circles. They knock against one another and eventually (and understandably) someone falls down. The crowd cheers. Two players wearing panties on their helmets (no...I don't get it either) skate very quickly and do things that make the crowd go "ooo" and "ahhh."

Occasionally a referee blows a whistle and everyone puts their hands on their hips and skates around trying to catch their breath.

How do you communicate this energy in a picture? You need to shoot a LOT of pictures.

Relax: it's digital. What doesn't work, you delete. No harm no foul. Besides -- this was so awfully entertaining to watch. These people were having fun...or as much fun as you can have skating in 100 degree heat in the middle of a sidewalk in Las Vegas.

And Sheree and I had a blast. We traded the formal Bootlegger in on a wonderful tropical buffet and played on slot machines until the wee hours. Then we took a walk around Fremont Street and took some more pictures, sipped a little beer, held hands and were just totally relaxed into enjoying the evening and each other.

So that's how I took my bride of 21 years to roller derby for our anniversary. We had a splendid time.

Am I a class guy or what?

Loathing in Las Vegas

We're back from a week in Nevada. It was a wonderful trip...but when I wrote the entry below I was in a decidedly dark frame of mind.

The pic to the left was taken about midnight on Fremont Street in downtown Vegas. My camera was braced on a street pole.

The entry below has nothing to do with Photoshop There are lots of blogs and pictures to come. I'll post them as soon as I can. This one is from my travel journal. I don't usually post stuff from my journal but I thought you might enjoy it.

Here goes: picture a man sitting in a hotel room bathed in warm desert sunlight. Picture this man glowering into his computer screen....

Vegas feels like this enormous illusion everyone has agreed to suspend all reason and simply believe in. Think of it in terms of a tooth fairy for grown-ups or a Santa Claus for adults.

There’s the notion that the next pull on the slot machine can change your life (and you’re not like a starving lab rat being conditioned to sniff out the location a food pellet you’ll never find); that the drinks the clothing-challenged waitresses bring really are free (and that their feet don’t hurt nor do they mind being ogled and groped by sixty thousand “convention-of-the-week” delegates) and that Vegas is one big happy community that is glad to see you.

I don’t think it is. I think Vegas is happy to see your money.

It’s a trade-off, though. Vegas provides the illusion that your money doesn’t matter, that twenty dollar bills should be pumped into a slot machine as fast as fat little fingers can shove them there. It whispers that “All you can eat buffets” are perfectly natural and that there’s no way that pounds of fat are pressing closer to your heart. It tells you that there’s no issue at all spending hour after hour in casinos so thick with the stink of cigarettes and spilled drinks that the aroma clings to your clothes when you wake with a faint headache the next morning; that the undercurrent of desperation and greed writhing just under the casino’s surface isn’t really there at all.

We all come together, Vegas and the tourists, to continue the daily re-creation of this massive dream in the middle of the desert – a place where logically nothing like this should exist. But the complete absurdity that it is only serves to continue fuelling the legend. It’s a legend -- not an illusion because illusions are fragile. Legends aren’t. And the Vegas legend is as tactile as a turd frying on a sidewalk beneath a killing sun. In a way, the legend of Vegas is bulletproof.

I have some mental pictures of the Strip: the MGM lion in all its glittering, snarling splendor. If you can suppress your gag reflex, pop by the Excalibur and take your free daily pull on the Sword in the Stone Slot Machine. (You could walk away with a spiffy Excalibur cup or a keychain.) Take a few mental snapshots of fat families scurrying from casino to restaurant in plaid overstuffed shorts as they tote yard long margaritas in neon green plastic cups. I am thinking also about the indifferent Mexican men, who never meet your eyes, passing out little porn pamphlets to other men as they walk by…and the men who take them…and the wives of the men who take them.

I have a love/hate relationship with this city. Part of me steps back and shakes its head. Maybe it is because Vegas caters with marksman’s precision at the heart of all the things that used to obsess me: drinking, drugs, sex – all the places where my flesh aches for attention. It’s sort of like sitting and calmly contemplating a snake you know is planning bite you.

That’s why part of me wants to go directly to the Wizard of Oz penny slot machine, swill bad wine and wait for the next faint hunger pang so I can eat.

I come here, I look around me at the mountains, but my eyes are drawn back to the bright lights of the Strip and the promise of buried treasure behind each façade. I think that there could be something fabulous just around the next corner but that the lovely hot sun and perfect weather only exists only in little pockets between the air-conditioned smoke-choked casinos.

This time, frankly – I find myself hating Vegas more than loving it. I find myself wanting to step back from it, wanting to step out of the powerful pull of its current. Part of me does not want to be here with these people and part of me tells the first part to lighten up (so very many parts!), that I am ruining a wonderful trip not just for myself, but also for my wife with my morose thoughts. I knew what Vegas was like. I’ve been here many times. So why is it so offensive to me now? I can’t figure it out. My irritation level is high. My tolerance for my own bullshit is very low (which is tough because I am, after all, me and escape is not practical).

I woke up in a deep funk yesterday and absolutely determined to be happy. I engaged in banter with my wife. We went to a time-share presentation at the complex where we are staying, lured by two $50 gift cards and two show tickets. We endured salespeople with the kind of frantic offers that made me feel like a slow cow, trying to traverse piranha-infested waters. Then we went to a casino to redeem our show tickets and were unable to escape its pull. We spent most of the day there.

My wife is fine with all of this. Sheree has the personality determined to enjoy wherever she happens to be at any given moment…even during given moments with morose husbands. She likes the colors and life of the slot machines. She loves the vitality of this place. She embraces everywhere we go because she has a true traveler’s spirit. I watch her and my heart fills with something so very powerful that it burbles up within me with such force and love that by the time it reaches my mouth, it emerges in nothing but defeated silence.

She sees the slots purely as entertainment, views the money as spent the instant it leaves her wallet, so she settles back to enjoy the ride. She has the ability to go to a place and take the good things from it while the bad just roll off her. She refers to my funks as “being weird.” And the first actual question out of her mouth this morning was “Are you still weird?” which poked the nasty dragon that lives in the caves of my heart, since apparently I never know when I am behaving strangely…and the very question itself makes me feel…well…weird. And then I start acting weird and there I am again: thinking “Shit. I AM weird.”

SO today, I will try very hard to be normal. I will take pictures. Lots of them. I will do my absolute best to ensure that my little “mood” does not ruin any more of my wife’s day. I will participate in the things we do and I will enjoy them. I will absolutely positively NOT be weird.

I have re-read all this just now and I have to admit that I have painted a bleaker picture than the one that is inside me. It’s not all that terrible. There are things here that are wonderful.

Our free show tickets to “V” were well worth enduring a sales presentation. “V” stands for ‘Variety’ because the show features artists who are trying to break into the Vegas entertainment scene. They were funny and a genuine joy to watch. Their lack of polish only added to their charm.

The desert wind on my face out back of the casino last night as I waited for the shuttle and listened to wonderful tunes on my iPod was warm and clean and welcome. It felt a little like God caressing my cheek.

Speaking of faces…I look at my wife’s face, happy as she travels or delights in the spin of video reels and that is lovely to me too.

The food at the Planet Hollywood buffet was perfect. I ruined it for myself by taking too much.

Come to think of it, I ruined the slot machine experience for myself by becoming greedy and personally invested in a game that I know is custom designed to separate me from my money. To be angry when the money actually disappears is…well…weird.

Come to think of it, I am happily shitting all over what really IS potentially a wonderful travel experience with my admittedly melancholy personality.

Am I able to be here and enjoy being here?

Yes.

I am.

Okay, episode over.

Hmmm.

Time to kiss my wife on the back of her neck (even though she is intent on writing something and will interpret the gesture as “weird” and will, at best, ignore it and at worst rebuke me for being insensitive to her creative process) and get on with the day.

That’s okay. Viva Las Vegas…

Time to take some pictures.