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.

Luck be a Lady Tonight...

We're off tomorrow in the early morning hours for a week long trip to Vegas, Arizona and Route 66.

The pic to the right is of me and my favorite person. It's from our last trip to Vegas. It was a day so hot you could smell the heat coming off the pavement. Fortunately my wife and I absolutely love hot places. We took this pic with my eVolt 500 set on auto-timer out front of the Atomic Testing Museum (which is a wee bit off the strip -- but well worth the trip.)

I usually avoid museums, but this one was an all time favorite. You'll see some amazing photographs of people watching atom bombs going off as they sip highballs. The testing of these devices used to be the biggest tourist attraction in all of Nevada. There was even a "Miss Atomic Bomb" who wore a pic of a mushroom cloud on her swimsuit. Since it's Vegas, you can get a picture of Miss Atomic Bomb doing a Marilyn Monroe kind of pose on a poker chip. Could anything be more Vegas than that?

There are also "Public Safety Films" where you see this very calm family walking into a fully equipped bomb shelter. As they close they door the notice that their son, Skipper, isn't among them. The mother freaks out (well as much as a mother with perfect hair in a 50's style dress can freak out) and wants to go and get him. The father calmly assures her that Skipper knows to come home and that they will only make matters worse if they go after him. (I sort of suspected Father had some hostility issues toward Skipper.)

Anyway -- not to worry: Skipper shows up. He seems tired. This is understandable since he has just lived through an atomic explosion. Father calmly tells Grandma to take Skipper upstairs, take off all his clothes and put a cool washcloth on his forhead. (See? I told you Father had some issues...) Father says Skipper will be "just fine" after a little nap. Uh huh.

Vegas is an exciting place if you manage to escape from the gravitational pull of the Strip. This shopping center pic was taken as the sun was almost down. It's across the street from a Greek Isles theme casino (a study in "really tacky Vegas where seniors go to die with a complimentary watered down drink in one hand and the other resting on the handle of a slot machine") where I'd gone to see a magic show.

There's no Photoshopping done to the photo other than a little punch to the contrast.

I really believe that if you plan to photograph anything that has been photographed a LOT (like...umm Vegas), that you need to change your visual perspective and try to show it in a new way.

The detour to Death Valley and Route 66 has been on our minds for a long time. My wife and I went to Ben Willmore's "Photoshop for Photographers" NAPP seminar few months ago. Here's a guy who does amazing work. When he's not teaching, he lives in his bus and photographs Route 66. Is that cool or what? Have a look at his stuff. It's remarkable: http://www.digitalmastery.com/ So we're going to have a trip along the Arizona leg of Route 66 -- and expect to get some wonderful pictures, meet some wonderful people and build some wonderful memories. (Isn't that wonderful?)

We leave tomorrow. Today I am taking my precious grandson to the Edmonton Indy which should be a blast. Then I rush home, watch my wife pack, clean out my photography bag, sleep for a few hours and head to the airport.

So today I am brimming with expectations. What pictures will there be on the road? Who will I meet? It's a modern day adventure. I love the pre-trip excitement as much (okay almost as much) as I love travelling. How do you define that "pre-going glow?"

You're welcome to come along! Meet me here, okay?

Pictures vs Snapshots

West Edmonton Mall is just down the street from my house. In that mall they have a "life sized" replica of one of Christopher Columbus's ships. It is sponsored by Kodak.

There used to be a sign there suggesting where tourists might want to take a picture from. (Oddly, this was also sponsored by Kodak...in the dark days of film before digital became the norm.) I would watch as tourist after tourist lined up so they could stand there and snap a shot of the Big Boat.

I suspect that they each wound up with a decent picture. And it's obvious they weren't trying to make graphic art. They were just wanting to take a decent picture. They wanted to make a documentary picture that says "This is what it looked like. And I was there." This is a perfectly cool reason for taking a snapshot. If you are a tourist.

Graphic artists, on the other hand, are trying to make graphic art...which is why the job description fits so well. At our recent Capital X celebration, this booth caught my eye. While I am not entirely sure what Frozen Dessert actually is, I thought the very best way to present it was to use the lines in both of the ice cream cones and the lettering to point up to the dramatic sky. For this graphic I was not caring so much that the picture itself be a documentary as I was in showing the towering cone reaching for the sky. It is an absurd concept, huh?

Tweety, on the other hand had been abandoned somewhere on the midway. I suspect someone spent $4,000 trying to win it. Tweety abandoned wasn't a particularly interesting picture. When my wife put Tweety (I've never been sure if Tweety is a boy or a girl, by the way) on a garbage can with a Navy sticker the colors, textures and contrast really popped.

I played around with putting crosshairs in the middle of Tweety's forehead, but in the end I decided to leave it the way it was.

The last fair picture is a good example of trying to take a picture of a PART of something to give a sense of the overall thing. This ride was in Kidsworld and had a wonderful rusty look to it. Colors and glass, textures and life just crackled from it as a subject.


As a straight graphic, it didn't work. So I made a selection of a border within the picture (using the Rectangular Marquee Tool and then going to Select > Inverse). The I took the Dodge tool (found in the toolbox) and set the Exposure to about 50% and very gently darkened the border.

You'll see that the dead center of the flower places in the upper right Dynamic Point in the Rule of Thirds. That is what makes the picture work.

Here are Three Great Rules For Taking A Picture That Isn't The Same As Everyone Else Is Taking And Maybe Even Getting Graphic Art Out Of It (TGRFTAPTITSAEEITAMEGGAOOI for short):

1) Try a different angle. If everyone else is taking a straight on shot of a Ferris Wheel, try standing under it and shooting upward. Try standing across from it and the angles that way. Get above it if you can. You'll be surprised at what you see.

2) Take LOTS of pictures. It's digital. Relax. What doesn't work you can delete, right? So snap away like crazy and then delete like crazy when you see how they turned out. You need to expect that most of the pictures are going to suck. That's okay. Cause one of them won't...

3) Crop like a Crazy Person. Remember that "Undo" is a wonderful command. I use it a lot. Really. Don't be afraid to skew the picture wildly to one side, or crop out a panel...or break the whole picture into panels. You'll start seeing things in the shot you never knew were there. That's where the art comes from.

Don't stand where everyone else is standing. Go the other way. Take chances with your shots. Try different exposure compensations, try different shutter speeds. Try different Scene Modes. Try lots of stuff.

Eventually you will keep doing stuff until it's no longer stuff -- but becomes Stuff You KNOW. And that kind of stuff results in great Graphic Art.

Photographing Brent Butt

I don't like Canadian TV.

Frankly it's been a little embarassing. The height of our cultural "televisionary" experience in my childhood was The Beachcombers -- which looked, to me, like a bunch really bad actors who lucked out during "Canadian Content" madness imposed/inflicted by the CRTC.

American game shows give away trips and cars. Canadian game shows give away toasters.

So when my wife and I spent the day at Capital X and learned that Brent Butt, the star and creator of "Corner Gas" was the featured entertainer, I wasn't all that keen to see him.

He turned out to be polished, charming and intelligent -- which made me wonder how he ever got onto Canadian television. Midway through his show I decided to try to photograph him.

It was a challenge: the stage was bathed in a sickly blue light. The sun was going down and there were several hundred people milling around in front of the stage. Butt moves a lot during his show, paces back and forth, gestures wildly, talks to the audience and the security guards. I had my ISO cranked to 800 and I needed my telephoto to get any kind of decent picture. (Telephoto lenses cut out a lot of the light you really need at that time of night, by the way. Think of looking through a paper towel roll. That's what a telephoto does.)

I shot maybe thirty pics of Butt (and yes, the name still makes me laugh) and, along with the predictable grain and occasionally blurred focus, I realized that the pictures didn't come close to capturing the energy this guy was expending.

I'm always conscious of trying to convey how it felt to stand there. How do you convey a performer's energy?

For the graphic above, I chose to use Photoshop's outstanding B&W adjustment (Image>Adjustments>Black and White) option. I really believe this is one of the best things about CS3 since you can now manipulate the individual colors. The blue light started working for me. It produced a very pleasing "glow" on his shirt and his head. I used my dodge tool to darken some of the "way too bright" areas and then created an Curves Adjustment Layer. I wanted the picture to convey energy as well. I skewed it slightly to the left in the crop so it's off balance...just enough to look interesting to the eye.


Butt was a great subject. He mugged a lot for the audience, held interesting objects (hats, Spiderman hammers, etc) and had an amazingly expressive face. I had a good time photographing him.

Stage performers are usually good subjects because they are...well...performing. This makes for some great expressions and wonderful postures. You need to be really conscious of clutter like microphones and backstage distractions. Shooting from a crowd under less than ideal lighting can make for some very tough conditions and Histograms that will make you wince. Just remember these three quickie options for "Improving Crappy Stage Performer Photos":

1) Got Grain in your image? You've got two options. You can use Photoshop to remove it (which isn't always the best option) or you can actually ADD grain. That's what I did on the top photo. Adding grain can give you a wonderful gritty effect.

2) Crop well, grasshopper. If you don't know about the Rule of Thirds (which is yet another spiffy entry on this blog) you need to learn it. The RoT is one of the best guides ever for removing junk in your image and honing in on what the picture is really about. Sometimes what the pic is really about will actually surprise you.

3) Remove distractions. All of them. If it doesn't add to the image and what the image is ABOUT, cut it out. Use the clone tool or the Healing Brush but get rid of it. In the Spidey Hammer picture, there were lots of silver poles behind my subject. I removed nearly all of them easily. What's a distraction? Pay attention to where your eyes go as you first look at the photo. Do they go to your subject or do they drift around looking at a bunch of "stuff?" Dump the "stuff."

I found the fair to be a wonderful place for shooting photos. More about that in a later blog. Right now my wife and I are getting ready for a trip that starts in Vegas and then meanders down to Route 66 and Arizona. We understand there are wonderful pictures along this partially deserted highway.

Want to come along?

Golden Hour

Have you heard photographers use the term "Golden Hour?" I first heard it on a perfect afternoon in Nova Scotia in one of the world's most photographed places: Peggy's Cove.

My wife, the true photographer in the family, started planning where she was going to be during "golden hour" -- and, since I assumed this meant some event at a bar, I was completely on board.

When I asked her about it, she first laid one of those "are you kidding me?" looks on me and then explained that golden hour was that perfect time when the sun is just going down and a wonderful light bathes the world with soft, magical color. So we planned where we were going to rush to when Golden Hour actually happened.

While my pictures that day were nothing spectacular, I tried manfully to grasp the concept. Understanding only came when I finally agreed with myself that I could never explain the effect (and truth be told, I don't want to since something truly magical should never be explained) and simply accept that it happens...and try to position myself near something cool when it does.

The eagle statue in this blog was taken at the perfect time in Golden Hour. Other than cropping, there's no Photoshop work at all. This is the picture of an otherwise mostly uninteresting grey statue in Philadelphia. It sits at the entrance to a bridge near the Amtrak station. When we passed by it in the morning, it looked mostly uninteresting and grey. But when we returned as the sun was going down even my throbbing feet could not prevent me from wanting to stop and take some photographs.

You'll want to look very carefully at your subject during Golden Hour. If the object of your attention is moveable (you can get some wonderful portraits at this time) you'll want to move them so you get maximum light on their face. You'll be astounded at how the perfect lighting breathes magic into your subject.

What IS golden hour light? I really couldn't tell you. I have no idea how it would be replicated in a studio. And, having given it careful consideration for at least two and one half full minutes, I am convinced that the perfect lighting of Golden Hour is one thing that cannot be easily replicated in Photoshop...if it can be done at all. How would you get the great soft light and the perfect shadows without hours and hours on the screen with Photoshop? Better to just relax and take your pictures during this magical time.

I read a book once (okay...more than one book) where the advice to the 'serious' photographer was to spend an entire day around your subject. It advised that you watch carefully how the light changes and how the shadows move to create a completely new "look" to your subject. It's something I plan to do...one day. But until then I will just wait for Golden Hour light to fall on a beautiful thing and make it even more beautiful.

But there's no question: Golden Hour is God's gift to photographers.

Little Pictures in Big Places

Places don't come any bigger than New York City. There's something wonderful around every corner. There are the biggies: the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building -- Broadway.

You're expected to take pics of those. I'd think you had some wasting brain disease if you didn't. But I've done all those. Now when I go there, I am looking for the "little pictures."

The great "Little Pictures" are like fairies -- because you usually see them out of the corner of your eye and if you don't look again, they're gone with a tiny change of angle or a subtle shift of light.

If you've been anywhere near NYC, you know "The Dark Knight" is being advertised everywhere. I find the photo of Heath Ledger particularly spooky because it's a creepy pic. But more than that, it's a creepy pic of a dead guy which makes it even spookier.

This is my first "Little Picture." What's more New York than a subway station? What could make a picture of the fabled cartoon character, the Joker, more interesting than to turn everything around it into a comic book and leave the picture of the cartoon character as a picture? Have a good look at it. (Click on the photo and you can see it "big.") It's not hard to turn the real world into a comic book. I did some blurring and ghosting of the image and then I used Snap Art -- the Alien Skin plug in to complete the picture.

Speaking of Gotham City, how about the bird head? He (she maybe?) is a minor detail on a fountain. The effect of this little picture required no Photoshop work a all -- other than the light border. I wanted the creature to be glaring at something we couldn't see. I wanted the texture of the stone and the cracks to be part of it. I used a Macro scene adjustment with a flash so that the whole background blurred and we are left looking along the same line as the stone bird.

I can't take credit for the last "Little Picture" I want to share in this blog. We're all familiar with the 9/11 tragedy. My wife and I try to get by the site of the reconstruction as often as we can. She spotted this little fire hydrant on the other side of the fence and began photographing it furiously. I had no idea what it was that had captured her attention until I took the time to look.

This "Little Picture" is about a lot of things. It's about the texture on the fireplug and the solid feel it has. It's about the little sticker that someone went to a lot of trouble to put onto it...and it's about wondering about that certain someone and why they chose the words they chose and why they chose to put them onto a sticker...and if they actually intended to use them on the WTC site from the beginning...and why.

I really like this one. It was very hard to get because it required a macro and a flash to do properly. I used Photoshop fairly extensively to bring up the lettering on the tag and to build more contrast into the fire plug.

But on the scale of Cool Little Pictures, it ranks at least a 9 for me. It would have been possible to do more work on it. But I wanted the lower portion of the fireplug to ease off into darkness with light falling on the top and the wee label.

Seeing the Little Picture isn't always easy. Sometimes it's a flag hanging from a lamp. Sometimes it's a person crossing the street. But good "Little Pictures" tell a story. Or they ask a question. Or they make a point. In a dynamite graphic -- they do all three.

Okay...It's Time to FLASH the World!

This IS a blog about Photoshop and Photography. It's going to stay that way. But I wanted to let you all know why I may occasionally break down into sudden fits of Inarticulate Sounds of Complete Suffering.

I am told that the world is using FLASH. And it's time for me to set aside significant misgivings and actually learn this Adobe program.

Most of my professional life has been spent avoiding anything to do with coding or the mega-geek stuff that makes this old brain ache at the very notion of yet another learning curve.

You may or may not know that I am (in addition making a chunk of my income working with Photoshop and PowerPoint) a professional magician. I work with corporations doing trade shows and I do stage shows for kids. I like it all.

My first coding avoidance technique had be the design my website (http://theseriouslyfunnymagicguy.com/) which I took from a Dreamweaver template (for a SPA!) and created with great fear and trembling.

But more and more clients are demanding Flash in addition to Photoshop and PowerPoint. I created my own logo (the guy in the upper left corner) from a picture my wife took of me one evening in Rome. I decided against anything showy and decided to go with the photo and a plain text.

I've designed a few logos in my time (which pre-dates the dinosaurs) and, while clients often want something really flashy, the intent of a logo is to communicate an idea clearly.

Have you noticed that I am even avoiding dealing with Flash in this blog?

**sigh**

So the other day I took the plunge, spent money on Adobe Flash CS3, downloaded a couple of courses and got a library book on Flash CS3 (I used to buy TONS of books but noticed that I read them once and pretty much forgot about them) and started learning.

**sigh**

You know what I felt when I looked at the Flash desktop for the first time? It was very similar to the feeling I had when I looked at Photoshop for the first time. Only the toolbar was familiar. But there were TONS of things I didn't recognize. It was sort of like being in a country where you sort of speak the language -- but not really. It was an "Oh my God" moment. So I have an acute sympathy for those of you approaching Photoshop for the first time.

So here I go. Don't worry. I won't file endless updates on the learning of a new program. But I might mention it now and then. It will most likely be an inarticulate sound of human suffering as my brain stretches into uncomfortable horizons.

I understand that the above logo (developed in Photoshop of course) can be made to do some very cool things once I understand Flash. So that's what I am going to do.

Prepare to be Flashed, World.

Eventually.