The Best Magician in the World

If you fire a cannon anywhere in Vegas, two things are going to happen. First: casino security guys will be all over you in about three seconds. Second: you will hit about six hundred magicians.

Magic is everywhere here. I don't mean the "Route 66" variety of magic. I mean "guys who do tricks" magic. There are at least 7,524 of the 'Dance around the stage while you do an illusion and try to look just like David Copperfield' variety.

Yawn.

There are 2,647 "pick a card...any card" types.

Double yawn.

Then there's Mac King, who you can see most afternoons at Harrah's casino for about twenty-five bucks. (OR you can go to guest services, get a coupon that lets you in for $9.95 and includes a free drink.)

For the first time I lined up after a show with the rest of the audience to shake a performer's hand. (I hate doing this since I am not a groupie...and groupies do stuff like that..and...well...never mind.) I just wanted to tell him that I very much enjoyed his work.

"Hi," he said.

I nod and remember to smile.

"I really enjoyed your show. I've seen you a number of times. You have wonderful material. Wonderful presentation. Great show."

He smiles and shakes my hand. He says something which I don't hear since I am praying that I didn't just sound like some gushing magic dweeb.

"I'd really like to take your picture," I say.

"Sure. I'll do whatever you want," says King.

I am unable to come up with a witty comment so I raise the camera.

"Take off the lens cap first," he says.

Shit.

I wouldn't be tongue-tied meeting David Copperfield or the Pope. But here's a guy I genuinely respect, a guy who does what I do (comedy magic) and he is the best in the business. Plus he's just a nice guy. I got the picture and declined an offer to have my picture taken with him because that was just a little too groupie-like.

I first saw Mac King when I was just getting into magic. This would be around the early 1990's. I was twelve. (Ahem.) He was at one of the first magic conventions I ever attended in St. Louis and he was precisely in the middle of a long list of acts.

When he came on-stage dressed like a hick in a plaid suit, he had my attention. No black tuxedo? Nary a single sequin? No showy music! No dancing? Not a single appearing cane? No freaking rabbits? This guy oozed different.

And he was funny. Really, really funny. (Producing genuine laughter is a lot tougher than producing a rabbit. Trust me.)

I won't outline his show since I think that's not very cool to do. Suffice it to say that the yellow raincoat thingie is one of the ultimate classics of magic in my books...so is the hand shadow bit which has such a slam-bang surpise finish that the woman beside me spilled her mai tai all over her blouse.

If you find yourself in Vegas one day, avoid the over-priced shows. Take an afternoon to see Mac King, the official winner of the David Thiel Best Magician In The World Award.

On another topic, I heard recently from Sarah in PA. She wondered if this was still a Photoshop blog. As I re-read these past postings, I realize I have said very little about Photoshop, our website (http://www.photoshopbasics.com/) and only a little about photography.

Yup. It's still a Photoshop blog, Sarah. Every pic you see here has been Photoshopped. And I will get back to things like correcting over-exposed images and how to use Adjustment Layers to unmake major "whoops" moments behind the lens.

But I also find travel, the people and the places, seriously fascinating. That's why I blog about them...and I really like to get the details down while they are still fresh in my little mind. So bear with me for just a little while.

Photography captures a moment. We've all heard that. There's a frozen second in every picture. Travel is like that. You get just one second at a time -- and each one either becomes a concrete memory -- or it fades off into oblivion and is lost forever. Think of these little travel vignettes as pictures that flow from my mind to yours. (Okay. That sounds a little gross. Let me put it this way: writing is like a mental snapshot communicated from one human being to another. There. Much better.)

Or you could pop back in a few days when I am done with the whole Vegas trip and am back into Photoshop and Photography.

Just a small word of warning: at the end of this month, Sheree and I are going to Houston, San Antonio and New Orleans. (We're travelling for the first time with another couple.) It's the last trip of the year (also the last trip we can afford *sigh*) and I will very likely have a lot more to share after that.

But thank you for writing! It helps me to know I am not just talking to myself.

Where the Hell is Seligman?

You've heard the expression: "It was 110 degrees in the shade!" Usually those last three words 'in the shade' are delivered with the breathless pronouncement of someone trying to tell a big fat lie with enough passion that they hope it will be believable.

But in Seligman, Arizona (population 456) I checked a thermometer. It was 110 degrees. Said thermometer was In the shade. Honest.

You'll find Seligman a very pleasurable two hour Route 66 drive away from Kingman -- which is about two hours out of Vegas. When you hit this tiny town the first thing you are going to notice is that it is really different. (Okay. The first thing I noticed as we got out of our air-conditioned car was that it was HOT. Sheree and I concluded it was like breathing inside a pizza oven. Small exaggeration. But it was, after all, 110 degrees in the...well y'know.)

Imagine a town created by aging hippie bikers. There's a pronounced "live and let live" feeling. Each of the shops reflects the personality of its owner and I think that's straight up wonderful.

Take the Rusty Bolt for example. This place caters to bikers. Just bikers. And tourists that wish they were bikers. There's leather. There are black Harley tshirts. There are helmets. There's an asthmatic guy in a black leather vest who smells of smoke, but still wears his white hair in a pony tail behind the counter. I started chatting with him.

I was wondering how a business can sustain itself selling biker stuff in a town that is literally in the middle of nowhere on a highway most of the world has forgotten...although I put my question as diplomatically as possible since he is also a really big asthmatic biker guy.

As he wraps up my new Harley tshirt (since I am one of of the "old guys who has always fancied himself a biker on the inside even though he has never learned how to drive one but still thinks 'live to ride' is a really cool slogan even though he's not entirely sure what it means") he turns flat blue eyes on me.

"It's a great ride, man," he growls. That voice that has seen a lot of smoke and a lot of booze.

At this point I suspect that he knows I am not a biker. The big camera around my neck, my New Orleans tshirt and my natty Tilley hat may have given me away. Still I am buying something from him and he's probably decided not to kill me just yet.

Out front of his store is a biker chick. Actually, she's one of those store dummies dressed like a biker chick. When I arrived, there were several bikers out front taking pictures of each other doing socially unacceptable things to her.

I thought she might make for an interesting picture, but the straight-on shots weren't working. I wanted to do something that would make the picture a little skewed. When I took it from above it made for a much more interesting graphic.

There's a restaurant about a block away from the biker place. Here the guys behind the counter have well rehearsed ways of interacting with customers. It's sort of like walking into a modern Marx Brothers movie.

A tourist asked for a straw. The guy behind the counter brings out a handful of real straw. Get it? If you ask for a napkin, they bring up a two options ("New or gently used?" he asks.)

After I placed my order for a cheeseburger and a peanut butter flavored malt (you just shush...) he asked me if I wanted mustard. I said I did and he pointed a mustard bottle at me and a jet of yellow squirted out of it and onto my favorite New Orleans tshirt.

For a second my brain does not comprehend this. Then I get mad. Then I realize that the yellow stuff is actually a yellow string. We both have a good laugh about that. (It is a good thing that I wasn't wearing my biker tshirt. If I had been, he would have been a dead man.)


I don't believe that travel pics always have to be the artsy variety. Don't get me wrong -- I can get as artsy as they next pretend biker in a Harley tshirt. But often something as a documentary shot of something as simple as a door can make a great subject.

Click on the yellow door and have a look at it. (This makes each picture it's original size. Isn't technology grand?) Do you see the two knobs? How about the hundreds of stickers? There's no place for a Rule of Fourths here. It's all just interesting stuff.

I find I can look at this one for a while. When I do, I will remember the heat. I'll remember that a peanut butter malt turns into a milkshake in about eighteen seconds. I will remember an enchanting couple of hours spent in Seligman, AZ -- a place that crackles with personality and that very special Route 66 magic.

Route 66: Pure Travel Magic

As a kid I grew up watching the Route 66 TV show on our crappy black and white television. Each week I planted myself on our light orange carpet, transfixed at the very notion of traveling on one highway spanning the distance between two oceans. The people you could meet! The things you would see! I don’t exaggerate when I say that the very idea of Route 66 left me breathless with an imagination in overdrive, thinking hard about what it would be like to actually travel that road.

On our recent trip to Vegas we did.

I’ll be completely honest: The simple idea of Route 66 still makes a lump form in my throat. There’s an indefinable ‘something’ about a mostly two-lane highway that covers the 2,400 plus miles between Chicago and Los Angeles. It’s a grand notion. I like grand notions. I like that thousands of completely unique businesses sprang up out of nowhere to serve travelers. I like that the highway was called the “Mother Road” during a golden period between 1926 and 1985.

What happened in 1985? That was the year the US government declared Route 66 “redundant” in favor of the soulless but much faster, broader, flatter and straighter superhighways. The Route 66 businesses went bankrupt overnight and today huge stretches of this highway lie unused and are slowly sliding into ruin. It is this picture, more than any other, that causes the aforementioned lump to form in my throat.

You can still travel chunks of this highway. A particularly long stretch is about two hours out of Las Vegas. Start off at the Route 66 museum in Kingman. You’ll get a powerful sense for the passion people feel for Route 66 and its unique place in American history. From there you can ride the highway once dubbed “America’s Main Street” into Arizona or California.

Route 66 still retains its magic. I mean that. Literal magic. It spells out “f-r-e-e-d-o-m” to me, particularly when I hit it with a full tank of gas and my favorite person sitting beside me. You expect to hear the Coasters or Fats Domino or maybe Platters. You simply cannot stop smiling. (Okay. I couldn’t stop smiling.)

Route 66 is to photographers what an “all you can eat buffet” is to a hungry cowboy. There’s something fabulous to photograph around each corner: the vastness of the desert, towns desperately trying to claw their way out of obscurity, restaurants with real character and the kind of food that you didn’t think anyone serves anymore.

What’s behind the charm? As we find ourselves getting older, we look back at what used to be with a fuzzy nostalgic sort of longing. Where are the businesses that smiled at you when you arrived because they were glad to see you…and not because a greeting is mandated in some corporate handbook? Where are real french fries cut from real potatoes and not “reshaped potato paste?” Where is that lighter than air feeling you get when you travel for the joy of the journey and not hunched over the wheel cursing tailgaters and fixating on getting where you’re going as quickly as possible?

Route 66 still has an abundance of magic to share. Here’s a place where people do look back at the past and reassure you that it’s not entirely gone. There are still little pockets of magic left. There’s still a way to ‘get your kicks on Route 66.’

If you go to Vegas and you don’t take a day trip out to Kingman and points beyond, then you will never have any idea what an utterly fabulous travel experience awaits you just two hours off the stinky Strip. And that, friend, would be a tragedy. Go. Take pictures. Talk to the people. Eat the food. Relax into the experience. This is the real stuff. It can’t be synthesized. It can’t be copied. Don’t even try to explain it.

Route 66 is not redundant. Real magic never is.

Poking through The Boneyard

When we heard about “The Boneyard” it became an “ABSOLUTE GOTTA GET THERE” for our trip to Las Vegas. What is The Boneyard? It’s a three-acre site where the signs that once reigned over the Strip decades ago have been sent to die.

For photographers – it’s pure magic. I mean these are the signs that once lured scientists testing atom bombs into the casinos. These signs glowed their neon siren call to WWII soldiers, one-in-a-million jackpot winners and countless forehead-thumping tourists muttering “Oh my God…what have I DONE???”

These signs poured their light onto the Las Vegas of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.

You get the idea, right? I love signs. These particular signs are time travelers to me.

I was beside myself when we arrived on a Monday afternoon, only to find the museum closed all day. My wife, Sheree, and I consoled ourselves by snapping pictures through tears in the fence, standing on concrete blocks and from other vantage points wise 50+ photographers wouldn't even consider. But we were like two sharks in a frustrated feeding frenzy. There a was a fence with green matting between our prey and us. We vowed to each other repeatedly, through gnashing teeth that we WERE coming back and we WERE getting into that yard.

After a couple of fruitless phone calls, on-line research and calls to affiliated groups, a picture began to form. The Boneyard is run by a small group of really earnest “protect these signs at all costs” volunteers called “The Neon Museum” (http://www.neonmuseum.org/) and you have to contact them in advance if you want the tour.

Trust me: you want the tour.

We got there about a quarter to ten and the temperature was already approaching 100f. (As a matter of biological fact, this is close to the Melting Point for Canadians. Trapped in high temperatures, we will simply cease to exist, leaving behind only a little puddle, a souvenir t-shirt, a pair of garish shorts and sunglasses.)

We found out they’d lost our reservation (made only the day before) but that there was room for us. We paid the $15/head donation fee and were passed no-nonsense waivers regarding the non-commercial use of photos, given a bottle of water (“You are really gonna need this,” said the earnest young man behind the desk with a very earnest tone) and told to wait.

So we waited.

Our guide was also very earnest, much aware of her role as protector of these neon structures, and she led us across the street and FINALLY unlocked the gate to the Boneyard.

I am sure she was talking about something as I bolted into the Boneyard. I was only aware of the sound of her voice. Maybe she was even saying something interesting. But I didn't care. I was taking pictures, wandering the first of two huge lots where the signs have been placed. I was enjoying one of the best calorie free visual feasts in Vegas.

While we were there, the temperature climbed to just under 110f…but I didn’t notice. I was busy photographing, lagging behind the group, irritating our guide just a little. Sheree, my wife (who couldn’t care less about irritating anyone…but has a manner about her that defies continued irritation) was behind me, chatting amiably to other photographers and making photo after photo.

Sweat was running down my back and under my arms in undignified trails of wet. I didn’t notice. I was taking pictures and making frequent “oooooh” and “ahhhhhh” noises. I’ll take a fascinating subject over air conditioning any day.

We moved from one Boneyard into the next. A few members of our tour couldn’t take the heat and dropped out. “Pfffft,” thought I. “If you can’t take the heat, get out of the Boneyard.” I was first in line when our guide opened the gate to the second yard. My shutter finger was still quivering.

There’s a lot of broken glass. There are twisted metal shards. There’s even what remains of a “Mr. Lucky” sign that a homeless person tried to live in and subsequently set fire to. Poor Mr. Lucky has a charred arm left lying on the ground. Yup. It looks creepy.

There are manic looking clowns (I hate clowns) and high kicking cowgirls . There are voodoo heads and two-sided-way-too-cute duck signs. There’s even the old Stardust sign that I first saw when it was still in use. I passed under it often on my way to what was arguably the best buffet in Vegas each time I was in town for a magic convention. Seeing it here made me feel just a little strange. Gee…it wasn’t even that long ago. Was it?

Was it?

Signs, just like casinos, have a very short life span in Las Vegas. It’s like this whole town is suffering from a sort of attention deficit disorder that compels it to tear down old buildings and put up new ones. This place is continually re-creating itself.

Here's a skull from Treasure Island Casino with some lettering in front spelling "CSI." Apparently the people at the Neon Museum have a sense of humor as well as being earnest. Who did kill this big pirate guy?

Photographing these signs was tough because the sunlight was so intense. Even with significant changes to my Exposure Compensation, the lowest ISO setting I have and everything else I could think of, all of the pictures needed some major tweaking. (I'd forgotten my lens hood in my camera bag. And there are NO CAMERA BAGS! NO EXCEPTIONS! signs in the Neon Museum office. These signs are both firm and earnest...so you know they aren't kidding.) To combat unreasonably bright shooting conditions, try working with Curves in an Adjustment Layer. You may also find a Contrast/Brightness Adjustment layer could be your new best friend.

Nope. That's not entirely true. Aloe vera is your best friend. How do I know this? About half an hour after our trip to the boneyard, Sheree and I were sitting in a way off-Strip restaurant. I'll admit I was a little vacant. The world had taken on a sort of distant "minor heat stroke" glow, I felt like a mostly disengaged spectator. I could not seem to focus. Sheree would say something to me and I would look at her with eyes that really didn't see anything and say "What?" a lot while I attempted to process her words.

Eventually she sighed and gave up and went to the bathroom, read the menu with great interest or chatted with strangers. Water and cool smoke-scented air conditioning inside the casino brought the world back into some semblance of focus.

As I began to re-enter the land of the living, I noticed a certain burning sensation in the soft skin behind my right knee. It was a space about the size of a dollar bill that I had missed with the sunscreen -- and it was a bright angry red. I walked like one of the female impersonators from the Tropicana Hotel for a few days. Ah well. Small price to pay, right?

So when you’re in Vegas, get off the strip. Go to The Boneyard. This is the secret desert location where the really big bodies are buried!

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.