Las Vegas is not my bag… I don’t gamble, I’m not into the spectacle, the whole thing just drips of white trash Disney Land, diabetes, excess, the deliberate, purposeful waste of resources. I’ve visited a grand total of one time. An old friend reached out when I was in a bad place and really needed an escape and floated the idea, he had a time share and money and the appetite and so we went, for what it’s worth. I spent the long weekend self medicating with Jack Daniel’s. I won’t lie, it was fun, the weirdness of it all, a circus that no one asked for but apparently everyone wanted.
No. 0137_07 - The Riviera, Las Vegas, August of 2008
I saw a wedding party at the Venetian Hotel, dressed to the nines, tuxedos and white dress and brides maids, parents in tow, glowing, and it dawned on me, almost by accident, they were married in a mall food court. I didn’t have the heart to take a picture, it was too surreal…
No. 0138_30 - Lovers, Las Vegas, August of 2008
We stopped at some street front bar, if you could call it that, a hap-hazard collection of plastic tables and chairs and liquor and drunks, a young couple posted up, possibly, likely more inebriated than myself, not care in the world. I made that photograph after having, let’s just say “enough” to drink, hand held, at a quarter of a second, with a 50 year old screw mount Leica. Call it luck. I’ve always felt it was one of those photographs that might make me famous, but alas…