I returned home to New York this morning following several days in Las Vegas visiting family. The trip was actually somewhat in jeopardy on Friday, my departure day, as
I spent quite a few hours that morning in the emergency room of a hospital here. As I wrote last week, I had not been feeling my best, and while I had definitely started feeling better for several days last week, that progress came crashing to an end Thursday night and Friday morning. Not wanting to take a chance of being stuck in a metal cylinder at 35,000 feet for over five hours Friday night while sick, I decided to go the emergency room. The prognosis was that I was able to travel – so I did.Photographically, the highlight of my time in Las Vegas was going out on Sunday with my friend Terrell Neasley’s Las Vegas Art Model’s Group. As Terrell likes my photography, I thought I’d go out and lend whatever expertise and information I could that I’ve gathered in over a dozen years
of photographing art nudes. At first I wasn’t going to bring a camera with me, both to lighten the load I’d need to schlep with me through the airports and to not take away any photo time from the participants who’d signed up. Terrell convinced me to bring it along and I’m glad I did, as these were the first outdoor nude photos I’d made since July of last year and the first in Nevada since 2006. I think that just getting out was good for me, considering how I'd been feeling.Working with one model and a bunch of other photographers is never easy, so I decided to limit my camera time, though I did still shoot three rolls of BW 220 film. Having been at group shoot
situations before, I know how difficult it can be to break away from the group to try something different, but I tried to do this at times and tried to encourage those there to do the same. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with starting out photographing models in a group, but eventually the time comes when it’s necessary to try to doing something more individual – even if it’s within a group situation.The model, by the way, was a young woman with
reddish hair and very beautiful eyes named Lydia. Perhaps I’ll be able to work with her again some time. As for the three rolls of film – well, they’ll have to wait until I develop the six rolls of Carlotta, which will have to wait until I develop the 36 from Southeast Asia, which will have to ….. (Will I ever have enough time to get caught up???)To read about the event from Terrell’s point of view, read his blog posting here.
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I don’t normally write about the cars that I rent, but this trip was something different. Perhaps because my flight’s departure was delayed on Friday and arrived late into Las Vegas, most or all of the compact cars (the type of car I ask for) at the car rental agency were gone. So, I ended up driving around for four days in an Infiniti M35. I’m not normally impressed by such things, but I have to say that this was a very nice car, with beautiful leather seats and an engine that I could feel the power in when I stepped on the accelerator. (I am not used to coasting uphill for significant distances!)
The most unusual thing about this car was the ignition key. It didn’t have one. Instea
d, the entire remote control slides into the dashboard. I had never ever seen such a thing before, so I had to get out of the car and ask for help when I first got it and then had to call the emergency road service phone number the next morning just to find out how to start the engine!
The most unusual thing about this car was the ignition key. It didn’t have one. Instea
d, the entire remote control slides into the dashboard. I had never ever seen such a thing before, so I had to get out of the car and ask for help when I first got it and then had to call the emergency road service phone number the next morning just to find out how to start the engine!
