Liquor Store – Las Vegas

12. September 2012 · Comments Off on Liquor Store – Las Vegas · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: ,

While at Photoshop World we stayed at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino.  This was a pretty nice hotel and every day we’d get up and walk down for breakfast (through the casino), walk past the shops (through the casino) and then go to the conference center (through the casino).  Pretty much all roads take you past some table or slot machine area.

Anyway one shop we past regularly was this liquor store.  What caught your eye was the gold window framing and the pink lights in the window.  It really was very pink and everyone who walked past seemed to stop and stair for a few minutes. Just across the walkway was a lit up purple waterfall but the shop got you first every time.

The trouble with this window was that it was in pretty low light.  I tried shooting this a few times but none of the images came out that well.  Then on the last day I had a tripod with me and grabbed a sneaky shot, and I’m really pleased I did as this came out really well.

I put a heavy vignette on this image as the background on the right was very bright and it pulled the eye away from the pink shop window.  So that’s why it looks darker on the right.  In the end a cool picture and a wicked liquor store – that happens to be right by the casino – what a surprise!

Tonight the guys decided to play laser tag!  It was a draw.

Bronze Angel – Hoover Dam

11. September 2012 · Comments Off on Bronze Angel – Hoover Dam · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: ,

Last Saturday morning I was in Las Vegas and had nothing to do until my flight home later that night. “Nothing to do in Las Vegas” I hear you ask?  How is that possible?  Well I’m not really into gambling and photographing Las Vegas in the day just isn’t as much fun as shooting at night.  So I decided a field trip was in order.  As Hoover Dam was only 30 minutes away (and I’d never been) I thought that would be a cool destination.

So Chris and I hired a car and we set off (just as a side note, it cost less to hire a car for 24 hours than the taxi fair too and from downtown Las Vegas, the night before).  It took us around 45 minutes to get to Hoover Dam (not including our stop over at Lake Mead and this scary casino right by Lake Mead for some breakfast), and it was ridiculously hot – well over 100 degrees.

Now I would imagine that Hoover Dam is really fantastic at night, I’m told that it’s all lit up and looks amazing.  If truth be told we tried to hire a car the night before but we got out of the conference after the Avis rental desk was closed.  But during the day in September it’s pretty hard sunlight everywhere.  Don’t get me wrong Hoover Dam is amazing especially when you realize when it was built (back in the early 1930s), but getting really cool pictures with the sun directly over head on the border of Nevada and Arizona, is pretty difficult.

Having said that I did capture a few images that I will post over the next few weeks but the first one I’m sharing is a picture of one of the two bronze angels.

On the Nevada side of the dam there are two winged figures that flank the American flag.  Sculptor Oskar Hansen (who created these figures) has an overly complex description of what these statues are and what they represent, I really don’t understand any of that, but I thought the figures looked really great.  There are actually two of these figures (or Angels) and I tried shooting them from quite a few angles.  I tried to compose an image with the figures all in frame, but there were a load of wires crossing the top of the statues and while I could have removed those in post processing, the full size images didn’t really look that great.

The thing that caught my eye is the image below.  I loved the contrast in the statue (the fact that I caught directly lit and shadowed parts of the figure) and the sky behind – which looked great I thought.  So this is the image I chose to post.  Home you like it.

Master Chief and Carter were arguing tonight over who had the bigger brain.  Master Chief proved his was larger when he got it out to show Carter!

Eye Candy Bar – Las Vegas

10. September 2012 · Comments Off on Eye Candy Bar – Las Vegas · Categories: Image a Day · Tags:

While in Las Vegas I literally carried my camera everywhere I went, on the first night Chris and I found the “Eye Candy” bar in the Mandalay Bay Hotel.  As it was a Tuesday night it was pretty deserted so we had the place to ourselves.  While sitting at the bar I thought the back of the bar would make a great picture.  It was so colorful and there were so many bottles I couldn’t not take a picture.

The only problem was, hotels in Las Vegas don’t like you taking pictures, especially around the casino.  I think the concern is that you capture someone who shouldn’t be there and people like their privacy (and private gambling).  So I was stuck.  I wanted to shoot the bar but was worried about getting the camera out.  So I thought I’d be sneaky.  I got the camera out and put it on the bar and sat there until the bar tender walked off.  They I quickly grabbed a few shots.

A few seconds later the barman returned and immediate figured out what I was doing.  Then he said, “Why don’t you take a picture from this location” pointing to the end of the bar, “It will look much better there”.  Chris and I were totally surprised.  We said thanks – re-setup the picture and captured the image below.  The barman even wend to the end of the bar so he wouldn’t be in the image.

Needless to say he got a nice tip.

The image came out much better than I expected.  The colors really popped and the shallow depth of field really added to the picture.  On the last day we got a little brazen with the cameras and just walked around the hotel shooting everything (with a tripod), and nobody said a thing.  So maybe you can take pictures in a Las Vegas hotel.  Either way I got some great shots.

Tonight Carter found my zoom microphone and decided to record his voice, so Master Chief managed the controls and levels while Carter sang into the mic – it was terrible.

Candy Girl – Las Vegas

09. September 2012 · Comments Off on Candy Girl – Las Vegas · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: ,

Well today was an interesting day, I went to the Apple Store to have them look at my week old MacBook Pro and was ready to get angry with them when they said “you have a hardware issue – lets get you a new computer”.  I have to say I was very impressed.  It appeared that one of the on-board heat sensors was faulty and that’s what was causing the issue.  In hindsight, I guess it could have been because I left the computer in the trunk of the car while at Hoover Dam (and it was over 100 degrees outside – probably a lot more in the trunk) – but then Chris’ computer was in the same place and his was fine.  Anyway, I got a nice new one and it’s fully loaded up and full of images.

So I was able to select another image from the Vegas trip.  This time I’m posting another model image, again this was captured at the Westcott display at the show’s expo.  I’m calling this one Candy Girl as her hair is full of candy.  She has a cheeky grin on her face (very Pam from True Blood I thought) and gave me a look at just the right time.  I liked the set too with the deep red chandelier, having that out of focus in the background gave a nice balance to the image (although it does tend to pull you away from the model).

I was fighting for space when I captured this (again) it was total chaos at the set with loads of photographers elbowing each other trying to get in the right position.  What was funny was that in the next bay (they had two) was a male model and nobody was trying to photograph him.

I do have another model picture to post but it wasn’t that great but I’ll hang on to that in case I have an emergency.  This one I felt was good.

Today, back home, Carter and Master Chief decided to do some homework and review the notes and course notes they got a Photoshop World.

Plane Home – Las Vegas

08. September 2012 · Comments Off on Plane Home – Las Vegas · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

Wow, what a week, today we left Las Vegas and came home, but not before heading out to Hoover Dam and Lake Mead, and spending some time walking round Caesars Palace.  Photoshop World was a total blast, fantastic training with some amazing professional photographers but I guess it had to end eventually.

I have a load of images that I can post from the event and from walking round Las Vegas, but unfortunately tonight my new Macbook Pro laptop stopped working.  I’m pretty worried about this as it has all my images from the week on it.  Yes I know, I should back up regularly and I normally do, but it’s been so busy over the last few days, I didn’t get the chance (or just forgot). So tomorrow I’m of to the Apple Store to find out why my week old new computer no longer works (you will probably here me shouting at them).  My big concern is I don’t lose the images on the hard disk.

So when I got home (thanks Lisa for coming out and picking us up) I had to reinstall some apps on my old (clean) computer and find an image to post from my camera.  By the time I got my old mac all set up I was (quite frankly) too tied to post process a great pic so I selected a shot from the Las Vegas airport.

We got the the terminal pretty early and I got a great seat at the gate while we waited to board.  But as we were there early our plane hadn’t even arrived.  Eventually it arrived and I shot the image below.  I captured this through glass, and the two white lines (very faint) on either side of the plane are glass reflections.

I processed the image relatively quickly, so this is not one of my best, but I needed to post so it made the grade for today’s pic.  Hopefully I’ll get some good news tomorrow and get my new computer back online.

Carter and Master Chief couldn’t resist one last attempt at winning big in Vegas, although I think they may be trying to cheat.

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