Tag Archives: Las Vegas

Bling Bling Icing

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Acrylic rhinestones and faux gold embellishments are shown in a case.

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Colorful boas (left) and felt squares (right) are displayed.

It is the perfect stop for all things fun and pretend. The moment you walk through the door and round the corner by the counter, adult worries and everyday life are replaced by the endless possibilities of a child’s fantasy. Creativity comes to life with each touch of a feather, each glimpse of fabrics and trimmings and every peek into case after case of tiny jewels.

Want to be a pirate? Done. Want to be a king? Done, done. Want to be a showgirl? Absolutely done!

Williams Costume Company is the treasure chest; what will be your booty?

If crafting is not a strong point, there is also an entire apartment-sized room stocked with multi-piece and custom-made costumes ready for rent.

The store, which has been a neighborhood anchor for 60 years, receives customers of all kinds. A clerk told me that “anybody and everybody that has a creative side” are clientele. Customers include: theater people; costume and clothing designers; street performers; crafters; jewelry makers and students.

On a rainy Saturday a couple hours before closing, my sisters, husband and I were lost in the store calling out to one another rows apart to come see what we had found in our corn maze of creativity.

With my iPhone only, I started to document my discoveries; I hope you enjoy this little gallery of treasures.

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Miscellaneous metal and acrylic notions are displayed in a case.

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A showgirl headdress, masks (left) and wigs (right) are shown.

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Colorful chains (left) of different sizes available for custom length is shown, Sister Michelle (right) poses for personal photograph with Marilyn Monroe next to funky Elvis painted on store exterior.

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Feminine fancies are displayed in a case.

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A man lies asleep on a pedestrian bridge above Las Vegas Boulevard. It is sunset, and sweat drips down my back on a warm February day.

Tourists pass him. Some look and whisper to their mates. Others do not acknowledge the man that sleeps on a duffle bag and has a sign nearby that reads “Please Help! Homeless vet; cash-food; God bless.”

He wears a clean navy Las Vegas shirt and cap that appears to be a match. I’ve seen such inexpensive T-shift and cap bundles countless times in gift shops on the Strip and downtown. I wonder how he acquired the clothing. I wonder if someone bought them for him.

I take one frame and pass the man hurrying to get on my way. I have an assignment to get to– the third of four shoots that day. I notice the bridge is shaking ever so slightly yet the man sleeps. He is a child in a car seat in a deep slumber on a long night drive.

My shoot is relatively quick and before I know it, I am crossing back over the bridge making my way to my car. As I approach the man for a second time, I see that he is still asleep. The slow rise and decent of his chest are the only indications of movement from him now or in my absence.

The sight of him takes me in once again. I have passed numerous others begging for money while out on the Strip that day, but no one catches my curiosity like this man. I stop because I’m compelled to do so. I wait for passersby and take a few more frames. The bridge is really moving this time, and I am aware of the sporadic crowds of people that notice me. I wish to know more about this man and his story. I do not want to wake him and time is not on my side.

The man seems so calm and peaceful. I speculate: A sleeping man on a busy bridge must be unaware of the chaos around him, or perhaps he is so comfortable with his surroundings that he is able to sleep. His legs are crossed and his shoulders relaxed. He looks as though he could be my friend passed out on my big comfy gray couch at home. But he is not at my home or anyone else’s. His place of rest is the street.

*According the Southern Nevada Regional Planning Coalition’s homeless census there were an estimated 34,397 homeless people in Southern Nevada last year.

XXXcellent people watching

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Ron Terry, center, takes a photo with models Gia Page, from back left, Melissa Moore and Marsha May at the Mofos.com booth during the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo 2016 at Hard Rock hotel-casino Friday, Jan. 22, 2016, in Las Vegas. The 4-day expo featured adult entertainers, merchandise, and the latest technology in the adult entertainment industry.

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(left) entertainer changes from sneakers into high heels (right) an adult toy designed to look like actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is shown

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People walk through the hallway in outside the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo 2016 at Hard Rock hotel-casino Friday, Jan. 22, 2016, in Las Vegas.

 

I asked a man for his name after I took his photograph for the newspaper, and I received a very unusual response. Not only did he reply, but also he invited me to participate in an orgy.

“We’d love to have you,” he said overly enthusiastically as he handed me a card to join his local orgy club.

I had my cameras in tow. My jaw was open for sure. This was definitely a first for me.

Today I covered the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo, a four-day long event in Sin City that culminates with an adult film awards show, sort of like the GRAMMYs, but for porn.

Every year the expo follows the Consumer Electronics Show, the largest convention in the world. In past years, when it’s time for the “porn convention,” as us locals call it, I have either been booked, out of town, or the [porn] stars have not aligned and was unable to cover the show.

This year, I was a kid on her way to Disneyland when my editor granted my request to shoot the big show. It was time I experienced the pull of it all.

It wasn’t that I was excited to cover the show because I would get to see a bunch of scantily-clad porn stars and some, quite frankly pervy sex stuff, I was excited because I had a chance to shoot something weird and wacky in my town. Give me a mailbox in the desert believed to be the portal to the extraterrestrial; a roomful of doctors performing knee replacement surgery on cadavers (some legs only); a massive home museum filled with movie props and exotic flotsam that is open to the public once a year, because I live for this sort of assignment.

(By the way, I have photographed all of those things.)

The Adult Entertainment Expo did not fail to meet my expectations. In fact, it surpassed them. It was the mecca of all weird and wacky. I had no idea that people had fetishes involving dressing up as babies in actual diapers. I didn’t know that there was an entire market that pined for extremely young women of a certain ethnicity or that a person can have the illusion of having grown their own animal tail by inserting a “toy” adorned with long fur up somewhere naughty. I guess to say that I was naïve before entering the show is a bit of an understatement.

My computer is also naïve. Next time I bring in it in to Apple for a check-up or repair, I will certainly clear my browser history and remove some 600 images from the show. I write all of my photo captions and have to check facts and company spellings, which includes performing many Internet searches and firmly closing pop-up windows. I’m afraid I may be on some national watch list after completing this gig.

All and all, I really enjoyed my day of people watching and covering an event that was very foreign to me. I didn’t bring back any souvenirs from my trip to the adult theme park, but I did bring back a lot of cards handed to me by the entertainers I photographed as well as pamphlets from eager vendors. I think it’s time I throw my ThinkTank camera and media pouches into the laundry. Immediately.

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(left) I try out virtual reality porn goggles. (right) my MacBook pro and show loot/notes.

For a link to the Review-Journal story:

http://www.reviewjournal.com/business/porn-pros-put-out-whats-new-las-vegas-convention

Mark Christianson (cq) gives a kiss to Darcy Annie, a 4-month-old buckskin filly, during an adoption event outside the Bureau of Land Management’s Southern Nevada District Office Saturday, Dec. 19, 2015, in Las Vegas. Orphan wild horse foals that were rescued from drought-stricken public lands in Cold Creek near Las Vegas in September were available for purchase in a silent auction. (Ronda Churchill/Las Vegas Review-Journal)

Mark Christianson  gives a kiss to Darcy Annie, a 4-month-old buckskin filly, during an adoption event outside the Bureau of Land Management’s Southern Nevada District Office Saturday, Dec. 19, 2015, in Las Vegas. Orphan wild horse foals that were rescued from drought-stricken public lands in Cold Creek near Las Vegas in September were available for purchase in a silent auction. (Ronda Churchill/Las Vegas Review-Journal)

I may be 35 years old, but on Dec. 19, 2015, all I wanted for Christmas was a pony.

After what seemed like the hardest workweek of 2015, which included a very dramatic change-of-ownership with the newspaper I work with looming in the news and minds of myself and my colleagues, I was happy to see that my Saturday assignment was “HORSE_ADOPTION.”

I left my house headed to a silent auction for wild horse foals, 4 fillies to be exact, which were rescued from the Cold Creek area outside of Las Vegas this past summer. The foals had suffered severe malnutrition and had survived by the help of a local husband and wife team along with their fellow equestrian friends and community.

The fact that I know nothing about horses, as my first sentence reveals (ponies are a specific type of small horse and are not the word for a baby horse) or the fact that I live in the suburbs with a pool in my backyard didn’t matter the moment I saw light-haired Darcy Annie.

Darcy Annie, who was named after the woman who found her, was so malnourished that when the veterinarian came to evaluate her there was concern whether she would have to be euthanized. Luckily, she was spared and had to be fed horse formula while other rescues ate hay and supplements.

This morning, Darcy was a bundle of love and energy. She constantly moved about her corral often nudging her stall mate and her water bucket equally. She eagerly wandered over to outstretched hands and offered actual kisses to anyone who put their face near her muzzle.

Clearly, Darcy won the race. She was the only one to earn the coveted ride to her “forever home.”

Soon after the auction ended, the other horses were loaded into a trailer returning to their foster home. Darcy was left standing solo in a once-bustling corral waiting for her new owner. I felt sad and as silly, as my logical/journalist-remain-impartial brain denies it, I felt love towards this horse I had met only 90 minutes prior.

“What is wrong with me?” I thought.

After I sat here typing this; looked through 350 odd images; selected the best; cropped, toned, captioned and sent them on their way, I felt that nothing is wrong with me.

Who wouldn’t want a special animal that made them feel happiness by merely watching it interact with others- and let’s face it, caving to interact with it once there was no one else in line?

Animals have that specialness about them. Anyone who has ever owned one can tell you that. Darcy definitely is a prized one.

* I dedicate this blog post to my friend Veronica Travez, who lost her sweet dog Bella to cancer this summer around the time Darcy Annie almost lost her battle to survive.

Words that made the cut

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Working as a photojournalist has made me extremely vigilant. I know that I am more observant, attentive, and perhaps even intuitive than most of my friends and family.

While sitting in a Starbucks editing, I see a woman to my left that is made up head-to-toe. She looks like a walking Photoshop image of what most American women, sadly, wishes they could be. I suspect this young woman has had plastic surgery by observing her facial features that look too angular, too symmetric, too perfect and unflawed. Her makeup looks airbrushed to excellence. She totes a name brand handbag and a gold iPhone. She oozes money.

On the other side of her is a homeless man. He has been here awhile, I presume, and has been here long after the aforementioned women left. He has nervously table-hopped several times. His sneezes have received many, “God bless you”s. He uses rough brown coffee shop napkins as tissues to loudly clear his nose. He is thin and wears many dirty layers including a jacket that has a small patch of rhinestones on them, bright stones that remind me of the woman.

I can not help but think of how often our lives cross such extremes. How everyone has their own agenda and does not see the world around them. How people get wrapped up in themselves and do not really see their community, their peers, or even their loved ones. Every day I am thankful for my gift.

One day, I will write. I hope. Until then, I think I may go buy this guy a sandwich.

On Assignment

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“Oh you’re like Peter Parker!”

More often than not, when someone is quizzing me about my work they often compare me to Spiderman’s plainclothes character of a struggling photojournalist trying to get his photos in the city newspaper. Parker’s pleas were a bit off.

It’s hard to explain my job to people who chat me up in the elevator pointing out my gear. They must think I’m on some kind of photo vacation every day. For those curious, I’ll try to explain:

I was hired by one of my repeat clients to photograph 5 restaurants for a review that one of their food critics was writing. The critic came to Sin City looking for terrific eats that could be found off-the-Strip, and he found some real slices of amazing cuisine in our little big town.

I was given a list of restaurants and a blurb on each from the critic. The rest was up to me to deliver before my deadline of a week out.

The first days I had free, I spent researching restaurants; contacting public relations firms and restaurant owners; making phone calls; writing emails and driving by a few of the properties. I had to line up each shoot before coming in during a busy dinner hour armed with cameras. I ended up visiting restaurants two or three times because it was not easy to get food shots when the restaurant was busy. Empty restaurants make for stale photos. Furthermore, people eating do not like their photograph to be taken.

Also, I was told to shoot interiors, exteriors, ambiance, specific food dishes, and the head chef for each restaurant. Some restaurants had language barriers, and one had no signage at all on the building making it difficult to find. In total, some 1,500 images were shot and edited. 69 images were toned, thoroughly captioned and filed electronically a day before my deadline.

Peter Parker would poo his pants.

The workload is a reality, and I eat it up every day. Sure, some days are more fun than others, and food really is quite fun-even if I don’t get to eat it.

In addition to the generous two-page spread that ran in the New York Times as the section cover, a few of my personal favorite images were not selected. I’d like to share these outtakes. (Please refrain from licking your computer screen.)

A superhero I definitely am not, but I treasure my job as if I were one.

 

Mohawk Madness

Mohawk Madness

The infamous Las Vegas Strip is definitely a place where one can see a lot of characters. As of lately, hordes of literal characters ranging from children’s animation stars to Elvis Presley impersonators can be found entertaining the crowds asking for a tip in exchange for a photograph.

However, today while on assignment to photograph construction outside of Treasure Island, I did not encounter a single wandering icon on my stretch of my city’s most popular 4.2 miles, but I did stumble upon Chris.

Chirs Wallingford, who has Britney Spears’ new show advertised on his Mohawk, rides the escalator outside of Wynn hotel-casino. Willingford had a sample advertisement airbrushed into his Mohawk to promote his business, Mohawk4hire, where companies can hire advertising space on his hair.

In the short time that my walking path merged with Chris’, I saw him stop to take photographs three times and also witnessed many points, snickers, and gasps from passersby.

I’d have to say this colorful character is definitely onto something. Now if only I could get my hair to stand up quite that way, I could offer Chris my services to moonlight as a second walking billboard.