Monte Carlo Statue Series....
2008-01-27
So once I got started working on the statue images I decided that I am going to pause on the portrait photos so that I can post this series first. Then I will get back to the portraits.
The next few days worth of images were shot in front of the Monte Carlo Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
The main entrance of the casino has a large fountain and several large statues. I found not only the statues interesting but the lighting of them. All the images in this series are lit by existing lights.
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4 comments:
I like the softness and strong shadows.
It's odd how photographic artists don't show style the same way as say painters or sculptors. I guess it's because we're free to investigate so many different ideas and not get stuck with one genre or one technique. I saw a series of Ansel Adams' could photographs recently and realized that they bore no resemblance to his scenics.
And this leads up to what?
Your work Brian is curious about so much. And yet you seem comfortable with it all. Whether portraits, peeling interiors, lens-baby-sill-lifes... and on and on. You can work in color or BW, no problem. And you can find in it all some kernel of authentic emotion.
Harder still... you can show us your finds in ways that explain them. It is all very hard to so many, and you seem to do it easily.
Thanks for letting us share it.
Ted
Oooops... but I got distracted in the overly long essay above from my question.
Given your firefighting expertise. When you looked at the facade of the Monte Carlo, did you realize that the apparently stone exterior would burn up in black and oily clouds? What is that stuff?
Thanks guys for the comments.
Ted, Thanks so much. I am not sure what to say. I try very hard to create compelling and/or beautiful images.
But at the same time I struggle to improve them or create what I see in my mind. For me I always seem to be chasing what I think I should be producing.
I suppose that keeps me moving forward. But I guess I should also take some time to enjoy the present.
Style is an interesting point. For some time I have asked myself what is my style. And I can not come up with a definition of it. And I think it is because I don't really have a single strong style.
When I come up on something I like it is not long before I am moving on to something else that comes down the line.
I am unsure if I would be happy if I had to select a signature style.
It is interesting about the relationship between most artists and their work. It is also interesting that many of the top photographers are know for a certain style or look but if you look at their personal work it is often so completely different. Most other types of artists do not vary so much in their work.
On to Vegas...
The outside of many of those casinos and many other modern or rehabbed buildings are stucco.
So basically there is a thin coating of masonry over a several inch thick piece of styrophome. When styrofoam is heated it basically turns back to its native state...petroleum.
In reality stucco is like a modern day type of insulbrick. Insulbrick were the shingles that were made to look like bricks and placed on the exterior walls of homes. We often call them gasoline shingles. Nothing like covering all sides of your home with petroleum in its solid form.
Stucco is a very different type of product than insulbrick but much the same in that fact that the styrofoam breaks down to petroleum as well. This is a bit harder to get burning than the shingles but the end result is the same. Lots of really orange fire with heavy black, black smoke.
So what looks like a masonry ‘unburnable’ exterior is in reality anything but.
All of that being said these fires are often much more spectacular looking than they are damage causing. As long as you hold it to the exterior of the building.
It only takes a little fire to break out a window and move inside or travel through a utility cut out or get into the soffit and then attic. Then your talking a whole different ball game.
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