Cover - Endless Vacation Magazine

It is an honor to have an image on the cover of Endless Vacation – a large travel magazine based in Mexico, so I thought I would do a little shameless self promotion blog post to share the news.

Las Vegas – this has got to be the polar opposite of photographing brown bears in a remote Alaska camp!

Las Vegas City Center, Las Vegas, Nevada.

Janine has recently updated our section of Las Vegas photos, and added a completely new section of Las Vegas City Center photos.  Considering this brand new 12 billion dollar city within a city even has its own fire station, and is bigger then most cities we have visited, it seems appropriate for it to have its own section.

Take a 12 minute trip down the Las Vegas Strip in 12 seconds, and then enjoy the Downtown laser light show!  I’m surprised it only took 12 minutes to drive the length of the strip, that is because it was a cold, winter mid-week evening.  By the way, if you have the bandwidth or patience, you can watch it in 1080 HD.

This is my first attempt at putting together a time-lapse video.   I actually captured the stills for the strip footage 4 years ago on the same night as this Las Vegas Strip photo.   You might notice that the demolished Stardust is still standing and open, and City Center doesn’t yet exist. The downtown laser show was from last fall.

Four years ago – I had a big head start on the recently popularity for time-lapse – unfortunately these files have just been sitting on my computer.  I shot a fair amount of Alaska time-lapse footage last summer, and hope to do something with it soon as well.  It has been a bit of a steep learning curve – the long list of words like codec, MPEG4, H.264 are like a whole new language to me.   I  have to thank Phil Colla for getting me headed in the right direction.

For those who are interested in how I captured the images of the strip, you might enjoy this blog post:  Las Vegas Strip

Canoe art in the middle of City Center, Las Vegas, Nevada.

I’m trying to imagine the conversation:  “You see we are building a very high-end, 11 billion dollar resort in Las Vegas and think your old canoe would look perfect out front.”   Do you or your friends have anymore?”

It is a pretty cool statue, but seems more like something you would see in front of a resort in Jackson Hole or Whistler rather then Las Vegas.

Below are two of the new hotels in City Center.  The pool belongs to the non-gaming hotel called the Vdara.  Across the way is the much larger hotel and casino known as Aria.  It is a bit hard to imagine, but on any given night there could be far more people in this one hotel, then living within 100 miles of my Alaska home.  But then, that is one of the things that makes where we live so wonderful – and it is a place where you really can use a canoe!

The pool of the Vdara along with the Aria Hotel and Casino, City Center, Las Vegas, Nevada.

Crystals, City Center Las Vegas, Nevada.

Crystals is the new retail center in the heart of City Center.  Something tells me this isn’t the place to pick up a new pair of Carharts or Xtratufs!  The top view is of City Center from Las Vegas Blvd “The Strip”.

Below is an inside view – the wooden structure is actually a restaurant!  A restaurant that I’m sorry I didn’t get the name of and will be extra sorry when I go to keyword!

Crystals, City Center, Las Vegas, Nevada.

This tram connects the Bellagio and the Monte Carlo with the hotels, condos and mall that are the City Center, Las Vegas. The buildings in the background makeup a portion of the Aria Hotel and Casino.

We spent the last two nights and one full day on a very quick trip to Las Vegas.  I really needed to photograph the brand new City Center.  I have an extensive collection of Las Vegas photos, but not having images of the  brand new 11 billion dollar City Center was a giant hole.  Yeah that’s right 11 billion!  So with wildflowers a bit off here, we made the quick drive to Las Vegas.

I had hoped to photograph the City Center last October, but its planned opening was delayed until December, so I walked finding vantage points outside the project in which I could get distant images.  Now I was able to photograph the huge 76 acre project from within.

I usually try to pick “quiet” times to photograph Las Vegas.  I was once there during a cold, rainy mid week evening in which I had the Strip about as much to myself as possible in a place visited by more then 35 million people a year.    Well, visiting during a warm stretch of weather, during Spring Break, St. Patrick’s Day, and right before the biggest gambling sporting event of the year wasn’t actually quiet, but fortunately it worked out.

Silk Road restaurant at the Vdara hotel, City Center, Las Vegas, Nevada.

Panoramic photo of the Las Vegas Strip, Nevada.

I’m on an endless search for new and different vantage points for photographing the Las Vegas Strip, in the hope of improving on our Las Vegas photos.

I’m sorry to say that a few days of high winds and some business activity keep me from visiting Valley of the Fire, so to make up for it, tonight we are grabbing the tent and heading into Joshua Tree National Park – should be nice timing with the nearly full moon, warm weather and all.  Should be a big change from Las Vegas!

Janet Airlines Terminal, Las Vegas, Nevada.

This may not be the greatest photo, but judging from a search on the internet, it seems to be a relatively rare photo.  This is an aerial view of the secret government airlines (run by EG & G) that shuttles workers in unmarked planes to places like the Nevada Test Site better known as Area 51.  The planes are white with a red strip down each side, with very small, almost unreadable N numbers.

Now that we have moved from Las Vegas to the Palm Springs area today, I feel safe in sharing this here.  What?  I think I already hear black helicopters moving in – better go! 

Laser show, Downtown Las Vegas, Nevada.

We found this vantage point last year after making our way through a 3 story mall on the south end of Fremont Street.  This year we returned, and found the mall dark and vacant, still physically open.  Now I gotta admit, there are a lot of people walking around downtown Las Vegas who I would rather not run into in a dark alley, or a dark mall for that matter, especially while carrying two expensive cameras and tripods (one was for shooting time-lapses).

We got set up and photographed the light show while nervously watching over our shoulders the whole time.  Once the show wrapped up, I quickly folded up the tripods and we bolted for the exit with a feeling of relief, when suddenly 3 young guys came around the corner walking right towards us,  saying something about cameras.  These guys looked like trouble and there was no one else around.  I gotta admit my heart began to race a bit as a put my hand in my jacket and readied the bear spray.  I smiled and nodded hi, acting as relaxed as possible, and they did the same.  Janine and I slipped into the elevator and watched the doors slowly close, breathing a huge sigh of relief as it began to lower us to the relative safety of the crowded street – one with plenty of police presence!

This a a combination of two images exposed 3 stops apart.

Vdara Hotel, City Center, Las Vegas, Nevada.

The grand opening for the Vdara Hotel and Spa and its 1,495 suites is December 1, 2009.  This is one of a number of properties scheduled to open in City Center this upcoming December.  I have about worn out my running shoes trying to find vantage points to photograph these properties while they are still under construction – I have tried just about every freeway overpass, parking garage and road within a mile or two in each direction!

I may have spoke (wrote) to soon on the assignment work yesterday.  The scope of the work doubled, while the budget shrunk, and so we are now going to pass.  Besides a lot of walking and scouting, I am getting a lot of key-wording and captioning done!

City Center, Las Vegas, Nevada.

Last winter when we were here in Las Vegas, a newspaper article reported that a good portion of the multi-billion dollar City Center project would be open by this October.  Well, it is far from open.  It is tough to photograph such a project and keep cranes, dump trucks and all the other commotion out of the scene – a telephoto lens comes in handy.

I actually picked up a few days of photography assignment work while we are here in Las Vegas (not for City Center).  As a travel photographer, it is always nice to pick up some assignment work while on the road!

Last nights sunset over Caesars Palace. The fountains of the Bellagio dance in the foreground, Las Vegas, Nevada.

We have now moved to Las Vegas.  I need to update some of my coverage, and hope to spend some time in Valley of Fire State Park!

Janine in Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada.

This is a larger version of a photo I posted here last winter – I think this has got to be one of the most amazing geological features I have ever stumbled across.

I posting this again as a lead in to say Janine is done updating our main website with photos from our winter travels, and we now have updated sections for Valley of Fire State Park, and Las Vegas.

Las Vegas Strip, Nevada.

Well if I’m going to write about my successful photos, it is only fair that I write about my unsuccessful ones as well.

I have plenty of photos that have never, or rarely sell, so why single out this one?  For a few reasons:  not only was it somewhat expensive to produce, but at the time, I really thought I had a winner.  To add insult to injury, I think I may have missed out on even a far bigger marketing opportunity, but more on that later.

We have some great Nevada customers, so we have a built in market if I can come up with new ways to photograph Las Vegas.  I’m probably not the first person with the idea, but at the time, I did some searching and couldn’t find any other images like this, I thought I had something unique.  Today, there are lots of similar photos.

In addition to having a built in customer base, one of my stock agencies liked the photo so much that they used it in a email promo that was sent to some 15,000 photo buyers.  Now I knew for sure it would sell big!  But alas, we have nothing to show for it except a hotel room and convertible rental car bill.

Now some might point out that at least you got to cruise the strip in a tax deductible convertible!  I agree, that could be fun, except in this case, it was 54 degrees and I figured it would look bad if I was in a jacket, so went with short sleeves with the heater on high!  People were definitely staring at the dude with the top down on a cold winter night, in short sleeves, with a camera and tripod standing up in the back of the car!

So back to the missed opportunity.  I figured as long as I had the car and tripod setup that I would use my interval timer to shoot a series of images as I drove up and down the strip with the thought of putting together a high-def time lapse video.  I have all the images, but haven’t taken the time to learn how to convert them to video, or learn how to market video, but in the years since this shoot, I sure have seen a lot of time-lapse videos of the strip.  Pretty much any show about Vegas uses one!  Actually in recent weeks I have been researching and shooting more time lapses – so maybe someday soon.

Welcome to Las Vegas sign, Las Vegas, Nevada.

Sorry to disappoint – I don’t have some crazy story about a late night last night!

You see, on June 5th, Warner Bros. is releasing a major motion picture with that name.  Like with most movie releases, the actors perform endless promotional interviews telling everyone just how funny the movie is, and how awesome everyone got along during filming.  But unlike most motion pictures, this time, the actors will be doing their interviews while sitting in front of a collage of Las Vegas photos, including our above photo of the Las Vegas sign!  I think that is pretty cool. 

Hopefully it works out better for them then Viva Laughlin!

Bellagio Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada.

Well we have shipped a bunch of gear home, and are now preparing to drive back to California to put our vehicle in storage.  We will then  make the long flight back to Alaska.  The next few days  will be very busy so I probably won’t post again until Monday from our home sweet home.

Commitments on both ends of this trip made this our longest trip to date, probably a week or two too long – but it has been very fun and productive!  We typically would break this time up into two separate trips, but with the cost of travel from Alaska, it worked a lot better to do one long trip instead of two.  It is hard to believe all the places we have visited, from Borrego to Orange County and even Vancouver, Canada – some of those destinations seem like they occurred in an altogether separate trip.

Although I’m leaving at what is shaping up to be a great desert wildfower year, we are really excited to get back to Alaska.  March is typically one of my favorite times of year up there – then we will be heading into spring and summer – you can’t beat summer in Alaska!  Not to mention, we also have a ton of office work.

We will be updating our collection of Las Vegas photos soon.

Sunset over the Las Vegas Valley, Nevada.

This is another view from the top of the Stratosphere.  I was hoping for clouds over the strip – of course they had to move on right at sunset!

Here are more Las Vegas Pictures.

Joey Logano, Las Vegas NASCAR practice.

It is hard to convey just how fast these cars are going – at places, over 190 mph!  For this photo I closed the aperture down as far as I could ( F/32), dropped my ISO to 100, and ended up with a shutter speed of 1/25th of a second.  I then panned with the car – this left the start finish line along with the background in a nice blur.

Tony Stewart

This was yesterday, just minutes before Tony “Smoke” Stewart qualified for Sunday’s Las Vegas NASCAR race.  Given all the demands from media, fans etc., I got the feeling that finally sitting down in the driver seat was probably a welcome quiet escape; I was hoping to capture that in this photo.  I used a bit of fill flash to help illuminate Tony inside the dark cockpit.

More interesting geography from Valley of Fire.