Sin City (In Las Vegas Everything's For Sale)

I hadn't been to Las Vegas for a while; it's become even more

blatant with this truck-hauled billboard just one of many down Las

Vegas Boulevard (The Strip) in front of gawking casino-hotel

patrons, including kids. (Taken from a moving vehicle, while

driving.) Your ratings and critiques are invited and most welcome.

If you rate very critically or harshly, please submit a helpful and

constructive comment/Please share your superior knowledge to help

improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! John

I love the camera perspective very much. I think everything fits very well in this image. It gives me the impression of the truck is actually hauling "Hot Babes" to the city which makes me cringe as a female being. Sometimes I see horses or cows being moved, loaded in trucks, something like that. Of course there is nothing wrong with being hot or babe but the warped perception, just like your camera angle... I love your work.

P.S. Probably you are against to cropping your photographs but personally I would crop it right above the "B of Babes" to exclude the billboard sign. Or even better (in my humble opinion) I would just clone that part out but keep the large black sky in that balances the presence of truck well. This is not a suggestion, just thinking loud and exercising.

I had even better shots of the truck trailer with the billboard side showing a prone woman with the same message but it lacked Las Vegas context, so I ditched them. I wanted casinos in the photos, and the damn thing was right next to me, blocking out all the casinos.

 

Of course, one cannot miss the significance of the unusual telephone number and all it represents.

 

And prostitution is strictly forbidden in Las Vegas; if one wants a 'legal' Nevada prostitute, one has to drive about 100 miles (and cringe, I think, if one has never looked at the quality of women - not ladies - who work in such joints).

 

I think desaturating or fully saturating the 'billboard' name portion of the truck is something that I might allow and might do, although it has context. Imagine you're walking with a pair of 8 and 10 year-olds down the strip and have to explain this: 'Direct to you' 'Girls that want to meet you' (and I'm definiely no prude.' and certainly don't mind 'hot babes'.

 

They don't all have to be 7/7s to be enjoyable - or noteworthy. I'll bet a lot of members who rate low look at this photo, even if to cluck on it.

 

Thanks for the enjoyable comment.

 

John (Crosley)

Girls that want to meet you! I love the gritty side of Vegas..

The Gritty Side -- From a Photographic Standpoint, I love it.

 

From a personal side, I never can wait to get out fast enough.

 

Just my personal opinion.

 

The Strip leaves me cold -- absolutely cold. Maybe if they abolished smoking, which they never will . . .

 

You are welcome to take my place there.

And belive me those girls do NOT want to meet you, unless you have a few thousand to spare on your credit card -- and maybe a fancy restaurant to take them to, and you'd be ashamed to be seen with them if you were a guy, I'm sure.

 

(I was Associated Press Reporter/Correspondent at times for all of Nevada in earlier times -- as was said of Hollywood -- beneath all that tinsel and glitter, there's more tinsel and glitter.)

 

John (Crosley)

John, Vegas is a love-hate kind of experience...the last time I was there, with a pregnant friend for work...we couldn't leave fast enough...all the smoke, noise, but I did head down the back streets for photos. I do hate the strip-too far to walk, too crowded, but I have had fun in Vegas....my first trip there we did win enough to pay for the trip- and I am talking cheap tables! Ha!

But with a 52-card deck in Reno, not the multi-deck bunch that was common in Vegas, only to find they changed the rules and made counting devices illegal and literally they could put you in jail for doing more than keeping a count in your head -- it's hot, sweaty, smoky, dull, and distracting work to count cards and the casino staff knows instantly that you're doing it because of the betting pattern so they're automatically hostile to you.

 

I once was warned at Harold's Club, now defunct, when Howard Hughes was buying it 'I wouldn't walk down any dark alleys (there was an alley behind the casino) if I bet like that Mister' by one of the dealers (who incidentally was stealing from the chip tray).

 

And another time, playing alone, I found a security guard and a pit boss standing behind me and was tapped on the shoulder and told curtly, Sir, you can play any game in the casino, EXCEPT 21!'

 

In other words, winning was forbidden and there were no witnesses to get upset at seeing me tossed out of the blackjack games because it was early morning (I was waiting for child visitation).

 

So, I literally do not like Nevada gaming.

 

It's big business -- and stacked against the little guy in ways that are NOT fun for me.

 

I at least want a chance to believe I can win, and when I did have a way to win, they changed the rules, and then they started to kick me out when they identified me as a winner (at one game only -- the one you could win at).

 

A pox on their houses.

 

If you win, you lose more.

 

It's now certain.

 

Thanks for the comment/sorry if I spoiled the fun.

 

John (Crosley)

... that in some time eons forward, when enterprising archaeologists dig up the lost city of Las Vegas, they will be convinced that they found a major religious center of pilgrimage, where millions of believers came to worship and make donations to their gods, and the priesthood was exceedingly powerful and wealthy, and wielded influence over nature itself, diverting rivers and making lakes in the desert. For they produced nothing of value, but catered to the elemental needs of the believers, fulfilling them in some mysterious way that left no outward sign except for a donation to the deities who ruled there.

Like those famous guys who took over from Benny Siegel after they rubbed him out and made the city a playground for 'made' guys and one particularly famous Italian-descent all-time great singer, who incidentally was banned from owning casinos by the state, for his allegiances with such 'made' guys.

 

And then Howard Hughes, who, with his billions started buying up everything in sight, even worthless mining claims, all from his seclusion, secure, he thought in his paranoid delusion that he might gain some sort of immortality from being kept apart from ordinary mankind and their germs, as he lived in the top story of the Desert Inn, catered to by a group of Mormons.

 

And he once famously told newsmen, who wanted proof of his being alive, that his aide, Robert Maheu 'stole me blind' or similar words, and never made it to court to defend himself in the libel suit brought by Maheu, so Maheu won and collected on perhaps the biggest collectable default judgment in history -- besting his reclusive boss.

 

And then his boss went about flying about Central America looking for a place to roost, haunted by his fame and paranoia, until he finally died in search of a place to die.

 

And then the architects of wealth took over -- the famous movers and shakers of big business, who transformed L.V. from a town of 'made men' and Hughes shakers-down into one of enormous wealth -0- knowing that (unlike Reno to the North which serves the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern California), moderately elevated Las Vegas and the freeway 15 that serve it almost never would be snowed in for days or weeks, with sunshine in January and February (and also in July when 114 degrees is not far fetched.

 

So, now Las Vegas pretends to culture, with establishments like the Venetian, having a miniature 'Venice' complete with gondoliers inside its cavernous interior, competing with Nathan's hot dogs on one hand and world class cuisine (at world class prices) on the other.

 

And the huge, all you can eat for $1.99 or so, buffet is now mostly a think of the past (or of nearby Jean, Nevada), and of the Circus Circus casino which made it famous (and got me threatened by its founder because he didn't like my questions or my printing his answers).

 

It's a city (town actually) where Gordon Gecko could easily retire.

 

'Greed is Good' might easily be the town slogan.

 

Have a good time in France.

 

John (Crosley)

And there'll be a 'black Madonna' found -- a plaster of Paris statuette of Diana Ross or some such 'black' female singer and/or entertainer now or in the future worshipped, as we worship celebrity in our culture, having no real 'royalty' and being a little reluctant now (post-Kennedy) to substitute the President of the United States and his family for royalty . . . . something that once was an American inclination.

 

Now go forth with camera in hand, tackle some pate and truffles, and bring back an epiphany or two. (I try for a photographic epiphany every day or so)

 

John (Crosley)