Geoffrey Ellis captures the spirit of Las Vegas in the 1970s and 80s, while Markus Altmann photographs the city in the 1990s. Meanwhile, Stephanie Diani introduces us to the legends of burlesque, while Stefanie Moshammer shows us why Vegas is known as the “strip club capital of the world.” In this collection of Las Vegas photography, six photographers document Sin City, then and now.

“Shot in 1995, Las Vegas 95 is the photographer Markus Altmann‘s look at sin city in the midst of its transformation from an old gambling town to a family entertainment metropolis, stacked high with mega hotels and theme parks. Intrigued by the aesthetics of the newly constructed facades and how they relate to the seemingly more authentic realities of the older surroundings, Altmann weaves together surreal, almost otherworldly shots that give off the feel they are at once set in the past and future.”

“When Stefanie Moshammer visited Las Vegas for two months, her days weren’t spent sunbathing by the pool at Caesars Palace or hitting the Bellagio casino at night. The Austrian photographer had a different motive in mind. Fascinated by the lifestyle of those who exist behind the shiny façade of sin city, she set out to document Las Vegas strippers and the hotel rooms, pink Cadillacs, and nightclubs that act as their stage. The resulting series, Vegas and She, depicts the Las Vegas we don’t see.”

“Valley of the Meadows the photographer Geoffrey Ellis‘s depiction of the Las Vegas that existed in the 1970s and 80s, a time when he says ‘the city was in a depressing downward spiral and the criminal entities running the city were slowly losing their grip.’ This is the Vegas that was sandwiched between the Hollywood-esque days of high rollers and The Rat Pack in the 1950s and 60s and the transition in the 1990s and 2000s into ‘a family friendly destination which ultimately became a type of adult Disneyland.’

“Ellis presents a collection of images that we feel compelled to piece together, lingering like clues to a larger reveal and resonating with a tension and darkness akin to this mythic land of opportunity ‘where the extremes of luxury and vice are out in the open and the lure of promise draws one in.’”

The photographer Christian Lutz found himself in the city at the height of our most recent financial crisis. He spent three consecutive summers documenting the streets beneath the neon lights.

In his book, Insert Coins, Lutz bears witness to the wreckage of The City of Lights, and he seems to do so with an incorruptible poker face. It’s a requiem for all the promises Las Vegas made and broke a thousand times over. The book is also about something more, about the ways in which we all hope against hope that fortune will turn our way, even when she’s turned her back on us so many times before.

“For her series Dames: The Legends of Burlesque, New-York based photographer Stephanie Diani photographed older dancers wearing costumes that were significant or special to them. The ladies are portrayed in their homes or in the hotel rooms where they stayed in the past while performing in Las Vegas. Their personalities differ, but what they all have in common are grace, courage, and self-possession.”

“In 1981, Geo photo editor Alice Rose George commissioned Henry Gruyaert to photograph Las Vegas. Rather than provide his take on the tired tropes of the Strip, Gruyaert ventured off the beaten path to the Vegas where residents lived. The result was entirely too realistic; Vegas was not the place of fantasies and spectacle – it was a world where people eked out their existence on the margins.”

Discover More

When a Miami-based businessman was looking for fresh imagery for his new project he called up his photographer with the commission. He received the pictures just an hour later — the photographer never left his computer.

Of course, the images were generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and Dade Sokoloff tells PetaPixel they were “exactly what I wanted.”

“If you really studied them you could tell they weren’t real, but damn close,” he says. “They were 100 percent usable.”

Sokoloff says he would have used the AI images except he had a very specific idea of what he wanted.

The photographer, Buster Cox, owns a small production company in Miami that does mostly business and branding content. Cox did eventually come and shoot a video for Sokoloff.

Staying One Step Ahead of the Game

Sokoloff and Cox are actually close friends, Cox assumes people who do photography and videography are going to be put out of business pretty soon so has been taking time to learn AI programs so he can produce good material with it.

“That’s an interesting take from a guy who is in that business,” says Sokoloff. “He’s not waiting to be put out of business, he’s looking to jump on the train because he knows it’s about to roll him over.”

Cox concurs with Sokoloff’s assessment: “I’m trying to stay on top of it all, as much as I can or else someone else will.”

Cox has been experimenting with Midjourney, Kaiber, and Runway.

“It’s overwhelming the amount of stuff coming out. Not all of it is there yet to replace traditional production but it’s well on its way,” he says.

“I see both the very real and present threat to craft and long-standing established industries but also millions of businesses that would never normally be able to afford quality high content suddenly will be able to achieve all new levels of production value.

“It’s a paradigm shift to be sure. But in a lot of ways, I feel the biggest threat is NOT learning how to use these tools in the first place.”

A Valuable Lesson

The exchange between Sokoloff and Cox is a microcosm of what’s happening in the wider photography space. Professionals like Cox will surely need to master these tools sooner rather than later if they want to stay afloat.

And AI image generators such as Midjourney really do need to be mastered. The technician that has spent hours learning how to synthesize quality images will always achieve better results than the lay business owner who has no experience with such things.

With generative AI models continually improving, photographers should prepare the best they can for the coming turmoil.

A photographer froze his camera overnight to capture a stunning timelapse video of the night sky in winter.

Landscape and astrophotographer Andrew Imhoff revealed how he froze his Nikon Z6 overnight in Brian’s Head, Utah — where temperatures dropped below 20 degrees Fahrenheit – to shoot the timelapse clip.

Imhoff left his Nikon Z6 outside for over three and a half hours — up until his camera battery died as a result of the freezing cold temperatures.

@imhoffimagery All about risk vs reward…id say it paid off, what do you think? #timelapse #timelapseart #timelapsevideo #fyp #fypシ #photography #astro #astrophotography #beautiful #art ♬ Cornfield Chase – Dorian Marko

However, Imhoff’s risk with his camera paid off when he captured an incredible timelapse video that showcased the movement of the night sky in winter. The clip, amassed over 4.7 million views on TikTok.

“The timelapse shot was taken at an Airbnb cabin in Brian’s Head, Utah that my family and I booked a stay here over the Christmas weekend,” Imhoff tells PetaPixel.

“One of the nights lined up perfectly with the new moon and very little clouds, which helped really showcase the amount of stars you can see with limited light pollution and no moon throughout the night!

“In total, the camera was left outside for roughly three and a half hours before the battery eventually died as temperatures dropped below 20 degrees Fahrenheit.”

Imhoff says that his Nikon Z6 was completely frozen by the end of the shoot and he was concerned that the ice had damaged his camera.

“Once the camera was finished shooting I brought it back inside to the sight of ice building up on almost all surfaces of the camera and lens,” the photographer explains.

“I let it thaw out a little bit and wiped off the melting ice as it softened. After the camera got back up to normal temperatures nothing seemed wrong with it.

“Upon shooting some test shots and investigating, I did not notice any damage to the camera. However, I was very nervous after seeing all the ice build-up!”

More of Imhoff’s work can be seen on Instagram and TikTok.

Image credits: All photos by Andrew Imhoff.

May is National Photo Month, so RED asked its professional and student photographers to curate a selection of their favorite shots over the years and tell us why they like them. This gallery will take you on a trip through celebrations and remembrances, arts and sciences, mountains and plains, and will give you an inside look at the people behind the lenses of some of our most thought-provoking images.

Visit the full stories to read more about some of the people featured below:

Why wait?
Alumni, students and friends participate in annual Homecoming events
The Winter Park Express is a runaway success story
‘Northside’ story
Deadly Colorado avalanches underscore dangers of unstable snowpack
Denver artist Carlos Frésquez sees historic painting preserved
Theatre costumes enter a new dimension
Science workshop for blind and low-vision students
Dance Department reimagines color
Umoja Conference celebrates Black women in and of hip-hop
Songs to sustain a movement

Cinema may be a source of inspiration for photographers. And if we have titles of movies coming to mind or names of directors, we usually pay less attention to directors of photography, also called cinematographers. Big mistake! Those are the guys who master cameras and lighting techniques in order to materialize ideas into images.

John Alcott

Despite his short career, his work had a great influence on the history of cinema.

Since 2001: A Space Odyssey, when he had to replace the director of photography, he has collaborated on many major Kubrick movies, none less than Clockwork Orange or The Shining. He had developed revolutionary filmmaking and had to demonstrate qualities of adaptability to follow Kubrick’s ambition to constantly change his style.

He also carried on in movies what he learned in his career in advertising: he made great use of diffusion filters and practical lighting (a source of light included in the frame).

While in 2001 he used mostly bounced light to allow Kubrick to shoot from any angle, he had to rely on the famous Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm f/0.7, developed by NASA, for the nonetheless famous and challenging Barry Lyndon during the scenes lit only by candlelight. Even with such a perfectionist and control freak as Kubrick, Alcott found a way to use his own techniques and tricks. Spreading water in the streets to bounce the city lights and gain a few stops is one of them.

Even now that we constantly push back the limits of modern cameras when it comes to high ISOs and darkness, such ingenuity can still surely find a practical use nowadays.

Roger Deakins

Maybe one of the most famous directors of photography. His early taste for painting probably had a great influence on his work when collaborating with essential directors such as Sam Mendes, Martin Scorcese, or the Cohen Brothers. No Country for Old Men, Skyfall, Blade Runner 2049, or the more recent 1917 show both his versatility and style, characterized by a simple aesthetic and the use of natural lighting.

When deciding on the lighting, he voluntarily left some unnecessary elements in the dark by contrasting a scene and thus highlighting the important details.

To that end, he often used three sources of light and adopted unusual shooting angles to convey the mood of the characters.

Two other things to learn from him: his belief in thorough preparation and how he devoted his knowledge to the needs of the project. At the end of the day, the story has the final say. It might be something to keep in mind when being part of a group project or when a client stands his ground with a specific idea.

Christopher Doyles

You won’t be surprised to learn that he moved to Taiwan in his twenties and even learned Mandarin when you consider that he is behind the photography of Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love and 2046.

His taste for multiple arts is visible in his work. His practice of mixed media painting and paper collage transpires in the composition and colors displayed on screen.

As a creator, he feels that he also has a responsibility to voice the world and visualize it in a unique manner.

He has more of an instinctive than a technical approach and follows intuitively his artistic flow, fed by his mixed cultures, European and Asian. Open-minded, any new life experience is, for him, a way to feed his aesthetic narrative. A wise lesson for all kinds of creatives.

Janusz Kamiński

A name usually associated with another famous one: Steven Spielberg. They’ve been working together since 1993 on the acclaimed Schindler’s List.

There is an old-school aesthetic in his cinematography that conforms to Spielberg’s main ambition: to tell a story. And to that end, he uses the image grammar in a traditional way, where perspectives and camera effects convey an idea and help the viewer grab the mood and the concept.

He adapts the technique to the meaning: everybody remembers the desaturated images of Saving Private Ryan, which plunge us into the period of shooting. Munich, Bridge of Spies, or The Post depict visually so well the era their story is rooted in.

His use of film certainly contributes to this, be it the Kodak 320T for Catch Me If You Can or the 200T for Private Ryan.

Another recognizable trait of Kamiński’s imagery is a light haze, accentuated by a glowing backlight, that creates an atmosphere close to the naturalistic look he is after.

Emmanuel Lubezki

Three movies, among others, show the visual talent of Lubezki: Children of Men, Birdman, and The Tree of Life.

Although very different, the movies display some common traits of Lubezki imagery. His camera is often handheld, but its movement is more fluid than in a reportage style, and the takes are longer. The camera follows the characters’ evolutions in a way that is “organic to the story,” as Lubezki once stated.

In terms of lighting, Lubezki is in search of available light, in accordance with the narrative of the movie.

Planning the sun’s position and the quality of its light took a good place in his concerns when shooting. Being consistent is more crucial throughout a movie, but photographers certainly can benefit from applying this to their work.

The type and color of light also contribute to the mood of a scene, whether it is a sharp, clean light, as in Gravity, or an end-of-day light, as in Children of Men or The Revenant.

His contemplative scenes often replace any voice or dialogue in order to trigger a specific emotion through the use of photographic language.

There is definitely a lot to learn by watching Lubezki’s image chemistry.

Robert Richardson

Another cinematographer’s work contributed to creating visual milestones. Judge for yourself: Platoon, JFK, Shutter Island, Kill Bill.

As the position of director of photography demands, Richardson endeavors to blend his art with the vision of the film director.

Still, he has spread some of his gimmicks through different movies. Creating a halo around characters with a well-placed backlight that bounces off the subject’s face is one of them.

This pattern became part of his method of thinking, depending on where the camera is positioned, where to have the light, and how to bounce it back.

Technically, there were “big, broad sources bouncing off of a muslin through another muslin… We call it a book,” he explained.

The lenses and framing also have a precise use in the narration. The wide angle is a reasoned choice to establish a situation, to present a character’s stance in its environment, or to show a gigantic surrounding landscape.

It may seem obvious, but the good old visual syntax is still proven to be efficient.

Conclusion

A photographer is most of the time his own image director. Even when it’s not the case, and when he is part of a creative team gathered to achieve an assignment, it might be useful to approach a shoot with those reflections in mind.

By practicing and adapting these methods, we may also find our own techniques that resonate with the ambition of a project.

CBC News Vancouver photojournalist Ben Nelms has been announced as a finalist in five categories of the News Photographers Association of Canada’s 2022 National Pictures of the Year award.

This year, Nelms was nominated in five categories: Spot News, General News, Personality, Photo Story, and Photographer of the Year. 

“I’m honoured to be able to document people and their stories in our communities. My hope every day is to take photographs that not only answer questions but that ask questions as well,” Nelms said.

“I am privileged to be in many situations that the public cannot witness themselves, and I hope to bring awareness to those stories through my photographs.”

Nelms previously won in the General News (2021, 2020) and Picture Stories (2019) categories. In 2019, he was awarded the Photojournalist of the Year award from the association. 

He has previously been nominated for multiple National Pictures of the Year awards, winning an award for photo story of the year in 2012. 

Originally hailing from Edmonton, Nelms began shooting with CBC in April 2019. 

The association says it will announce the winners in advance of its annual general meeting on May 28.