Ladies of the Year

When I took the time to sit down and think about it, I realized that all of my most memorable photos from 2012 involved women. Everyone knows that images of women are used to sell Las Vegas, but those sex symbols are not the only kinds of ladies that live here. One of the great things about working for the local news is getting to expose the real people beneath the veneer of this often misunderstood city. This year, I've seen teen moms struggling to make ends meet, women trying to make their Vegas dance dreams come true, pageant princesses, dollar store divas, streetwalkers, proud strippers, prom queens, bingo stars, moms, boozers, athletes and drag queens.

These are my Ladies of the Year.

Free Society

What can I call this event? Burlesque bondage comedy with singing and body painted interpretive dance? Gospel revival plus strip tease? Synchronized swimming with booze? Fetish fire spinning with live DJ sets? It's hard to describe what happened at the "Free Society" event at the Artisan last Thursday. Hopefully Andrea Dominick's review and my photos can shed a little bit of light on the situation.

Not Drag Queens

What I learned most importantly a few weeks ago when I shot portraits of David de Alba and Paul Cummings, two amazing female impersonators who worked at the famed Finnochio's in San Francisco: Please don't call them drag queens.

Ladies of the Year

Part Two: Lovely Ladies of the Year

The Collectors

These are the collectors I photographed for Las Vegas Weekly's collector story by Abigail Goldman. Shaun Wayne (top photo) collects Barbies. But what does Gia Ray collect? Beard hair, of course! Beard hair stored in lockets. How nice.