Big, Bright and Loud

Last weekend was Mariachi Madness in Las Vegas. Here are some photos and a slightly cheesy paragraph that I wrote for the Mariachi photo page that ran in the Las Vegas Sun today:

 Mariachi is big, bright, loud, garish and unapologetic. The colors of the Ballet Folklorico dancer's dresses swirled as they swished and twirled to the music both on the stage and in the aisles of Reynolds Hall. About 3000 students from 16 middle schools and high schools in the Clark County School District's Mariachi and Ballet Folklorico programs performed with Mariachi Cobre, a renowned Mariachi group, during the Latin Chamber of Commerce Mariachi Festival at Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts in Las Vegas Friday night. Photographing Mariachi does not do it justice, because without sound it's tough to capture the exuberance. I tried my best to show in photographs the color and emotion, but Mariachi truly lives in all five senses.

See more photos and read the article about Mariachi in Southern Nevada.

Prom Comfort

I have to admit that photographing proms is my comfort zone. Get me to a teen dance and I'm a happy photographer. I love the drama of prom; the highs and lows, the colors, the emotions and the hormones. I also love learning all the new dance moves that the kids are doing these days. One of the reasons I like photographing the teen demographic is at that age they haven't put up the barriers that most adults have settled behind. They are more open and honest. This is especially true for the current generation of teenagers, much more so then when I was in high school in the 1990s. They are so out there already on the internet, sharing every single emotion and self-portrait with the world, that one newspaper photographer following them around doesn't seem to faze them at all.

Here's a sampling of my favorites from this year's Mojave and Chaparral High School proms. Included in the documentary work is a set of black and portraits I did this year at Chaparral prom that were definitely inspired by Mary Ellen Mark's amazing Polaroid 20×24 Land Camera prom portraits.

The Final Test

It's always an interesting assignment to be a fly on the wall while people receive big news. The other week at Chaparral High School, a reporter and I sat in as students found out whether they passed or failed their Nevada high school proficiency exams. These tests are necessary for graduation. All the kids I photographed are seniors, so they will have only one more chance to take the tests. If they fail again, they won't graduate with the rest of their class. So as you can imagine, their reactions were quite powerful.

Read more about the make or break nature of Nevada high school proficiency exams here.

New Friends

I made two new friends last week at the Gilcrease Animal Sanctuary. One is an emu from Australia and the other is Bill Gilcrease, 93.

See the Las Vegas Sun story here.

iPad Anticipation

Flavor Flav Meets the Fryer

In honor of my photo being chosen for this week's back story photo page in Las Vegas Weekly, here's a larger take from the opening of Flavor Flav's new take out restaurant, House of Flavor. Click on this link to read about how hot it was in Flavor Flav's kitchen, and if he dropped that chicken or not.