Noches Calientes

In honor of Cinco de Mayo this year, me and a reporter did a Latino club crawl last weekend to find the hottest dance spots for Las Vegas Weekly readers to celebrate Cinco de Mayo all year long. I haven't done club photography for quite a while, and I had an excellent time staying up until the wee hours snapping shots of the gyrating dancers and colorful environs of this vibrant scene. Gear-wise, I decided to go a little bit lighter than I usually do. Can you guess which shots I took with my G11?

Terry Spieker

One of the many college student that may be affected by the upcoming budget cuts: Terry Spieker is a CSN nursing student who takes care of his two severely autistic daughters full time when he's not studying or in school. His patience and calm is breathtaking to observe. There should be more people like Terry in this world.

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.

The Patron Saint of Ireland

Oh, annual drunken hordes in green, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways:

 

The Big Sleep

It's so nice when things come together perfectly. For the past six months, we've been following a hotel suite design competition at the historic El Cortez Hotel in downtown Las Vegas. Four designers, four suites, $22,000 each. I have to admit that I was not as excited about this project as the other members of the team working on it (the videographer and reporter). But in the end, the design team that won was the team I had coincidentally spent the most time photographing. It all worked out and looking back, I actually got some decent photos. I will not complain so much next time.

Tina learns her design "The Big Sleep" has won.

The original suite without renovations. Bleck.

Tina's fabulous shoes with the ugly carpet.

"The Big Sleep"

They used bullet casings as decoration to go with the mob theme. Brilliant.

Learning About Hernias

I always have this nightmare scenario in mind when I'm photographing surgery: I lean over to get a closer shot or a more interesting composition, trip on my own feet and land on the surgical table, on top of the patient, and manage to either kill or maim everyone in the room.

This has never happened, and did not happen last Friday when I photographed two hernia repairs performed by a doctor that does cash-only surgeries. The anesthesiologist let me get pretty damn close to the patient though, just on the other side of the sterile drape. It made me nervous, but no one was maimed in the end.

From Russia

Vadim Bolotsky and Nikolai Melnikov are classically trained Russian circus performers. They are part of a group of Russians who came to Las Vegas in 1993 to perform a flying trapeze act in "Mystere" the first Cirque du Soliel show in Las Vegas. Many of the dozen or so performers still live in Las Vegas, doing various things and living various lives. Vadim was a flyer and Nikolai was a catcher. These days, Vadim lives rural life in Pahrump and helps out as a stage manager at the Amargosa Opera House in Death Valley Junction, Ca. Nikolai still performs. He is part of a two-man hand balancing art in "V The Ultimate Variety Show" at the Miracle Miles Shops in Planet Hollywood.

To see many more photos, read the story, and see a great video by Katie Euphrat check out the Las Vegas Sun.