Stuart Skalka

Las Vegas Statement
Stuart Skalka 
Oct 6 2020

When people who don't live in Las Vegas think of it, in their mind's eye they see The Strip.  I lived there for three years and discovered that there's a great deal beyond The Strip well worth photographing.  My objective is to tell my story of the non stereotypical Las Vegas, in color and B&W.

After living in and avidly photographing Manhattan for 30 years, I moved to Las Vegas 10 years ago stayed there three years.  Las Vegas, surrounded by desert and mountains,  is vastly different from NYC.   The Strip comprises only a tiny percentage of its area.  I spent many hours hiking outside the city and exploring Las Vegas off The Strip.  I fell in love with the old Vegas, in particular the classic neon signs, which have been disappearing from The Strip when the new casino/hotels replace them. The first four photos were shot on The Strip:

 1) the Welcome to Fabulous Refreshment Coke ad, on the east side looking north from the MGM.  It’s a takeoff on the famous Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign at the south end of The Strip that was designed by Betty Willis in 1959. 

 2) the stairs leading to (barely visible) City Center, which is a huge retail and residential complex (17 million square feet on 76 acres).

 3)  a shot above the entryway to the Planet Hollywood hotel and casino. I almost always shoot with wide or ultra wide angle lenses, but in this case I used a telephoto

 4) the Glass Pool Inn, on the south end of The Strip was built in 1952 and closed in 2003.  The rooms have been demolished, but because the project the land was intended for didn’t materialize, the pool, the changing room, and the beach chairs survive from old Vegas, before the giant hotel casinos were built on The Strip. 

Fremont Street, in downtown Las Vegas, was the main casino street before The Strip, where I took the remaining photos.  The intersection of Fremont and Las Vegas Blvd is where the three electric signs at night are.  The one on the left advertises the Heart Attack Grill on Fremont St, where anyone who weighs over 350 pounds eats for free. The middle neon sign of the horse and rider was saved from the Hacienda Resort Hotel and Casino that was built in 1956 and located on The Strip.  Aladdin’s Lamp on the right was saved from the Aladdin hotel and casino which dates from 1966 and was also on The Strip.  Multi color electric signs are usually shot in color, but the B&W rendition at night is stark and the floating signs are striking but disorienting. 

Going east on Fremont St are multiple old motels, typically from the '50's, where out of town visitors stayed.  (Some of these motels have been torn down and one has been turned into an art installation, the Big Rig.)   I love vintage road signs and the Desert Moon’s (#8) is one of my favorites.  It’s almost always sunny in Las Vegas so I was lucky to catch it as the sun was setting against a stormy sky.  I was able to capture the courtyard of the Roulette Motel (#9) the same way.  The Silver Saddle Saloon (#6) is a Latino casino, sports bar and dance hall.  Dotty’s Casino(lucky #7) is a chain of small casinos for locals.  Personal injury lawyers are the most common advertisers on billboards in Las Vegas, and Glen Lerner (#10) is the most pervasive.

These photos are a selection from my solo show in Las Vegas.  None of the images has been post-processed except for very minor spotting and/or cropping.  The B&W photos were shot on film and some of the color shots are film while others are digital.