Archive | April, 2010

Architecture Curvature Helps Vegas

By Bes Zain on April 17, 2010 in Observations 3 Comments

Architecture Curvature Helps Vegas

The weekend of Katie’s birthday. In Las Vegas, people usually focus on having fun through two things: drinking, and gambling. We went out and start having fun visiting all the different hotels on The Strip. And walking by this one was part of it. I do not remember if we went inside this hotel, because I cannot remember which hotel this is. For me, it now looks a little bit like the Vdara Hotel & Spa, though the sides of the Vdara appear smoother than the sides in this photo.

The main thing, or the best thing, about cornering the corner of something, like in this picture, is the idea of realizing not just how it stands out against the background, but how after the photo has been taken, we still focus on our emotion related to the photo, without being able to realize which single element prompted us to take the picture. It probably has to be the building. The sky is always there. And many times it is simply a dull piece of object laying around, waiting to sneak into almost every picture taken above your head level.

While the usual focus is on a silhouette or a background, I think this is basically taking picture of a corner that you think is awesome. I do not know which Hotel this is. I do know that it is big for its era of today. And that it is a physical, offline element added to a world that already proclaims the death of many things offline in favor of an online world. Will places to live be some of the only remaining things in the future that will be physical and be completely offline? I am not sure.

How many construction workers tweeted while building this? How many people will tweet from this building? How many people will tweet about this building? How many people on Facebook took pictures of this while it was being constructed? How many people send e-mails from the lobby of this hotel? Was this building built so that it could be Tweeted, Facebook’ed, BirghtKite’d, or MySpaced? Did the origins of this building have anything to do with the online world? Did it solely exist in the mind of the architect who got paid to build something? Or was it built solely to make money? Yep, it was.

In addition to walking around, Katie and I also drank. And we hit the slots too. It’s interesting how the visual expressions of photos usually focuses on a subject that is not us. I am beginning to think I should focus more on personal portraits again, and maybe for a long time. Like the Night Series. Or maybe I can consider the subjects that I portray in my photographs to be part of me, or to be me.

Thank you for looking. And reading. If you could let me know which Las Vegas Hotel this is, I would really appreciate it.

Update April 19th, 2010:

After seeing a billboard of it yesterday in San Francisco, I found out that this hotel is the Aria Resort & Casino. :)

3 Comments on Architecture Curvature Helps Vegas

“Shark Legacy In The Berkeley Shark Van”

By Bes Zain on April 3, 2010 in Observations 3 Comments

Shark Legacy In The Berkeley Shark Van

Berkeley is a city many people associate with weirdness. Good or bad, the weirdness is usually a result of people wanting to be different or themselves without the pressures of the society. These pressures are usually slopes that tend to roll down people into a pile of red tape, in case someone wants to do something that puts a bad name to the reputation of that society. While Berkeley tends to call itself a hippie or a trendy culture, it can in fact, when observed, can be seen as a city that takes many qualities of San Francisco and applies them to a quieter, less hyper and in many cases a safer area called Berkeley.

Shark van, shark van, who are you?
Shark van, shark van, what are you?
Shark van, shark van, who drives you?
Shark van, shark van, where are you?

Berkeley houses many different types of visual differences compared to many of the neighboring cities. Even San Francisco, which exceeds Berkeley in many levels, has random exhibits of emotions and ideas in people and the artifacts that are visible to both the people and the cameras. Whether one is on Facebook or on MySpace, people in Berkeley can walk around with almost any attire in many of the different areas around the UC Berkeley campus. This Shark Van in Berkeley is one of such artifacts in Berkeley which differs than many, if not most, of the vehicles in San Francisco. While it is unknown whether the Shark Van can conquer the heights of the hilly roads in San Francisco, it is very clear that the Shark Van exists to conquer the curiosity, or visual satisfaction, of many observers.

Who drives the Shark Van? What is is used for? I am not sure. I would love to find out. I have seen the Shark Van drive by me more than once when I used to live in Berkeley. Then, the thoughts of where to eat the next Thai food or which movie to watch that night immediately followed the happy face that came around after seeing the Shark Van. Now, I have to think about the Shark Van and wonder about the reasons behind and around it, and the reasons it creates for other things.

Shark van, shark van, can I ride with you?
Shark van, shark van, I am scared if you carry candy with you?
Shark van, shark van, who was it that made you?
Shark van driver, shark van driver, do you eat vegetables, or do you eat shark and tofu?

So here is the Shark Van. Found in Berkeley in this picture. The actual shark, or the driver, may live nearby.

3 Comments on “Shark Legacy In The Berkeley Shark Van”