JAN ARRIGO Portfolios

Project Description:
Leaving Las Vegas

The starting point for an ongoing Western landscape series, departing Las Vegas became a new subject because I needed to flee neon. How to describe the gritty feel of walking the gauntlet of hawkers along the gaudy strip then driving out of town to photograph nature? Moving away from the center, the transition in terrain matched my mood from tense to calm. While I did not photograph plastic bags in wire fences around the homeless tent city, I did capture a titanium plant explosion while a partially hidden Zombie Bus with painted machine guns had me at hello in these shoot ‘em out times.

I was thinking of the film Leaving Las Vegas where an alcoholic screenwriter and a prostitute fall in love amidst shiny lights and lurking danger. This series imagines that they drove out of town to escape the script’s bleak ending.

Although none of the photographs overtly refer to the mass shooting on the strip in October of 2018, the massacre's memory permeated my being. In returning the next year to formally finish this project I remembered something else: I was trying to flee the sadness of losing a friend.

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Western Reflection, 2019, Las Vegas, NV, archival pigment print

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Looking Towards Henderson, 2018, Las Vegas, NV, archival pigment print

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Luxor Casino, Las Vegas, NV, 2018, archival pigment print

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Bonnie Springs Restaurant Ranch, 2019, Las Vegas, NV, archival pigment print

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Hoover Dam, 2019, Boulder City, NV, archival pigment print

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Mine Building Roof Detail, 2019, Bonnie Springs, Las Vegas, NV, archival pigment print

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Mountain Viewers in Shadow, 2018, Red Rock Canyon, Las Vegas, NV, archival pigment print

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Distant Storms, 2018, Las Vegas, NV, archival pigment print

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Gunfire Smoke, 2018, Las Vegas

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Mount Charleston and Clouds, 2018, Las Vegas, NV, archival pigment print

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Explosion Looking Towards Henderson, 2018, Las Vegas, NV, archival pigment print

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Zombie Bus, 2018, Las Vegas, NV, archival pigment print

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Red Rock Through Palm Fronds, 2019, Las Vegas, NV, archival pigment print

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Red Rock Hiding, Red Rock Canyon, 2018, Las Vegas, NV, archival pigment print

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Double Palms, 2019, Red Rock Canyon, Las Vegas, NV, archival pigment print

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Stagecoach, 2019, Henderson, NV, archival pigment print

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Barbed Wire, Red Rock Canyon,2019, Las Vegas, NV, archival pigment print

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Lake Mead, 2019, Boulder City, NV, archival pigment print

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Horseback Riders, 2018, Red Rock Canyon, Las Vegas, NV, archival pigment print

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Desert Road, Bonnie Springs, 2019, Las Vegas, NV, archival pigment print

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