Baader-Meinhof: the phenomenon where one happens upon some obscure piece of information-- often an unfamiliar word or name-- and soon afterwards encounters the same subject again, often repeatedly.
Searching for contemporary highway themes unique to the area, I began photographing roadside casinos South of I-10 in late 2018. Once committed to the ubiquitous subject I began to find them everywhere resulting in an ongoing body of work titled 52 Card Pick Up.
Who are these casinos for? What is the purpose? Is it beyond opportunism? They are not directly part of my world and at first glance I only saw the bleak. Over time, more was revealed; the eccentric, the paranoid, a sense of the communal, a magician and the most cordial drug dealer...”hey ti cool camera, I’ll be done in a minute pls don’t photograph my car.”
I don’t belly up to the roadside casino bar regularly but have become completely seduced by finding and capturing this architecture of opportunism.
…Technical Notes
Unfortunately, Lucky Louie did not bring his namesake in the darkroom this week. The negative is very difficult to print and my 16x20 enlargement did not make the cut. Running out of time I switched processes; the image shown here is a 4x5 contact print using a specialty paper rich in silver and developer that extends the tonal range (silver chloride process). These small objects are fantastic and in many ways superior to the larger prints.