Las Vegas Shutdown 2020 (ePub)

Set in the Entertainment Capital of The World, Las Vegas, NV USA. In the spring of 2020, this 24/7 city is mandated by state authorities to shutdown all non-essential business to include casinos, restaurants, entertainment venues, bars, nightclubs, and many other businesses that support those venues. Advertising firms, print shops, food & liquor purveyors, cleaning supply companies, and all who feed the supply chain to keep the world's most vibrant entertainment venue alive were suddenly closed with less than 24-hours notice to do so.

Carnevale Gallery owner, Tony Carnevale, shared an idea with photographer, John Mastrogiacomo.

The famed Las Vegas Strip was closed. It had to be photographed. How would they navigate through the city with its closure? Would they be permitted to access the Las Vegas Strip? Casino Security were on high-alert for intruders. There was only one way to find out…

Each night Carnevale and Mastrogiacomo would park their vehicles off the strip, straddle their camera gear, and begin a journey North & South in search of "never before seen" photographs of Las Vegas.

Carnevale was adamant not to capture empty street corners. He was quoted saying, "I don't want just empty street corners. Every newspaper & periodical across the globe is here photographing the empty Las Vegas Strip. I want artistic well conceived imagery that can be offered in my gallery as limited edition images of only 20."

When asked why the number 20, Carnevale responded, "I want to commemorate this year of 2020. The last number of each edition will be 20/20! Mastrogiacomo agreed with Carnevale and the two formed a collaboration themed, "four eyes are stronger than two."

Carnevale stated, "John was emphatic on the technical aspects of his photography as well as lighting and specifically the "magic hour" of light for our exterior images. We constantly monitored the time of sunset each day and coordinated our arrival to the Las Vegas Strip accordingly. We had to account for our time in which we parked our vehicle hundreds of yards away and walked with our camera gear until we found the right location. This entailed scouting locations days before the actual photoshoot. Along the way we met journalists and photographers from some of the major news publications around the world. Each night we would traverse through the city and watch the sun slowly descend in the west. Las Vegas is known for its night lights and as the sun would set, the city would illuminate; only there were no pedestrians or cars to speak of. It was eerie at times, but we made the best of it and realized each night we were out there, we were on the precipice of capturing a unique image - the likes of which, no one has seen or experienced before. The thrill of what lied ahead kept us going and we remained steadfast each night."

Las Vegas shut down on Wednesday, March 18, 2020. Carnevale and Mastrogiacomo began their journey the following day. Having assembled a body of work that entailed exterior images of Las Vegas, the local newspaper - Las Vegas Review Journal - did a story on the work and featured it in their Sunday art section.

Carnevale said, "After that article, an opportunity arose for us. We were able to access several iconic casinos on the Las Vegas Strip and capture images inside the properties while completely closed. Photographing indoors changed the dynamic compared to outdoors. There was mounting pressure on state authorities from the casinos and local business to reopen Las Vegas and we made the best of the time we had. Working daily, we captured unique images of a very quiet interior of some of the world's most iconic resort casinos…