"In that reality of chance, Vegas lives--in those fluttery moments of faint but rising hope, in the possibility of wonder, in the swell of desire while the dice are still bouncing, just before the card flips face-up. And win or lose, you always have that instant of genuine, justifiable hope." --Dave Hickey, Air Guitar

I made these photographs after working at Mandalay Bay as a waitor and cocktail waitress for five years. My shift began at 6pm, and Mandalay employee parking is on the 7th and 8th levels of the parking garage behind it. I increasingly parked on the 8th to watch what the setting sun did to the concrete slab. That huge gold structure cast so much strange and changing light on it. I gloated as I thought to myself, 'wonder if any of those tourists know what they're missing; this has to be the most fantastic place to be in Vegas at this hour.'
I used to spend hours reading at the airport, just to witness people coming and going. A child ran to the huge windows and yelled, "Look ma, we didn't have to go to all those places; they're already here!" I feel like that dumb kid in Vegas, completely intoxicated by it, but not by those things made for grabbing my attention. It takes a while to see past the things they've created to distract you. Years maybe. But then the magic starts to come back, and it happens in all the places you'd have never expected, and maybe especially in parking lots.
I wanted to see it like a child, get back the magic, and discover something wholly different from those images they make there, everyday, thousands at every moment, that only show what was made by corporate execs for the camera. We don't need anymore of those. But we really need to believe in sleight of hand. For our own sake.