The Compulsion to Take your Own Piece of a Place: A Visit to Las Vegas

I remember going on vacations with my parents and younger siblings to historical sites–Gettysburg, Bunker Hill, Nauvoo, and others. I would always want to take something with me, like a rock from Gettysburg. I wanted something tangible, substantial, something that would create resonance and connection to the place and its events even when I was gone. My parents would tell me that if everyone took a rock from Gettysburg there would no be no rocks left. Thus, the invention of the souvenir shop: you can take something that feels significant and create connection even though whatever it is you bought was probably made in China. The place is preserved, the economy is stimulated, and you go home happy.

I went to Las Vegas a few weeks ago to see Phantom of the Opera, and even though I’m not a Vegas type of girl (I don’t gamble, drink, or go to “adult entertainment”), when touring I still wanted to bring something back with me. I really didn’t buy anything, besides a bottle of water. But I did bring something back with me: videos. Yes, I know, I could search on YouTube and there are plenty of videos of Las Vegas. And there are movies, like Ocean’s 11, that memorialize it. But just as you want your own rock or your own t-shirt, I wanted my own videos.

First, the Venetian was all decked out for the Chinese New Year, so I had to get a shot of a dragon I  saw:

Second, I loved the fountain show at the Bellagio, so I cut together a few of my favorite parts:

Pictures and video are the new thing to take away from a place. We take them, trying to personally capture a location’s essence. Especially in the 18th century, and continuing on today, there were fears that perhaps photography could actually steal a piece of someone’s soul, or at least damage it. It’s an interesting thought, because we do change our experiences of things by mediating them.

Here’s a few books that I’ve enjoyed on the history and theories of photography and film that consider how the camera has changed our lives:

• The Reality Effect: Film Culture and the Graphic Imperative by Joel Black
• Classic Essays on Photography edited by Alan Trachtenberg (This contains essays from a variety of well-known figures during the 19th and 20th centuries.)
• On Photography by Susan Sontag (If something is by Sontag, I know I want to read it. She’s just that good.)
• The Emergence of Cinematic Time: Modernity, Contigency, the Archive by Mary Ann Doane
• Framing the Victorians: Photography and the Culture of Realism by Jennifer Green-Lewis
• The Art of Interruption: Realism, Photography, and the Everyday by John Roberts
• Transforming Images: How Photography Complicates the Picture by Barbara E Savedoff

In truth, that’s my personally collected bibliography of cool film and photography books. I am officially a geek.