Architecture from afar

Structural Appreciation 101
Las Vegas, NV
November 2018
This photo originally shared on Instagram

There's virtue in simplicity, and sometimes all you need to do is look to the sky to find it.

You're looking at some kind of structural flourish at the top of a building adjacent to my hotel in Las Vegas. I'm not an architect or an engineer, so I can't share any more detail: I just knew that I liked how it looked. From where I stood, it didn't seem to serve any particular purpose beyond turning an otherwise ordinary-looking building into something unique. I guess that's what every architect is trying to do in this attention-mad city: Keep ladling on the architectural doodads like pats of butter on a Sunday-brunch crescent roll. Eventually, despite their intentions to the contrary, all these creations start to look, and taste, the same.

In the context of this over-the-top skyline, the seemingly functionless addition did its job: I looked. And I looked again. Eventually, I came back to the window beside the 41st floor elevator bank with my real camera in tow. I zoomed in, and in doing so put the blinders on as I ignored everything else competing for attention in the early evening sky. Suddenly, the lines, shapes, lights, textures and tones all snapped into place, and I knew I had gotten what I wanted.

I stood there, eye glued to my viewfinder, for no more than 5 minutes before I snapped this particular frame. In those 5 minutes, nothing else mattered as I pondered the possibilities and worked the camera until what I saw made me smile. In the middle of a week of non-stop action far from home, I managed to stop time and find a spot that was uniquely mine. I can't help but think this photo is less notable to me than the minutes that preceded its capture. Photography-as-Zen-experience: I could go for more of that. And perhaps soon, I shall.

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