Freemont Street Cowboy...Poor Man.

Where is the summer going ?

This weeks download image is the "Freemont Street Cowboy". Due to technical problems the downloadable images are not as large as I was hoping they would be...If anyone would like really high resolution files to make prints up to 2 feet wide email me at the Contact info address and I will send it to you personally. Thanks to Orange Cap (Dale Clarke) for the song "Poor Man" which plays underneath the images this week. Great song !!!
First media: On September 3rd at 12:30 Pm I will be doing a radio interview about the "Lost Vegas Project" on "thatradio.com" (Liquid Lunch) a great Internet station that you should check out if you have never heard of it.
Some amazing images have been added again to the Altered Art page. Please keep them coming.
More musicians are getting involved in the project and are creating amazing new music for the soundtrack. A live "Lost Vegas" show is being planned for late August at "The Silver Dollar" in Toronto.
Stay TUNED...

Loving Lost Vegas...

-The second download/wallpaper from the "Lost Vegas Art Project" is now available. Thanks to everyone who has taken time to comment or send in some of their own versions of the images.

-The "Altered Art" section is really interesting from my standpoint. As much as I like the original images it is fascinating to see what other people have come up with. Check it out, more images have been added.

-Some bands have been in touch about writing original music for the project which is cool. Stay posted for a "Live" Lost Vegas concert date before the end of the summer.

-"PayPaul"tm - the convenient new method to "Pay if you want" is up and running. The site will be tracking the influx of money that comes in from conscientious downloaders. If everyone in the world would contribute just one dollar then I would be a "Billionaire". The total so far is "5 dollars"...!!! To some people this would seem like a failure but I believe that the project will grow and evolve at it's own pace. Harry Potter author J.K Rowling recently did a commencement speech to graduates at Harvard University entitled "The fringe benefits of Failure and the importance of imagination" in which she said...
-"It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default". Good advice !

And lastly a note from my friend "The Ice Man" who wrote me the following...
-"From the man who nicknamed himself, comes the belief that everybody deserves a chance to express themselves. For some strange reason most never do, possibly because they are afraid or maybe because they don’t think they have anything important to contribute. But when a courageous mother fucker like yourself lets it all hang out, it should be the inspiration everybody needs to show the world they too may have something really cool to say. I’m truly inspired by this incredible work."
The Iceman.

"House of Cards"

So I launched the web site on July 4th as I had hoped. It wasn't perfect but it was a beginning. I received lots of interesting responses from the email that I had sent out- some quotes have been inserted into the slide show. The one word that kept coming up was "cool", which is cool.
I have put Radioheads song "House of Cards" from their brilliant album "In Rainbows" (which I bought last week). It's a tip of the hat to them for making great music and changing the distribution model radically. I was warned that maybe Radiohead would get upset if I used their song without permission - but from what I read about their concept , is that they want people to create their own art with it. That is what - this is. I will send it to them so that they are aware.
A few changes have yet to be made but we are working to make it better as soon as possible. People have started to send in images of the images and we will be posting them in The gallery section. If you have any images that you would like to contribute please send them to me as "jpgs" and I will have them uploaded. Three songs are in production for the "Original Soundtrack" for the images, as I write this by friends of mine who happen to be incredibly talented also. I am very excited by he music aspect to this project. The rough cut versions of the songs I have heard sound every bit as unique and good as "In Rainbows" . I will be sending out an invitation to independent bands that I am aware of to participate in this experiment also. Just send in an mp3 file and I will run it under the home page images. The only thing I ask is that somewhere in the song (unless it is an instrumental song) the name of the image that the song was written about is mentioned...
The names of the images are:

1- Welcome to Fabulous Downtown Las Vegas Nevada.
2- Freemont Street Cowboy.
3- Strip Motel Pool.
4- Boulevard Hotel.
5- Your Future Starts here.
6- Viva Las Vegas.
7- Don Rickles Live.
8- El Cortez Hotel. (Meal Deals)
9- 24 hrs.
10-Topless Girls of Glitter Gulch.
11- Fun City.


All styles and types of music are welcome. It's 11:11 AM

THANKS

Say Goodbye ...It's Independance Day !

Yipeee Kayea...Mother F*@kers. Live Free or Die Hard !!!

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to loose..."
Kris Kristofferson

I remember the moment I heard that Radiohead announced
that they would be releasing their latest work "In Rainbows"
on a"Pay what you want" basis to be downloaded on their
website,and thinking right away that I had to be the first
photographer to do something similar in my art form.
So two months later this  is what I have come up with...
"Pay IF you want"...On the website for the next 11 weeks
I will be offering High Resolution down loadable files
from the "Lost Vegas Art Project" portfolio. Take'em,
print'em, change'em, frame'em,give'em, send'em, tattoo'em,
draw pictures of'em, write music to'em, paint'em, burn'em,
write poetry about'em...whatever your creative mind comes
up with ?
Do something, it will be fun.

The Background Story:

This Portfolio of images is the last work that I shot
on film, one afternoon in March of 2004 on my first
trip to Las Vegas. My wife Nicol was attending a
marketing conference and I came along for the trip. One
afternoon I trekked to Old Las Vegas with my Hassleblad
camera loaded with colour film and a 35 mm Minolta point
and shoot camera loaded with Black and white film.
As I walked by the Golden Nugget Casino on Freemont Street
I spotted this cowboy having a smoke against the gold wall.
I aproached him and asked if I could make a picture of him ?
He was friendly and did as I asked.
His name is Franklin...This was the photo I made

After I had shot this we had a nice chat. He was a former
Professional Rodeo Cowboy who was at that time living on
the streets of Old Las Vegas. He asked me if I wanted to
see some sites that most tourist never see. I said sure.
For the next two hours franklin took me to historic Casino's
and bars in Old Vegas. He never asked me for anything,
although I bought him beers at a few of the bars and a nice
lunch(kinda pay if you want?). He gave me his Mom's address
to send the photograph to her, but I somehow lost it ? I
would laterdo a little film about a similar story that
happened to me in Jamaica in 1993. If everything that I
hope can come out of this project, then in a about a years
time I will return to Vegas and try and find Franklin and
give him his photograph.
That could never happen twice could it? I think it can.

It was after I left him that I started to shoot the black
and white images. I roamed the streets of Old Las Vegas
and did what I love doing best. I have fond memories of
Las Vegas. It was our first trip away from the kids. We
got to stay at the Bellagio Hotel, met some old friends,
lost some money playing blackjack ...but it was the five
hours I spent out in Old Vegas that I captured best,
I think?

"Give it away, give it away, give it away NOW"!
Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

"Pay If You want"?

Am I crazy? Some people have told me so, but after 10
years pursuing a career as a freelance photographer
and then as a freelance documentary filmmaker,I feel
that the Radiohead model may be my chance for true
Independence as an artist.

I read this on a blog recently and it sums up the concept
of this project...

-"Where music leads all else will follow" .. that is
the breakdown of the commercial music industry to elements
of trade, file sharing, swapping & purchase will one day
encompass our whole online commercial structure. Merit and
creative truth will rule,meaningless content will simply
become ignored meaninglessness,and it will struggle for any
traction.

The sharing and spread across digital platforms of all
online services and products will occur, with value being
judged by merit. This will occur whether we are talking
about a music track,a new product or a simple day to day
service.

Advertisers will no longer be able to saturate our TV
screens with useless products and thinly veiled lies
about necessity- purchase value & immediacy will be
decided by the purchaser.

Ok, …. deeper : the human mind is a spark of the
almighty consciousness of the creator, imagination
and creativity are the doors from which this consciousness
emerges. As human minds develop further and become more
fully tuned to the nature of spirit, by stopping thought,
abandoning knowledge & trusting intuition, creativity also
becomes more fully tuned to this truth.
That is, music / knowledge / content / product is freed
from the shackles of blind commercialism, prejudice or
banality will simply cut through and gain traction by the
simple fact of its creative merit. The deeper the self
realization of a person and his/her creativity, the more
he/she influences the whole universe by subtle creative
vibrations.

Silence is the potent carrier of the present tense.
Every sound or action comes from silence & dies back into
the ocean of silence. You choose by your actions how you
may disrupt this silence – 
choose wisely.

Think about that for a while ? Revolutionary.

Thomas Jefferson said the following about The United
States Declaration of Independence "We hold these truths
to be self-evident, that    all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights,that among these are Life, Liberty
and The Pursuit of Happiness .

So this is my life and I am at liberty to do whatever I
want with these pictures,in my never ending pursuit of 
happiness ?

This website is a work in progress. Download one of the
Screen Savers on your computers. They look amazing and are
framed nicely with a border to store all your folders and
stuff. Please send me an retouched image if you fel like it.
I will begin to post some them in a separate Gallery page next week.
Myfriend John Coburn did an amazing black ink drawing for me
that I will post.

Starting next week I will be changing the music every week
to feature great songs about Las Vegas.
The song playing under the Lost Vegas slide show on this
first day is Gram Parson's "OOOH Las Vegas". If you don't
have any Gram Parson music - get some.
I have asked some independent musician friends I know to
write original songs for the 11 titles of the images to
produce a CD/Tour...Who knows what? My friend Dale Clark
(Orange Cap) just sent me a rough version of the song
for the first image "Welcome To Fabulous Downtown Las Vegas
Nevada"..
It's God Damn brilliant, I think Dale is the new Dylan!
And I love Dylan but isn't it about time???
I invite any Canadian musician to participate also.
We have the greatest talent that needs new ways of
exposure.
Please check the web site soon for more details.

As well as giving away image files for people to make
prints with, I am starting to market and license my
images on various products. Check out the "store" that
I have started to set up. I will be putting more images
on the t-shirts if the demand is there. I even got real
American Stamps printed with the "Welcome to Lost Vegas"
image on it, how cool is that? The T-shirts are  $ 19.95
(never pay more than $ 20.00 dollarson a
T-shirt). I make about $ 5.00 from that.
I only have one coffee cup up there right now but I
think a set of 6 would make a lovely gift idea. Good news
the shop is open 24/7.

There will be live events coming soon also that will be
updated onthe site.

So there in a nutshell is the idea.

It's officially Independence Day In America (12:03 am).
In the words
of Bruce Springsteen...

"So say goodbye it's Independence Day,
 Papa now I know the things you wanted that you
could not say,
 But won't you just say goodbye it's Independence Day
 I swear I never meant to take those things away."

So with a click of the mouse and a roll of the dice
Phase Two of "The Lost VegasArt Project" is underway.

Luck be my lady, lets all meet in Vegas in a year,
and what happens there... well you know!

Welcome To Fabulous Downtown Las Vegas Nevada

July 3, 2008

On May 21, 2008 I had a show of 11 images that make up the "Lost Vegas Art Project" at fOTOGLIF headquarters in Toronto. A short little film by my Sweedish filmmaker/editor Joakim Tjernell, from the evening is on the "Events" page. I asked a friend from the East to write something about the images... this is what he responded with...

"The Lost Vegas Art Project"

“What a sad, but truly wonderful portrayal of America’s need for instant gratification” Perrier has done it again, exposing us to sex, sin, drugs and the dark side of life we all silently yearn for”
Perrier has as always bet on new ideas to generate awareness of causes such as drug addiction, repression, comedy, gambling which as we know make for good personal stories and visuals.
The irony in Perrier’s photographs is beautiful, Sin City apart from the big lights is a small town that has built itself on shameless self promotion, alluring and at times illusive to the heightened greed of America. One can have it all, but with it, comes a price. Look where America is now!
In this series of work, he understands my kind of family’s sad ironies, a sister that made off for the bright lights never to return, another that liked punching horses and then sleeping with them and parents that found addiction and then gambling with the mental states of their offspring a humourous pastime.
All of which has had it’s cause and affect.
On a lighter note, If I were a betting man, Id say “What happen’s here, stay’s here”, the Nevada Gaming Commission’s recent campaign for LasVegas Nevada is hand’s down, the most successful , self effacing, honest and truly funniest Ad campaigns I have ever witnessed. You’d have to have not been to Vegas or simply had your head up the proverbial ass not to have understand the five remarkable words that say’s it all in this campaign. Brilliant, but sad.
I wish I’d had had the opportunity to scribe those words, however, convincing the Nevada Gaming Commission surely had moments of sheer terror for the agency responsible. I’m positive it was saved as the last resort and when presenting, it was their trump card….. “Ok Steve, tell them the line you came up with after the drunken table dance you performed last night”
Thank Christ of the Latter Day Saints, I live far from the madness which is Las Vegas Nevada, I live in another state of madness, which for personal reason’s I hesitate to discuss publicly at this point.
Why do we find it fascinating to watch in horror as people’s families and fortunes are driven to near extinction in places like Las Vegas? I’ve learnt personally I am quite capable of doing this in the comfort of my own home.
And why go to Las Vegas when you can own one of the works from The Lost Vegas Art Project for a fraction of the cost? It’s a good deal and you don’t have to do any explaining when you get home.
I support Perrier’s portrayal of one of the largest man made sins, because, like you, it’s got sex, greed, sadness, beauty, strange twists and turns, secrecy, deceit, betrayal, loss and with all that comes with it, it makes me happy knowing I’ve never been to Las Vegas and never will.
Congratulations Paul, strangely, hope you hit the jackpot! Hit me!

Anon-Penang, Malaysia
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Although the lead up time to the show was short about 75-100 people stopped by and viewed the images, listened to some great music, drank some great "Wellington Beer"and ate some tasty treats. It was the first time that I have ever shown my photographs publicly. The show was held for family and friends as the first step in the unfolding project. The website launches tomorrow July 4th , 2008 and I will explain where the project goes from here. Thanks to the following people for their help and encouragement...

Nicol
Dylan & Taegan
Cinéma.
Carly and Mike
The Godin Brothers
Bruce and Heather
Michael Brennan
Steve Stanley & Carla MacNeil
Steve Briggs
Angus & Martin
Baldini

Thanks to everyone who came out to see what was happening. It was a cool evening.