I went to the Fiore’s Restaurant at the Harrah’s Casino near Escondido, California, the other night. Shayne’s parents took us there for a really nice dinner to celebrate our wedding anniversary. I was so full I thought I might die. After dinner, I waddled off to the slot machines and marveled at all the lights. My father-in-law, Jim, asked one of the security guards if I could take pictures and she said she didn’t see why not. Cool! (And surprising!)

I concentrated on the neon lights, some blur effects and signage, and I shot quickly because I didn’t think it would last long… Sure enough, a few minutes into my picture fest, another guard asked me very nicely to stop. Apparently, the other guard had been wrong about the shooting (shocking). But I managed to shoot 40 or 50 images before they stopped me and I got a couple that I really liked.

I set my new Canon camera to the vivid colors setting to get extra punch out of the neon. The brightness of the neon allows you to shoot without flash and with shutter speeds that prevent blurring. That actually became a bit of a problem. Quick shutter speeds and an image stabilizer prevented me from getting some of the blur I wanted. I had to really pan the camera during the shot to get the blur I was looking for.

MOVEMENT

When I think of a casino, I always think of blinking lights, flashing lights and color color color, so movement in the shot becomes important, I think. You can see this static shot of a slot machine looks really lifeless, even though it’s a funky image on the machine. The blurry neon definitely looks more exciting.
I also tried using the color select feature on my camera to see what it would do to the bright colors. It’s a neat effect, I think.

IN THE CASINO

In general, casinos won’t allow you to shoot on the game floor. For fear of nefarious activity, they’ve nixed all shots except those taken of a big winner in front of their machine. But playing dumb is always a good way to go, especially when shooting with a compact digital camera (instead of a professional-looking DSLR). Take your shots freely and openly until they ask you to stop. The big Vegas casinos will likely stop you very quickly, so shoot fast and use blur to your advantage.

I’d also recommend against taking any shots of security stuff, poker tables, and people. I’d LOVE to do a photo essay about the slot machine players, but I fear that will remain a dream.