For me, my first draw was to pursue something relating to the visual qualities of electronic billboards or signs, like the kind you see over bar/tavern doors, or the electronic signs at baseball games or bright signs advertising a motel's vacancy. So that night I went out and started shooting what inspired me and what I wanted to observe as example.
At first I was interested in any well lit artistic signs I could find, but as I walked around downtown I started getting drawn toward the aesthetic of neon. I also noticed that I was particularly interested in new neon signs. The more mass produced, on-demand and generic signs that seemed to lack some of the art and craftsmanship of old-school neon which was a hybrid of signage and light (not just glowing light tubes). However, I also went onto the net and found some inspirational images of the neon graveyard/museum out in Las Vegas. I found that I was, at the same time, interested in how dead, lifeless and devoid of fun and excitement these signs were, yet they seemed to cling onto the empty meanings and promises they would have boasted durring their use. They were like smiling dead men. It was kind of profoundly nostalgic, hopeful and yet sad.
