Naked Las Vegas

Like Greg Friedler's three previous studies—Naked New York, Naked Los Angeles, and Naked London—where each subject appears first clothed and then without clothes, these seventy-five people both confirm and contradict our assumptions about those who live and work in Sin City. Color photographs echo the gaudy surface of the Strip, but these people—including waitresses, teachers, sex workers, businessmen, transsexuals, taxi drivers, mothers, and homeless men—dare to step outside their protective everyday facades.

Unlike traditional nude photography, these portraits are devoid of erotic or sexual overtones. Friedler's work is a kind of anthropological survey. If clothing is a voluntary choice, unclothed we see people in an involuntary state—we see their bodies as we see their faces, unmasked. These images are at once deeply intimate and refreshingly matter-of-fact.

"I have always liked John Lennon's idea about violence being grotesque and nudity being beautiful."—Las Vegas cab driver

Greg Friedler is a commercial and fine-art photographer whose work has appeared in numerous publications and anthologies, including the Los Angeles Times Magazine, the Washington Post, Nerve, and The New Nude. He lives in Denver, Colorado.