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Andrew Kiraly

Andrew Kiraly

Las Vegas’ transient populace can make for a lot of brain-drain and skeletal, undernourished relationships, but there’s definitely one advantage to living in a city where everyone comes from somewhere else: Whoa, what great backstories. Amid the drifters, dreamers and second-chancers who float our way, there are countless compelling tales of arrival. Some fled oppressive regimes and even civil war to come here; others arrived through lucky encounters and chance meetings that transformed their lives; still others consciously bull’s-eyed Sin City with success in their sights. Whatever the reason, those fascinating origin stories of How I Came to Vegas are the subject of this year’s installment of We Just Had to Ask (p. 68). You’ll meet a newspaper cartoonist who got his big break from a gruff phone call from a former Nevada governor, an entrepreneur whose crossroads moment was a (thankfully) bad haircut, an artist couple who fled a stifling theocracy halfway around the world, and a Lost Boy of Sudan now living the American dream in Southern Nevada — and who still sometimes wonders if he is, in fact, dreaming.

The extraordinary thing to me is a certain unextraordinariness about it all. Not, of course, their stories and their struggles. I’m thinking, rather, of the idea that living in a drowsy suburb in North Las Vegas is a Sudanese man who as a 7-year-boy walked for a month barefoot, through jungle and over hill, to reach the promised land that was a crowded refugee camp in Ethiopia. That our city is a magnet for such stories — that the people who’ve lived these stories are our friends and neighbors —  is a fine thing. And when you think of it in that light, our transience isn’t such a problem. It suggests instead that while Vegas peddles luck to the tourists who stream constantly through, we also offer hope to those who choose to live here, for however long.

A refreshed vision of Las Vegas awaits, too, in our annual photo feature package. Once again, everyone from smartphone shutterbugs to pro shooters get time in the spotlight as winners in our third annual Focus on Nevada photo contest (p. 50). And when you’re done drooling over that cache of eye-candy, be sure to check out the companion feature, “ How I got the shot” (p. 61), a personal how-and-why walk-through of some seasoned photographers’ favorite shots. Photojournalists share anecdotes about some of their more newsworthy snaps, fine art photographers unveil the techniques behind their startling images, and commercial shooters reveal the secrets behind their surprisingly complex images. Smartphone cameras and image apps may have democratized the art of photography, but there’s no Instagram filter for instincts, ingenuity and inspired thinking.

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Finally, ’scuse us while we pat ourselves on the back: Desert Companion took home two Maggie awards (“the Oscars of publishing”!) at the 64th annual Western Publishing Association awards banquet May 1 in Los Angeles. We won a Maggie for James Joseph Brown’s humorous Dungeon & Dragons memoir, “ Mage Against the Machine” (November 2014), and another for Chris Morris’ sharp illustration for our May 2014 story, “ Bad to the bones,” about the Tule Springs fossil beds. Woot! Congratulations to them, us and the real winner: You.

As a longtime journalist in Southern Nevada, native Las Vegan Andrew Kiraly has served as a reporter covering topics as diverse as health, sports, politics, the gaming industry and conservation. He joined Desert Companion in 2010, where he has helped steward the magazine to become a vibrant monthly publication that has won numerous honors for its journalism, photography and design, including several Maggie Awards.