Reno’s Victoria Scott, a scientist-turned-writer, is capturing some of Reno’s skyline and signage in her photography. After a career as a software engineer working at NASA, Scott came out as a transgender woman during the pandemic. Scott found going back in person to the Houston office and explaining this unappealing.
With a few years moonlighting as an automotive writer in her free time under her belt, Scott decided to try that route full-time. The remote nature of the new job meant that Scott could work anywhere in the country.
A subsequent road trip across the nation, admiration for the desert and a friend renting out space left Scott with the impression that Reno was the place for her to move to. Scott thought Reno had some legislative protections for LGBTQ people and a welcoming culture but wasn’t as expensive as spots in California or the Pacific Northwest. Shortly after moving, she started going out at night, taking photos of classic cars on the streets, neon signs or whatever happened to catch her eye.
“It was like January or February, and I was just sitting at home after working,” Scott said. “I was just like, I need to get out of the house. I don't really wanna go to a bar. I don't really know where else to go. And so I just drove downtown and I'm just gonna go take pictures.”
There are a few different things that give Reno a special aesthetic for photos of the city skyline for Scott. Compared to the other cities she’s visited or lived in, the buildings are closer together than in other cities, and the streets aren’t organized the same way.
“Reno has so many colors and a lot of neon,” Scott said. When I first moved here and I started going out at night after work, it was dark already. It seemed like the perfect environment to go shoot in. I found it interesting. I would go downtown, park my van somewhere, and then just walk around for a few hours and line up shots I thought were interesting.”
In Scott’s photography, vehicles are a common motif, especially older ones. In the photos she takes in the desert, her van is commonly spotted in the background. In photos captured in the Biggest Little City, older cars on the side of the road become the star subject of many of her photographs. Scott said that she feels vehicles are a special kind of consumer good. Looking at a car, anyone can tell if it’s from the 1980s or just a few years ago. For Scott, including an older vehicle in the photo, combined with the aforementioned structure of Reno’s architecture and streets, creates a more timeless, classic feel to the photography.
“The cars are a really good way to tie it into that era without saying so much in so many words,” Scott said. “I don't have to come bring a model who's dressed in eighties clothing. I don't have to drop a Walkman somewhere on the sidewalk. The car says all of that for you.”
Scott’s decision to photograph the local scenery was also influenced by the knowledge there might only be a few years left to take these shots. She feels that neon signage and the other parts of Reno that make the Biggest Little City just a little bit different are slowly going by the wayside, for better or worse.
Not everything has been as she initially hoped though. In fact, on her second trip out of the house after first moving to Reno, she says she wandered into an antique store and chatted with the owner, realizing from his hat and a few SS uniforms on display that the man was a Neo-Nazi. Scott said she feels unsafe leaving her house late at night, and this means that her city photography project has slowed down in recent months.
“Having lived in a bunch of places and having been trans in a bunch of places, none of this is necessarily a Reno problem,” Scott said. “I think it's kind of a general United States problem. The city is interesting, and I am bummed to kinda see some of that visual interest and character history, whatever you wanna call it, disappear.”