- In this edition of "ARTEFFECTS," meet the man behind Reno After Dark.

(gentle music) - I do feel like nighttime photography really shows you a side of a city that you'll never see any other way.

- [Beth] The artistic value of restoring video games.

- I think all games are worth preserving in all honesty.

It would be a shame to lose any game in any regard because I think everything has its value.

(video game buzzing) - [Beth] An artist from Cuba shares his joy for creating.

And dive into the art of synchronized swimming.

- [Swimmer] So you have to be presentable, you have to smile, you have to convey the theme of the music, and that in itself right there is all like performance art.

- It's all ahead on this edition of "ARTEFFECTS."

(bright music) - [Narrator] Funding for "ARTEFFECTS" is made possible by Sandy Raffealli, with Bill Pearce Motors, Heidimarie Rochlin, in memory of Sue McDowell, the Carol Franc Buck Foundation, and by the annual contributions of PBS Reno members.

- Hello, I'm Beth Macmillan and welcome to "ARTEFFECTS."

In our featured segment, we meet accomplished photographer Ben Davis.

A few times a week after the sun sets, Davis takes his camera and hits the streets, often in downtown Reno and looks for people who make our community come alive.

From there, he takes to Instagram and other social media channels to share the moments that reveal Reno After Dark.

(gentle music) - I do feel like nighttime photography really shows you a side of a city that you'll never see any other way.

I think that more than a photographer, I'm just a student of curiosity, a student of learning, and I'm just fascinated by people.

My name is Ben Davis and I am the photographer behind Reno After Dark.

(gentle music) Reno After Dark is a product of the last 15, 16 years of being in town.

I immediately, as soon as we moved here, started walking around downtown Reno, shooting photos, capturing just how unique this place is.

Downtown Reno is not a very large place, but inside that small area are very unique, very quirky type of things.

You've got casinos, you've got your sunken train tracks, you've got a very diverse set of restaurants and bars and businesses and you've got the Pioneer Center, you've got the courthouse and it just produces this very unique backdrop.

(bright music) During COVID, a lot of my commercial photography work had gone away a lot like a lot of other creative people during lockdown and it was actually my wife that suggested, "Hey, why don't you go out at night "and shoot some photos, "walk around downtown like you used to?"

And I went downtown and shot photos and I immediately fell back in love with downtown Reno.

Compared to some of the other places I'd lived or visited, downtown Reno was by far the most unique.

There's a certain frame of mind you have to go out with and usually for me it's making sure that Saturday, I'm rested and I've eaten and that I'm showing up on a Saturday night downtown ready to work and ready to meet people and ready to look for those fast moving opportunities.

- Reno After Dark?

- That's right, yeah.

- There you go.

- Thank you.

- Good job, man.

- Thank you.

- Follow your content.

That's pretty cool.

- Appreciate it.

I'm looking for people having a good time, people genuinely enjoying the city, enjoying their life.

I didn't go out and party a lot in my 20s and my teens and so being able to live sort of vicariously through them is super fun.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

It's such a fast paced thing that I do that you have to be sort of really on it.

You have to be watching for those opportunities, those quick moving moments.

The Western Lights Festival the city puts on is the event that's tailor made for me and my photography.

You are taking nighttime illuminated art and then you're adding 10,000-plus people in downtown Reno.

I couldn't ask for a better event for me and then we got the treat of snow and we had kind of some shiny ground.

We had snow falling.

We had just about everything that added to and made it a very unique visual experience.

(bright music) I had somebody come up to me at Western Lights and he had on these reflective glasses and he had headphones in and you could tell he was kind of vibing to the music and it was almost after sunset.

So I wanted the photo and as soon as he looked at me as I was asking to take the photo, I saw the reflection of the glasses and I was like, "Yep, there it is.

"That's what I want."

One of the most common questions I get is how late do I stay out?

Every night is a little bit different.

Some nights I might be out until 1:00 a.m.

Some nights I might be out till 12:30.

Some nights I might be out till 4:00 a.m.. It just depends on who's out, what's happening, how long the activity on the street lasts.

I really go with the rhythm or the flow of the night.

(bright music) Coming home after a night of taking photos and knowing you've got a couple that are just really, really good, I get excited about showing that photo to people.

(gentle music) I have shot so many photos in the last six years doing this.

Looking at my server.

I think I'm almost at 3 million photos that I've taken.

I've been given so many opportunities through Reno After Dark.

I've been able to stay with and ride along with the fire department, so I get to see up close and personal what firefighters are doing.

I've been given access to the police department and being able to get to know individual cops.

It's such a privilege to be able to get to know each one of these types of people and getting to know young people, getting to know the dealers that take the same smoke breaks on different street corners and talk to them about their job.

(gentle music) It's so funny how many people tell me that like, "You captured what was really happening that night," or, "You captured me in a way that I've never seen before," or, "You captured me doing my job, "and no one's ever done that in 15 years."

(bright music) People feel comfortable telling me life stories and things that they want to have heard.

I think the thing that it's taught me is humanity.

It's that we're the same.

We want to have fun, we want to have friends.

We want to love where we live.

I think one of my favorite things about starting Reno After Dark and one of my favorite things about photography is taking something that someone has seen 100 times in their life or 1,000 times in their life, like downtown Reno, and then framing it in a way that is creative, waiting for the right color, waiting for the right sky, and then producing an image that reexamines how they see their community or it reexamines how they see people.

I feel a tremendous sense of community with Reno by doing this and I feel really privileged by the scope and the breadth that I have been able to see and photograph and document doing Reno After Dark.

(gentle music) - To Learn more, follow Reno After Dark on Instagram and Facebook and check out his website, renoafterdark.com.

Next up, we head to Unlimited Video Games Superstore and Arcade in Florida to meet a group of people who recognize the artistic value of video games.

Through preservation and restorative efforts, they ensure that classic video games can be appreciated for generations to come.

(upbeat music) (video game roaring) - Preserving some of these games can be considered an art in a lot of ways.

It's a fine line between keeping it original, keeping it correct, and making it good.

One of our jobs here is to maintain these games in a way that preserves the feel of these games when they were made, while still allowing them to operate into the future.

It all makes sense when you sit there and actually start playing on it.

All the bad graphics and clunky mechanics and lack of depth, all of it immediately disappears as soon as you start playing it and all you can experience is the gameplay as it was meant to be.

It is a hobbyist-driven industry.

There is no financial motive for any company in the world to put resources and effort into figuring out how to preserve and repair these games.

But there are individuals out there who work on these as passion projects.

- There's definitely technique in knowing the right equipment, right tools to use to keep it going on and not just throwing it away as many would probably do if they're like, "Oh, this doesn't work."

And not knowing like how to fix it or what ways to go about fixing it.

Nowadays, you kind of see the money aspect of video games instead of, "Oh, how can we become "like one of the best video games?"

Man, like there's a lot of like legwork and hard work to really make this become what it is today.

(upbeat music) (video game roaring) - I think all games are worth preserving in all honesty.

It would be a shame to lose any game in any regard because I think everything has its value whether or not the game is good or bad.

There's some games that are older that I never played back then that I find super cool and better than a lot of games in modern times now.

Understand that people value older games not just for nostalgia factors, but they wanna keep it alive.

They wanna keep the art of gaming available to everyone.

- Being able to fix that thing that brings 'em back to those memories or goes into that timeframe of when they have a good time because it's interesting how they take, it's very big cautionary steps when it comes to like pieces, like the Mona Lisa, to preserve it 'cause it is a famous piece and it was done by a great artist, for someone to come in and be like, "Man, 'Pacman'-only Atari.

"I haven't been able to find that anywhere "and now I can actually have it."

So like us being able to restore that so that that one person or many people that do come in here, being able to have that themselves and continue to keep those games alive.

(upbeat music) - I have a Galaxian in my arcade right now.

The cabinet's in great shape, but the side art's starting to peel.

So what do I do?

Do I glue it back on, making it really difficult to get off in the future 'cause it's original?

Or do I buy new side art for it and put it on so it looks perfect, but it's fake?

These are the types of artistic choices that need to be made for this type of situation, and it's not always an obvious answer what you should do.

(video game roaring) - The whole look of the arcade cabinet kind of gets the feel of its arcade cabinet, there's just a blank, you know, black cabinet and have the game.

It would still be, you know, functionally, you know, an arcade cabinet.

But when you walk up to it and you see, you know, either "Simpsons" on the side or "Blitz" on the side or "Mortal Kombat" character, it's like it just, I don't know, it just brings more of that, like the whole feel altogether.

I feel like if we didn't preserve these things, no one would know where this rooted from or maybe what a good game is.

Also, it's just that, you know, the people that did have those games growing up, it would be, you know, heartbreaking knowing that there is no more "Doom 3s" out there in the world because everyone decided to, you know, throw 'em out.

Or if there was no more "Mario" parties on the Game Cube.

It's kind of, you know, those memories attached as well to those games that me, growing up, had.

It would kind of like fade with that if no one cared to or want to keep these things alive.

(video game roaring) - People nowadays getting nostalgic for games that came out in 2011, 2015.

So I think of course there's always gonna be some people enjoying older games and finding passion for that.

- I feel confident that as time goes on, future generations will see how things are going now and continue more as a domino effect for more and more people to want to preserve games for more and more people to see the beauty and the art form of the medium and for more and more people to take care of it in a better sense as well.

(upbeat music) - To learn more, head to unlimitedvideogames.com.

Now let's check out this week's art quiz.

Which popular video game was inspired by its creator's childhood adventures of exploring caves and fields?

Is the answer, A, "Metroid," B, "The Legend of Zelda," C, "Super Mario Brothers," or D, "Dragon Warrior"?

And the answer is B, "The Legend of Zelda."

(upbeat music) Up next, we take a trip to Cuba to meet accomplished artist Manuel Hernandez-Valdes.

At 80 years old, he still loves to create and continues to find immense joy as a painter, ceramicist and humorist.

(gentle upbeat music) - For our final segment, we get to dip our toes into the water in Cincinnati, Ohio and meet rhe Rhinestones.

This synchronized swim team features swimmers of all backgrounds.

They harness their athleticism and artistry to perform choreographed routines for audiences every summer.

(gentle music) - To become a Rhinestone, there is no audition process and it's based on the idea that we can do things as we age and grow up and we can learn and we can celebrate, and we can do crazy things just for the pure joy of it.

My name is Pam Kravetz.

(water splashes) I am an artist and art educator and art advocate in Cincinnati, and my role on the Rhinestone synchronized swim team is co-creator.

I created the team seven years ago with my friend, Carla, and we have been swimming ever since.

We reached out to the community and said, "Come join us.

"We want to do this."

And we got swimmers, non-swimmers from the age of probably about 25 to 75.

The philosophy behind the Rhinestones is based in joy and it's based in the idea that you come any way you can.

Whether you're a really strong swimmer like our coach, Beth, or were on a kids swim team like me or our friend that had never put her head underwater before and Beth took us from where we were, pulled us together in a way that celebrates and supports each one of us in our ability.

- I'm Beth Kreimer.

(water splashes) I am an engineer by trade.

I contract it at Procter & Gamble, and I am the Rhinestone's head coach.

- Beth has used all of the skills that she's learned from being a synchronized swimmer and taught us those skills in the way of training.

- I swam for the Cincinnati Synchrogators from the time I was eight until I graduated high school, and then I went and I swam at Ohio State.

And while I was at Ohio State, I also made the second national team in 2002.

- My name is Casey Miller.

(water splashes) I am a photographer and freelance artist around Cincinnati, Ohio.

I am a member of the Rhinestone swimming team where I also do the social media content for them.

The baseline of being able to swim was my starting point with the Rhinestones, so I had nothing prior to everything that our coach taught us.

I have a little bit of a background in partner acrobatics doing lifts and stuff, so I think that they thought it would be a good add-on to the sort of skillset of the team.

So I've been sort of bringing the lifts and a few other fun elements into the team.

We meet at Ziegler Pool over at Ziegler Park every Sunday.

- [Beth] I pick the music for the routine and cut it and choreograph it and then kinda heard the team while we're there.

- [Casey] From the beginning of summer, we are just running drills, getting our technique back after we've been not in the pool for all of the non-summer months and slowly incorporating the choreography that we're gonna be performing at the Ziegler Park's Adult Swim event at the end of summer.

- For the Olympics, you train eight-plus hours a day for years and Rhinestones, we do one hour a week.

It's primarily shallow water.

Olympics, you cannot touch the bottom at all, not a toe.

- [Pam] Okay, truth be told, little secret, the Rhinestones do touch the bottom of the pool.

- [Beth] The fact that people look at us and they're like, "Oh look, "they look like they're having fun.

"They look like it's easy, they're smiling," and it is work under there.

- [Casey] So it's a very different way of moving through the water.

I was always taught swim as a way to not drown.

In artistic swimming, you're swimming to be beautiful, to make these pretty lines, to create these fun shapes, to create patterns with your fellow swimmers.

So it was a unique experience to be introduced to it and have to think of swimming less as just getting from one side of the pool to the other and more to think about what your body is doing while you're doing it.

- [Beth] We have to pick music that sounds good.

We have to pick music that everybody can hear the same and count the same.

Some pieces of music are like impossible to swim to and others are like so straightforward.

There's these clear beats and you can all hear 'em.

'Cause when you dive in the water and there's bubbles and it makes it hard to hear, you have to still count in your head.

And so there's this performance aspect to it because you have to be presentable, you have to smile, you have to convey the theme of the music, and that in itself right there is all like performance art.

- [Pam] We also don't want to be the clown car of synchronized swimming.

We want this to look professional and tight and we take it very seriously.

We bring in the joy, we bring in the laughter, we bring in the silly, we bring in the acceptance, but ultimately we really do wanna look good.

- I think that one of the really cool things about being on an artistic swimming team is I don't know anyone else on an artistic swimming team.

It's something that's truly unique that who gets the chance to do that?

The Rhinestones are different than your average synchronized swimming team because we invite everyone.

Unfortunately, the Olympics has had a little bit of a back and forth on allowing men on the team to have mixed gender teams, and we don't really worry about that.

We invite as many different people as possible.

I'm very masculine presenting, so that would usually deter other synchronized swimming teams.

But the Rhinestones welcome it.

- [Pam] I just want us to come and have fun because so many of us have very high stress jobs outside of the pool, high stress lives.

- Our most recent project this year was a sort of introduction of the team members lives outside of the pool, but introducing it into the pool, and I mean that in a literal sense where we had them jump into the pool, fully dressed in their work attire.

So it was some people in full engineering wear or one of our teammates is a usher at the Aronoff and she jumped in her full usher garb.

It was a really, really fun project that kind of got to highlight our team both in and out of the pool kind of at the same time and just have a lot of fun with it.

- [Beth] One thing that keeps me coming back is just that it's joyful.

I get there to coach and we do a new skill, and then the sounds that just come out of the pool, the joy, the clapping, the cheering, it's pretty amazing to see how happy doing this makes the people in the pool.

And I've also heard people say, "It's my happy place.

"It's what I look forward to every week in the summer."

- [Pam] We love what we've created, kind of very much by accident, and I think the authenticity of the why is what makes it so successful.

- To learn more about the Rhinestones, find them on Instagram at instagram.com/rhinestonessynchr.

And that wraps it up for this edition of "ARTEFFECTS."

If you want to watch new "ARTEFFECTS" segments early, make sure you subscribe to the PBS Reno YouTube channel and don't forget to keep visiting pbsreno.org to watch complete episodes of "ARTEFFECTS."

Until next week, I'm Beth Macmillan.

Thanks for watching.

- [Narrator] Funding for "ARTEFFECTS" is made possible by Sandy Raffealli, with Bill Pearce Motors, Heidimarie Rochlin in memory of Sue McDowell, the Carol Franc Buck Foundation, and by the annual contributions of PBS Reno members.

(gentle music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues)