Fake Baking: A Solution for Your Gloomy Mood

It's raining and very gloomy in New York, and we at the VICE offices in Brooklyn are totally bummed about it. So to improve your day, here's a visual journey through a tanning salon to fill your eyeballs with fake sunshine. It's a proven fact that exposure to UV rays gives you vitamin D and releases endorphins, and we estimate that at least 11.5 percent of these healthful benefits can be translated through a computer screen and into your body via your retinas. If you'd really like the full experience of going to a tanning salon, you can get it right at your desk by plugging your headphones in, turning on some top 40, and cozying up in that sad office sweater that lives on the back of your swivel chair to mimic the warmth of the sun, all while you look at these photos that William Mebane took in a tanning place, called Salon Bronze, in Easton, Pennsylvania, last week.

William Mebane is a Brooklyn-based photographer whose first book will be launched at Steven Kasher Gallery this Thursday night, May 1. Published by Daylight Books in conjunction with the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, Empire is a collection of photographs made in collaboration with Martin Hyers on a series of road trips between 2004 and 2007.