Heidi at the Great Salt Lake
When six of us met up for the first Utah Photowalk, I don’t think any of us imagined where it would lead nine months later. We have over 200 members in our Flickr group, aliased from our own www.photowalkingutah.com URL, and 1665 images to date in the pool from 10 outings, plus the occasional impromptu meet-up. And we are still having fun, albeit a bit more organized fun than that first October Saturday in the rain.
So I am not shocked anymore to see 20 cars at the starting point when I arrive, the group growing to 40 as we gather up to meet the newcomers and outline the plan. We got to the Great Salt Lake plenty early for sunset, somewhere around 100°F. Issue out sunscreen and seek shade. While our guide, Charles Uibel went out to scout the sunset location, Rich improvised a Kenneth Linge style demo on the use of reflectors in hard backlit sunshine.
Rich is holding the reflector
I wandered off under the railway trestle in search of rust and junk.
Under the railway trestle
I saw the light shining through these shoes, and in the ensuing dash for the angle managed to get banged up pretty good. Oh well, the light was getting good, time to hike out to the water.
One of our members, David, invited Heidi to model for us in a wedding dress. Not sure who brought the changing tent, but we had one, so Heidi also modeled a sexy red dress for a while. Modeling for 40 photographers at one time, with a dozen shouting instructions all at once sounds impossible, but that girl kept on smiling, even while rinsing the salt out of her eyes. Not to mention the brine shrimp.
Model instructions, not to be mistaken for the chicken dance
We got luck with the cloud cover, and thanks to Heidi’s endurance, everyone got lots of shots. Rich demoed the use of high-power flashlights combined with a tungsten white balance setting to throw the background to a deep blue. We’re seeing lots of experimentation with white balance in the Flickr pool from this outing.
Pondering the question “what would your mama say if she could see you now?”
Toward the end of the evening, I asked Heidi what her mother would think if she could see her and dress in the lake. We didn’t know that mother and grandmother had made the dress for Heidi’s sister. Some things it might be best for a mother not to find out, at least until after the dress comes back from the dry cleaner.
Another Photowalking victory. Hope to see everyone next month at the Freedom Festival Balooon Launch on July 4th. Details will be updated here
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2 Comments
Wow, that first picture is really stunning. My first thought was, “There are mermaids in Utah?!”
That one with Rich in the water is hilarious!!