He’s the photographer who put the event on and asked me to come speak for the Professional Photographers of Idaho. Here’s a great image of Phil White working. Here are a few early favorites that I created during various demos. It was fun seeing all the lighting setups along the flats, and all the photographers and models having a great time. I captured this image with my drone, fired with my lower hand. And a special thanks to my friend Cory Waite for coming along as my friend and assistant, and for getting lots of great behind-the-scenes footage.
Here’s our entire group in the afternoon on Saturday. But first I wanted to share some behind the scenes from the event. I am excited by the images I created there, and will post them soon. Being able to rock studio lights at this location is essential. Many photographers rely on shade to make their portraits work, but learning to nail everything in the harsh environments of the Utah Salt Flats with studio lights and technical know-how means being able to create beautiful portrait anywhere. Out on the Salt Flats, the sunlight changes constantly from morning, to noon, afternoon, sunset, twilight, and even after dark. No matter where you are, lighting always needs to be controlled for portraits – and that’s particularly true on the flats because there’s never shade.
It’s in 4K, so try full screen if you have the internet bandwidth. We had an awesome turn out, as you can see in this video, and photographers and models alike were all having a great time. With some adaptive lighting and gear, my first demo was deepen the sky for a warm, surreal, and golden landscape. And as you can see from my first example, the smoke could be very beautiful. Instead of wishing we didn’t have smoke, my challenge to everyone was to adapt, problem solve, and create smokey images so amazing, that everyone from now on will want photographs in the smoke. And this time was no different because when we got there the entire area was covered in smoke from the California wildfires. It was my Adaptive Lighting class and it’s the perfect place because the area is so unpredictable.
This last weekend I taught a 2-day lighting class to on the Utah Salt Flats to photographers from Idaho.