Salt Flats and Ballerinas

NOTE: Be sure to check out images from some of the other photographers (I'll add to this list as I find more of them, so please come back to this page):

Joe Casalino

Scott Jarvie

Jeremy Stowell

Yesterday I had the opportunity of going out to the Salt Flats with a bunch of other photographers to photograph some beautiful girls (most of them ballerinas).

Luke Isley, with his connection to the ballerinas and as well as his connection to many photographers from Photowalking Utah, arranged this mini-photowalk.

At first, we weren't sure what to expect due to the weather (it has rained much of this past week, and it was almost monsoonal weather only an hour before we left to head for the Salt Flats).

But as it turns out, the biggest obstacle we faced in getting to the photo shoot wasn't the weather. But rather a fiery crash on I-80 in which a driver was killed and a big smoldering mess was left behind.
Link to some pictures

Cindi Jones had alerted me to the crash just as I reached the 2100 South exit of I-215. I quickly jumped off of I-215 and headed up 201. As it turns out, I was the only one lucky enough to do so. The rest of the photographers and ballerinas were on I-80. The collision delayed my arrival by 50 minutes. It delayed the rest of the troops by an additional 90 minutes!

Some of my favorite shots from the evening

I arrived about 90 minutes before the rest of the group. While there ... alone ... I really had nothing more to do except shoot my van, myself, my camera. :)









FINALLY! 90 minutes later the caravan arrives!



And now the REAL fun begins!


(Morgan Butler)

The light was fading fast! These were the last moments of the beautiful sunset that occurred shortly after the caravan arrived.


(Sarah Fink)


(Morgan Butler)


(Morgan Butler)


(Sarah Fink)


(Kimberly Ballard)


(Kimberly Ballard)


(Kami Christiansen)

One thing I didn't think I was too effective at, was making use of the water's reflection of the girls in the images I was capturing. Here are a couple of images where I purposely tried to get a reflection.


(Joanne Sandorfi)


(Joanne Sandorfi)

Experimenting with back lighting (my slaves are fired with RadioPoppers so line of sight is not required):


(Sarah Fink)


(Sarah Fink)

And one final capture with Scott Jarvie's car driving through the scene:


(McCall Butler)

Busy Photo Day!

Yesterday was a very busy photo day ... and all of it completely for fun!

I belong to three different photo groups:
1) Salt Lake based Photowalking Utah which had a photo shoot last week which I blogged about here.
2) Provo Area Digital Photography Meetup Group
3) And an international website called DPChallenge which has a few Utah members in it.

Well, yesterday the latter two groups decided to have get togethers on the same day. Luckily one was in the morning and the other in the afternoon. And so that's why I say I had a very busy photo day! :)

It all started out with a trip to Cascade Springs which the Provo based group had organized. Skyler Call and I decided to go up a little early so we could try to catch some of the morning light.

We stopped a couple of times along the way, this is just one of the many beautiful scenic views we saw:



Inside of Cascade Springs we saw waterfalls, ponds, fall colors, and people!




(Michelle and .... her brother ... not a boyfriend, but they were nice enough to let me pose them like this anyway!)


(we ran into this cute couple - Annie Webb and her husband - she was taking pictures with her camera and asked if we'd take a picture of the two of them - we did so both with her camera as well as our own)


(signs of Autumn)


(Pete - the leader of group!)


(Ratish is from India - he has been here only 3 months - he will soon experience his very first winter!)


(Alex is always finding wonderful new ways to shoot ... FILM!)

Around noon, Skyler and I headed out so that we could eat and get ready for the next photo shoot, with the DPChallenge group, which started out the old train & building near the Salt Air pavillion.











We didn't stay there long, as the real fun was going to come after an hour and a half long drive to the Salt Flats (just before Wendover on I-80). There we set up a changing booth and had several models, including my daughter, some props and even some cars to shoot:


(that's Angie peeking out through the zipper in the changing booth)


(this is Jennifer - one of the photographers, this time in FRONT of the camera!)


(Antonio ... every time I say his name I think Antonio Banderas .. they even look similar!)


(Don, one of the photographers, said he hit 151 mph on the flats!)


(Lacey is Skyler's sister, she volunteered to model for us ... lucky us!)


(I asked her to jump, she seemed real nervous about trying in these heels, but wow! what a jump! PERFECT!)


(My daughter, Angie .. I asked her to bring a red dress thinking the stark contrast between it and the white salt would be totally amazing ... it was ... so was she!)




(I also asked Angie to bring her car to the flats .. what a hotrod!)


(Jennifer, again in front of the camera, this time you can see her face!)





(Steve, one of the leaders of this outing, brought his sister Jennie along to model for us ... the light on her face is from a handheld 5 million candle power flashlight)


(photographers all getting a shot at Jennie!)

(does she look mad to you???)


(call her crazy but, Becky decided to bring her clothes line with her to the Salt Flats ... I guess she had a bit of dirty laundry to air!)


(Angie feels the need for speed!)




(this isn't a butt shot ... I was shooting the other photographers ... HONEST!)


(Becky is the other person that helped put this outing together ... funny, we always find her in the strangest positions!)


(sunlight on her back ... reflector in the front)


(Lacey could totally be a model ... don't you agree?)


(I asked Angie to bring her wedding dress along ... I promised her we were not doing a "Trash the Dress" type of photo shoot ... I just thought it would be really cool to have the white-on-white effect of a white wedding dress against a sea of white salt)


(Strobist setup: off-camera flash using a softbox on a stand to camera right)




(added a full CTO gel to the off camera flash - setting white balance for the CTO gel causes the background to go blue)


(one last look at the 151mph Trans Am before Don heads home)


(Angie's car, with neon lights in the foreground, Skyler's car in the background)

Check out the rest of my images from the Salt Flats on my website!