The 'Turkey Day' Photowalkers

by Rich Legg



We had seven of us participate in the mini-photowalk that was hastily put together on Thanksgiving Day. Though our numbers were small, we had a great time exploring the downtown area of Salt Lake City. With it being a holiday night, the streets were noticeably devoid of Trax trains, people and vehicles which made for a relaxing setting to walk, talk and photograph in.



It is always a lot of fun hanging out with other photographers and this was no exception. It was discussed with the group that we should really add a little advance planning in the future to make the "Turkey Day Photowalk" a regular event.

Be sure to check out the Flickr pool to watch for images from this 'walk as they come in.

Thanksgiving Mini-Photowalk

by Rich Legg

I just got off the phone with Harley, and we are planning on doing a mini-photowalk in downtown Salt Lake City tonight beginning at 8:00 pm. If anyone wants to join us, drop me an email at rich at leggnet dot com and I will let you know where we are meeting.

Hopefully the streets will still be wet from today's rain which will make for some nice reflections. This will be a great opportunity for me to try out some high ISO images on the new 5D mark II.

Update: We will be meeting at the City Center Trax Station (100 S. Main Street) at 8:00 pm

Photoshop Tip: Blend a B&W Layer to add Edginess

The following tip is provided by Rich Legg. Rich is a full-time photographer and a founding member of Photowalking Utah. You can find him on the web at www.leggnet.com.

Since the majority of my photo editing is for my stock portfolio, I tend to be rather vanilla with my editing. By that I mean that I keep my images pretty true to how they were shot. For uses outside of stock however, a friend of mine recently showed me a quick way to add edginess to an image by blending layers.

I will be the first person to tell you that I am no master of layer blending in Photoshop (I will defer that title to Ann Torrence, her knowledge on the subject is amazing!), but I really like the look that this effect creates.

In today's before/after image, I opened one of my shots from last weekend in Photoshop. The sample on the left is unedited other than the RAW conversion. On the other image (right side), I only added this simple process in Photoshop:

1. Create a copy of the original layer above itself
2. Desaturate the new layer (apple-shift-U on a Mac)
3. Set the blending of the new layer to 'Overlay'

If you want to further tweak the settings, try different blending modes (soft light, hard light, etc.) and play around with opacity.

And that's it. A quick and fairly easy way to add a more dramatic look to an image.

Scott Bourne sits down with Photowalking Utah

by Rich Legg

Scott Bourne, the extremely accomplished photographer and new media personality, spent some time tonight with a few of us from Photowalking Utah. Scott had Twittered that he would be passing through the area and Ann Torrence offered up an invite to have a bite to eat with a few of us to which he graciously accepted.

We spent a couple hours tonight chatting with Scott about all things photography. The insights that he shared from his experiences as a world class wildlife photographer, author, podcasting pioneer and successful entrepreneur were extremely interesting. Scott was great to freely offer his time and as it turns out he's just a regular photographer like the rest of us.

Scott's podcast This Week in Photography is one of the top 100 podcasts on iTunes and I wholeheartedly recommend that if you aren't already doing so that you spend some time listening to the weekly episodes. And for the Mac users among us, you can catch Scott on MacBreak Weekly with Leo Laporte.

It was a great way to spend a Sunday evening and hopefully Scott will leave Northern Utah with a better understanding of Photowalking Utah and the photographers that call this area home.

December 13th Hill AFB Museum Photowalk

By Bryan William Jones,

Reserve the date: The morning of Saturday, December 13th will be the next photowalk, this time up at the Hill AFB Museum. We are planning on an early start to avoid the crowds and take advantage of a tour and some special access to the exhibits arranged by the Father-In-Law of our very own Avery Pince.

The Hill AFB Museum is one of the better aerospace museums in the United States and hosts around 180,000 visitors annually. It currently exhibits over 80 aircraft and aerospace vehicles on the grounds in addition to displays covering the history of the Air Force and Hill AFB itself.

Directions: A gate pass or DOD ID onto Hill AFB is NOT required to visit the museum. Simply take Exit 338 off Interstate 15 in Roy, Utah, and enter the museum grounds through the gate.

Meet up at 8:00am. We'll have a tour along with special access to some of the exhibits for photography, then there will be a behind the scenes tour followed by wandering the museum grounds, taking photographs at will.

Please confirm attendance and participate in discussion for this event over on the Photowalk Utah Flickr group.


Looking forward to seeing you there.

Note: New start time of 8:00am.

Recapping the Ladies Special Photowalk

By Ann Torrence, hostess of the 8 November Photowalk

The first ever Ladies Special Photowalk was a smashing success, except we didn't smash anything. Ten of us enjoyed seasonable weather and lovely golden light on Saturday, including:
Elizabeth (wibbet_64), Renatta (wildvinephoto), her as-yet Flickrless friend Stacy,
Judy (jkiel), Anna (yanimfah), Diane (Lady Pebbles), Robyn (photogirl66), Jessie (jeszerszen), Diana (dianalbrks) and me.

Now that PhotowalkingUtah has over 300 members, it was kind of nice to get back to our roots with a smaller group. Naturally we dispersed and I hardly saw a couple people the rest of the afternoon. It was still fun. Robyn showed us where she made this stunning image. Diane was explaining some lighting strategy when we came upon her and Renatta. Then she organized the post-shoot dinner at Chili's.

The images are starting to drop into our Flickr pool. Next month we return to our regular program of walking about in large groups of marginally organized photographers at Hill Air Force Base Museum. Subscribe to the PhotowalkingUtah RSS feed to get the details.

Antelope Island Photowalk Recap

By Scott Smith, host of the Photowalk at Antelope Island. Originally posted on his blog.


We had about 40 photographers show up for Saturday's Photowalking Utah event held at Antelope Island in Syracuse Utah. The main group arrived around 10am, we took our group photo first then everyone hung out at the pens. Some ventured off to Gar Ranch afterwards spending most of the day on the Island.


The rangers were giving the 700+ bison their health checks in a three day marathon. They would use old Ford Bronco's to round them up into pens in small groups. The rangers would then feed the bison down a long corridor and eventually to the pen where veterinarians and volunteers were there to assist tagging, drawing blood, giving pregnancy tests, and logging information into the computer via a micro chip that was implanted in their neck.


The larger bison were held in place with a nose ring so they wouldn't move around in the pen. When the rangers would released the gate the bison would rear up and come running out of the shoot.


The event reminded me of my youth when we would gather our cows in pens and give them their health checks. These guys were a bit more sophisticated but the smell of the dirt and working with animals is what brought back some fun memories.


One of the things I really like about the Photowalking Utah events is meeting new people and talking about photography. I'm always amazed what a camera will do to spark up a conversation with a total stranger.

See other photowalk recaps:

• Leggnet - Where Photowalkers Roam
• Ann Torrence - Antelope Island Photowalk Wrap-up
• Jeremy Hall - Photowalking Antelope Island
• Scott Jarvie - Photowalk - Antelope Island
• David Terry - Buffalo Roundup and More!
• Bryan William Jones - Antelope Island Photowalk

If you have a wrap up for this event, leave a comment and we will add it to the list!