I accidentally made 1776 look like Vogue (at Colonial Heritage Festival Utah 2025)

Orem, Utah | Portraits from the Colonial Heritage Festival 2025.

It’s not cosplay. It’s commitment.

I brought my portrait studio to a place where no one owns a phone—but somehow they all know how to churn butter. Or at least, where the demonstration tent is located.

No one broke character. Not even when I Vogue’d them.

I didn’t mean to make it look like a 1776 fashion editorial. 

Well, just a little.

I tracked them down from camp to camp and asked for a photograph in the shade. 

One reenactor offered me their “smoldering ye olde stare.” Another adjusted their bonnet like they were being interviewed for the cover of “Wool Weekly.” (I’d read it.)

Their colonial confidence gave me colonial confidence. And don’t we all need more of that in our lives? 

Dressed as
Colonial British officer's wife.

The Studio

My “studio” is portable, in a wagon—yep—with a backdrop stand held up by a bag of cornmeal. (JK, it's just playground-grade sand.)

I carried around one light that many called “lightning in a box” (I never get tired of hearing that), and tapped into the kind of revolutionary spirit required to traverse the grassy fields and windy wind and photograph the Reenactors where they stood. 

Who are these people?

Like, who wakes up one day and decides to spend a weekend in wool on purpose — in the dry heat of a Utah summer?

Who churns butter for fun?

Who memorizes 18th-century tax laws just in case someone asks them about it in character?

The answer: nerds – in the best way.

They’re teachers and engineers. Retired military. Homeschool parents. History buffs. One guy told me he just likes to “hit things with hammers and shout the word ‘liberty’ at strangers.”

Respect.

Some of them make their own clothes by hand.

Some of them fire the cannon without warning people. (Or maybe I just wasn't listening.)

Some of them just really love talking about the American Revolution and will rope you into a debate about it before you finish your lemonade.

But mostly, they’re just everyday people who care deeply about keeping the past alive.

They show up, stay in character, hand-stitch their buttons, and mean every word when they say, “I’m coming back next year.”

Me too, y'all. Me too.

Learning is...learning.

You can learn more about the Utah Colonial Heritage Festival at their website, here.

And you can see all the images from this project at my website, here.