2024 Colonial Heritage Festival | Utah, USA | Portrait Studio on Location

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Orem, Utah | Visiting the Colonial Heritage Festival is my favorite way to celebrate the Fourth of July. The festival is entirely run by volunteers -- which means when you meet somebody who's part of the festival, you know they want to be there. What they do is not easy. Some of them are on their feet in colonial-style shoes for hours at a time. Some wear full colonial garb like coats, petticoats, stockings, the works. July in Utah is sweltering hot. This year, we're even in the middle of a heat wave. And yet, there they all were with smiles on their faces and willing to let me take their picture.

I have a lot of photographs from this festival at this point. Many of them are similar (still awesome, but similar). So this year I wanted to do something different: my portable studio on site. Bringing a portable flash is on location one thing. Bringing a backdrop that has to traverse a full size public park in the sun and wind is entirely another. 


The Portable Studio

  • Off-Camera Flash Umbrella
  • Backdrop (I used a dark brown faux suede)
  • Stands
  • Wagon
  • Sandbags
  • Clamps
I weighed down the backdrop stand in the wagon with two sandbags, and carried my off-camera flash. Whenever we needed to relocate, my assistant would bunch up the backdrop in to the wagon and balance it while we traversed over the grassy terrain. 

You can see the whole gallery at my website, wendyhurstportrait.com.














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