A few rules first. Light matters more than place; a parking garage at 5pm beats a canyon at noon. Crowds kill portraits, so most of these are best at dawn, on weekdays, or in winter. And "public" does not mean "free to shoot commercially"; where a permit is genuinely required I say so, and the permits guide has the detail.
Urban
1. The Granary District
Roughly 600 to 900 South, State Street to 400 West. Warehouses, brick, loading docks, railway spurs and a growing number of breweries that are closed at 7am, which is when you want to be there. The blocks are wide so the light gets low and long between buildings. My most-used urban location for editorial work. Free street parking, no one bothers you. Commercial shoots with crew on the sidewalk technically want the city film permit.
2. Main Street and Exchange Place
The stretch of Main between 300 and 400 South, and Exchange Place just off it, are the best mid-century and early-1900s architecture in the city: stone, columns, brass, alleys. Late afternoon light comes down Main from the west and hits the east side of the street. Busy on weekdays at lunch; quiet at weekends. Good for executive portraits that need a city behind them.
3. The rail corridor and west side industrial
500 West and 600 West from North Temple down to 900 South, plus the streets either side of the tracks. Grain elevators, corrugated steel, chain link, weeds. Nothing pretty and everything photogenic. Empty at all hours. Watch for trains, obviously, and stay off Union Pacific property, which is private and patrolled.
4. The Marmalade and Capitol Hill stairs
The neighbourhood west of the Capitol has steep streets, public staircases, and old houses in strange colours. From the top of Ensign Peak trail (a 20-minute walk from the parking area on Ensign Vista Drive) the entire valley is behind your subject. Golden hour is late here because the sun sets behind the Oquirrh Mountains to the west, not a flat horizon.
5. Parking structures
Not glamorous. Extraordinarily useful. The top deck of any downtown garage at the end of the day gives you a clean concrete floor, a low wall, open sky and directional light with the whole city as backdrop. The Gallivan and Regent Street garages are the ones I use. Technically private property; ask, be quick, be polite.
Neighbourhood
6. 9th & 9th and the Harvard-Yale streets
Tree-lined streets of 1920s houses, a small commercial strip, dappled light most of the day. Soft, domestic, a good place for portraits that need to feel like a person's life rather than a set. Residential streets are public; front yards are not.
7. Sugar House Park
Big open lawns, a pond, mature trees, and the Wasatch Mountains as a wall to the east. Popular with family photographers on autumn weekends, deserted on a January weekday when the snow makes it a white field with black trees. Salt Lake County parks allow portrait photography without a permit; commercial shoots need county approval.
8. Liberty Park
The city's oldest park. The avenue of trees down the centre is a natural corridor of light in autumn. Crowded on weekends; go early. Same permit position as Sugar House.
Foothills and canyons
9. The Bonneville Shoreline Trail above the Avenues
Accessed from the top of the Avenues (Terrace Hills Drive or the Popperton Park trailhead). Scrub oak, sage, dry grass, a wide view of the valley and the lake. Twenty minutes from downtown and it looks like the high desert. Morning light comes over the mountains behind you; evening light hits the subject face-on with the valley glowing behind. My first choice for outdoor portraits with a landscape.
10. Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons
Granite, aspens, alpine meadows at the top, forty minutes from town. Everybody shoots here in October for good reason; the aspens are unbelievable. Weekdays only in autumn, or go in June when the meadows are green and empty. Both canyons are Forest Service land; casual portraiture is fine, commercial shoots with crew need a permit through Salt Lake County and possibly the Forest Service, and the lead time is real.
11. Millcreek Canyon
Quieter and greener than the Cottonwoods, with a small day-use fee at the entrance. Pipeline Trail for views, the creek bottom for shade and soft light. Dogs allowed on odd days, which affects your Saturday.
The lake and the flats
12. Great Salt Lake Marina and the causeway
Twenty minutes west on I-80, exit 104. A state park with a marina, boat ramps, a shoreline of salt-crusted rock and a view of Antelope Island floating on the water. Vast, quiet, strange. Best at dawn or the hour before sunset. Bring shoes you do not care about. State park day-use fee applies.
13. Antelope Island
Forty-five minutes north-west via the Davis County causeway. Bison, grassland, white beaches, mountains in the middle of a lake. The state park requires a $40 Portrait Photography Pass per day for any hired photographer working inside the park, on top of the vehicle entry fee, and a Special Use Permit for commercial shoots. Sessions on the causeway itself do not need the pass but do need the day-use fee. Worth it. The light on the west side of the island at sunset is as good as any in Utah.
14. The Bonneville Salt Flats
Two hours west, near Wendover. A white plane to the horizon with nothing on it. Extraordinary for fine art and fashion; complicated in practical terms. Seasonal flooding, summer racing closures and BLM permitting for anything commercial. The paperwork is covered in the permits guide.
A note on private property
Several of the best interiors in Salt Lake (the lobbies of a couple of old downtown buildings, certain warehouses, a decommissioned power station) are private and require permission. I have relationships with some owners and can arrange access for editorial and campaign work. For personal sessions, I rent studio space or use my own. Do not trespass for a photograph. It is not worth it and it makes life harder for every photographer who follows.
When to shoot
Dawn, always, if you can bear it. The hour before sunset second. Overcast days are a gift for black and white portraits; the whole sky becomes a softbox. Winter inversions, ugly to live in, produce a flat silver light I love. Summer midday is for the studio.
If you want a session at any of these, email me with a place and a rough date and I will tell you what time to be there.
