Sunny skies. Palm trees. A group of photographers gathered. Lots of interesting things to photograph. Is there a better way to spend a Saturday? I’m not sure if I can think of one! On April 13, I spent the day with five wonderful photographers at Selah {an art salon} in Las Vegas, Nevada for my one-day A Sense of Place workshop.

First off, Selah is in a gorgeous, refurbished old house near downtown Las Vegas. The light, the architectural touches, and the colors just make this space a great environment to enjoy a creative discussion. Walking in to the house, you feel soothed and refreshed. Ready to learn!

We started the day in the classroom, talking about the concepts of Photography of Place. We explored our individual philosophies and the kind of things that make up our unique sense of place. We looked at the ways to photograph places, from icons to small details. My workshops are very much a small group, discussion type of workshop. I don’t stand up and present material from a powerpoint presentation on a projector. We sit around a table and talk about the material. Everyone has something valuable to share.

Before heading out for the day, we had an amazing lunch! Fantastic, healthy food was catered for us, to fuel us up for the photowalk.

After sitting inside and talking for the morning, we were ready to head out into the gorgeous sunshine and explore downtown Las Vegas. What an interesting place! Downtown Vegas is being revitalized so there is a lot of construction going on. Wandering around, you find a little bit of everything to photograph. There is something for everyone, regardless of your photographic interests.

We found vintage neon signs…

… and interesting modern architecture. (Channeling my inner Brenda here!)

We could photograph close ups of desert plants…

… and wonderful little scenes that are unique to this place.

We encouraged each other to find interesting angles and explore new subjects.

It’s always interesting to take people who live in a place on a photowalk around their own city. Most of the places we walked, the locals had never been! It reminds me that we don’t need to travel a long way to explore someplace new, we just need to get out and explore our own area. No matter where we are, we photograph with our own sense of place. The more we cultivate our sense of place close to home, the better our experience will be in new places. And our photographs will be truly our photographs, not a replication of what others have seen and experienced in the place before.

After a pause at a coffeeshop for a cool drink, we photographed our way back to Selah and wrapped up our day. It was a truly wonderful experience to meet and talk photography with these lovely women! Joining me for the day were Rainie (who travelled with me from Oregon), Erin and Trisha from Las Vegas, Cindy from Arizona and Daria, one of the Selah owners.

A huge thank you to Daria and Sabrina of Selah for inviting me to bring this workshop to Las Vegas. They were wonderful hosts and I hope to go back and teach there again!

And when I do, I hope you will join me there too.

The weekend also included a night photography walk on Friday evening. More on that tomorrow!