Behind the Shot – Bonner Flats – Bonneville 2022

I love this photo. It has so many things that make me genuinely excited when I see them for the first time. I love the black and white tones. I love the abstractness in that you can’t see exactly what’s going on. I love that there are  people in the photograph who are actually experiencing this moment and will tell stories to friends and family for years to come. I love that it’s off-center and visually leaning and takes your eyes to something unseen. Everyone who sees this can make up their own story as to what may be happening or a memory of a moment they have experienced. I love the softness and out-of-focus areas of this image. Personally, I tend to feel this moment rather than focus on very specific elements–yet there are so many details to see if you look closer. I love the timing and the movement. Shots like this are a gift. I cannot set-up the exact moment that the cars are perfectly where I want and set up the dust and rocks thrown behind the tires as they spin. This is not photoshop but a moment seen. I was standing on the starting line watching the cars leaving looking for things that might be visually interesting and story telling. I had noticed the wheel spin and the dust flying and rather than focus on the cars I was trying to photograph the dirt. There was no purpose to showing just dirt in the air so I needed just enough of the cars to give it a context. There was no interest to me in just cars and dust so adding the visual element of the people just brought this to a complete story. I love this photo.

In my experience it is exceedingly rare for a photo like this to get much attention or to be considered for a magazine. Magazines generally have pretty specific formulas and styles that have historically achieved the highest sales and positive feedback–and this makes sense. But sometimes there are magazines and art-directors out there who are willing to try something different and take chances. Magneto Magazine and art director Pete Allen are a great example of a team willing to step out of the box and produce what I consider one of the best written and produced print magazines in the world today. I was extremely blessed, honored and quite frankly surprised that they made this photo the lead image for a story about my dear friends The Rolling Bones in the Winter 2022 issue #16. This was to be very sadly Ken Schmidt’s last Rolling Bones Bonneville adventure and I was so lucky to be there and share these memories with so many friends in person. It is an honor to share these with you and I hope that it inspires you to get out and stir up some dust and make some memories and grand stories of your own.

#behindtheshot #BTS #hotrod #hotrodculture #racing #racingculture #magnetomagazine #speed #speedculture #bonneville #rollingbones #kenschmidt #photography #blackandwhite #nikon #nikonusa #carsofinstagram #scottphotoco www.ScottPhoto.co (not .com) ©2023 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Behind the Shot – Rolling Bones/Denis Varni El Mirage 2019

I had been asked by my friend the late Ken Schmidt (I miss you my friend) to photograph their latest build for Dennis Varni which was revealed in January 2019 at the Grand National Roadster Show. Ken loved El Mirage and asked me to shoot the car on the dry lake–which was the plan up until it rained a few days before the shoot. Thank you, Mother Nature. My buddy Mike and I made a quick trip out to the areas around El Mirage to see if we could find an alternative to the dry lake that would look appropriate for this shoot. We found a couple of dirt roads just off the main roads that were facing the right way for the light direction that I was looking for. The main road into El Mirage also looked promising so that was added as a possibility. The day of the shoot came around and we travelled out to the locations that we had scouted previously.

 As a photographer I am always trying to look and see things as I can make my camera lens see things. This is not a snapshot, but I am trying to carefully compose a photograph that takes your eyes to exactly what I want you to see and hopefully stirs some kind of emotional response. What do I include in the photograph? What do I crop out of the photograph? How can I position the subjects in the photograph so that the light shows off the best aspects of the subject? How do I do this as quickly as possible with people waiting? How can I do this shooting as few frames as possible (film is expensive!)? How do I measure the light accurately so that the parts that should be dark are dark–but not too dark? How do I measure the light so that the highlights are not blown out and featureless on the film? Everything is a negotiated compromise. I also must plan for what I can do in “the darkroom” or in post-production. Full disclosure: I do about 90% of my postproduction (dodging, burning, dust removal, etc.) digitally as I don’t have room at home for a full wet production studio. But my personal rule is that if it couldn’t be done as a traditional process in a wet darkroom then I won’t do it electronically. This is just a personal choice and makes me feel like I am crafting something I am more proud of that using other production methods.

 My bottom line is that I shoot first and foremost for me and if I don’t feel some kind of emotion when I look at a photograph that I’ve made then I am not happy. Honestly, probably 90%+ of my work never makes it out to be seen. I annoy the sh!t out of myself with my perfectionist habits and likely fairly unrealistic self-standards but when I get something that I love it makes this all worthwhile. This shot made the cut.

Photographed on 4x5” film on a Graflex SLR
©2023 Scott Photo Co. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

On the outskirts of El Mirage, January 2019.

Video by Mike Takagi.

In-between moments of real.

One of the things that I frequently engage in discussions with people (especially other photographers) on is the debate over sharpness, focus and technical perfection. In all honesty there really is no wrong answer here. If you have or are making photographs that you are happy with then that is the right answer for you.

For me, the most important thing is the moment. Is that moment moving and fluid or is it better portrayed in a clear and sharp approach? Every image has its emotion whether is be moody and emotional or more of a documentation approach. I try to leave myself the opportunities for "happy accidents" to happen as I find beauty in moments that are not able to be scripted. I love those moments. The in-between moments of real.

As a portrait photographer I can only capture what my subjects give to me. I always strive to be respectful of my subjects and show them in a light that they will be proud of but also to let them see something of themselves that they may not have seen before.

This is yet another of the images from the session with actor Tyler Hubbard. We sat in the studio with a simple background, natural north-facing window light and my Hasselblad loaded with Tri-X 400. The lens was a 150mm focal length so I wasn't right up in his face but I also wasn't a long way away. My shutter speed in this light was 1/30 of a second so if he moved quickly when I pressed the shutter you would see movement.

We talked, laughed and he ran through a series of interpretations of actors that inspired him from Marlon Brando to Tom Cruise to Leonardo DiCaprio and I pressed the shutter release at various points in our banter. This is one of the photographs from this part of our sitting that I love. It is real, it is unscripted and it will be a memory for many, many years to come.

I'll be posting and sharing more photographs from this session in the weeks to come so stay tuned if you want to see images from the beginning of a talented young actor's career just as it really begins to bloom.

Mr. Tyler Hubbard. August 2016.

Learning to see – the journey continues...

In my ever continuing quest to be a better photographer I study the works of other artists to see what I can learn from them. One of the artists I have been studying recently is Edward Weston. He has a very well known photograph of a pepper that is quite beautiful. While I never intend to copy another artists work I sometimes will shoot something very similar as an exercise to "see" the light, subject matter and approach that they used to make one of their well know images.

This, while nowhere near as memorable or beautiful as the Weston pepper is one of the test shots made in my learning process. I like it–and I don't. The light is nice. The curves are interesting but it is still a complete derivative of a previously made photograph. But, I can take this knowledge, experience and approach and add it to my knowledge base for anything else I shoot in the future. I love to learn.

Hot Rod Reunion 2014 – A closer look

The famed photographer Robert Capa once said, “If your photographs aren't good enough, you're not close enough.” In 2014 as I was photographing the annual Hot Rod Reunion at Famoso Raceway I was trying to find new ways to dig deeper into this beautiful event and see if I could find things that I hadn’t really see before.

There are hundreds of photographers that shoot this event every year which is fantastic as there is just so much to see. There are so many ways of looking at it as well, from the cars to the drag strip to the famous personalities to the pits to the huge amount of people and so on and so on. I’ve been photographing this event since 2011 and I am really working to find ways of seeing and capturing it so that people who couldn’t see it have a chance to experience a little taste of it through my lens. I don’t simply want to document the event. I want the people who see my photographs to get a little taste of the feel, the sound and the emotion of the day. Obviously this isn’t really possible through a single photograph but perhaps in seeing the images as a story, an inside peek and a bit of imagination more can be taken than just the obvious immediate subject. I haven’t achieved this yet but I will be working over the upcoming years to build as much of a story and a look at the beauty of the cars, the drivers and crews and a perspective of the event as possible . 

I will be adding to this story and these images as time goes by. I’ll be looking at different facets and perspectives of the event and sharing them as I have time to really give it the focus it deserves. But for now I will kick this off with a small series of 20 images.

Just one of the super cool things that is still possible at the Hot Rod Reunion is just how close you can get to the cars, drivers and pits. You get to see, up close and personal, the crews working on these incredible machines in the pits. You smell the spent racing fuel as the cars warm their tires before launch and you see the cars cued up in a long line as they await their turn to blast down the track on a hot summer day.

When I say hot, I mean days that can be easily 90+ in the shade. And there sit, in full racing gear, drivers waiting to run these cars as fast as possible down a track located in a valley of orange groves. It is a beautiful thing to watch. But before the cars have their few seconds of glory – they wait.

As the majority of the crowd is watching the main event from the stands I love to wander through the waiting cars and drivers. I often wonder what the drivers are thinking. Are they nervous? Is there some kind of pre-race ritual that they go through every time? Are they distracted by people like me walking around observing?

On a whim I decided to spend some time walking down the rows and make photographs of drivers. Now that day I was using a Mamiya C330 twin lens reflex camera and shooting film that expired sometime in the late 80’s. This means that I can’t just run up snap a picture and keep moving. I have to measure the light, set the aperture and shutter speed, compose, focus and then I can click the shutter. I also don’t hold this camera up to my face and shoot but instead you look down at the ground glass from the top of the camera to make the image. This process alone often helps me capture a better image because the camera seems to make people curious. While I only photographed a very few of the drivers it was a really interesting experience. The drivers were all gracious, some even giving a thumbs-up, and it was a little peek inside a world I have never experienced personally. Thank you to each one of the drivers who were kind enough to oblige my interest.

Check back again and I will be continuing this series, and more, here on the blog. To find our more or to purchase a print of any of the images tap the CONTACT button at the top of the page.

Growing in my perspectives

So many times I feel like things just look so much better on the ground glass than they do when I see the actual images. This photograph was made while I was on a weekend shoot with a group of large format friends. I shot a few sheets of LF but as I am not a great landscape shooter I also brought the Hasselblad and tried to see things besides just the incredible views all around in the Alabama Hills in California (confusing, I know).

After spending the day wandering around and experiencing such grandiose beauty I was sitting at camp wondering why I was sitting on my butt when there was so much to see. I grabbed the Hasselblad and started walking around close to the campsite and came across this bush. It looked a bit sad but the more I looked at it I came to see this proud but tired piece of nature standing strong against the elements and I had to try to make a photograph. After about 5 different positions on the tripod I came to this composition and it looked like magic on the ground glass. I almost didn't make the photograph because it was so beautiful on the ground glass I knew that I was going to be disappointed in the final image. Well, I made the exposure anyway and I'm glad I did. For some reason this image moves me and I can't explain why and that is why I love it.

Photograph by Tim Scott @Scott Photo Co.

Camera Porn

"I would like to quote ancient Ukrainian folk wisdom: if you want a wife who will always stay by your side, marry somebody so ugly that nobody will want to touch her. I am married to my M2s, I chose them because I could see that Leica would never make anything better, and because they will be with me “till death do us part” I can modify them in any way that optimizes their fulfillment of their mission. Resale value is for whores. Cést la Vie." ~ Vladimir Panasenko

Little Bird

Photograph by Tim Scott @Scott Photo Co.

Inspiration – Fan Ho

"I feel technique is not too important. It’s more important to use your eyes, mind and heart. Techinique is something everyone can do. If you want to take your photography to a higher level, you must tell something. Move something. You must feel it when you make the photograph and that will take you to a higher level. Photography needs to be haunting and worth remembering." ~ Fan Ho

More here: http://leicaliker.com/2013/01/11/fan-ho-hong-kong-master-street-photographer-1/

Photography can change the world...

Photography can, does and will continue to change the world we live in.

Influences

This year I want to expand my visual vocabulary and my way of seeing. While I was in Europe this year and with that in mind I worked to try to see things differently keeping in mind images from the past that have moved me. This is an obvious homage to a famous image and while similar I feel that it is strong enough on its own to share. As I make images influenced by others I will continue exploring until I find my own true voice.

Tate Modern, London. 2015.
Photograph by Tim Scott @Scott Photo Co.

Inspiration – Winston Churchill

"Never give up on something that you can't go a day without thinking about." ~ Winston Churchill

Photograph by Yousuf Karsh

Birdhouse

I used to be your birdhouse.
I could coax you out from your seat in the treetops
from behind the camouflaging greens
and watch you edge out shyly with the wind ruffling your blush feathers.
You'd cling to me when the spring showers started falling
and I could keep you safe and dry, I could always do that.
I'd be there to hear your youthful songs, and I'd whisper back in a language just we knew
and then I'd hug you goodbye and watch you step precariously from my perch,
flapping in the wind, unsure, unaccustomed.
and I'd be there for you the next day and the next
because I thought you'd still need me.
I never thought I'd see you, the point of a flying V
soaring with your head held high,
not even glancing down at
my tired wooden walls
and faded empty perch.

~ ArielIa (http://hellopoetry.com/poem/737162/your-birdhouse/)

Rolleiflex 2.8f + Kodak Tri-X + XTOL 1:1