Donald Scott

Creative Enterprise

Creativity is, by its nature, an integrative process. One of the most beautiful aspects of what I do is sharing that experience with others. I am often gifted ideas to interpret, and when I truly hear the person, what happens is a real kind of telepathy. These are the moments that create the physical manifestation of shared consciousness. Thank you

Nadia Rahman for letting me share my mind with you!! https://www.nadiarahman-ching.com

The Powerful Combo

One of the most powerful forces we know is the combination of youth and positivity. I was asked to make a super quick portrait of this outstanding young man. He is right where he needs to be in life. His smile runs deep. Thank you for your brightness Bijan!

Here is a link to a project I worked on that Food and Wine took notice of..

https://adage.com/article/marketing-news-strategy/top-5-food-and-beverage-oreo-coca-cola-mtn-dew-pop-tarts-auntie-annes/2575181?utm_source=ad-age-wake-up-call-thursday&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20240815&utm_content=article5-headline

https://www.foodandwine.com/auntie-annes-signature-fragrance-knead-8687072

https://people.com/auntie-annes-launches-pretzel-scented-fragrance-knead-8691706

In support of 1’s and 0’s

I was asked to create the still images for the project illuminated in the article below… Ive been making photographs for 30 years now, and what a long strange trip its been.

https://www.lbbonline.com/news/how-hone-and-schlotzskys-brought-the-ultimate-drive-thru-experience-to-life

Bodhisattva

The earliest years are the ones we are closest to it

Rocky’s first creative free Lego build!!

This is part of the mental landscape of my 3 year old. A manifestation of how he entangles form and function, poring out of him solely, from the purity of his own delight!

Junker Head

My son has entered into the lingo phase of life, and is constantly creating his own. A “Junker Head” is someone who eats too much junk food. Who knows what too much is? I know I have my thoughts on it. Anyway, when I’m really lucky he joins me on my walks. Yesterday was one of those days, and along the way we saw an above average amount of litter. Litter annoys him, so we started talking about it. While were were discussing it we realized a persistent pattern with litter in general. Its overwhelmingly junk food litter with Mc Donalds being the lousy leader. He slowed down just the tiniest bit and asked me why we never see healthy food litter. I told him I was interested in why he thought the litter was so biased towards junk food packaging and he had quite the answer. What do you think? Why is it junk food dominates so many lousy categories in life?

Sonny studio day

I had another studio collaboration day with our 5 year old boy Sonny. He is a natural art director and Hot Wheels artist. Enjoy

Crumb Brothers

I have always had a local place away from home to relax and enjoy, decompress and think in. When I was a kid it was the woods. It’s still pretty much the woods, but as an adult that place is now also a cafe. One that serves coffee and simple clean food. In each town I’ve lived in I find one I like and that’s the one I go to. There are so many great cafes I’ve used as my home away from home. The one I have now is full of so much goodness. The people are great…the space is bright and open and in the summer there is a large patio surrounded by beautiful shady landscaping. The mood is relaxed and the food is lovely. Thank you Crumb Brothers.

FAIRKIND

Not too long ago I got super lucky and had the opportunity to work with this gal named Linden Baker. She is a total force of nature. She is blessed with an abundance of conscientiousness, industriousness and empathy. She is also a pure joy to work with. She knows what she wants and has outstanding ideas of whats required to get there. A link to the ethos of her company is hyperlinked in the title above.

P.S. Thanks to Courtney Lind (stylist) and Molly Baldwin (Model/Grammarian), who along with Lindon turned this simple photo into a motivating factor to spread FAIRKIND’s love!

Inspiration…

I am not a portrait photographer, and I did not take this photo of Alela Diane, but I wish I did. I like it so much I used it as inspiration for a portrait of my wife. Alela suits this portrait perfectly. What I mean is that she and the others who created this met the moment perfectly, and it shows . After some time of trying to cram my wife into the essence of Alela’s portrait below… I loosened my grip, changed my light, and found my wife. Let inspiration set the spark and be open to where it takes you!

Rainbow baby.. anyone who knows what a rainbow baby is, has also learned the perfection found in never giving up.

Tiny Atlas

Only as a child do we have the grace to carry the weight of the world. I am hoping Sonny never loses his art of life approach to shouldering everything that comes his way.

Creativity.

I don’t think creativity emerges from within us. I think it’s an energetic force woven within consciousness that can we tune into. We catch it like a scent trail, and some of us are more sensitive to it than others. Children seem to be tuned directly into it. They are pure creative chaos. My boy Sonny is no exception to this. He proliferates creativity like a tornado makes wind. His unique Lego creations below are it’s latest expression, one of many, he makes in what I call Sonny School. Go get’em buddy!!

Portraiture

There is a kind of undeniable honesty a still moment can capture more profoundly than most other forms of communication. Portraiture, in particular, can tell far more than the 1000’s of words which fall short in ineffable failure. Sometimes the simplicity of a single light on a human face says everything you need to know about the person upon which it reveals.

Mama Katie…

This woman has been my aim for the last 15 years. At first the aim was to experience knowing her, then to share a life with her. Now my aim is to simply be more like her. She is lovely and perfection in every way we need her to be.

Boys Brothers Sons

May you be quick to joy. If you must suffer, may you suffer into strength and wisdom. May you connect deeply with our true unified source. May kindness be your motivator. May you be the place where others can find love. May you shine brightly and often. May you find peace and stillness, infinitely and abundantly.

Halloween…

I have 2 young boys who have rekindled the Halloween spirit in me. When I was their age I always dressed up as a cowboy, the iconic American mythical hero. The times have changed, and I cant even imagine what the embodiment of the modern American mythical hero is now a days. Perhaps I will figure that out by next year, until then

Sleep

In the list of things I love, sleep has its place nearest to the top. For the past few months we have been working on the brand launch for a selection of sleeping goods for Dr. Oz. This is the first time I have ever been included on the front end of developing brand imagery for a pop icon at his level. He was a total pleasure to work with and a model human being… and now the good doctor is prescribing optimal sleep.

Honestly, to this day, I still don’t know how I feel about gifs.

Couches… I have so many great memories that involve the couch. Everything from cuddling up with my dad as a young boy to watch old war movies, to watching my own son’s imagination spill out all over my own in the form of Hot Wheels chaos. Life really is all about the little things.

Pastophila - An admittedly unexamined preference for the nostalgic past.

I kinda just made that up, but I am a sucker for the pre-digital and perhaps even more so for the pre-technological age. Below is a dialectic image of sorts. Yet the laptop, too, is mightier than the sword.

Oscar loves the water, and Katie loves Oscar. There I was blissfully alone after work and un-occupied in the serine space of my living room, while everyone else was outside. It’s as good as pie. Then my wife busts in, “I need you to take a photo with my phone.” She could tell by the look on my face that I was in no mood for art direction. I then read the look on her face and gave her the full capacity my attention. The only directives I remember are “back lit, sea spray, Oscar, and awesome.” It took less the 20 seconds. We played our parts with the effortless grace of a NASCAR pit crew. I love these little walks she grants me through her mind. She is pure love, hunger for happiness, and a full on creative colossus! Luckily for our boy Sonny and our pup Oscar, she pours it all into them.

Below is a work in progress.

I have always loved abstract photography. Photography is the raw truth, but it’s the raw truth of a single moment that has passed. That truth echos though time and falls remarkably short of painting an honest picture. We are all far too complex to fit within the confines of our identity. Yet we allow a snapshot version of ourselves to dominate. This is very limiting to ourselves and to each other. I think that is what draws me to to abstract photography. Its vagueness puts you on the path of the subject, which is the only way of hoping to know it. We know each other through time. We change. All things constantly update or fall away. The moment between the two abstracted images below is what makes photography so attractive. It conveys the illusion of perfection while the abstractions speaks to the ineffable divinity of being.

For the past year and some change I have been executing on large-scale lifestyle photography for home products focusing primarily on bedding. This work is highly engaging but I have always enjoyed the elegant simplicity and challenge of on-white table top photography. To do it well is a practice in zen philosophy. You have your subject, your composition, and your light…that’s it. It’s a simple recipe yet the variance in outcome is infinite. The tack I took on the image below was to tell the materials story. For instance, I highlighted the textured feel of the canister, the sterilized sharpness of the mouth of the container and the portrayed lightness of its implied potential to float away on its own from the surface. So, when the seemingly mundane task arrived in the form of “Hey guys, we need an image of the new company water bottle for our VIP portal,” my arm shot up like the teacher’s pet, despite the fact that I consider myself more of a class clown.

I did the majority of the photography for this Google packaging, as well as all of the photos submitted for the award:

The Dieline Awards 2018:      http://www.thedieline.com/blog/2018/4/15/the-dieline-awards-2018-made-by-google-packaging

Sonny swung by the studio today while I was making a portrait of my colleague, Cortney, and yes we do have an airplane in our studio. Sonny Is the coolest collaboration I ever joined in on!! He is half Gypsy (my half) and half Irish (his mom’s).

Studio Colleagues: Our studio team has been decompressing with a fun “know your neighbor” portrait study series.

I moved myself and my family to northern Utah in the middle of last winter. To date, I cultivated my career within the persistent busyness of world class cities. I started out in NYC, then moved to Chicago, San Diego, and finally the SF bay area...but I was raised in a small coastal North Carolina town.  Back then, the kids were let to be wild in the wild, with very little supervision and no portable tech. A few years back, nostalgia for those wild spaces became need, so I started looking for a slow, more wild place to live. I currently keep a steady job which frees me up to pull mountain trout from crystal clear ice cold streams, and fruitlessly chase elk up and over wild mountain terrain. My soul is settled, but the work must still be done. Below is an outtake from a recent project that I think best describes how I feel when I put myself in my local wilderness. Below that is an establishing shot that sets the stage for a weekend outdoor respite. And below that is a shot from some side work I am doing for my neighbor, who owns a local outdoors store.  I met him when he came out to ask if I needed help unloading my moving truck.  It was 9pm on a cold northern Utah January night, with at least a foot of snow on the ground. Stay tuned if you are curious how a "big city" photographer fairs in "fly over country" U.S.A. I know I am!

Just a little more getting Googley for the Google store

My current project aims to put people to sleep.  And as a parent, I now know.  Sleep.  Is.  Priceless!