dave recently returned from serving our country in afghanistan.
and jessica – well she is glad to have him home.
Archive for the 'photography' Category
before i say anything i want to say THANK YOU to everyone who has affirmed, commented, and sent love to me this past week. i was overwhelmed with the response to my post the other day about my vision for my business, borne out of my own life experiences.
something else wonderful happened last week: i received my first sample album in the mail. i am thinking of not calling them albums, but heirlooms. they are high quality, flush mounted things of beauty that in my opinion, should be preserved for your children and your children’s children. that’s just my take on it.
see for yourself:
i’ve been thinking a lot since my time at dane sander’s workshop this past monday and tuesday. some things that happened there made me wonder why i feel dissatisfied with where i am at. i have been feeling like i’ve lost my vision.
today, things started to come together. to understand why i have been feeling like i want MORE for my photography. today, i cried. i cried thinking that maybe i’ve gotten slightly off course, and i cried to think of the dreams i have that i cannot wait to realize.
this is my vision for the impact i want my business to have. enjoy.
Don Draper once said that viewing a photograph is like stepping into a time machine. It instantly brings you back to that place. The place where there is love. hope. happiness. joy. goodness.
I could write a novel on my favorite photographs, where they take me, and what i experience there…
I am on a ferris wheel in santa monica with a boy that seems too amazing to be real, and i don’t want to believe the look in his eyes that tells me with everything i believe that he loves me, because the intensity scares me. And I’m frightened that I could love him so much, with so much uncertainty ahead of us.
My dad is young and skinny, handsome with full and dark hair. He is looking into my brother’s eyes as a toddler and their faces are so close they are almost touching. I am aching with longing to be in that place, where we are all so close, where we are being taken care of and nurtured. Not a care in the world.
My high school best friend and I are in her green convertable volkswagen cabriolet. It’s the day after our senior prom and on the way to school we decided we wouldn’t go. We took our roller skates to the beach and our hair was still sticky from our hair sprayed up dos, and the salty beach air kissed our faces. We shared our dreams for the future. We shared everything.
We had stayed up all night packing. My bed littered with clothes, shoes, dvds, shampoo. Everything I would need for a year in Japan. Each item represented some part of me to bring, but in so many ways the biggest piece of me was staying home to finish his senior year. He is wearing his grey Santa Barbara tshirt. He made me steak and eggs the morning I got on the plane and said goodbye.
It’s Christmas morning in the smallest apartment Tokyo ever saw, and 9 Americans are crammed inside, and it feels like we are home. Tiny christmas decorations from the 100Yen store hang from every surface. We watched Seinfeld and missed our families but celebrated this new one we had found.
It’s raining lightly and he is standing in the middle of the bridge in a light blue collared shirt and khaki shorts and the tears are streaming down my face, stronger than the rain. He’s telling me things that I want to understand so badly but all I can do is cry and wonder how he could have made it here without me knowing, how he could have invented such an elaborate set of clues to lead me here, how he worked with my teammates to make sure I would find each of those clues. Japanese people stare curiously and wonder why I am such a mess and as he gets down on one knee they start to rejoice and I just cry even harder. and my heart is filled with more love than I thought it could contain.
She is in her button up blouse, her hair is done in loose curls, and her long veil is already clipped in place. As she applies her mascara she stops and turns to me and wants to know if it’s normal to feel nervous. And then she wants to pray together. As I’m setting down my camera and walking towards her I know that this is what I was meant to do with my life.
…
I am loud. I am spunky. Most of all, I am emotional. Songs will play at just the right time and I am in my car alone, crying; and while I know it is a gift to feel the weight of life so deeply at times- but sometimes it is just plain inconvenient.
I am drawn to colors, to patterns, to the way that light falls on your face. But most of all, I am drawn to laughter, to tears, to weighted embraces.
I tell people I am a photographer- but I know in my heart that I am a historian of moments to capture, share, re-live, and protect.
xoxo
Em
this summer was a nonstop wedding, photography and travel fest. it has been wonderful. i love what i do. it’s really fun. but honestly, i am wiped out.
thankfully, this past week has been slower. quieter. and it has been slightly unsettling. cause i’m always moving. i never slow down, and i have a hard time relaxing. so this week i took a day off.
what made it easier to take that day was the perfect escape: my dear friend wendy and her dog baxter were taking a trip to their friend’s farm in carmel to visit her pumpkins growing there, and they were going to go to the beach…
as soon as she said beach this southern california girl was sold. odin didn’t need any convincing either.
taking the drive there through the misty drizzly hills and catching up with my friend was wonderful. and the farm was gorgeous. it made me so excited that fall is here.
last monday i was down in irvine for the wppi (wedding & portrait photographer’s international) road trip.
in the midst of a hectic summer and even busier week, i flew down to irvine to learn from jules bianchi & joy bianchi brown, rick miller from adobe, joe buissink, and the boudoir divas. i was thankful that i won a ticket from the b school, or else i would have come up with some excuse about being too busy to make the trip… and i was so thankful i went!
sometimes the hardest thing about running my own business is being confronted with the self-doubt that i am not worth the price i charge.
there is so much inherently going wrong in this scenario.
i have learned a lot of things from jasmine star. but maybe nothing so important as the idea that as photographers we have an important responsibility- to allow everyone to feel fabulous in front of the camera.
i take that responsibility very seriously. if you do not walk away from taking photos with me feeling better about who you were made to be, then i haven’t done my job.
last friday i volunteered at a day camp for kids at the red rock recording studio in collaboration with the highway community. each group became a band that had a chance to record a song and participate in a rock star photo shoot.
cue me, emily scott: rock star photographer.
right before the amazingness that was jon + ledah’s mariposa ranch wedding i was thrilled to have a chance to learn from an amazing photographer, mike colon.
he held “the seven workshop” in san jose, so it was nice to be close to home for this one. not that i would have minded an excuse to travel to Hawaii or Bali for his workshop…
the other day my friend gave me the most wonderful compliment. she said “emily, i was looking through your photos and i was thinking to myself- all the people you photograph are beautiful. but then i thought, that’s not totally it. the thing is you make them look natural, like you capture their natural personality. and that is what makes them beautiful.”
i mean, i could have cried right then and there.
because that is exactly it. exactly what i want with the photographs i take- i want you to see how beautiful you are, just the way you are. i don’t do any photoshop here. i just get you in your best light, being yourself. i want you to see yourself the way i see you- beautiful. unique.
my secret to getting natural portraits? it’s not really a secret if you’ve spent any time at all with me. i just have FUN. i play. if i have to, i will make a fool of myself to make you laugh. and trust me, i have.
i wouldn’t take photos of people if i didn’t love people. love spending time with them. love getting to know what makes them laugh. what makes them smile.
gem photo 
love