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The one with Scott Keys
161 Plays1 month ago
Scott Keys is an American wildlife photographer based in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, known for expressive bird imagery and his educational work through S.Keys Images and Wildlife Inspired. A dedicated birder and photo tour leader, he creates intimate portraits of songbirds, raptors, and other species in natural habitat, with a strong emphasis on photographing birds among native plants and wildlife‑friendly gardens.
He shares his work and teaching through his Wildlife Inspired YouTube channel (
https://www.youtube.com/wildlifeinspired
) and a subscription-based Patreon community focused on in-depth fieldcraft and editing, accessible via his website (https://www.skeysimages.com).
Scott is also highly active on Instagram, including @skeysimages for his main bird photography (https://www.instagram.com/skeysimages/) and @skeysnatives for his native plant and habitat gardening work (https://www.instagram.com/skeysnatives/)
Transcript
Intro
00:00:37
Vince Maidens
There we
Technical Glitches in Recording
00:00:38
Vince Maidens
go.
00:00:38
Scott
All right. Thanks for having me, Vince.
00:00:39
Vince Maidens
Okay. So just to be, you know, this is the authentic voice. I'm going to just say that we had an authentic problem where Scott and I spent, oh, I don't know, five minutes chatting. And then all of a sudden the recording stopped.
00:00:51
Vince Maidens
so, uh, yeah, we, we covered, what
Life Before and After Social Media
00:00:54
Vince Maidens
did we cover? We covered that we knew what a rotary phone was and that we used to hang them up and have the long cord and walk out of the room when our mom was in the, in the same space.
00:01:01
Scott
That's right. I think part of it is we were talking about this generational difference and how we grew up without the influence of social media.
00:01:07
Vince Maidens
That's right.
00:01:11
Scott
So that didn't come into our years probably until we were, don't know, like in our 40s. So we were still subject to it, but we were raised with all these other ideas and expectations and what it was like.
00:01:17
Vince Maidens
Pretty close. Yeah.
00:01:22
Scott
And being younger now, I think is so much more challenging in a lot of ways because when we grew up, it felt simpler.
00:01:33
Vince Maidens
Oh yeah. Well, it was.
00:01:33
Scott
You kind of knew, right?
00:01:35
Scott
You kind of knew like, we were just mentioning this idea that you, you, you grew up, you went to school, maybe you went to college or learned to trade, but you got a job. And then you took that job and you work till you got a promotion and then you got another promotion and then you bought the house. And if you had the family, you had the family, but the expectation was kind of there. And then you, and then you retire, hopefully you have enough money and you own a house and you know, you, you maybe travel a little bit and you live your life and then, you know,
00:02:01
Scott
then it's the end. And then you're walking around in circles thinking about what you did with your whole life.
00:02:02
Vince Maidens
Yeah, exactly.
00:02:07
Vince Maidens
Well, yeah.
00:02:07
Vince Maidens
And now, and now there's no guarantee for any
00:02:08
Scott
And that was the path.
Traditional vs. Modern Career Aspirations
00:02:11
Vince Maidens
of that. Kids will go to school. They have no expectation of having a job when they get out. They have no expectation of getting on that house ladder at any reasonable amount of time.
00:02:20
Vince Maidens
So, I mean, you know, you see this generation where coming out and taking a gap period post degree, post education and turning that into a, how do I become an influencer?
00:02:33
Vince Maidens
Right. You, you see that a lot now and
00:02:35
Scott
Yeah, and I think that when we got into our teen years, it was kind of expected. knew my next step, and we all got lost in our 20s. Nobody really knew what they were going to do, but we probably didn't think like, hey, here's what I'll do.
00:02:43
Vince Maidens
No, no.
00:02:47
Scott
I'll take a hobby and turn it into a living.
00:02:50
Vince Maidens
Yeah, yeah, that was never a consideration.
00:02:51
Scott
Like, I don't know anybody that, yeah, I mean, maybe somebody started their own business and they were a plumber or started a restaurant or something like that. But I'm trying to think of all the people I went to high school with and how many of them I know now that are doing the passion. So are they a music instructor? Are they in a band still? Or are they a full-time artist or doing something that's a passion? And most of them, we were from a safe generation. Most of them do it as a hobby.
00:03:16
Vince Maidens
Yeah. We grew up with the expectation that work is work and you're not going to like it. Right.
00:03:16
Scott
They do it on the side.
00:03:22
Vince Maidens
And then when you're too bloody old to enjoy your life, that's when you're allowed to enjoy it.
00:03:26
Vince Maidens
Right. And, uh, you know, that's, that's not how people seem to be now in this general generational shift that, that you and I probably don't really understand. I mean, it's cool to watch people try.
00:03:26
Scott
Exactly.
00:03:40
Vince Maidens
I mean, and, you know, we were talking about Instagram, not rewarding failure.
Challenges of Being an Influencer
00:03:45
Vince Maidens
seeing as Instagram is one of those platforms that people do want to become an influencer on, trying to work it so that they get into that monetization bracket is really tough.
00:03:55
Vince Maidens
And I think unless you're doing either really exceptional work, you are somebody who's visually appealing and interesting. There are the algorithmic challenges that you have to feed the beast to actually make success on platforms like that right you have to you know talk to camera you have to have witty things you have to look good you have to look a certain way you have to be able to do all of these things to satisfy what will increase your ranking right and if you don't hit all of those spots you're not going to fall into that you know half a percent that make it right
00:04:25
Scott
Yeah.
00:04:31
Scott
And here's the other part, like how do you until you get there? So you're 20 year old, you know, you're figuring it out. You love wildlife photography. You've been doing it for a couple of years and this is what you're going to do.
00:04:43
Scott
How do you sustain that part of your life until it becomes because nothing is an overnight success. Now, we all see the examples of the like this, quote unquote, like viral sensation where it is an overnight succession, I think, or an overnight success. And that leads to this perception that it could be you. But it's kind of like hitting the lottery, like. Do you go to the supermarket every day and buy the lottery ticket? Because that's what's going to happen to you. If you just do it long enough, that's going to be the expectation. And for most people, it's not. For most people,
00:05:14
Scott
You know, you have this dream maybe perpetuated by social media and seeing other people being able to do it. You see the lottery winner and you think I could do that too.
00:05:25
Scott
And then you realize it's a struggle. And, you know, I can tell you this firsthand, like it is not it's not easy to build a business off of wildlife and wildlife photography.
00:05:37
Vince Maidens
Exactly.
00:05:39
Vince Maidens
Right. No, and you have to be able to do certain things like, you know, commit to doing workshops either locally or remotely or both.
00:05:39
Scott
You know, I go ahead.
00:05:49
Scott
Yep. Yeah.
00:05:49
Vince Maidens
You've got to look to do either some type of social media presence. You have to look to do some kind of
Building a Career in Wildlife Photography
00:05:55
Vince Maidens
multimedia presence. You know, there's all the like, again, you know, talking about hitting the algorithms, right? You are having to do that on so many different levels to actually make a living off of what you want to do.
00:06:08
Scott
And, you know, did this, I, you know, run that like YouTube channel. It's wildlife inspired. If anybody's never seen it, you know, check it out. It's, it's a nice little channel. I do a lot of different things, but I actually did a video one time and I shared a lot of just money. Like, like, how do you do this? So many people ask me like, well, how do you make a living?
00:06:25
Scott
doing wildlife photography. And for a long time, I couldn't like there, I just felt like there's absolutely no way I'm so conservative with in terms of my, you know, physically conservative, like I don't, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna be that guy that like just takes a chance and, and throws everything and says, I'm just gonna go all in on something.
00:06:35
Vince Maidens
Yeah. Yeah.
00:06:43
Scott
But, you know, at some point, it was a plan, like it was a plan, like if I can chug away at this long enough, it took me five years, of working it as a second job, building it up. And again, look, we're kind of old school, right? You chug away until you can do it, you feel comfortable. It took a long time to get that and then to leave a full-time job, leave health benefits,
00:07:07
Vince Maidens
Yeah. Yeah.
00:07:07
Scott
you know, leave all of that and say, I'm comfortable now trying to get out on my own. And thank God, you know, I have a partner that, you know, can support a little bit financially. And I'm not doing this on my own or supporting a family because I can't imagine the people that can do it.
00:07:24
Scott
And there are several who can make a really nice living out it. Having maybe a young family, maybe being the primary breadwinner, trying to get health benefits in, you know, I live in, I live in the United States, so it's a little bit different here, but you know, God, a thousand, $2,000 a month just for health benefits in the United States right now is, you know, that's pretty, that's a hardship for a lot of people.
00:07:39
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:07:50
Vince Maidens
Well, yeah, and given all the, you know, let's not, we won't do the whole political thing, but the geopolitical aspects of what's going on right now, it doesn't make that any easier for anybody, especially when you're trying to pull from international people that might want you know, come work with you, right?
00:07:59
Scott
Yep.
00:08:07
Vince Maidens
So you've got to have all those opportunities.
00:08:07
Scott
Yep.
00:08:10
Vince Maidens
question marks in your head too right now you know you're starting and are people allowed to be here or you know am i allowed to travel there you know what's what's the climate going to be in six months of know what's going to change i need to work you know there's all these different roadblocks that get in the way of making this real right that's a fact yeah yeah absolutely
00:08:12
Scott
Yep.
00:08:25
Scott
Yep.
00:08:27
Scott
And that's not a political opinion. That's just a fact. It doesn't matter what you believe in, but I can give you a perfect example. I have a... a Canadian client. So for the last couple of years, I would do these workshops and I was in a really good position that it wasn't like, it wasn't paying the bills. So I could kind of handpick clients, you know, like, Hey, do you want to do this? Are interested in this? Or somebody would reach out and say like, Hey, do you ever do this? And I didn't have to advertise it, but like five or six people. And I would kind of have this little client list and it was really nice.
00:08:54
Scott
And then I contacted one. I said, I'm going to start doing these workshops next year, but I'm going to do them, you know, a little bit more aggressively. I'm going to probably double the amount that I do. I said, you know, would you like to book one? You did one last year. had a great time.
00:09:06
Scott
And they said, can't come to the U.S. right now.
00:09:09
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:09:09
Scott
And I was like, oh, my gosh. Like, I didn't really even think about it. said, are you that worried about it? And they said, it's just crazy. the way I feel right now, I literally, and this was a Canadian, I literally just can't do it.
00:09:19
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:09:21
Scott
So, you know, it's out there. And again, it's not like a political thing. Like they were thinking that this is awful or I'm awful or any that. It was just like the climate wasn't right. I'll tell you another quick story. And this has absolutely nothing to with the U S other than tourism, but a lot of people don't realize what happens in other countries. So whether it's South America, Central America, or Africa,
00:09:40
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:09:41
Scott
Google, depending on how you say it, Tanzania or Tanzania, but Google what's going on there.
00:09:44
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:09:46
Scott
I have a friend that runs a business out there.
00:09:46
Vince Maidens
Oh yeah. I am very aware of this, yeah.
00:09:48
Scott
And she said, I'm done. I can't even travel over there right now because, and most people don't even realize it's going on. The country is in just terrible upheaval right now.
00:09:59
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:09:59
Scott
And it's going to crush our business. And this is somebody who probably was going to retire, go out there and run safari workshops and stuff like that full time. I don't know what she's going to do.
00:10:09
Vince Maidens
Yeah. Yeah, I know. And it's sad because there's, there's either need for a lot of it, or, it's just circumstantial based upon the time.
00:10:22
Vince Maidens
Right. And, and all these other impacts from around the world.
00:10:23
Scott
Yep.
00:10:25
Vince Maidens
Right. And nothing we can do about it, but, you know, you have made this, you know, monumental shift of life that you've gone from being in an office.
Skill Development in Photography
00:10:36
Vince Maidens
Now you're, you're full time, looking to make this work. Right. And, and the thing is you've, like you said over five years, that's actually, I think pretty,
00:10:47
Vince Maidens
pretty amazing because it takes a long time to build the skill set, to build the artistic eye, to build the ability to communicate what you vision from your art, from your craft to other people, right? And that's not something that happens overnight. I don't care what anybody says. I've never seen anybody who just recently picked up a camera, become fairly decent and then be able to do all these workshops successfully.
00:11:16
Scott
I
00:11:16
Vince Maidens
There's always some level of either imposter syndrome just general inability on their part to make that communication happen at a meaningful, valuable level to their client.
00:11:29
Scott
think it's really, so there are, have this idea with age and youth and, and When think back and I say like, who are some of the most creative photographers? They're often some of the youngest.
00:11:40
Scott
Like there's some really, really talented,
00:11:41
Vince Maidens
Yeah. We have no fear.
00:11:43
Scott
yeah, yeah, I'm going to try it. I'm do this. I, you know, can remember even when I started in just in the last, I've been doing this for about 13 years, but 13 years ago, I could do so much more than I can.
00:11:55
Scott
Now it's embarrassing to say, but I used to do some pretty stupid stuff. And now it's kind of like, I'm a little bit older. It's a little tougher to do that right now. And then you see some of these, and I'll say kids, and I don't mean that in a disrespectful way, but you know, when you're old, everybody seems like a kid anymore, but yeah,
00:12:07
Vince Maidens
Younger. Yeah. Everybody seems young. Yeah.
00:12:10
Scott
you see somebody that's 18 or 20 years old and, and they're just, they're not bound by constraints. The rules don't matter as much. They're, they're going to try, they're going experiment. They're going to travel the, oh, I'm going to get the name wrong, Vince.
00:12:24
Scott
So maybe you could help me. I think it was the wildlife photographer of the year, the bird photographer year image from last year with, with the eclipse
00:12:32
Vince Maidens
Oh, God.
00:12:34
Vince Maidens
Oh, yeah, yeah. Levi Fitz. Yeah, he's Canadian guy, so yeah.
00:12:38
Scott
I hope I get the name right.
00:12:40
Scott
He's amazing, right?
00:12:41
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:12:41
Scott
Like it's the greatest picture ever taken. But is Scott or Vince, like 50-year-old Scott, going to travel and like set up and do that?
00:12:52
Scott
Like, don't know.
00:12:52
Vince Maidens
Yeah, I... You know, it's... I will try a lot of things. I will do a lot of things, but I have a, I have my, fairly, uh, well established, you know, we're kind of set in our ways. have my established style and voice, right. And that isn't it.
00:13:10
Vince Maidens
And,
00:13:11
Scott
Yeah. Yeah.
00:13:11
Vince Maidens
I'm not going to go lay in a field and put up a setup and all that stuff. It's just not something that... One, I like to be directly in control of the image and not have remote triggers at all. But I'm not going to just go do that anymore.
00:13:25
Vince Maidens
just doesn't it doesn't interest me enough to to do that now the thing we're lucky that having you know an artistic eye and ability to put an image together knowing how to do it technically compositionally and from creative level that doesn't just go away until you become quite addled as an
00:13:46
Scott
Yeah.
00:13:46
Vince Maidens
hopefully right so does that mean that we're done creating great images no of course not i mean you know we're both still making great stuff and and people are still interested right so until that changes i mean there's no reason to think that we can't do it but are we of that that mindset that we're going to go take those you know, impelling risks that people may do at a younger age?
00:14:10
Vince Maidens
Probably not, right? So people going to come to us for experience.
00:14:11
Scott
Yeah.
00:14:30
Vince Maidens
And that's fine, right? I mean, one of the things that I always say is that
00:14:31
Scott
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:14:37
Vince Maidens
putting all your eggs in one basket for going with an educator is usually not that good for you because you can only learn so much from a person and then you just start taking money from people and being paid as a friend, right? And I don't ever want to get to that. I don't see the... I don't see where somebody would stay that interested in me to keep going all these different places and just staying at this static level because I can't get them further.
00:15:01
Vince Maidens
I want the people that are stuck at a plateau that are trying to get at a contest level, or they're trying to get at a higher level and they need some help to get there and they need some just, you know, mentoring to push past, right? That's where I think I fit. Um, fit.
00:15:17
Vince Maidens
But that's not me to say, let's go look at this and make up this entirely new style of doing things, right? I want somebody that's got their voice, but just needs some fine tuning.
00:15:27
Scott
Yeah, I think we're very similar in that way in terms of, I don't think anybody looks at me and says like, that's the most creative photographer I've ever seen.
00:15:29
Vince Maidens
Yeah, yeah. Yeah,
00:15:42
Vince Maidens
yeah. No, no.
00:15:46
Scott
We talk about social media and Instagram and I used to probably post on there. every day for a long time and then it just got discouraging like the the the change in the way it went and it your image is not being seen and reels and all that and yeah i just got really discouraged well now that i'm kind of i say like semi-retired i still work but i mean i'm working a different schedule i'm at home a lot more I went back to posting every day.
00:16:10
Scott
And, know, I'm still proud that I can put out a pretty good image every day of my life for the next probably five years. I have so many archives. But yeah, it's it's certainly there's certainly when you're looking to connect and you're looking to grow with somebody and you're looking to find the right person.
00:16:24
Scott
It's so important to find somebody that gives you what you want, because you know, is Vince better for you than Scott or better than you from, you know, somebody who, like we mentioned Levi, but somebody who's like super creative like that. I think it depends on where you're at. And I think we're both very similar that we, we often find people who are,
00:16:43
Scott
getting good, but don't know how to get past good or don't know.
00:16:46
Vince Maidens
That's right.
00:16:47
Scott
Or sometimes maybe maybe I just want to get to good first. And there's so much that you could teach people just based off of experience and based off of simple concepts and really focusing on on subjects and how to get them and how to get them in the right light and where to photograph them and where to be.
00:17:03
Scott
There's so much you can learn. I see people that are frustrated after year. And they often come to me and say like, hey, I've been doing this for a year and I'm just not that good. said, hold on a second and I'll go back into my archives. And I'll go back to, I say I started 2013, go back to 2016.
00:17:21
Scott
And I'll find their image that they said, like, I, it just not very good. said, well, let me, you've been doing this for a year. Let me show you one that I did after three years.
00:17:27
Vince Maidens
Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:29
Scott
And it's, it's the same image. It's not that good. Like, so yeah, your image isn't great, but look at where I was three years after doing this. I was still learning a lot. And it's so much because for many people, if you're, I do bird photography almost exclusively. So Some people are birders first that get into photography. Some are photographers that get into birding. Some people try to learn it all at the same time. I said, well, you're trying to learn everything. So you're trying to learn, mean, just birding, just being a really good birder takes years and years and years.
00:17:56
Scott
Becoming just a photographer. If you were just taking photographs of lamps, on a wall, it would take a long time to figure out the settings and the camera works and all megapixels and resolution.
00:18:06
Vince Maidens
Lighting and absolutely.
00:18:06
Scott
Oh, there's a thousand concepts in here. So now you're trying to learn everything at once and you're trying to go outside and find them, you know, actually figure out where they're at.
00:18:17
Scott
said, you, a year in, you're in really good shape, but I will tell people this, if, if for those of you that it may be beginning or sort of beginner, I don't care what sort of feedback you get.
00:18:29
Scott
If you are resistant to feedback, you are in a lot of trouble. And if you can find some feedback, either a mentorship, which I think is great.
00:18:40
Scott
If you can't say afford it or you can't pay for it or that's not comfortable for you. I can remember when we first started, we had a chat group. I'll drop some names, right? I'll just name drop little bit. But your first guest on this show, I think was Josh Galicki, right?
00:18:56
Vince Maidens
Who? No, yeah, yeah.
00:18:57
Scott
Josh. Yeah.
00:18:58
Vince Maidens
I was kidding. Yeah.
00:18:59
Scott
So like terrific photographer, right?
00:19:02
Scott
So my chat group from like 2016 was Karim Khan,
00:19:06
Vince Maidens
No, I don't know that guy either.
00:19:08
Scott
Yeah, like, it was Ray Hennessy, Josh, Josh Galicki, me, this Tyler Reber, who's an amazing photographer, this guy who was in the wildlife photographer of the year, his name Santosh Shanmuga.
00:19:08
Vince Maidens
Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah.
00:19:21
Scott
He's a doctor. So he doesn't photograph as much as he used to.
00:19:22
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:19:24
Scott
But that was our chat group. And listen, were we all like amazing at the time? No, I mean, we were, we were getting good. but it was having feedback. So, hey, what do you think of this?
00:19:33
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:19:35
Scott
Or what would you do here? Or where'd you find that? And it was all of that feedback and we were all open to it. We were all saying like, let me show you this and what do you think? Or how would you edit this?
00:19:45
Scott
And getting that feedback from five people. And I was blessed that I was able to get that early on before it became kind of blew up as a hobby. been able to get that feedback from five people who are all extremely talented.
00:19:58
Scott
And to this day, I still probably text Josh three times a day. probably already sent me two reels on Instagram to look at.
00:20:02
Vince Maidens
Yeah. Yeah.
00:20:05
Scott
But getting that feedback. So if you're not in a situation where you can have a peer group, and I know a lot of people have these peer groups where they seek feedback. I think that's huge. But establishing some kind of mentorship is really, really, really helpful in that first two years. And I would tell people if you are in that first year, especially don't panic, like you will get better. It's not it.
00:20:28
Scott
There's no instant gratification in wildlife photography. It all comes slow. But as long as you get the feedback and as long as you're willing to improve, it happens. And when it happens, it kind of clicks. And once it clicks, normally you don't go backwards. Like normally everything just keeps getting progressively better from the point that it clicks.
00:20:50
Vince Maidens
Exactly. Well, that's the thing, right? You were lucky to be in a group. You know, it's hard to put a value on getting feedback from people that know what good is.
00:21:02
Vince Maidens
It's extremely easy to put a value on getting feedback on Instagram because there's no value to it.
00:21:08
Scott
Yep. Yep.
00:21:09
Vince Maidens
You get it, you know, you get a heart and some emoji and some random comment like, you know, amazing mate over and over. And there's no value to that. And, but it gives, you know, people that collect those types of thing, this overwhelming and shocking level of, um, of,
00:21:30
Vince Maidens
confidence that I just don't understand. Right. so much, you know, I see it quite often now that there's a lot of people that are starting to do workshops and they haven't established a voice for themselves. So they, they, you know, they've, they've got a presence on, on socials.
00:21:47
Vince Maidens
They've got a bunch of people that have you know, commented, liked, and followed. And, you know, I'm going to just go and start do these trips and, and, and workshops and hope for the best. Right. I don't know what I can give to people necessarily.
00:22:05
Vince Maidens
That is going to be value, but I'm going to do it. Right. And it amazes me because I would be pissing my pants and If I was in a situation where I didn't know the environment, I didn't know the subject, I didn't know how to get a person from to B from where they are today to a different level because I'm not at that level of skill to do it.
00:22:27
Vince Maidens
and and take their money and expect them to come away with any form of joy right they may get photos they may get lucky and see something you know a lot of these guys end up in hides and stuff because it's very calculated and you know you just wait and then you know the settings are pretty much canned and they just sit there banging away on these things and they think it's like the greatest thing. Well, okay.
00:22:49
Vince Maidens
You know, there is a market for that. It's not the most viable market because you can't do anything with those images, but there is a market and, you know, it would really, really bother me knowing that I can't answer 90% of the questions that are potentially going to come in.
00:23:09
Scott
Yeah.
00:23:09
Vince Maidens
Right. I've got, I've got 10% in the bag because all I've got 10%. Right. And it's shocking how many people are doing it and, you know, good luck to them, but eventually luck is going to run out and they're going to run into a problem.
00:23:24
Scott
Yeah.
00:23:24
Vince Maidens
And.
00:23:25
Scott
There's so much when you... So one of the things... And listen, I'm pretty... I'm planful, like I really don't just jump into things. Right. So I mentioned this whole idea of starting slow.
00:23:34
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:23:36
Scott
I took over this YouTube channel years ago, wildlife inspired, and I kind of use that and I thought, Okay, I've got a five year plan. And the plan is develop YouTube. You don't make any money, by the way, anybody that wants to get into YouTube, you will not make money on it.
00:23:47
Vince Maidens
Yeah. Yep. Yeah.
00:23:49
Scott
So don't even bother. But it was a venue for getting my name out. And then it was a venue for cross promoting other things. So I run a Patreon site, right? So people subscribe, I make videos and I do like the behind the scenes, the editing, I take you out the field. If I'm shooting ducks, I'll show you how I set up to shoot the ducks and use the blind and where the light is and all that. So it's kind of like, it's behind the scenes. So in this whole idea was,
00:24:13
Scott
do this, set up this, you know, Patreon, try to get some income from that. And it was originally just to pay for camera gear and trips. And then was like, okay, I think I can do bit more with it. So let me offer some of these workshops. What a lot of people specific to workshops, I will tell you this, if you are thinking of making money in this game. Think very, very carefully.
00:24:34
Scott
And there's a lot of hidden expenses that people don't think of. going to give you just a quick
Running a Photography Business
00:24:38
Scott
example. Right. So if you want to run business, you need have insurance.
00:24:45
Vince Maidens
Yes.
00:24:45
Scott
So I go and I buy this camper van and it's, I'm going to use it for scouting. Basically it's just for me, but you know, if I'm, if I'm scouting and have a client and they want to jump in, we're going to go and we're going ride and we're going to use the van for that, for that session.
00:24:58
Vince Maidens
You have to be covered.
00:25:00
Scott
Right? So the insurance is, don't know, it's like $200 a month, right? So I'm already out $2,400 a year just to own this thing. However, there's a stipulation. I can't have a client in the van.
00:25:14
Scott
because it's now considered a different type of business. So this, what was a relatively feasible expense at $200 a month is now $800 a month.
00:25:17
Vince Maidens
Oh, yeah.
00:25:23
Scott
Now I'm already not a rich guy and I'm already not doing a host of workshops. So now I got to spend $9,000 just to have a van that might get used five or six times a year.
00:25:35
Vince Maidens
Exactly.
00:25:36
Scott
I can't do it. So now I'm like, well, I I didn't plan for that. Like there was no way for me to know that insurance on a van was going to cost $9,000. By the way, if anybody listening to this works in insurance, feel free to send me an email with a better rate because, you know, I can't do the $9,000.
00:25:50
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:25:53
Scott
So now I'm kind of back to square one. And I've, it's interesting because I've asked people, you know, I know several people that run this as a business. And I said, you know, what do you do for this? Or what do you do for that? And some of them were kind like, yeah, we just don't,
00:26:05
Scott
We can't afford it. So we just don't do it. Like we just don't insure certain things. And I thought, oh my God, like maybe I'm just old and I'm afraid somebody's going to like sue me.
00:26:11
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:26:15
Scott
But what if you got an accident or what if something happened? You don't have insurance, like even a basic coverage that if somebody broke
00:26:19
Vince Maidens
Yeah. then you lose your house, right? That's the reality.
00:26:22
Scott
You could.
00:26:23
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:26:24
Scott
Yeah, you could. And so I think younger people, again, I think there's a lot more spirit out there and a sense of adventure and maybe not as planful. And generationally, I didn't live at home. So 18, 19, I was kind of out on my own and figuring out life. I didn't have the ability to jump back and say like, just live with my parents for five or 10 years. And I'll run a business until I figure it out.
00:26:45
Scott
So yeah, it's very, very different. And there are a lot. The way that people generally make money in wildlife is through some sort of teaching, whether it's online courses or selling courses, taking people to places, running these workshops. And it can look on paper like very, even lucrative in some places if you can get successful. But man, if you can't fill a workshop, you're brand new and you're like, okay, going gonna charge somebody X amount of dollars for five days and I'm gonna get three people and I'm gonna fly out there. I'm gonna get a hotel. I'm gonna rent a car.
00:27:19
Scott
I'll rent a car for a week. I could just tell you, cause I do this all the time. It costs you about $1,800. The figure, if you're lodging people, it's gonna cost you at least $300 a night, maybe $400 for a group. If you're feeding them, good luck. Cause then you got that on top of it to fly out. There's gonna be a thousand dollars each way or whatever, a thousand dollars total.
00:27:36
Scott
And now you're like, well, I have one person. And nobody else signed up.
00:27:40
Vince Maidens
That's right. Yep.
00:27:41
Scott
Well, the one person doesn't even pay for the workshop. So now you've just lost $1,000 and you haven't even filled it. So if people are experiencing that, think the people that I generally see are experienced at doing this, it's a slow progression. So it's like I'm doing two workshops a year. I'm getting enough to get by often as a second job. So they have an income.
00:28:03
Scott
You know, they do this on the side, they develop the reputation, they get the business, they get repeat clients. Now I'm gonna step away from my full time, I'm gonna do this full time and they keep adding these on. I think that if I was giving anybody a plan on how to run business like this, it would be like, give me a five year plan, go find another job, do this on the side, work really hard for five years, set yourself up.
00:28:22
Vince Maidens
Yeah. Yeah.
00:28:24
Scott
and then jump in. But for somebody to say like, hey, I've got a lot of followers on Instagram, and people like me, and I get a lot of good comments, and people seem to think I'm friendly, I'll just give it a shot. I'll just try it. I'll just quit my job and try being a wildlife photographer full time. That is a pretty rough game plan.
00:28:41
Vince Maidens
If that is your only bonafides, I mean, it's a tough sell because you think about it. You know, cameras before digital, you know, there wasn't a lot of people doing wildlife. I'll tell you that because I was there.
00:28:55
Vince Maidens
When digital hit, it took, well, probably 15 years before you started to see the commodity level of...
00:29:07
Vince Maidens
wildlife enthusiasts hitting the cameras, right? Because it took, you know, people started getting into crops and giving, you know, being able to go out there with, you know, cheaper zoom lenses and whatnot and, you know, do all right, right? So you had that level of consumerization of,
00:29:24
Vince Maidens
the hobby and the products meeting right now when mirrorless hit, everybody became able to take, you know, more impactful action images and, you know, they could compose better in camera, all that type of stuff, right? So the technology,
00:29:39
Vince Maidens
And timing is changing that landscape.
Authenticity and Passion in Photography
00:29:43
Vince Maidens
What isn't changing is the demand that people have for quality. And I think that, you know, people are quite confused by I've got a lot of followers on Instagram, but how do I turn that into something more?
00:29:58
Vince Maidens
lucrative, right? People, you know, people are always busting my balls saying, well, you know, you know, contests, you're always on about contests. Well, I'll tell you what, you can, you can do well in a contest, and you can eat on that for years.
00:30:16
Vince Maidens
You can do nothing for years.
00:30:16
Scott
Yep.
00:30:17
Vince Maidens
But if you come back and say, you know, X year, I won X contest, right? And you can you prove that you have done well, right? In this chosen hobby, it shows that you could put an image together. It shows that you can do it at a level that's quite high and professional and blah, blah, blah.
00:30:36
Vince Maidens
You know, you can, you have that in your kit to say to somebody, this is why you come with me as opposed to I've got hundred thousand followers on Instagram.
00:30:44
Scott
Yeah, it's interesting for years, I stopped doing contests.
00:30:44
Vince Maidens
Right.
00:30:47
Scott
I just I didn't have time like I was working I was I was in the deadline would come up in November, which is my busiest time of the year.
00:30:49
Vince Maidens
Well, yeah.
00:30:53
Scott
And I was like, I can't like I can't go through and pick images. And when I do a contest, I don't know do the same thing, but I would always re edit the raw file. So I'd go back and find the raw file because I didn't want to make sure you know, for people that ask about my editing style, we're probably a little bit different because I think I'm a little bit more liberal with my editing.
00:31:03
Vince Maidens
Oh, God, yeah.
00:31:09
Scott
So if there's a branch in the way you're like, Oh, yeah,
00:31:09
Vince Maidens
Yeah, yeah. But you own it. If you own it, it doesn't... That's the thing, right? People that just lie about it, that's a whole other animal.
00:31:24
Vince Maidens
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
00:31:28
Scott
always use this as an example.
00:31:29
Vince Maidens
Yep.
00:31:29
Scott
And sometimes they'll get one like right around their eye. Now, listen, if I'm going to put a bird on my wall, I'm not going to put it with a tick on its eye. So I'll just go in with the little clone tool or the little digital removal tool.
00:31:38
Vince Maidens
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
00:31:47
Vince Maidens
Yeah. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, yeah.
00:31:52
Vince Maidens
Yeah, no.
00:31:54
Scott
I know that's Photoshop. That doesn't happen. But it didn't own it. Like, that's not the intent of that image. That didn't really happen. So my thing is kind like, if the wind was blowing a different direction, that's, yeah, yeah.
00:32:04
Vince Maidens
You're not changing the spirit of the image. Yeah.
00:32:06
Scott
And I'm very upfront with it. I actually teach people how to do it on this Patreon site that I run. So I own that. But I also know that if I'm entering a contest, got to go back and look at that because maybe I took a little flower that was dead off in the side of the corner and I took that out of the image.
00:32:22
Vince Maidens
Yeah, yeah.
00:32:23
Scott
You don't want to be the person that wins a contest. Believe me, because we probably know stories of these people.
00:32:27
Vince Maidens
Oh, yeah.
00:32:28
Scott
You win the contest and then they say,
00:32:29
Vince Maidens
Well, the bird photographer of the year was a good prime contest this year.
00:32:32
Vince Maidens
Yeah, yeah.
00:32:33
Vince Maidens
Call it out.
00:32:33
Scott
and then you're the one that cheated win a contest.
00:32:35
Scott
And you're I didn't really mean to do that.
00:32:36
Vince Maidens
Oh.
00:32:36
Scott
I just forgot to edit it again. That's a tough one.
00:32:39
Vince Maidens
yeah i mean that's a doom right that that's that's the uh that's the career suicide but i mean so perfectly honest i i will shoot to make the best image i can in camera a hundred percent i i go of my way to do so and then if i do want to put something on the wall i make a virtual copy and i edit the hell out of that virtual copy to get it cleaned so that when it goes on the wall it looks
00:32:51
Scott
Yeah.
00:33:02
Scott
Yeah.
00:33:05
Vince Maidens
like something I want on the wall, just like you said, right? But, you know, I always keep that original, non, you know, the bare minimum edits for whatever intended purpose contest, it's going go in, but anything going on the wall is going to be clean.
00:33:19
Scott
Yeah, I just pulled up bird photographer of the year.
00:33:20
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:33:22
Scott
It was Liram Gertzman.
00:33:24
Vince Maidens
okay.
00:33:25
Scott
That's who it was. I felt bad because I'm like, I can't remember.
00:33:26
Vince Maidens
All right. Yeah. Yeah. No, good. Thank you.
00:33:29
Vince Maidens
Try to be accurate.
00:33:30
Scott
I'm looking at the picture on my monitor right now.
00:33:32
Scott
Holy God. Like it makes me want to just, that is so good.
00:33:35
Vince Maidens
Yeah, mean.
00:33:39
Scott
We got to do a show. Just promise me you'll have me back. So I run the wildlife.
00:33:41
Vince Maidens
Of course.
00:33:45
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:33:46
Scott
We mentioned the technical difficulties on this. At some point, I used to get so nervous. And I'm not one that gets nervous in front of people, but it was always technical. So I was in the middle of a live stream and the whole thing just stopped.
00:33:59
Scott
Like it just stopped in the middle. I got 500 people.
00:34:01
Vince Maidens
I just checked we are recording still just so you're aware.
00:34:04
Vince Maidens
Yeah,
00:34:04
Scott
I have 500 people live watching me on YouTube and it just stops and I'm scrambling and I'm sweating and I'm trying to figure out how to get long back in.
00:34:12
Scott
And, you know, it, it got to the point where the live shows, which is the format I used to do it. It was just too much. And I ended up doing one again with Josh Galicki this year. Cause we kind of did this annual like end of year thing.
00:34:22
Vince Maidens
yeah.
00:34:24
Scott
It, it, it seemed to work. So now I'm entertaining the idea of maybe going back and trying that whole live guest thing. I, I,
00:34:32
Vince Maidens
Oh, you definitely should. Yeah.
00:34:33
Scott
Yeah, you're good. Like, I mean, your conversational is good. You know, like, I like having just honest conversations with people. Just, you know, kind of shooting the breeze, talking about it.
00:34:43
Scott
Podcasts were always a little bit hard because was like, well, if I'm a photographer, how do you do a podcast and still talk about it?
00:34:48
Vince Maidens
Oh, yeah, this is the least visual medium I can think of to do talk about photography, but here we are.
00:34:49
Scott
But, yeah, but it works. You know, I think as long as you can have a conversation, an honest conversation with somebody, it's always going to work.
00:34:55
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:34:59
Scott
It doesn't really matter what the subject matter is.
00:35:02
Vince Maidens
No, it's funny. You know, put the one out and it got a ton of downloads and I was really quite surprised, right? Because I heard from other people that they don't get those kind of numbers and I'm like, oh, it's got to just be because people are worried I'm going to say something about them, right?
00:35:16
Vince Maidens
And which, hey, it could happen, right? I just say what I say and shit happens, right?
00:35:21
Scott
There's still
00:35:23
Vince Maidens
So, and, you know, hey, but the thing is, if you're not real and you're not just going to say things as you see them, what's the point, right?
00:35:35
Vince Maidens
I'm doing this for free. If it's not going to be something I'm comfortable with doing, not going to do it. Right. And yeah, it's just, it's just funny.
00:35:44
Vince Maidens
I don't, I don't want to pander to people. I just want people to, to know that, you know, they talk to you or it's, you get what you get and you see what you see. Yeah.
00:35:54
Scott
Yeah, I think the most important thing in it, we have very, I think we're very different in terms of personality. I mean, we never been out, so never hung out with you, but we talk online and we've had some pretty good banter over the years.
00:36:02
Vince Maidens
yeah.
00:36:04
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:36:05
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:36:06
Scott
I think I am very conflict avoidance. So I actually, I'm not like one of those, confrontational people, or I don't throw ideas out to stir it up and then get in there.
00:36:15
Vince Maidens
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:36:17
Vince Maidens
Yeah, I don't mind that.
00:36:20
Scott
I'm authentic to who I am.
00:36:21
Vince Maidens
Oh, totally.
00:36:21
Scott
I think when I talk, people kind of see like, wow, he gets really excited about plants and birds.
00:36:22
Vince Maidens
Yeah, yeah.
00:36:27
Scott
It's because guess what? I get really excited about plants and birds. That's probably why it comes across that way.
00:36:29
Vince Maidens
Exactly.
00:36:31
Scott
He smiles a lot when he talks about this. I've heard people say, I do this macro photography now in my yard, and I'll do stories on one of my, I have two Instagram accounts. One's just for native plants. I spend way more time on that account when it's spring, summer, and even into fall, because I'm out there every day and I just, I love it.
00:36:47
Scott
So people say like, God, you really light up when you talk about native plants. And I'm like, yeah, cause I, that's who I am. Like that's, that's, I love it. I have spreadsheets on plants at home and they're like, you're, you're really weird.
00:37:01
Scott
And I'm like, I'm not that weird. I just like what I like.
00:37:03
Vince Maidens
Yeah, but look what it brings you.
00:37:04
Scott
Yeah.
00:37:05
Vince Maidens
Look what it brings your garden, right?
00:37:07
Scott
Yeah.
00:37:08
Vince Maidens
Or your yard, I should say. I'm sorry, I'm used to saying gardening. Yeah.
00:37:11
Scott
Yes.
00:37:13
Vince Maidens
it brings all of that wildlife into the space, right? So it has a purpose and it is driving the passion that you have. It's, it's a passion thing, right? And people tend to lose that.
00:37:31
Vince Maidens
think it's mostly down to the fact that I, you know, decades of having to deal with people, you know, trying to murder small animals to get photographs.
00:37:42
Vince Maidens
Right. So it, you know, you know, I, I can get into that shit real quick.
00:37:43
Scott
Oh yeah. Here we go. Yep. Yep.
00:37:48
Vince Maidens
And, and, and the thing is, if I'm going to bring it up, I've probably done the research into it. Right. I tend not to just fly off the cuff, even though people might think that's the case and start screaming at people. Cause I don't, I I'm pretty, pretty tactical on how I actually,
00:38:06
Vince Maidens
deal with situations because one have my own personal reputation too. I want it to be impactful and I want it to make a change. You know, it's got no other reason.
00:38:17
Vince Maidens
It's not just cause I'm having a great time, you know, trolling people. It's, it's the fact that, you know, I'm seeing something that I generally find reprehensible and, and,
00:38:26
Scott
Yeah. Yeah, we certainly saw some of that because I was on yesterday and it had a whole string of images come through.
00:38:31
Vince Maidens
Oh God.
00:38:35
Scott
I'm not, listen, I told you I'm conflict avoidance. I don't mention names or accounts or anything else, but some of the things, and it gets back to this idea of social media is creating expectations that just aren't realistic.
00:38:46
Scott
I have this huge belief around expectations, whether it's social media, your job or your family or whatever it is at work.
00:38:47
Vince Maidens
That's right. Yeah.
00:38:53
Scott
I used to talk to people all the time about expectations. And, you know, imagine somebody tells you I used to think about this all the time. I'd be off for a weekend. Somebody would call me and I'd say, hey, like, what am I walking into tomorrow?
00:39:03
Scott
coming in Monday. know, we were open on the weekends and they'd say, Yeah, we had a really rough weekend, Scott. Like, I'm sorry. It was really busy. I was really, really struggling. I did the best I could. And I walk in and I'd be like, what? This isn't that bad.
00:39:16
Scott
Like, it's okay. You tried. You set me up for... I knew exactly what I was walking into. I'd have somebody say like, what am I walking into? They'd say, looks amazing. Looks great. It's awesome.
00:39:27
Scott
Everything's perfect.
00:39:27
Vince Maidens
it wasn't.
00:39:27
Scott
And I'd walk in. It would be the same thing. I'd walk into the exact same environment.
00:39:30
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:39:32
Scott
I'd be so disappointed.
00:39:33
Vince Maidens
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:39:33
Scott
It had nothing to do with the environment. The environment was exactly the same in both scenarios.
00:39:37
Vince Maidens
They set the expectation.
00:39:38
Scott
The expectation was different. I walked in one time thinking, I'm not expecting much.
00:39:39
Vince Maidens
That's right.
00:39:43
Scott
It's better than I thought. I'm good. Let's have a good Monday. Scott's in a good mood today.
00:39:46
Vince Maidens
That's right.
00:39:48
Scott
Everybody's having fun. I walk in the other way and be like, wow, is this? He told me was perfect. This is disappointing.
00:39:53
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:39:54
Scott
And everybody's like, you want to stay away from Scott for couple hours.
00:39:56
Vince Maidens
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:39:57
Scott
He's not having a good day. Well, social media is the same way. It sets us up with these expectations.
00:40:00
Vince Maidens
Oh God, yeah.
00:40:02
Scott
Like, oh, this is what you do. You know, you just walk up and everybody sees owls like point blank and fill in the frame. Like that's just what happens. And it doesn't.
00:40:11
Scott
Like it just doesn't happen under normal circumstances.
00:40:11
Vince Maidens
It doesn't. No, no.
00:40:14
Scott
It doesn't happen.
00:40:14
Vince Maidens
Oh, you got to get on a ladder and do that. It seems like, right? So, uh,
00:40:17
Scott
Yeah. So, but that's the thing. Like people start thinking that's normal or that's so, so we do this.
00:40:22
Vince Maidens
yeah, that's right. You normalize shit behavior. It becomes normal.
00:40:26
Scott
We do stuff that isn't normal and we probably know it's not normal, but somehow we thought it was normal.
00:40:26
Vince Maidens
I mean, yeah, I'm not going to get political.
00:40:31
Vince Maidens
I'm not going to get political.
00:40:31
Scott
Okay.
00:40:32
Vince Maidens
Yeah. But yeah, oh God. So, but yeah, I'm in total agreement with you on that one. Cause I mean, and people love to send me stuff that's going to fire me up. Right. And sometimes I jump on it if it's, if it's a viable argument and sometimes I don't, right. If I can't hundred percent prove that the situation is the way I see it,
00:40:57
Vince Maidens
right, then I'm not going to jump in look like an idiot. Right. It, you know, again, it's, it's being, conservative in your own reputation as well.
00:41:00
Scott
Yeah.
00:41:05
Vince Maidens
Right. You, you can, you can act a certain way if you can back it up. If not, then, then don't bother.
00:41:13
Scott
Yeah, I do think that with this idea of... think social media has created... And you hear about it way outside bird photography, but I feel bad for kids that think they're viewing things on social media all the time. They're seeing these images of perfection. And even with wildlife photography, like it always, it must be sexy. Like this must be the greatest thing in the world. Well, it's not like, it's a tough people that do this a lot.
00:41:38
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:41:38
Scott
You know what it's like. And if somebody listened, it's like, yeah, I just went out yesterday. I got up at 4am. It's two degrees outside Fahrenheit, not Celsius Fahrenheit.
00:41:46
Vince Maidens
Yep.
00:41:47
Scott
And I sat by a lake and I didn't see a thing. And I'm, my fingers are frostbitten.
00:41:50
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:41:52
Scott
I'm miserable. And now I got to drive home and try to enjoy the rest of my day. And
Emotional Connection to Photography
00:41:56
Scott
I'm tired all day. And you know, it's not always glamorous doing this.
00:42:00
Vince Maidens
It is not.
00:42:01
Scott
There's a lot of failure that people don't realize. And so when they say like, well, I can't get those shots, or I'm struggling to get those shots, because it's not easy. Like, it's just not an easy thing to do to get great images all the time.
00:42:13
Vince Maidens
No.
00:42:15
Scott
It's it takes a lot of work, it takes a lot of failures. There's a lot of bad situations. But I always tell people, you never take a good picture from your couch either. So you're going to have to just realize there's going to be days, right?
00:42:25
Vince Maidens
Well, don't know about that.
00:42:28
Scott
There's going be days you get nothing and you just got to find a way to say, I'm good with it. Like I'm good with nothing because I got fresh air or I saw something neat.
00:42:34
Vince Maidens
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like if, if I go out shooting and I get nothing, then I, you know, I can say, well, you know, I tend not to get too upset about it anymore. Well, I really never did because I knew dealing with wildlife.
00:42:48
Vince Maidens
They decide where they're going to be, how they're going to act, et cetera. You know, I'm just observing, right? So if today I don't observe something that's going to, you know, be incredible and, and, uh,
00:43:01
Vince Maidens
make major epic images, you know, oh, well, right. I will go back and try again. That's the way you have to view it. You know, people that we enter contests, you don't win all the time.
00:43:13
Vince Maidens
You rarely win. It's an absolute rarity to win, right?
00:43:17
Scott
Yep. Right.
00:43:18
Vince Maidens
If it wasn't, then everybody would be doing it and winning everything. But it's a rarity. And, you know, I just don't get upset about it. If I get something in great, if I don't, I will try it again next time if I believe in that image, right, you have five years usually to use that image in the contest. And if you believe in it that much, you try it on a different judge.
00:43:39
Vince Maidens
Okay.
00:43:39
Scott
Yeah. And you, you did, was wildlife photographer the year for you last year, right?
00:43:40
Vince Maidens
Yeah, 24.
00:43:43
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:43:44
Scott
20. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that that's, listen, that's about as good as it gets.
00:43:49
Vince Maidens
I'm quite happy with that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:43:51
Scott
It's about as good as it gets.
00:43:53
Vince Maidens
And.
00:43:54
Scott
I did. have never done that one because I, in my head, it was, it wasn't for birds. It was wildlife. And I know they do birds. I know tons of people that have success with it.
00:44:01
Vince Maidens
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:44:01
Scott
But in my head, I was like, yeah, I'll do bird photographer the year because I'm a bird photographer. And I looked at a couple my images from, from the last couple years. There is one. we all get like attached to certain things.
00:44:12
Scott
Sometimes it's a memory.
00:44:13
Vince Maidens
Oh, yeah.
00:44:13
Scott
So sometimes it's simply just emotional.
00:44:15
Vince Maidens
I hope it is.
00:44:15
Vince Maidens
Yeah, yeah.
00:44:18
Scott
It's kind of like you drink a wine or you have, you know, that meal. And it's not just the wine that was good. What was good was the memory of who you drank it with, the laugh you had when you were drinking it.
00:44:29
Scott
All a sudden the wine's like the best wine you ever drank and who knows how good it really was.
00:44:30
Vince Maidens
Yep. Yeah, exactly.
00:44:33
Scott
It was just... same thing with wildlife. Sometimes you get an image and you see it because you have that emotional connection. And I was trying to think I haven't taken very good pictures at all this year.
00:44:44
Scott
I looked at my image. was hey, they're like, they're like average, right?
00:44:45
Vince Maidens
You me both.
00:44:48
Scott
And I thought, what would I have even put in a contest this year if I was entering wildlife for the car?
00:44:48
Vince Maidens
Not even.
00:44:52
Scott
I one or two decent images. But I look back and I thought, man, I there's one that I entered in bird photographer of the year. And I thought, It's that whole thing about expectations. I'm like, I think this is it. Like, I think this one is just wonderful.
00:45:08
Scott
And I, I know, I know it's emotional. I know it's my image. So you always think, you know, but I thought this is, this is like great image.
00:45:16
Vince Maidens
You're going to be surprised if it doesn't do something.
00:45:18
Scott
Yeah, and I think I got that year, I think I got the whole like, send me the raw file.
00:45:19
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:45:23
Scott
Like was like, oh yeah, this great.
00:45:24
Vince Maidens
Yeah, you made it into the. Yeah.
00:45:25
Scott
And then I'm like, and then somebody, because my friends enter that, they would tell me when they got the news, right? And so my friend says, oh, I got the email. I'm like a finalist or I'm gonna win or whatever.
00:45:37
Scott
I'm gonna be on the, one of my friends was on the cover one year and I'm like, oh, let me check my email. And I was like, oh, my heart just broke.
00:45:45
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:45:45
Scott
I'm like, no email. No email.
00:45:47
Vince Maidens
Yeah. It's a good way to learn to be humble because there are just situations that you're going to put yourself in that are not going to feel good in the end.
00:45:52
Scott
It is, yes.
00:45:58
Vince Maidens
And Hey, it's just how it is that year. And maybe you try another contest or there's so many of them now. Right. And the, the one thing I find that,
00:46:10
Vince Maidens
because there are so many of them and even some of the well-established ones, they've just gone to the, know, I'm going to pick the low common denominator judge and, and you don't get the fairest of playing fields, I think for lot of images, depending on the contest, right?
00:46:30
Vince Maidens
Some of them are, yeah, yeah.
00:46:31
Scott
So it's so incredibly subjective. There are certain themes with contests. So there's a contest, I can't say the name of it. It's in, I think it's a French contest. It's really, really good, right? And I put some images in there one year and I did okay.
00:46:40
Vince Maidens
Yeah. Yeah.
00:46:43
Scott
Like I got some recognition on their art category. Me of all people get to get like the artistic look.
00:46:46
Vince Maidens
Yeah. It's a French name. Yeah. I know the one you're talking about.
00:46:48
Scott
Yeah. You know the contest.
00:46:49
Vince Maidens
Oh, yeah.
00:46:50
Scott
I can't think of the name. I can't say
00:46:51
Vince Maidens
Festival d'Auzeau. Yeah.
00:46:52
Scott
yeah, yeah. I see you're better than me. Americans can't speak.
00:46:55
Vince Maidens
French.
00:46:55
Scott
So I know if I'm putting an entry into that contest, it's going to have a completely different vibe. I know if I'm entering, I don't want say the name of contest, but I know if I'm entering like a contest here that might be like an online contest, I probably know it's got a certain vibe.
00:47:09
Vince Maidens
Yeah. Yep.
00:47:11
Scott
And the judging, I used to judge a couple, I didn't really judge them, but I would help. So they would, sometimes they'll do a panel of like three or four people and they'll pare it down. And then those people will kind of decide.
00:47:23
Scott
And then maybe one person says, okay, I've got the last vote on this. So I'm going to be the deciding factor of this. And I listen, I w I would be with somebody else and I'd say, these, these are the 10 images I love. And they would send me their 10.
00:47:35
Scott
And I'd say like, like these five, I don't, I don't really like those five.
00:47:37
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:47:40
Scott
And they would look at mine and say, I don't, I don't get five of yours. And it was really what, what did we like? Like what, what resonated with us? So I could tell you right now, if I, if I saw an image with bad light, like I did, I don't care.
00:47:52
Scott
Like, I don't care how cool it is.
00:47:52
Vince Maidens
been it. Yeah, yeah.
00:47:53
Scott
It just not my, not my preference.
00:47:56
Scott
So
00:47:56
Vince Maidens
But as the judge, that's your prerogative, right?
00:47:59
Scott
Yeah.
00:47:59
Vince Maidens
It's if you don't have any level of expertise in what you're actually judging, I find that's where I have the biggest problem is when, you know, like I've beaten the hell out of the bird photographer of the year this year for 2020.
00:48:11
Vince Maidens
Viable reasons, I've spoken to them and communicated this to them directly, and I've written about it, so I'm fine to talk about it. Picking influencers as judges that don't actually shoot birds, not the right way to go.
00:48:25
Vince Maidens
And because of that, it impacts the choices made on shortlist. It impacts the choices made on winning. And people that shoot birds, you would be a great judge in there because you would actually be able to say, OK, the physics of this setting doesn't make sense.
00:48:33
Scott
Yeah.
00:48:40
Vince Maidens
So how did they actually achieve it? And that would have saved them a huge amount of problems.
00:48:42
Scott
Yeah.
00:48:45
Scott
Yeah.
00:48:46
Scott
Oh, yeah, know. I know where you're going with this one.
00:48:47
Vince Maidens
on on a silver award right because wasn't viable there was no way in hell anybody that actually shot birds would have saw that and said this is real based upon the settings given and they would and they would have clarified clarified it there and then as opposed to going to publishing you know putting it out into press you know
00:48:50
Scott
Yep.
00:49:06
Scott
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned social media influencers. And I will tell you this, there's a big difference between influencer and photographer.
00:49:17
Scott
And I have this small pet peeve. So I get a few pet peeves. You've seen probably a couple of my rants.
00:49:21
Vince Maidens
Good.
00:49:23
Scott
Normally when I'm driving and somebody can't take the light on time,
00:49:24
Vince Maidens
Yeah, yeah. FedEx and this.
00:49:27
Scott
Oh, don't even get me started.
00:49:27
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:49:28
Scott
I'm waiting for FedEx package today, by the way.
00:49:30
Scott
So we shall see how this one goes. But so I have this. So there's a lot of people who are influencers have to create content.
00:49:30
Vince Maidens
Yeah, cool.
00:49:40
Scott
So there's a very influential couple that photography millions of followers and all this.
00:49:40
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:49:45
Vince Maidens
Uh-huh.
00:49:46
Scott
And, you know, every now and then they'll put out a list of advice for bird photographers and it's just, or wildlife, like, and I'm just like, no, stop.
00:49:52
Vince Maidens
Oh yeah, I know the one you're talking about.
00:49:54
Scott
Don't like nobody watch this.
00:49:55
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:49:56
Scott
And I don't mean it as an insult to them. I get what it's like. You have to create content. So you're going to do a, you could do wedding photography. You're going to do landscapes. You're going to talk about cameras. going to do all this.
00:50:06
Scott
But part of me is kind of like, stay away from bird photography. Do me a favor. And there's another thing.
00:50:10
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:50:11
Scott
I don't want to say the names because I'm so afraid to like call people out, but there's another very famous YouTuber who is very well known.
00:50:13
Vince Maidens
Come on, do it.
00:50:19
Vince Maidens
Is he Canadian?
00:50:20
Scott
I don't know.
00:50:20
Vince Maidens
I bet he's Canadian.
00:50:21
Scott
might be, I think his name's a little Canadian.
00:50:23
Vince Maidens
He's shit, that guy. He's absolute shit. Yeah, okay.
00:50:26
Vince Maidens
Go on.
00:50:26
Scott
There's one guy that has a very unique look and I'm like, just stay in your lane.
00:50:29
Vince Maidens
He's a space lizard. Yep.
00:50:32
Scott
Like do the product reviews and all that.
00:50:32
Vince Maidens
Oh, yeah.
00:50:35
Scott
But then every now and then they have to make content. So they'll do like,
00:50:39
Vince Maidens
Yes.
00:50:39
Scott
here's five tips for wildlife photography, or here's five tips to be a better bird photographer. And I'm like, oh my gosh, like it's, it would be like me going on saying like, I'm going to do a video on wedding photography.
00:50:50
Vince Maidens
Yeah, exactly.
00:50:50
Scott
I don't know the first thing about wedding photography.
00:50:52
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:50:53
Scott
People are asked, well, you have all that equipment. Can you, can you shoot pictures of my son's weddings? I'm like, no, like, you don't want that. I have no idea what I'm doing. I can take pictures of people, but I don't, that's a skill like that. That's an art.
00:51:06
Scott
Like it's, it's, it's not a transferable.
00:51:06
Vince Maidens
It's so much scarier because you ruin that moment. You ruin a person's, big chunk of their life. And they're always going to go back and reflect on how shit that photograph is.
00:51:14
Scott
Yeah.
00:51:16
Scott
Yeah.
00:51:17
Vince Maidens
And it's you that did it, right? So it's horrible.
00:51:19
Scott
Yeah.
00:51:21
Vince Maidens
Wedding photography, I just don't know how people do it and sleep because it's so stressful. But yeah, I mean... Now that person in particular, I mean, he does a good service on really basic stuff, right? For beginner people, he can communicate well because of his cadence and his mannerisms and his dead eyes.
00:51:43
Vince Maidens
And he's very capable at reading technical documents to people and make them fairly simple to understand but the the actual you know emitting of an interesting image or an interesting or a wildlife image that has some substance to eat that's not him right so it's great that he's he's uh found a niche for himself but it's a very strange niche yeah
00:52:07
Scott
Yeah. Yeah. There are some really good, I'll actually just tell you this because and I I'm going to do a YouTube video because I have a whole list of like topics here to do. And I have one of them that's kind of like, uh,
00:52:16
Vince Maidens
Yeah, cool.
00:52:19
Scott
watch where you get your information is kind of the theme of the video.
00:52:21
Vince Maidens
Oh, yeah.
00:52:22
Scott
And I throw out some names of people that I actually think do a very nice job in their own kind of style. And Steve Perry is a guy who's been doing it for like a really long time.
00:52:30
Vince Maidens
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:52:32
Scott
Great style, like just very down to earth, very easy to follow. It's not like bunch of frills, but it makes sense. Like he provides good information. try actually not to watch a lot of videos on wildlife photography because I don't want to be tainted.
00:52:46
Scott
I try to have this like, okay, don't be influenced by what everybody else is doing.
00:52:48
Vince Maidens
I think it would be hard to be. Yeah.
00:52:50
Scott
Like have a list of topics that I want to cover, a list of reviews that I want to do.
00:52:50
Vince Maidens
Oh, yeah.
00:52:54
Scott
And like, just do that, do your research on it, but try not to get too carried away with what everybody else is doing. That said, I will fact check myself. So I'll, you know, I'll go on YouTube and say, okay, what, don't want say something factually inaccurate.
00:53:07
Scott
So I'll go in and watch some videos. And so I'll come across Steve's channel once in a while. And I would say of all the YouTube channels, there's a few good ones out there for information, like how to, and, you know, he's, he's really, really good.
00:53:16
Vince Maidens
Oh, definitely, yeah.
00:53:19
Scott
There's a couple that do product. I think Matt Granger's one that does like kind of producty stuff. And sometimes I'll, I'll jump on his channel if there's a product that I'm interested in.
00:53:26
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:53:28
Scott
But yeah, there's a, there's a few really good channels out there, but I try, I try to stay away from most of them, but every now and then one will pop up in my feed and I'll be like, Oh no, this person, don't do a bird video.
00:53:38
Scott
Please don't do a bird photography video.
00:53:38
Vince Maidens
Yeah, they just shouldn't be covering the subjects they're covering.
00:53:40
Scott
video. It's just not the right genre for you.
00:53:41
Vince Maidens
Yeah. Yeah, it's true. And it's hard because I mean, you can get on there and you can make anybody can become a broadcaster. It's just like this. Anybody can start a podcast.
00:53:51
Scott
Yeah, anybody.
00:53:52
Vince Maidens
Right. And it. But would hope you would hope that the person has some ability to actually, you know, do what they say they're doing, right?
00:54:04
Vince Maidens
And I find YouTube especially very, very limiting in that skillset. You see a lot of people that are really good at editing videos, but you'll get some pretty content at the start, lot of face and camera, and then not a whole lot of substance in there, right? So it's just noise in the background, not much value, but it's there. Now for you,
00:54:28
Vince Maidens
I get really, really enjoy the videos that you find don't do very well. Like your, your, the science versus art. I found that one. Great. the, the, uh, the one about, um, about,
00:54:43
Vince Maidens
how much knowledge you actually have of photography, right? That one was fantastic, right? I was sitting there going, holy shit, I didn't know that.
00:54:47
Scott
Yeah, thank you.
00:54:49
Vince Maidens
You know, I haven't been at this a long time, but there was pieces that you brought up that really are so niche, pixel density and all that type of stuff that people just don't get into, right?
00:54:50
Scott
Yeah.
00:54:59
Vince Maidens
Yeah,
00:54:59
Scott
I've been trying to do it so that I would love to do just opinion type videos. Unfortunately, I hate to say this, like you need content, right? So I try to do one video a week and I have this cadence where I try to do some product reviews.
00:55:07
Vince Maidens
yeah, yeah.
00:55:11
Scott
And listen, I'm about as transparent as you get with people.
00:55:11
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:55:14
Scott
So the product reviews, I try to be very, very good. I try to make very detailed, like very practical. I call myself like the practical wildlife photographer. So I'm not just going to show you a test chart of something that you can't tell the difference in.
00:55:28
Scott
It's kind of like these, I used to watch, I drink bourbon sometimes. So I drink bourbon a lot. So, uh, I would watch people do like these taste testings of bourbon.
00:55:37
Scott
I'm like, you can't tell the difference. Like at some point you just can't tell the difference. Like you're getting so coffee grinding, like this guy's measuring the size of the coffee grinds that come out.
00:55:42
Vince Maidens
Down in the weeds. Yeah, yeah.
00:55:46
Vince Maidens
Oh, I'm aware that one.
00:55:46
Scott
And I'm like, yeah,
00:55:47
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
00:55:47
Scott
Yeah, you can't write Hoffman's a guy's name, right? He's a genius.
00:55:49
Vince Maidens
Yeah, yeah.
00:55:50
Scott
I like watching him.
00:55:50
Vince Maidens
I've seen those, yeah.
00:55:51
Scott
Yeah, he's another Brit. But at some point, like, is it practical? So I try to get away from just like test charts and the scientific formula that determines this and determines that.
00:56:02
Scott
And I'll say, let's just take the camera out and just shoot a bunch of stuff and let me compare it to this. So I do a ton of comparisons. But I also do these quick thoughts videos, which I like, which is just like try 10 minutes, stay on a topic.
00:56:13
Vince Maidens
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
00:56:14
Scott
I think the video you're talking about, I made the point that, and you made the point earlier about cameras and just how much technology is involved there and how much they can do. And it takes away a lot of the skill of the craft in many ways. So if you're shooting a certain style, and I'm not picking on people that covet action photos, but I could take my son I have four, by the way, so I could just pick randomly any of the four.
00:56:39
Scott
And they've never shot camera before. They've never taken a picture before. And I could probably give an hour lesson. I could take them to a spot with eagles grabbing fish and fighting with each other.
00:56:50
Scott
And there's a chance. not saying they would, but there is a chance that that they could take an award-winning picture of two eagles fighting with each other, grabbing a fish, tearing it in half, on their first day grabbing a camera.
00:56:59
Vince Maidens
absolutely right yeah yeah yep
00:57:02
Scott
Like it is, it is, now in the film days, 100 years ago, when you were doing it, they're little tougher, right?
00:57:07
Vince Maidens
yep yeah bird in flight was the holy grail for wildlife right that that was you know if you if you could pull that off you know people would go this guy can shoot birds in flight right that that was where it was now it's yeah yeah
00:57:09
Scott
Because the camera couldn't do what it can now. But if I'm taking, Yeah.
00:57:22
Scott
And now you're doing 30 frames a second. You just pick the frame where the fish is perfect and everything's sharp and everything looks great. I'm not saying it happened, but it is possible that somebody on their first day with a camera could take an award-winning picture.
00:57:30
Vince Maidens
Oh, yeah.
00:57:34
Scott
And there are very few other genres. You couldn't sit down at the piano on your first day and play a concert.
00:57:42
Vince Maidens
Absolutely not.
00:57:43
Scott
Like it's just not to happen.
00:57:43
Vince Maidens
No, absolutely not. No. No, you have taken a computer, put it into a body with a sensor. You paired it with a piece of glass. And if it's set up correctly, it will do the bulk of the work for you.
00:57:58
Scott
Yeah.
00:57:59
Vince Maidens
Right. And that's.
00:58:00
Scott
The creative stuff is where everything changes and finding those subjects in a natural setting where, you know, that's the stuff that takes a lot of time. In fact, I will tell you that what took me the most amount of time, and I have this firm belief that what is truly the most important skill in wildlife has less to do with the subject you are taking and more to do with the area in the location.
00:58:24
Scott
So how does the sun look?
00:58:25
Vince Maidens
Oh God. Yeah.
00:58:26
Scott
How does
Environmental Impact on Photography
00:58:26
Scott
the background look? What does it shoot like at this time of day? All of that stuff. And then you also have to say, okay, it looks beautiful. Like, is it just a beautiful scene? And hopefully it's also a scene that includes some wildlife.
00:58:38
Scott
So I have to find that beautiful scene and I have to make sure there's going to be some birds in there to photograph them. But that's what takes a lot of time. It's so much of it is just about locations and areas. And now we're in a time when you got to find an area where there's nobody else because
00:58:51
Vince Maidens
That's right. That's right.
00:58:52
Scott
You know, I know an area I tell Bob who tells Jane, who tells John, who tells Tom. And now there's 20 people at an area where 10 years ago there was absolutely nobody. You wouldn't see a soul. And now it's it's a lot of people with cameras, sometimes with binoculars for me because the birders are out also. And it's very hard to do wildlife photography with groups of people around and have a lot of success. It's not impossible. It just it just makes it a lot harder.
00:59:20
Vince Maidens
That's right. You know, people passing in front of your glass, you know, it's always something that you have to watch out for. And that's the thing, right? Again, it comes down to how do you differentiate yourself from the rest of the pack as a photographer and somebody that somebody wants to work with.
00:59:36
Vince Maidens
you know, the past few years, shooting really, really, really slow has become something that we do and, you know, trying to communicate the movement and, and some sharpness and, and the environment, all this stuff into an image, you have to, you have to really be able to see,
00:59:51
Scott
Thank
00:59:59
Vince Maidens
the space, the, the environment that the, the living conditions, all these attributes that come to making a really great image before it happens so that you can say, I'm going to set my camera to this and I'm going to hope for this.
01:00:12
Vince Maidens
Right. You have to be able to do that. And, if we don't find our niches in that space, right? It's like you said, you know, he sets his camera up and he makes this incredible image. That's fantastic. He's got that niche hammered down.
01:00:27
Vince Maidens
He can eat on that for years, right? And that's good. So if you know somebody wants to do that, that's where you send them, right? If you have somebody that wants to do bird in flight and in some kind of weird, crazy, slow, ethereal looking thing, maybe it's us, right?
01:00:43
Vince Maidens
And there's a space for all of these different genres within a genre, right?
01:00:51
Scott
Yep.
01:00:52
Vince Maidens
Nobody does everything perfectly well, but there are some people that specialize in certain things like, uh, Yuri Haribchuk. I always bring him up because fascinates me by doing incredibly strange, um, strange,
01:01:06
Vince Maidens
images that don't make any sense on how he achieves it, but he does it right and beautiful things, weird things, he just has this vision of how to get this picture done within camera and then produce it in a way that you don't really understand how he achieved it. It's quite cool. I like that kind of stuff, right? So that's where my head's at anymore is trying to look at all these different challenging things
01:01:37
Vince Maidens
paths to a different level of photography that isn't being readily pursued right now. Because I think that's how we have to keep doing it.
01:01:47
Vince Maidens
Once you get to a level, you have to start evolving, right? And you have to start pushing your boundaries if you want to remain relevant, right? And I think, you know, I find that now, I'm sure you find that now that, you know, the more you do this at a professional level, the more you're going to have to push that envelope. Right. And I think some people do it in a organic, natural, viable way. And then there's some that do it in a way that just might be a bit icky because they have to do it to get that business.
01:02:17
Vince Maidens
Right.
01:02:17
Vince Maidens
And,
01:02:17
Scott
And I think it's so important to understand there's absolutely no right.
01:02:21
Scott
I like I make videos for, so part of the service, one of the services I do is I, people will send me files. I actually edit them and I do some recording and I talk about it and then I show them the before and the after. And so that's one of these editing services that I offer. And I do that over on this, this Patreon site primarily, but listen, if anybody's interested, you know, look me up one day, but I I'm making a video for, for a person yesterday. And as I'm doing new client, so I'm explaining it. And one of the things I say to everybody is there's no right or wrong. I'm going to show you my way and I'm show you what I like.
01:02:52
Scott
This isn't it's, it's not right.
01:02:55
Vince Maidens
Oh,
01:02:55
Scott
There's a hundred things. What you have to find is, is it right for you? So you were mentioning like, there are some people who do exceptional work with environmental shots, very small in frame shots, people that focus on light and color, people that focus on just action, like really intense, like intimate action scenes.
01:03:11
Vince Maidens
yeah.
01:03:13
Scott
I was looking at photographer yesterday, hadn't seen his site in a long time. And you know how people disappear and then they pop back up because of these algorithms, Kev Morgans.
01:03:19
Vince Maidens
Oh, yeah, yeah.
01:03:22
Scott
And was like, man, I haven't seen this guy in like a year.
01:03:24
Vince Maidens
Yeah, yeah. The king of the puffin, yeah.
01:03:27
Scott
Yeah, but he's good. Like, it's good. It's not my style. It might not be your style, but it's amazing. And so if that resonates with you, you just need to kind of connect with who is, if you're in that learning phase, who you're learning from, does the style work and understand, try some different stuff. And it's, you mentioned slower shutter speeds. I did a workshop with somebody and we were out and we were shooting songbirds and we were talking about settings and we go out before the sun comes up. So we're there before light.
01:03:56
Scott
And I said, I want you to set your camera a hundredth of a second and we're shooting songbirds. And she kind of looked at me and she's like, I can't, that, that, that doesn't work. Like, can't, like nobody ever told me that. Like I, I'm supposed to shoot at 500th of a second for songbirds.
01:04:09
Scott
And I'm like, listen, just trust me.
01:04:09
Vince Maidens
Yeah, yeah.
01:04:11
Scott
We're not looking at taking the most detailed shot in the world. Like this isn't going to be a picture of their eyeball. What I am going to show you how to do is when that sun hits that horizon, just before it gets over the, the, the hill, it's, and these autumn leaves in the background here.
01:04:27
Scott
When that light hits those leaves, you'll understand why you're shooting because we're still going to be shooting a high, it's going to be noise in this image. It's going to be 1600 or 3200 or 6400 ISO, but you got to just trust me, the value of the color you're going to get is going to supersede any little tiny sharpness problem.
01:04:46
Scott
And you're going to get some blurry photos in this process, but we're going to find one that works.
01:04:47
Vince Maidens
yeah. yeah.
01:04:50
Scott
And when she uh went home the next week she sent me a picture she said i i shot this i just want you to know i shot this at a 120 150th of a second whatever it was she's like i would have never done this but she said look how good it turned out it was tack sharp it wasn't what you typically hear people telling you to do with bird photography that like shoots slow shutter speeds but there's a time and a place for it and once once she saw it she was like wow I'm trying this because I never thought I had enough light to shoot.
01:05:19
Scott
So now I'm out there in the really, almost before the light comes up and I'm trying to get a couple shots in here and what a difference the color makes.
01:05:24
Vince Maidens
Yep.
01:05:27
Scott
And I said, that's the whole point. That's the key. Sometimes color will trump everything if you get it right.
01:05:33
Vince Maidens
Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, trying different things opens you up to different images, right? And different color casts and all these different things that people just, you know, they get in, they get in a half. I can't say how many Barn Owl images have or Snowy Owl images I have.
01:05:52
Vince Maidens
And how do I still make it interesting, right? I have to try different things to make the stunning creature, when one can continue to be viable for people to look at and interesting to look at and, and two, same for me, right? I want to, I want to be enjoying this. want just keep doing the same thing over and over.
01:06:12
Vince Maidens
Right. I don't, I don't want to be in a rut.
01:06:15
Scott
Yeah, I will tell you what made a monumental shift for me.
01:06:15
Vince Maidens
So,
01:06:18
Scott
And it was, it wasn't just the style of photography. It was really just re-energizing. Five years ago, I removed, I have an acre. I took out hundreds of invasive species. I replanted I had about 50 species of native plants here just kind of hiding out that weren't really, I mean, they were there, but I live on the edge of the woods. Couldn't really see because they were always covered up with these other species. And then I added like 150 plants, different species. So I have about 200 native plants on one acre now.
01:06:46
Scott
And when I made that shift in my mind and I started to see everything that came with it, I am hoping that like five people listening to this get into native plants. By the way, free of charge, anybody that is curious about native plants, you can email me at any time, I'll answer you.
01:07:01
Scott
So that is what I try to do to give back
01:07:01
Vince Maidens
Oh, cool. Very good. That's really nice.
01:07:03
Scott
Yeah, if my neighbor wants to do native plants, they can come over, can pick plants for them, I can tell them, go over to the house and tell them to plant them. I don't charge anything. Like that's what I do to try to like promote this idea. But what the stunning thing was is when I saw what was happening in my own yard and I saw, literally now have like 20 different species of wasps And people are like, there's only like three wasp, right?
01:07:24
Vince Maidens
Wow.
01:07:25
Scott
It's like, you got a yellow jacket and sting you.
01:07:25
Vince Maidens
There's hundreds them. Yeah.
01:07:27
Scott
No, there's wasps that are a millimeter long. There's wasps that are, you know, five centimeters long. There's hundreds of thousands of wasps out there.
01:07:35
Vince Maidens
Yep.
01:07:35
Scott
So I have all this. And then as I was starting to see all the cool stuff happen, and now I go out to do my photography for birds, it really re-energized my passion around plants and their connection to birds. So I spend a lot more time In fact, if I have a bird that lands on an invasive plant, I won't take the picture.
01:07:54
Scott
Like I've gotten to the point where I'm such a snob now about plants.
01:07:57
Vince Maidens
cool
01:07:58
Scott
I'm like, I can't take that. That's a multiflora rose. I'm not going to take a bird on a multiflora rose, but it re-energized me. So it had, it doesn't have anything to do with the, I mean, 99% of the people wouldn't know the, the perch or the branch that this plant is on, but it re-energized me.
01:08:03
Vince Maidens
yeah but you do that's where it matters yeah
01:08:11
Scott
Yes. It re-energized me because now it gave me something. challenging and wow, this plant has such a pretty flower. I wonder if I could find it locally and photograph a bird in it. And I was able to do that a couple of times where I was like, oh, that's like, that's a challenge. And it was exciting. And people for people, it was one of my favorite images. I can remember a couple of my favorite images.
01:08:31
Scott
And most people would look at it and that's, that's nice. And I'm no, you don't understand.
01:08:35
Vince Maidens
Yeah. Yeah.
01:08:35
Scott
Like, this is what I had in mind. And this is the plant and look at like, it only blooms like for two weeks a year. And I was able to get the bird in it all that other stuff.
01:08:44
Vince Maidens
No, that's, that's really cool. Cause I mean, Oh, I know definitely.
01:08:45
Scott
I'll get you into it Vince one day.
01:08:48
Vince Maidens
Cause I mean, over, over in Europe, it's completely different stuff than what you're used to.
01:08:53
Vince Maidens
Right. So, yeah. so for you, mean, we're, we're hitting an hour here. I don't care. We got much time.
01:08:53
Scott
Yeah, totally.
01:08:59
Scott
Yep.
01:08:59
Vince Maidens
We can do whatever the hell we want. Uh, people can stop listening when they want. What's your plan coming up for this year? Anyhow, what are you looking to do? What are you trying to achieve, one, from a business perspective and two, from what kind of self set goals are you setting for yourself to achieve?
01:09:17
Scott
I can tell you absolute biggest thing is I have to figure out how to make enough. I just got to make a budget. I do, I'll just put this out there.
01:09:26
Scott
not trying to, this isn't a plug for like my business, but I mean, if anybody is curious, just go to wildlifeinspired.com.
Balancing Workshops and Nature Preservation
01:09:31
Scott
I have sold out most of my workshops. I don't do that many.
01:09:33
Vince Maidens
Cool.
01:09:34
Scott
I'm only actually, you know, I have this conflict with workshops because there's this part that's like, it's kind of how you have to, you have to do them to make money, to pay the bills, to live.
01:09:34
Vince Maidens
Good. Yeah.
01:09:55
Scott
Now we're introducing people to new areas. And is it going to be like, I don't say overrun, but you know, you just, the humans generally aren't good for nature. mean, we, we try, know, we, we fight the fight, but.
01:10:07
Scott
As on the big picture, you've seen million people follow, what is it? Turans of Yellowstone or something like that.
01:10:13
Vince Maidens
Oh, God, yeah.
01:10:14
Vince Maidens
Yeah, yeah.
01:10:17
Vince Maidens
Yep.
01:10:19
Vince Maidens
Yeah. Darwin Awards.
01:10:20
Scott
They're not good for nature. So I struggle with the workshop thing, but my goal is this year to fill workshops.
01:10:26
Scott
I've done all the workshops I'm doing this year. I've already done at least once, normally several times. So I'm pretty confident that. And I would like to expand that for 2027. So I'm trying to say if I can sell everything out this year and do well and get some people to spread the word, I could probably do more workshops. So I'm doing Utah this year. I do Northern Pennsylvania, which is sold out.
01:10:48
Scott
I do one in New Hampshire. I think I one spot in the April Utah workshop. And that one's a lot of fun. Like that's a really good time. And then personally, like what I want to do with photography, I'd like to try little bit more, don't want to say like creative, but things that I just haven't done a lot of.
01:11:07
Scott
So I can be more planful with it. So I'll give an example.
01:11:09
Vince Maidens
Yeah. Oh, sweet.
01:11:10
Scott
I took a photo the other day a full moon and I knew where I would get these geese flying through the full moon. I got to set up it. I didn't get the exact shot I wanted, but I got something pretty good and it gave me something to feed off of and say, look, okay, I think I can make this work in the future.
01:11:26
Scott
So, you know, stuff like that, a little bit more intentional, like a little bit more planful and trying to get maybe one or two unique shots out of the year. And then of course I'll do, you know, when you do it as a business, it's a little bit different because you're so focused, or at least I am.
01:11:38
Scott
I'm not one of those guys that's going to take people out for photos and then take a thousand photos myself. and then check in and see how they're doing. Like, I'm really, I'm really trying to get them the best shots I can.
01:11:48
Vince Maidens
Yeah, that's the way it has to be.
01:11:48
Scott
So yeah.
01:11:50
Scott
And I noticed, you know, I don't, I don't take as many pictures as I used to, even though I'm probably out the same amount of time. So I'd like to get a couple unique shots. And I think I would like to get something into bird photographer the year next year, because I haven't entered in a couple of years.
01:12:02
Vince Maidens
Good.
01:12:03
Scott
And maybe I'll shoot this one that I think is pretty good over to wildlife photographer year.
01:12:09
Vince Maidens
good well no that's great and i you know i think i think you're doing it the right way because if you make it too demanding on yourself it becomes work and then it just drives the joy out of it for you which is going to impact your work in general right so if you can make it work to a level that you can live and and still maintain the passion and love for it that you have that that's when you you know that's the whole adage of uh I can't remember the actual quote, but it's basically if you love your job, you never work a day in your life type thing.
01:12:42
Scott
Yeah.
01:12:43
Vince Maidens
And, you know, it's cliche.
01:12:43
Scott
Yep.
01:12:46
Vince Maidens
It's a bit funny to say, but I mean, given what it is we're talking about here, it's exactly the way it should be. Just love it.
01:12:52
Scott
And I'm hoping, I'm hoping it works because mean, the, I mean, the sad reality of life is
01:12:52
Vince Maidens
And
01:13:04
Vince Maidens
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
01:13:10
Scott
I've been saving my whole life, so I'll be okay. But at the same point, healthcare and bills and car payment, whatever I have, At some point, if this didn't work, plan B is I'll go back to work for a couple years. I don't have to make as much money as I used to, but I would have to go work probably for healthcare in a couple dollars. that's not the option i want like i really do think and i think i'm in pretty good shape so i think with the youtube thing and the the subscription site that i have and then doing some workshops and i would love to do more macro workshops uh here at my house i've got a couple that i did over the years that that were pretty successful but uh yeah i i just really love showing people my home and showing and and when they see how much is there and like oh my gosh like i never noticed this stuff like all these
01:13:53
Scott
little tiny, cute little bugs or weird bugs. And we could do it in certain lighting. And I know my yard so well, I know the plants will be on. It's really, really interesting.
01:14:02
Vince Maidens
like like for for the wpy the past few years some of the some of the macro stuff like that there's young man in switzerland incredible macro stuff just stunning it looks alien and yet interesting story-wise you know if you could start doing that and the way you've established your garden with the native plants and all of that you know, all that pre-work, why not? And if you're happy with people to come and do it, it makes good sense because it's all set up accordingly. You know the species there, it is legitimately your backyard and you know how to support it, right? And you will be able to get people those images that they wouldn't get otherwise.
01:14:47
Vince Maidens
So yeah, I think there's a huge value in utilizing what you've built there, especially for macro, because it is growing as a hobby.
01:14:49
Scott
Yeah. Yeah.
01:14:55
Vince Maidens
I mean, it's so challenging and so impactful when you see really good stuff that it's quite compelling. So I...
01:15:04
Scott
And one of the nice things is for people that may not be able to get, you know, that may not be able to travel or get out in the woods or hike a long distance.
Future Plans in Photography Workshops
01:15:11
Scott
It is something you can do that is related to photography. It's related to nature. The physical demands are much easier.
01:15:19
Scott
And from a mobility standpoint, what's that?
01:15:19
Vince Maidens
Yeah. On the gear cost too, right? And the gear cost as well. I mean, it's exponentially cheaper.
01:15:23
Scott
Oh,
01:15:26
Scott
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you can, you can get a, probably a decent, like a really decent macro lens for $400 brand new. And if you shop a used market, mean, I've got some really sharp lenses, uh, use, I could probably get them for 200, 250.
01:15:33
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
01:15:38
Scott
You can't do that with you try to a 600 F4.
01:15:40
Vince Maidens
Oh, yeah.
01:15:40
Scott
Yeah. It's, it's not going $250.
01:15:43
Vince Maidens
Not happening.
01:15:45
Vince Maidens
No, no. And, and I, you know, it is, it's definitely something that people are interested in. So I, I think that's a great niche to fill, right? Cause there's not a lot of it.
01:15:55
Vince Maidens
There are people that are doing it, but I mean, there's not a lot of people that are actually taking people from beginner path to, you know, making viable image out of it.
01:15:56
Scott
Yep. So
01:16:04
Vince Maidens
And I think you absolutely could do that because you've got the experience and you've got, you've got the right creative environment that you set up.
01:16:11
Scott
that's 2026.
01:16:12
Vince Maidens
No, it's great.
01:16:12
Scott
That's the plan.
01:16:13
Vince Maidens
I,
01:16:13
Scott
That's 2026.
01:16:15
Vince Maidens
2026.
01:16:15
Vince Maidens
And then 27, are you planning on doing anything international?
01:16:17
Vince Maidens
Are you looking stick with what you know?
01:16:18
Scott
I am, everybody asks me if I'm going, so I am going to, I, I really want to photograph the United States. So I don't have, I don't have much interest. I was supposed to go up to Canada, by the way, we had that giant snow storm a couple weeks ago and that, that travel.
01:16:31
Vince Maidens
Yeah, yeah.
01:16:32
Scott
And then I had some problems with my van. And so the battery, I got to get replaced. So they're delivering a new battery for me. So haven't traveled. I wanted to travel to Canada. I'm trying to travel about once a month, just on my own.
01:16:43
Scott
So I'll go down to like maybe the Eastern shore Maryland or down to South Carolina or I wanted to go up to Canada, New England. So I'll do some of these day trips. And part of it is to scout locations where I think I can run a workshop or take people out.
01:16:52
Vince Maidens
No.
01:16:55
Scott
And it's not like your everyday workshop that everybody else is doing. So I'm trying to find some locations that might be a little bit different. Yeah, and so that's kind of the plan. I'd like to develop some more locations for 2027, add a couple workshops in and still keep it reasonable. I don't want to be doing...
01:17:12
Scott
you know, two workshops a month for the rest of my life. I'd like to do, you know, maybe four or five a year, six a year would be a nice number. And then some of my local workshops. So I take people to Eastern Pennsylvania that I kind of know very well.
01:17:24
Scott
And I'll, I, like said, native plants, I have some meadows out here. I take people we do bird photography in these meadows. So those kinds of workshops are pretty easy for me, but the destination workshops, I really don't have a huge interest everybody says like, why don't I go to Africa?
01:17:35
Scott
I don't have a huge interest in it. I don't know why, maybe one day. And I also don't have a huge interest in like, I have more of an interest in Costa Rica and you know, Guatemala, Panama, but I don't have a huge interest in that.
01:17:38
Vince Maidens
That's fine.
01:17:46
Scott
I really love taking pictures in the United States.
01:17:49
Vince Maidens
well, that's perfectly viable, right? I mean, do what you know, if you, if I would not respect you as much as I do, if you just, well, I'm going to wing it and just do a, an Africa chip without not doing one before or several, right. It just, it's disingenuous and it's not the way to do it.
01:18:07
Vince Maidens
So yeah, I mean, I totally get that. And if you, if,
01:18:11
Scott
I feel so compelled. hate failing. So if I take somebody on a workshop, right, like I will not accept like mediocrity. Like it's kind of like if it's not going well, my heart is beating. I'm sweating. I'm like, oh my gosh, like I can't. I've taken people out and sometimes I have to say, listen, we're going to shoot migrating warblers today.
01:18:32
Scott
sometimes they don't show up. Like, I just need you to know that they're, they're migrating.
01:18:34
Vince Maidens
Yeah, exactly. They're migrating. Yeah.
01:18:37
Scott
So sometimes it's amazing. And they fly literally Vince. I've had warblers land on, like on my feet, almost like within inches. And I've had days where I go out a day later and I've, you one day I saw 50 warblers.
01:18:51
Scott
The next day go out, I see one, the whole morning.
01:18:53
Vince Maidens
Oh, yeah.
01:18:54
Scott
And so, you know, and when that happens and I have somebody with me, I am sweating.
01:18:54
Vince Maidens
Yeah.
01:18:59
Scott
Yeah.
01:19:00
Vince Maidens
Well, yeah, I mean, but you see some people that are advertising stuff like you will see wild dogs and you will see it's like, I can guarantee you that you will not see, you know, the chances of seeing are there, but it's not a guarantee.
01:19:14
Vince Maidens
You should never guarantee anything. That's why I don't do snowy workshops, because I can't guarantee I'm going to get them to do anything without throwing food at them and not doing that.
01:19:21
Scott
Yep.
01:19:22
Vince Maidens
Right.
01:19:22
Scott
Yep.
01:19:23
Vince Maidens
So.
01:19:24
Scott
That's a whole episode, man.
01:19:25
Vince Maidens
Oh yeah. Well, we'll segue into the end here because you're coming back.
01:19:26
Scott
We didn't really get, yeah, we didn't get any crazy into that. But yeah, we didn't get crazy into the ethics thing, but we could probably get in there.
01:19:33
Vince Maidens
No, no, that's going to be the next time.
01:19:33
Scott
All right.
01:19:35
Vince Maidens
Cause we're, I'm sure something will kick us off again between now and then, but.
01:19:39
Scott
You have me back in 2027 2026. Okay. right.
01:19:41
Vince Maidens
Oh, before that, come on.
01:19:42
Vince Maidens
I can do these at my leisure, right? So it's just doing when we want.
01:19:47
Vince Maidens
Well, Scott, it was lovely to chat as usual. I wish you nothing but good luck. I know you can do it. And I think, I think you're going to do a great service for the people that you take out.
01:20:00
Scott
I appreciate it.
01:20:02
Vince Maidens
You've got a great breadth of knowledge. You're a good educator. you really do go out of your way to make sure that what you're saying is factual and it's in a way that people can understand right and you cover and you're able to cover from highly technical down to very basic terminology which is a rare thing to do so you know i i appreciate seeing that and i i think it's one of the reasons why i've continually watched your youtube for years even you know eight before i really even knew still watched it Because I could see that you actually did put the time into learning what you're talking about, which, again, rarity.
01:20:24
Scott
that.
01:20:40
Vince Maidens
So good luck with all that. And we will keep going.
01:20:43
Scott
I appreciate it, Vince. All right. Thank you so much for having me.
01:20:47
Vince Maidens
Thank you, my friend. I'll talk to you a second here.
01:20:48
Scott
All right. We'll talk to soon.