Scott can spend hours then manipulating imagery. After seeing the images right before his eyes, he finds that playing with his own work strips away its literal form to become the abstract form we see. Like unlocking a door, he begins to see shapes of animals, textures of leather or even ice cream. The moment an idea appears, he will chase it down mercilessly, whether he is on location or editing in post.
“I think the key to finding an abstract landscape is to let your mind go, and not be afraid to try something new or explore paths that lead to nowhere. I’ve sometimes failed 100 times on one image before I finally crack the perfect mix of abstract and solid composition. Sometimes it may take me weeks and months of not being able to crack it before I find that one composition that works,”
To get his images from the ground up, it is no surprise that he spends most of his time shooting out from a plane.
“I normally try to take off about 30 minutes after sunrise or about two hours before sunset. This will give you nice shadows and soft light on the landscape, making for in my opinion far more interesting images.
So I’m about to jump in the plane, it’s 7.30am and I’m ready to go. I’ll do my pre-checks on the camera gear, and check that the memory cards are set. I’ll use around 64-90 GB of cards with my Nikon D810 on an one hour shoot, check the batteries and that the Nikon D810 is set up correctly - focus mode is locked in, camera is shooting RAW, white balance locked to daylight and anything else you may personally want camera setting wise.
I’ll then dial in my settings ahead of time, I normally start with 1/2000th of a second, ISO 400, f/5 and then do some test runs on the ground by running up and down the runway shooting at the ground and then checking images. It’s a great little trick to just make sure everything is running perfectly and setup correctly before getting in the air,”