Scott Markewitz - More than just a photograph!

We have Scott Markewitz, an Award-winning outdoor lifestyle, action, adventure photographer, videographer, and DP with 35 years of experience as a photographer in this episode. We discuss how he got into photography, what he's learned over the years, his first image on the cover of Powder magazine, and how the career field of photography constantly evolves. 

Website - www.scottmarkewitzprints.com
Insta - @scottmarkewitz

Transcript

Hey, guys, I have Scott Markowitz here. He's based out of Salt Lake City. He's worked with some pretty cool brands like Camelback and Perlazumi and some others.

I want to say that you and I met briefly once at Pictureline, but I really wanted to have you on here and just kind of go over some things that are unique to your story and how you got into photography, where you're at now, where it's taken you and all of that. So I guess the first question that I have is why or what do you enjoy most about photography? Well, first of all, thanks for having me, Adam. It's good to be here, and, yeah, it's be fun to talk about photography and what I do.

And I guess getting into your first question, what I really enjoy about photography just kind of as a profession, is basically being able to keep doing what I love to do. A lot of my photography has been based around skiing and biking in the outdoors, and that's what I've always loved to do. And to be involved with that and be able to work with and photograph some of the best athletes in the world and travel to some amazing locations.

It's a dream come true. Sometimes I pinch myself. Just can't believe that I've been able to turn this thing into a profession and just be able to continue doing what I love to do.

And I guess when you get down to the actual act of photography and what I really enjoy about shooting an image is kind of, I guess, being able to capture a feeling or capture an image that really pulls you into that moment. It's more than just a photograph. It's something that really ties into an emotion, really draws you in, and kind of achieves something more than just here I am taking a picture.

There's a lot more to it. And when I succeed in doing that, then that's a great feeling. So I guess that's kind of what I enjoy about photography, but I've been doing it a long time, and it's still super rewarding.

Yeah. Funny thing. I've been following your work probably before the early onset stages of Instagram or anything else.

I started photography in high school, back in 2003 with film. And then as I wanted to develop that career, I guess, in a sense, or try and chase that career, you're one of the people that I looked up to. So it's pretty cool to have you on the podcast.

Yes, it's cool. I obviously started in film, too, so that's been a huge evolution, going from film to digital and just seeing how it's evolving and what you can do with digital compared to film now, it's pretty amazing. So it's been cool to be part of that evolution as well.

Yeah. That kind of leads into the next question, which is, how long have you been doing photography and how did you get started? Well, I've been shooting professionally for about 35 years now. And how I got into it was I was a pro skier.

I say in my former life, I was a pro mogul skier. And part of that, I spent a lot of time skiing for several of the top pro photographers of the time. And I always had an interest in photography.

And every once in a while, I'd grab one of their second cameras and shoot a photo of one of the other skiers just for fun or something. And actually had a couple of shots published under their names as well. But, yeah, I always had an interest in it.

And I feel like I kind of learned a lot from working with these photographers, just watching what they do, how they set up shots, and how they work with their cameras and lenses and stuFf. One season, I decided to just buy a camera, set up and start shooting myself. And I knew a lot of the local pros, so I had some great talent to work with.

So I went out and shot for a few days and got a few images, and I sent some shots to Powder magazine, actually, just kind of on a whim. And that summer, I went and coached a summer ski camp in Europe. And I came back.

I was in New York, actually. Came back to New York and walked into a magazine shop and did a double take. When I saw one of my shots on the COVID of Powder magazine, like the buyer's Guide for that year, it's hard to believe.

I was like, wow, my first shot is a cover of Powder. And I figured that was a pretty good sign that this is something I should be doing. And basically, things took off from there.

That's awesome. That's such a cool feeling to go through. I don't have a cover.

I've never shot a cover. But to be going through a place and see your image on a magazine or whatnot, and I can kind of relate to that in a sense of I have a two page spread in powder that was, I picked up the magazine, I think, in the Seattle airport. But that's a cool feeling for sure.

Yeah. And kind of a sidebar to that, which is also pretty cool. On the back cover of that same magazine was me skiing in a solomon ad.

Oh, really? That's cool. So I actually had the front cover and the back cover of the same magazine. That's awesome.

Yeah, things definitely took off from there, and I think I've had approximately 500 magazine covers since then. Wow. I guess a lot of that has gone digital now.

Yeah. As far as magazine work or what's what or like publication or getting stuff like editorial type, do you feel like it's more online now or am I wrong? Yeah, for sure. I mean, unfortunately, the editorial market has kind of dried up.

Like, there just aren't that many magazines anymore. I think the only real published ski magazine is backcountry, maybe. Yeah.

I don't even know, like ski, skiing, powder. They're all gone and many others are gone. So as far as being an editorial photographer now, it's a much harder path to pursue, for sure.

There just aren't that many options. And like you said, most of the editorial work is online. Like websites like Powder or Bike are just basically online only.

And there's really not much money in that. Yeah, that's a much more challenging way. But it sure was fun while it lasted, just to be able to go out and shoot and submit photos and get them published in magazines around the world.

It was a great gig for a while, but things change and you have to evolve with it. Yeah. With that said, you can go back to the film days or whatever with favorite lens or your go to lens and then why? Maybe that's changed over the years, your favorite lens and stuff.

As far as my philosophy, as far as shooting and working with gear is to try to use all of my lenses as much as possible just for variety's sake and not get stuck into shooting one way. Like, I used to go out and shoot, a lot of my ski stuff was shot at Snowbird. And obviously there's certain areas of the mountain that I'd shoot a lot because they just have good lighting or they hold snow longer or whatever the reason and instead of going back to the same spot and shooting the same lens, I always try to be like, well, last time I shot this way, so now I'm going to try something different.

And I just feel that variety not only gives you different kinds of shots, but kind of helps you kind of improve your skills as a photographer to just try new things and always look for variety. But I guess if there is one lens I use a lot, it's probably my 70 to 200, I guess, for the way it kind of captures action and really focuses in on the subject and just kind of draws you into the action. So as far as, like, an action sports lens, I think my 70 to 200 is probably my most used lens.

And I used to carry a 300 around quite a bit, too. But I feel like that's the styles have changed and I think those super tight action shots aren't as prevalent anymore. So now it's a little bit more about telling the whole story about not only the action, but where it's happening and what's going on around it.

And it's a little more all encompassing, I guess. Yeah, no, I think that's neat. That's cool, because I think it's easy, especially for someone that's learning or getting.

It's easy to get comfortable with one thing and stay with it and not make that change or not challenge yourself to shoot something different. Yeah. And even if the shot doesn't work, it's just part of, like, you're trying something and you're like, well, that didn't work, but it's like, well, maybe next time, maybe part of it worked, but you kind of missed something.

And it's like, well, next time I'll try this lens again and I'll do it this way and maybe the next time it will work. So it's like you can kind of evolve that way. And obviously, one of the really nice things about digital is the instant feedback you get.

When I used to go out and shoot with film, I'd shoot a bunch of film, take it to the lab, see what I got, and then that's a day or two later be like, oh, okay, well, this worked. This didn't work. And next time I'll try something else.

And then, whereas with digital, you look at the back of your camera, right away you're like, oh, that didn't work. And you can try something different with immediate feedback, and you can evolve and improve your skills much quicker that way. Yeah, I'm just curious because only because my dad had a Konica Minolta had a ton of lenses, and when I first got into it, he was always like, you need to take notes of what your shots were and what settings were so that you can go back and refer to it.

Did you do that or did you not do that? I don't know what your take is. I guess in my mind I probably remembered certain things, but I didn't specifically write down notes. I guess that's just not my style.

But that is very good advice because that's obviously a good way to learn and remember and figure stuff out. But I think in my mind, I just have a good visual memory and be like, oh, last time I did this, and I could kind of remember the setups and remember my settings pretty well. I did not write it down, but I definitely appreciate your dad's advice.

That's very good advice. Yeah, him and his budy used to go to the motorcycle races a lot. Cool.

Yeah, yeah. But like you said, it's like that instant feedback and then all of those settings are embedded in the media file or like that photo. So you can go back to that photo ten years later and go, my F stop was that.

Yeah, exactly. Also, with digital cameras, as they've evolved, your dynamic range has gotten so much better. So that maybe with the early digitals, you couldn't really shoot at 1600 ISO without having a lot of digital noise.

And now the images are so much better that you can shoot at like, 1600 or 3200 ISO and still get a pretty clear image. And so that just gives you so much more latitude of how to work with different types of lighting situations and still get great shots. And you don't have to worry about that digital noise quite as much.

So that's a big bonus as well. Yeah, I guess we could move on to. My next question that I have is, do you have a favorite project you worked on or recent work project that you're stoked about? Well, one project that just came up recently was 20 years ago.

I photographed Dave Watson jumping over the Tour de France Peloton on the cold de Glivier in France, and it has been done since then, but that was the first time, and it was completely underground. We didn't tell anyone about it. And actually the way it started was a French bike magazine.

This magazine called Big Bike contacted me to set the whole thing up because they didn't want to tell a French photographer or bring in French people because they were worried that the Tour organizers would find out about it. So they contacted me and I contacted free ride entertainment, and they lined up Dave Watson to do the jump. And they went over there in the spring and found this spot, found a perfect cliff for it and set it up.

And the kind of funny part about it was I told, like, because I knew the Tour de France, like, how it operates and stuff. And I'm like, if you want to go over there and practice, you need to be at least a week early before the race goes through that. And because there's going to be motorhomes and people camp there like a week early and just wait for the race to go by.

I mean, it's pretty crazy. He shows up four days early and there's already, like I told him, motorhomes there and people all over the place. So he realizes he's not going to be able to practice.

He gets it all lined up and he stands on the edge of the cliff and kind of tries to visualize it, but he can't do a practice jump because then someone's going to find out and they're going to shut him down. The day of the race, we're all up there. We have a film crew.

I've actually had four cameras set up with remotes, and we're all ready for the shot. But Dave, he has no idea if he's really going to be able to do it because he had no practice jump. And he had his bike at the top of the in run under a tarp, and he had regular clothes on over his riding gear.

And the race starts coming up the path and the first group comes up and he's like, no, that's too big. I don't want to risk hitting anyone. And he's just kind of waiting there.

And we have all these people ready to move the crowds and stuff, and he's just waiting there like, not really sure if he's going to do it. And he finally sees this small pack of riders. He's like, okay, that's the one.

Whips off his clothes, takes the tarp off his bike, and we kind of clear the runway, clear the landing, and he goes off and basically jumps over behind the rider. So there was no risk of hitting anyone. Yeah, but there was, like, team cars coming up right behind him.

And they must have just been freaking out, like watching this guy fly through the air. But because he didn't have any practice, he actually came up about 2ft short. He kind of hit the knuckle and got bucked off his bike and crashed.

But he basically was an almost clean jump, but just landed a little hard on the knuckle and got bucked, but he got up and he was fine. And this cop saw it all happen, comes running down. We're like, oh, no, he's going to get arrested now.

So the cop comes over. Dave's a little hurt, so he takes him over to this motorhome and calls the paramedics, and they're checking him out, and he's all fine. The cops still standing there and our crew were kind of standing back.

We didn't want to make it look like there was a production going on. Gradually, one or two of us kind of go in and check on Dave just as if we're just friends and the cops still there. And then after a while, the race has gone by and this police bus pulls up and we're like, oh, no, this is it.

They're going to take him to jail. Now. The cop gets in the bus and drives away.

And I'm like, only in France would they let someone do something like that as long as he didn't hurt anyone but himself. They're like, okay, you're just a kook, but we're not going to do anything. That was definitely one of the coolest things I photographed because it was kind of taking free riding to the road scene.

And the whole jumping over the peloton was pretty incredible. And just the way it all came together, completely underground, renegade set up, it was pretty cool. That's awesome.

No, that's cool. I think that's part of what you are telling people's stories through the imagery and everything. And I think knowing or hearing the behind the scenes of all of that is pretty cool, too.

Yeah. And that just came up because it was actually 20 years ago this year when it happened. I was posting about it and a few people were posting about it.

And Free ride actually just put out a new movie called Nothing's for free. And it's kind of the history of free ride, mountain biking, and that jump is actually in that movie. So that was pretty cool.

And then, I don't know, on the ski side, I think I've had so many amazing experiences in skiing, but I think my first trip to Alaska with Trevor Peterson, Eric Piota, Kirk Jensen, and Wendy Brookbank for rap Films was just mind blowing because it was the early days of Alaska, free skiing and big mountain skiing, and no one had really been there. And we were like the first film crew there. And we did all these first descents and I'd never skied mountains like that.

And that was an eye opening trip, especially with such amazing skiers. Like we had and that included the first descent of this mountain called Meteorite, outside of Valdez, which was one of Powder's all time classic poster shots was those two skiers on the top of that peak, this massive Alaska descent, and doing the first, or photographing the first descent of that from a heli was pretty amazing. Yeah, that's cool.

Those are some big mountains. Yeah. I've only kind of just barely touched them and seen them from the Valley road there at Thompson Pass.

Yeah, well, meteorite is the one when you go out of Valdez and you're kind of going along the flats for a while, and right before you make that left hand turn into the canyon, you look off to the right and there's this big, obvious peak, and that's meteorite. It definitely stands out. It's hard to miss.

Yeah, I lived up there for four years. I miss it a little bit. Yeah, it's a pretty amazing place.

Do you have a favorite subject to photograph? Like, I know you've done a lot of different stuff, but one that sticks out or stands out or maybe all of them. I don't know. Well, I guess just because my roots go back to skiing and biking, that's probably still my favorite subjects to photograph.

Ski in the winter, bike in the summer. And obviously, I've done a lot of other things as well, sports and lifestyle and commercial work. I've shot some pretty famous pro golfers and other Olympic athletes and stuff like that.

But I think my heart always goes back to skiing and biking, for sure. Oh, that's awesome. If you could change anything about the photography field or the industry, what would it be? Or what might it be? I think one thing that I would love to see change that I see happening in the photography field, and it's been going on for a long time, is that the value of photography has gone down just as there's more and more people out there and people willing to shoot for nothing or very little.

And it kind of devalues photography in general and kind of turns photography into a commodity. And in the end, that hurts everyone. So, yeah, if I could change anything, it would be somehow maintaining the value of good photography and maintaining good day rates just so that good photographers can make good livings.

And I think that's one thing, and it's just an unfortunate side effect of the digital revolution is that it's so much easier to take images and there's so many more images out there. So, like I said, it becomes kind of a bit of a commodity, and so much photography is free or almost free. And it just brings down the overall value of it and makes it a lot harder to make a living off of it, I guess.

Especially for people kind of coming into it now. I don't envy them just with the challenges they have, like, kind of overcoming that obstacle. Yeah, for sure.

I don't know about you, but I've had to actually tell people that I can't do it for less. And they're like, well, I'm going to have to go with this other person that's less. And I'm like, well, okay.

It's not sustainable for me to do it that way. Yeah, I've had clients come to me with budgets, pretty big companies come to me with budgets, and I'm like, well, that won't even cover my expenses to be there and stay in a hotel or whatever. It's impossible for me to do this shoot because one of my rules of photography has always been I don't pay to work.

If someone offers me a really cool trip somewhere, but it's going to cost me money and I'm working, I won't do it. So I've always kind of maintained that standard that I'm not going to pay to work. And I've turned down some big trips to Alaska and other parts of the world because there's not enough budget.

I'm not going to throw in money to have to work. If I'm on vacation, I'm on vacation. But if I'm working, then I need to be paid.

Know at the very know if it's a really cool trip and it's a great experience, if I can break even, then I might do it, but I'm not going to pay to work. Yeah, I like that. I'm glad that that's something that you mentioned because I think there's a lot of people, especially, like you said, people that are new to photography or new to the industry or trying to make it a career, that don't fully understand that sticking to your day rate or drawing the line is kind of something that needs to be practiced better, I think.

For sure, yeah. I mean, I think you do have to be flexible with day rates and work with people to make it win win for everyone as much as you can. But yeah, you do have to draw a line, and that's definitely one of my lines.

I don't pay to work. I think you do have to maintain. Sometimes you have to turn down some projects that might be a lot of fun, but in the end, if photographers start giving away their work for free, not only hurts themselves in the end, but it hurts the entire profession.

Right. It just brings everything down and that's not a good way to be because it's a challenging way to make a living and by doing stuff like that, it just makes it even more challenging. Yeah, exactly.

I guess going into the next question that I've got is what goals for photography do you have, or for life or both? Well, I mean, as far as photography and photography has been my life, so I guess they kind of go together. I've been able to merge the two quite well and just being able to travel and go to all these amazing places and see such incredible things, definitely merging photography and life has been pretty incredible. But for me, just the goals.

I want to continue to evolve and be able to do this, do what I love to do here and keep doing it. I guess business wise, I'm working on working towards more larger commercial projects. I think just because I enjoy the challenge that goes with those kind of projects, it's not just you and a camera, it's like you and a crew and you have to work with creative briefs and figure out how to achieve what the client wants from you.

And it's not just your vision of like, oh, here I'm going to go out and shoot a few photos of these athletes or whatever. It's like, oh, you have a whole all encompassing project and you've got to kind of figure put all these pieces into place and make them work together and enjoy that challenge. And it's also financially, obviously the commercial projects pay more, so they're more rewarding that way as well.

But yeah, I think just that it's kind of a natural evolution going from more like one man show to more production crews and working with larger budgets and multi day projects. It's pretty enjoyable. So I think that's where I want to evolve to.

And I think that if I have one goal in photography that's probably trying to get more involved in that world. No, that's awesome. I think that side of stuff, I don't know it too well or I've only seen bits and pieces of it, but yeah, that's a whole different animal and I think that's really cool.

Yeah, I've worked on quite a few. Like I said, I shot some pro golfers and I've done some pharmaceutical stuff and some other big brand stuff and iT's a very different challenge and I really enjoy that and definitely want to keep evolving in that direction. That's cool.

What tips or advice for anyone beginning photography or wanting to start a career in photography, do you have? And then we can kind of go into some of your other stuff with the technical side of photography, I guess I wrote down a few basic thoughts on that here. And I think when I started out, it was possible to be successful just being a good photographer. You could shoot stock or you could just, not necessarily average, but you could be just What I call a good photographer.

BUt I feel like today the level is so much higher and you have to be really good, exceptional to really make it as a profession these days. So I think it's way more challenging in that sense. And I think it's really important to find your own vision and then work on that until you have a really outstanding body of work with your own vision.

When you're starting out, it's okay to copy other photographers work, look at stuff that you like and try to emulate that. But then as you evolve, it's important to develop your own style, because to really succeed, you have to stand out from everyone else. So if you're just shooting what everyone else is shooting, you're not standing out.

So it's important to develop your own style and find something that does make you stand out from the rest. And another thing I think I mentioned a little bit earlier, always try new things, like new ways of shooting, like different angles, different kinds of lighting, different looks in post production, just experiment as much as possible. That's part of finding your own vision, is trying a lot of different things and seeing what works and what clicks for you, and also what works for you, what clients like as well.

It's important to just, you know, always, that's just part of evolving, always trying new things. And another thing, today it's important to shoot photo and video. I think it's also important to learn to edit so that I'm speaking on the video side, because then when you're shooting photo, you're basically capturing a moment, and we're shooting video, you're telling a story.

So if you learn to edit, you learn how to put all those pieces from the video together into one story, or how the clips are going to flow together into something that's cohesive. So I think it's really important to learn that. So that while, while you're out shooting video, you have that in mind.

You're not just shooting one off shots, because when you're working on a video, if you miss a shot or two, you've kind of missed the story. You might have a bunch of great clips, but if they don't come together telling the whole story you want to tell, you've kind of missed it. So I think it's important to obviously be able to shoot both, but then also understand what the editing side of it is and what you need to do to achieve what you're trying to do.

And then just in general, this kind of goes back to finding your own style. It's better to focus on one main area of photography rather than trying to shoot everything. It's like the most successful photographers, really, they're lifestyle photographers or they're sports photographers or they're fashion photographers.

But you can't be a lifestyle sports, fashion, event, wedding photographer all in one, really. You're not going to be as successful if you try to shoot everything, even though it might seem like, oh, if I could do more, I'm going to do better. But you're much better off being really good at one or two styles rather than being average at five different styles.

Yes, I completely agree with that. And then, not to say I think a lot of people are figuring themselves out when they begin, but kind of like what you said, and you'll hear it outside of this podcast, I feel like. But a lot of people, even if you shoot a wedding or you shoot some mountain biking and then you shoot some, if you want to shoot one over the other, only show that work.

Yeah, for sure. I think when you have a portfolio and a body of work together and you're trying to present to clients, you want to have a pretty focused look in there. Like you said, maybe you shoot some friends weddings and you shoot some biking and you shoot some landscapes, but if you're really trying to present yourself as a commercial photographer, you just want to show one or two sides of that.

Maybe landscape and sports can kind of go together because you're in amazing locations. But if you throw in some weddings, people are going to be like, well, what does this guy do? It's like, is he a weding photographer? Is he an action phoTographer? Is he a landscape phoTographer? And then it just muddies the waters. And clients want to be clear on what you shoot, and they choose you for that style, and that's just kind of how you have to present yourself.

Yeah, I completely agree. I know that you said you had some notes written down about some technical stuff. I don't know if you wanted to maybe share some of that.

Well, it's more just general ideas on, like, for me, lighting and composition are always super important. I'm a big fan of the rule of thirds, like, just keeping things a little off balance, off center. And I think it's really important to really just spend time learning about lighting, whether it's natural lighting or working with strobes and artificial lighting.

Because one thing I said in a powder interview years ago is there's no such thing as bad light. And people bring that up all the time. Like, oh, I thought you said there's no bad light.

Well, there's some lights better than others, but yeah, I think it's important. One thing I've always worked on is to be able to go into almost any situation, even in what most people would call bad light, and come out with great shots. And I think spending the time to understand what lighting is and how to work with whatever light you have available to make something work is super important.

And then I think it's really important to pay attention to composition. Because it's easy to kind of miss things in your compositions, in your frames, especially if you're shooting action, you get focused on what's happening around the athlete. And then you might miss some random person in the side of the frame, or like a tree that sticks out at a weird angle.

Or maybe if you're shooting on the ocean and your horizon is not level, it's very obvious. So, like, paying attention to horizons and things like that. So just spending time with the technical skills so that you can get those dialed is super important.

And obviously, exposures aren't as important with digital cameras as they were with film. But I always try to nail my exposure because even with digital, if you're overexposed, your highlights start to get blown out and you can pull them back a bit. But you're way better off being at a good exposure rather than trying to correct bad exposure.

I'd say every photographers have very different ways of dealing with exposures and how they like to work with their camera settings. And I've always shot everything manually. And I know some people will shoot, like, shutter priority or aperture priority or full auto.

But I've always just wanted that full control over everything. So I've always shot everything manually and still do today. And when I used to work with film, I had a light meter and worked with my light meter.

But now it's all pretty easy on the back of the camera. I've done it so long, I can almost go out in most lighting situations, just tell you what the exposure is without even looking at it on the camera. And usually pretty close, just because I've done it for so long.

But yeah, I think for me, lighting and composition, it's really important to spend time figuring that out and understanding what light is and how your camera reacts to it, because what your eye sees and what your camera sees can be quite different because your eye has a much, you can call it dynamic range, but your eye can see things, shadows and highlights much differently than what your camera sees. So I think it's important to understand that difference in how to make your camera work for you to best capture what your eye sees. Yeah, no, I like that.

That really kind of wraps up the questions that I've got. I really appreciate you being on the podcast, for sure. Yeah.

Good talking with you and look forward to hearing this soon. Before you go, where can people find your work or whatnot? Also put it in the show notes. But yeah, for those that are listening well, you can go to my website.

It's scottmarkowitz.com. It's Scottmarkewitz. Or on Instagram, it's Scott Markowitz and Facebook as well.

So, yeah, I'm not super active on Instagram, but I post a bit. But, yeah, my website's a good spot to see my work. And if anyone ever has any questions, I'm always happy to answer photo related questions or anything about what I do.

So you can reach me at scott@scottmarkwitz.com as well. Thanks again, Scott.

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