Looking For The Image:
Scouting Versus Shooting
There are two ways to look for images:
scouting or simply on the fly. When I’m
in a location for the first time and there’s
no way to scout, I’m working on the fly.
In all other instances, I’m either returning
to a location I previously photographed
or scouted.
When I worked as a commercial pho-
tographer for advertising clients, every-
thing was scouted. I had to guarantee that
I could produce the image the art director
wanted, in a proper time frame.
When I produced articles for editorial
in magazines, it was just the opposite.
I wasn’t able to scout the location, nor
did the editor want me to. There were
occasional exceptions where we did some
minimal planning, but most editorial sto-
ries were more journalistic than scripted.
I found editorial shoots to be extremely
rewarding, especially when the light
was good. I called this combat photog-
raphy, where all my senses were alert
and my camera technique was mostly
second nature from years of practice.
My reactions to the subject, light and
environment were from my own personal
experience, and it was the ultimate test
of my ability to perform in a dynamic
situation, requiring all of my skills.
I was on assignment for Arizona
Highways magazine when I captured
this scene at the top of Agassiz Peak.
It was for a story on skiing in Arizona,
and a late spring storm had dropped
over 10 feet of snow. The day before,
I had finished a shoot with the ski
patrol and discovered that I could
spend the night in the patrol hut at
the summit of the Snowbowl ski area.
This gave me access to the summit
at sunset and sunrise, which I knew
would yield great landscape images
of the region. I had never been to
this location before that morning
when I hiked up from the patrol hut
at predawn to find these amazing
patterns in the wind-blown snowpack.
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