Author: scottfoto@gmail.com

Capturing the Endless Energy of American Ninja Warrior Natalie Duran

I recently took a trip to Los Angeles for portfolio reviews at Fotoworks LA. I didn’t just want to be in LA for 2 days, so I booked an AirBnB for 7 days and set up a few personal shoots to fill out my week.

I met Natalie Duran (@Ninja_Natalie , frequent gold sequin-wearing, always excited American Ninja Warrior and Madrock professional rock climber) at a Madrock dinner during an Outdoor Retailer Tradeshow several…(6?) years ago. She liked the mood board I’d created on Pinterest and agreed to meet me for a shoot. We decided on the Petersen Automotive Museum and LACMA in Mid-Wilshire.

The red wall on the shade side of the building immediately struck me as the obvious location to start on, and Natalie started running and jumping, expending her endless supply of energy while wearing her new and very sparkly Bell Bullit helmet.


Click on photos to see larger in a lightbox








I felt like I’d sufficiently covered Natalie jumping around like a Lara Croft video game, and she had just froggered her way through traffic to climb on construction scaffolding, so I thought we should move on to the LACMA where she immediately found steps to use the wrong way.


It was super fun shooting with Natalie! And it was great to see my buddy who moved to LA part-time, Parker Rice (aka Cinema Raven), who braved LA traffic to help out.

I’ll be posting a few more from my personal shoots. Keep checking back here!

Exploring Utah Beyond Moab

I realized, as I was driving past the exit for Moab, that I had never driven further west on I-70. I’ve taken countless trips to Moab and Indian Creek since moving to Colorado, but I hadn’t explored anything beyond this area of the desert. I was heading to Hanksville, UT to meet up with my friend, CJ, to explore for a few days. First, we went to Capitol Reef National park. This not-so-popular NP has amazing and varied sandstone cliffs and painted desert badlands. You can drive back through some very tight canyons, and if you have a high clearance vehicle you can see many more things. We didn’t have a lot of time so we only drove down Capitol Canyon, and it was pretty close to noon, so the light was not great for photography. We did stop in one tight section of the canyon to play around on some boulders.


The national park was really interesting, but I was blown away by the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land outside of the park. There are endless miles of playground and free camping. We stopped to explore an area of what I’m calling painted desert. I drove my Passat wagon down sandy roads (that I hoped I could get out of) that all ended at a river. After searching for a bit at the end of the road for a way to cross, we walked into the tall brush following cattle trails which led us to a fallen tree creating the perfect bridge.





I loved this section of road. It was too good to pass up! I want to make a giant print with this…who wants one for their wall?”

We found a quiet wash just far enough from the highway to make camp. In the morning, we were planning on leaving early, but I wanted to see what was hiding beyond the wash, so we just started hiking up to the top to see what we could see. Really, the BLM land was just as cool as the NP.










CJ had been wanting to check out Goblin Valley State Park for a while, and a friend had told me to do the Chamber of the Basilisk slot canyon. FYI Fees have gone up to $15 entrance and $4 for each person’s permit to do the rappel.





The approach through the valley is quite entertaining, with plenty of mud hoodoo “goblins” to explore (and even a cave!). I read the directions wrong and took us down a different slot canyon which was trying to deliver us back into the valley, so we had to backtrack to find the right chamber where a crowd of people was waiting to do the descent. We had to wait for nearly 2.5 hours for everyone to get down, including a woman lowering her friend and her brat of a son by hand with a very misused Guide ATC instead of having them rappel. #scarythingsyouseepeopledo. Finally, it was our turn. CJ couldn’t resist playing around while lowering.





By the time we were hiking back to the valley, the light was too good to get try and get some shots of the goblins. Such a unique and other-wordly place!












CJ is a BASE jumper and wanted to get a jump in at one of her favorite exits, at Black Dragon Wash. We got to the campsite well after dark, but it was warm and the wind was still. We went to check out the landing in the light of the full moon. The photo came out looking like daylight with stars!




CJ launching of Black Dragon!

We still had a whole day ahead of us to explore, and couldn’t decide what to do. We eventually found a county road that went further into the San Rafael Swell and just drove on four-wheel drive roads (in CJ’s Tacoma) till we found something interesting. We came to this large canyon with nearly 400-foot walls. CJ thought that she could jump one of them, so she grabbed her rig and potentially opened up a new BASE exit!

I had a great time exploring further west in Utah than I’d been (at least since I was a little kid and went to Bryce Canyon). I’d love to have spent more time there, but I had a shoot I had to get back to in Moab. I can’t wait to go back and see more of what else Utah has to offer!

Studio Test with Eric Stumon

I just ordered an additional set of gels and wanted to play around with them in the studio. Eric and I had been trying to do a test shoot for a while. I’m loving the results.

Eric Stumon is an Art Director for Madelife and Creative Director for the Scott Alan Project, a suicide prevention non-profit.

“Scott Alan Project is a non-profit organization that aids in Suicide Awareness & Prevention. S.A.P strives to make a positive difference,change lives and help others. They raise funds with their fashionable clothing line that represents its cause to bring in motivational speakers & suicide survivors to speak to crowds / schools & let people know it is okay to talk about suicide, depression, anxiety, & mental health. Everyone goes through challenges & S.A.P. wants you to know you are not alone when facing them.”











Architecture Photography for Wake Forest Innovation Quarter

I hadn’t spent time in North Carolina since I was a kid, so when a friend from college asked if I would come shoot an economic project in Winston-Salem I was pretty excited to see the state, especially when the leaves were changing. Kristy works for Wake Forest Medical Center’s project trying to invigorate economic growth in Winston-Salem. They are building out abandoned cigarette factories, mixing old and new architecture in beautiful ways, and trying to get tech firms and innovative companies to come to the “Innovation Quarter”.

I brought my friend, Luis Carducci, a film maker in Miami, to be my assistant. Kristy had some very specific asks for our three days in WS, but she asked me to do something I rarely get asked from clients…”Just be creative! Go explore! Take photos of things that interest you.” I had so much fun with it, exploring the campus with Luis and getting some different angles of the beautiful architecture.

These are some of my favorite shots.


















































Alex Pavon Riding Bikes

Abby Chan, the talented yogi/dancer/entrepreneur I photographed on the roof of the Hotel Monte Vista, connected me with Alex Pavon. Alex is a professional Enduro mountain biker who lives in Flagstaff and was kind enough to give up her New Years Day to shoot with me. She took me to a beautiful section of trail on Mount Elden overlooking Flagstaff, a trail called Sunset.

















We had a couple hours to shoot up high before we drove further from Flagstaff, past Arizona Snowbowl (Flagstaff’s ski area), to some double-track trails in rolling hills with aspen tree groves. Alex switched kits and got out her gravel bike for something different.















I really enjoyed Flagstaff. Everyone I met was awesome, and the city had some pretty great reasons to come back – more climbing and mountain biking!

After seven days in Flagstaff, I headed north, through Monument Valley, Indian Creek, Fruita, and back home to Boulder, rounding out an amazing trip around the South West. I need to take more roadtrips like this!

Trail running in the Pumphouse Wash with Missy Verhaeghe

Asking the people I met around Flagstaff, I asked for some awesome locations to shoot different sports. Someone suggested Pumphouse Wash as a nice place to shoot yoga, but on my last day in Flagstaff, I was set to shoot with Missy Verhaeghe, a runner. I didn’t know what to expect, but we found the “trail” after doing a few u-turns, not realizing you park at a bridge and just climb down to the streambed. The wash is a tight canyon, with featured sandstone walls 50 feet or less apart. We walked past a few fun looking sport climbing routes that would be awesome to go back and try.

Flagstaff hadn’t received any precipitation since September, so the wash was completely dry. I was also expecting a bluebird day, but we were surprised with clouds giving us pretty flat light, which gave us a different feel.

Still getting used to my Sony A7RIII, I was super impressed by the autofocus’s ability to keep focus. The Sigma 35 does the best of all my non-Sony lenses, with the Sigma adapter, but the Sony 85mm 1.8 really showed it’s crazy abilities with Missy jumping between the rocks.

Click on an image to see the gallery in a lightbox.









Thank you Missy, you were awesome for withstanding the cold!

A Study of Movement with Abby Chan

When I reached out to the social InstaFacedIn to recommend active people in Flagstaff, Arizona for me to shoot lifestyle with multiple people sent over Abby Chan’s name. She’s one of those inspiring people that is good at everything. She owns Evolve Flagstaff, is a yoga, dance and aerialist instructor, mountain biker, and rock climber. She agreed to meet up on New Year’s Eve, and the weather was brisk but beautiful. Abby knew she could get access to Hotel Monte Vista’s roof, and I wanted to save that till closer to sunset, so we started in the downtown area where there is a lot of awesome mural art.




But the roof beckoned and I didn’t want to miss the light. Huge props to Abby for withstanding the cold.














Her beauty and grace in movement was awesome to watch. Thank you for being an incredible model!

Flagstaff Mountain Biking

On Christmas day I took off in my Passat wagon, filled with camera, climbing, and mountain biking gear towards New Mexico and Arizona. I didn’t have a set plan, but I was going to meet a friend in Sante Fe, NM and we would make our way to Flagstaff, AZ where a friend had just moved. I met up with Marie Sullivan, and we decided we wouldn’t wait around Sante Fe but head straight to Flagstaff the next day. She had to get back to SF to work the next Saturday and decided to drive separate, meaning I didn’t have to come back to Sante Fe on my way home. We met up with Alex Vidal and went to explore some trails around Flagstaff. Alex’s girlfriend’s sister’s husband showed us a great 14-mile trail that took us to Fisher Point.






Of course, Alex had to pop a tire – a hole even the magic of tubeless couldn’t fix.






I got to ride the next day in Sedona, but was too busy having fun to take photos. Over the next few days I did several photoshoots with a yogi/dancer, pro mountain biker, and a trail runner. Hope to get these up soon!

Jade Around the Office

Jade and I had been trying to find a time to shoot with each other again after our shoot in my house a year and a half ago. Neither of us had a lot of time on this particular Saturday, so we ended up just shooting at my office. I knew I’d end up using that stairwell for something.

















I’m still testing the Sony A7RIII, and have definitely been loving it. The dynamic range blows Canon’s out of the water. The face tracking and eye tracking autofocus is pretty amazing, even with wide Canon L and Sigma lenses. I replaced Canon’s 85mm f/1.8 with Sony’s and the difference really shows what’s possible with Sony Lenses. I will probably need to replace my Canon 70-200 f/2.8. The autofocus is…spotty. Sometimes it works great, and other times it can’t find focus for anything. We’ll see how long I can go without spending $2600.

Shooting Running with Eye AF on the Sony A7RIII

One of the best features on the Sony A7RIII is the Eye AF, an autofocus mode that prioritizes the human eye. The camera’s focus tracks the subject’s eye, keeping the most important thing in the image sharp. I’d had my new camera for over two weeks and hadn’t figured out (or looked up) how to turn this feature on. I had flipped through the menu countless times and hadn’t seen it as an option. I thought that the reason it wasn’t working was I was using Canon lenses with the Sigma adapter, which was doing an alright job at auto focusing, but would regularly miss the eye as the focal point. I bought the Sony 85mm 1.8 to see if it would work with a native Sony lens, but still, no Eye AF. To Google I went. Sony had, for some reason, buried this amazing feature in the custom buttons menu – you have to assign it to one of the many customizable buttons.

Once I figured this out, I wanted to try it out. I got Israeli runner, Maor Tiyouri, to come out to a nearby trail to run, stop, go back, and run the same 100 feet for an hour. I tried out the Sony 85mm f/1.8 as well as the Sigma Art 35mm f/1.4 with the Sigma MC-11 adapter. I was blown away! The Eye AF tracked her movement, getting me far better results than what I’d had with the normal autofocus.


Sigma 35mm f/1.4, f/2.8, 1/800th & ISO 400


Sigma 35mm f/1.4, f/2.8, 1/800th & ISO 400

I would run alongside her, holding the camera out, bumping along, and even with all that movement the camera would recognize Maor’s eye and lock on. Shooting portraits were a breeze, I didn’t have to move the focal point to probably be about on her eye. The little green square danced around her eyes, chiming that it was focused the entire time. While running, of course, it missed some – I’m not mad, I just impressed with what it did get in focus.


Sigma 35mm f/1.4, f/2.8, 1/800th & ISO 400


Sigma 35mm f/1.4, f/2.8, 1/800th & ISO 400


Sigma 35mm f/1.4, f/2thoroughly & ISO 400

The sun dropped behind the mountains far earlier than I was expecting, cutting our photoshoot short. I was thouroughly happy with my new camera, but I wanted to test one lens that had performed pretty terribly on my first shoot, the Canon 70-200mm F/2.8. This lens refuses to focus in the least bit on my Sony A6300 with either the Metabones or Sigma adapters. My initial test with A7RIII and the Sigma adapter was less than inspiring, searching more than finding focus. I threw the big Canon lens on the small Sony body not expecting much better performance, but it found focus! The green square told me Maor’s eye was sharp. When she was standing for a portrait, only making small movements, it never searched once. I tried to test it with Continuous Focus, where it should track movement of the subject in any direction, with her running at me. With her a good distance away, at 200mm I could see her head to toe with a bit of room on each end, it tracked her for the first couple steps, then lost it completely as she drew closer. It’s not ideal, but it’s definitely more usable that I previously thought.


Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 125mm, f/2.8, 1/640th & ISO 400

Testing Out the Sony A7RIII

It almost never happens: You need a new camera and a new camera is announced that you’ve been waiting for. I had already purchased a Canon 5DMkIV, it was in the mail when I left for NYC Fotoworks – a networking event. Sony announced that A7RIII while I was at the event and found out they were previewing it the next day at Photo Plus Expo, which was taking place a few blocks away. I had my Sony A6300 with Sigma adapter for Canon Lenses, so I was able to test the autofocus with my 85mm f/1.8 on the A7rIII. I was initially very impressed, so I put in my pre-order 5 hours after they opened it for orders.

I finally received my camera November 28th. I was a bit busy and didn’t have a chance to really take it for a test drive until December 7th. Model and actress, Chelsea Bell, agreed to wonder around Denver with me on a cold day to put the new camera and autofocus to the test, especially using only my Canon lenses with the Sigma MC-11 adapter.

We met at a Home Depot, which is not really known for amazing lighting. I wanted to test the dynamic range, which is said to be 15 stops – the amount of data between absolute white and absolute black. The more the better (My Canon 5DMKIII is around 11 stops)!

My Canon lenses were not able to take full advantage of the A7RIII amazing autofocus system. It’s good, just not great. Overall, I give the experience a B+. Afterwards, I bought the Sony 85mm F/1.8 to see the difference. I will update with that later.









We moved outside, to the RiNo district in Denver.










The art on the buildings in RiNo is awesome!





I’ve done a couple more tests with camera and will be updating shortly. I’m excited for it’s potential, but mixing Canon lenses with it is a bit limiting. I’ll see if I fully move over to the Sony system. Oh, one HUGE improvement is the battery life. They upgraded to a battery that can compete with Canon.

Mixed Feelings

Lately, I’ve not been taking advantage of the playground in my backyard enough, Rocky Mountain National Park. When Tyler Kempney asked if I wanted to climb Mixed Emotions, M5- WI4 (or Mixed Feelings – the name seems to be a bit interchangeable) I said yes. Although I prefer sticking my tools in ice, I haven’t mixed climb in a while.

After an hour and a half detour (we took the wrong trail), we made it to the Loch Vale cragging area. There was a guided group on Mixed Feelings, so we each got a lap on Crystal Meth, a dirty looking WI4. The guided group didn’t do the mixed line, so the hanging dagger looked untouched.

Tyler led through the dry traverse, climbing on the rock with his gloved hands and placing cams in the horizontal crack. There’s a fixed pin with an old sling right below the curtain that he tried to back up with a marginal #1 cam. The ice didn’t inspire confidence, looking quite dry and in need of refreshing, and Tyler tested a couple of different entry points.

Once established on the ice above the dagger we all relaxed a bit. I was unsure of whether the dagger would hold. I kept telling myself, “If the dagger breaks, keep shooting!”

It’s a fun classic. Great job Alex Lowe!

I need to get out on some more adventures. Hit me up with ideas!

Cannon Beach

Earlier this month I had a gallery opening at 9 Gallery in Portland, OR. While out there, my cousin (once removed), Kay, and I drove out to Cannon Beach for an afternoon. Was a great, short trip. The beach towns are getting far less weird and more disappointingly commercial. But Haystack rock didn’t disappoint.

Long exposures taken just after noon using Neutral Density Filters, something I’d wanted to expirement with for a long time. Even with the bright mid-day sun, the ND filters allow me to use exposures as long as 30 seconds. This makes the crashing surf appear weirdly smooth.




My cousin took some photos of these dead birds on her iPhone. I couldn’t resist capturing them as well.



I stayed at my Second Cousin’s house in St. Johns. The full moon after my show pulled me out to photograph on the river. A huge ship was being tugged down the river when I got all set up.


I was a little unsure of how I’d feel having my first independent gallery opening with photographs that are so incredibly different from the work (and the fine art) I typically make. Six years ago, I photographed my grandmother’s house on the day of her funeral. She was a bit of a hoarder. I thought it would be good to capture the state of the house before family members cleaned it out for the sale (though the cleaning had already started). I posted the series on my blog and thought that was the end of the photos’ lives.

My cousin (once removed), Kim, saw the series and thought it would make an interesting installation in her gallery Co-Op in Portland, OR. She curated, printed, framed and did the entire installation. In the center of the “reliquary chapel” was a collection of Kim’s father’s things (my grandmother’s twin brother), surrounded by photos of my grandmother’s things. (You can see the collection here: The Stuff We Save)

The gallery was packed the whole night, and people’s reactions to the photos blew me away. Strangers spent time digging​ through the images, playing I spy. There were whispers of, “I’m going to go clean!” and “This reminds me of my grandmother.” A woman from Iran said it took her back to being a kid. Another picked out the piano and other items that her grandmother also had. I wanted to eavesdrop on all the conversations, wish I would have set up voice recorders to document the voices.

I have never seen people interact with my photographs on this level, relating to holding on to physical things long past their usefulness with emotional attachment. It makes me think that this series has far more life than I imagined while I was taking the photos. It also makes me want to create more art that connects with people’s emotions like this. @ Blue Sky/Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts