Scott Johnson – Special Guest – Podcast Episode 4

Joe Lenton

Welcome to the Focused Professional podcast. This is episode four and I’m Joe Lenton.

Joe Lenton

Welcome to the Focused Professional podcast. Today we’ve got a special guest on with us. This is Master Photographer Scott Johnson. He is a Master Photographer with the SWPP – Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers. He’s an international judge, he’s a chair, he’s a multi award-winner. And I could go on and on and on, but he probably will in a little while, so I’ll leave that up to him. His website can be found on theedgephotography.co.uk . Do go and check out his work. And I’m very pleased to welcome Scott Johnson. Hey Scott.

Scott Johnson

Good morning, mate. How are you?

Joe Lenton

I’m good, thanks. Yourself?

Scott Johnson

Yeah, not too bad. Just still recovering from the convention we were both at, sitting downstairs in that judging room for two days and, yeah, still tired, mate. Still tired, but living life, loving life.

Joe Lenton

There’s a lot of concentrating trying to get through all those prints, isn’t there?

Scott Johnson

Yeah, there was. And I was chairing for the first year this year, as you know. So I’ve not just got to do that, but you got to keep an eye on pacing and rotation of judges and it’s a lot. People just say, “oh, you’re just sitting there playing on a laptop,” which is, you know, partly true, but there’s also a bit more to it as well. But I thoroughly enjoyed it and as you know, it was a great convention. The images that we saw were just phenomenal this year.

Joe Lenton

Oh, it was a fantastic standard. Absolutely. Yeah. I’m not sure whether it’ll be the next game on X-Box, you know, Judge Sim or something like that, where you can sit there and pretend to be a chair of your own photography competition. I mean, you’re a bit of a gamer, aren’t you? You like your X-Box stuff.

Scott Johnson

I do, I do. A big fan of it actually. And you know, I did download Lawn-Mower Sim because I do like a nice straight line in me lawn out the back. Actually, I’ve got to pick up my mower from servicing because it’s getting a bit wild out the back today, so I might give it a bit of a trim this afternoon, but we’ll see.

Joe Lenton

Excellent. Excellent. So today we’re going to be talking about aspects of Scott’s work and how he approaches it. And it’s trying to get behind the initial sort of view that we see when we look at someone’s images to get a look at the person behind it, what inspires them and I’ve talked a little bit with Scott prior to this meeting and we’ve discovered that for him, he’s got a few key motivators and for him, it’s mainly getting a sense of achievement from his work and the work being fun. So I suppose first obvious question is, what makes your work fun or what stops your work from being fun for you?

Scott Johnson

Well, as you, I predominantly – like we said off-air that I’m a wedding photographer, but I’ve always said, as a photographer, that photographs weddings. But weddings is what the bread and butter is and I think it’s the people. I’m a people person, as you know. I love chatting with people, I love banter. I like to think I’ve got a pretty good sense of humour and I like to have a bit of a laugh on the day and that really helps. It gets the couples relaxed, it gets me relaxed and that will help put over what I want to try and achieve. And it’s often frustrating when that isn’t allowed to happen for various reasons on the day itself. So that’s what makes it less fun when you’re booked for a, we love your work, we want this and we want that. Then on the day, they just want to have a couple of beers with their mates, which is fine. It’s absolutely fine. They’re well within their right to do that. But then, oh, we didn’t get the picture of this and the picture of that. No, because you were drunk and that’s the part that’s less fun.

Joe Lenton

Yeah. You’re expecting me to edit out the bar, edit out the pint from your hand and stick you in front of a nice sunset.

Scott Johnson

Yeah, yeah. There’s a story – there’s a story there. I did a wedding years ago and the bride was, how do we put it? Nicely oiled, what we call it in the trade. And she was desperate for a sunset shot and she was hammered, and I mean hammered. And at sunset, she was in the disabled toilet being not too well. And then she said, “can we come out and get the sunset shot now?” I’m like, the sun set 20 minutes ago. “But could we try anyway?” I’m like, yeah, sure thing. Let’s try anyway.

Joe Lenton

Just bring the sun back up for a few minutes.

Scott Johnson

Yeah.

Joe Lenton

Quick encore.

Scott Johnson

I’ve always said to my couples, I could be the best photographer on the planet, but I cannot stop the sun from setting, there’s fact. Can’t do it.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, that sounds a little bit like my cats, actually. They’ll sort of look at me as if to say, what do you mean, the sun’s going down and it’s raining. Make it better.

Scott Johnson

Cats are knobs, anyway. Sorry, I should have got – Am I allowed to swear on this? I’ve got two cats. They’re idiots.

Joe Lenton

Oh, absolutely, yeah. Yeah, think they run the place, don’t they? So, I mean, you know, is it the day itself, then, that you enjoy the most out of being a wedding photographer? The actual sort of interaction with people? I mean, speaking of cats, people often say it’s like herding cats being a wedding photographer.

Scott Johnson

You’ve nailed it, Joe. Absolutely nailed it. I mean, I love it. I mean, every wedding I go to is a chance to create and I’m very fortunate. I go to a lot of – living – I’m not too far from you, down in Essex, we’ve got a lot of old castles and stately homes that I get to work in. And it’s really there that each wedding is different. Yes, the format of the day is exactly the same and people say, do you not get bored? And the answer is of the format, you know, yeah, it can be a little bit repetitive, but it’s the people that make it. And if I’m allowed to create and I’m allowed to do what I’m good at and I’m allowed to express myself and capture their day as it happens and put my little twist on it, that’s what makes it really, really fun. And you get back and you look through the images and you think they’re going to love them. And then, you know, I sometimes do prints on the day and I’ll share prints on the day and they go around the wedding venue like wildfire and to see people’s reactions, to see something that I’ve created 20 minutes ago going round and people smiling and joking and it’s brilliant and it’s the kick I get and it’s just knowing that, no, I’m not academic at all. I left school at 16, and knowing that someone that was told that they’d never amount to something, that is putting smiles on people’s faces by something I’ve done is pretty cool.

Joe Lenton

Yeah. There’s so many of those idiots out there that talk absolute crap to our youngsters and sometimes tell them, you know, “you’ll never amount to anything, you can’t do this, you can’t do that.” Rubbish. Absolute rubbish. You know, people have got to find their niche, you know, that’s all it is. You got to find something that fires you up and gets you going. And, I mean, let’s face it, for a lot of people, school is not it?

Scott Johnson

No. We looked at high schools before Christmas and we went to my old school. We don’t live too far from where I went to high school and my photography teacher is still teaching there and I took a little bit too much pleasure in telling him just how well I’m doing at the minute. And he looked rather embarrassed. I’ve been proving him wrong for 25 years. That’s basically I’m in this career now to prove him wrong.

Joe Lenton

Nice.

Scott Johnson

And I’m enjoying it.

Joe Lenton

So you can’t retire until he has at least then.

Scott Johnson

No, I mean, I’m surprised he’s still going. He was ancient back then, but I don’t know, he must be 100, but…

Joe Lenton

Awesome. Yeah. I mean, when you’re doing those kind of prints at a wedding, do you find it then feeds the desire for people to actually then have photos with you? Are they then a little bit more compliant in what you ask them to do when they see that actually you do know what you’re talking about and you can make them look great?

Scott Johnson

Yeah, certainly. It’s really, as we know, the digital age is here and it ain’t going anywhere and the art of printing is lost. But if couples are a bit hesitant, you know what it’s like. I’m not photographing supermodels and I’m very fortunate sometimes we photograph people that look like them, but I’m still shooting weddings for people that work at Aldi, you know. And if I can turn them into making them look and feel as good as they look and show them it on a piece of paper that, yeah, they’re definitely more inclined. If we get a nice sunset in the summer and say, do you want to come out for ten minutes? They might have been a bit hesitant before, but if they’re seeing how good they look, they’re like, yeah, actually, yeah, we’ll do that. And it’s helping with the reprint sales, it’s helping with a number of things. And also I’m printing 8×10 images and a wedding and they’re going around the venue. That’s ten business cards for people that are getting married in the next five years. So marketing-wise as well, it’s brilliant.

Joe Lenton

Yeah. That sounds like a great idea to me. Absolutely, yeah. I mean, my wife and I like to watch a bit of snooker sometimes, and Ronnie O’Sullivan is a bit of a God in snooker circles. He’s an incredible player. And the interesting thing noticing about him in recent years is he talks very much about focusing on, is he enjoying the game? Everyone else wants to know, are you winning? What titles have you achieved? And all that. And for him, that’s kind of a by-product of him actually enjoying it, that he produces his best work when he does. And it sounds as though it might be kind of similar for you.

Scott Johnson

100%. 100%. There’s no secret that I struggled last year with a number of things, and weddings were starting to become not fun due to situations we find ourselves in at weddings. And some of the clients and the guests that were there were making things challenging and problematic, and it just stopped becoming fun. And there was a point that I thought, maybe we just come away from this a bit more and don’t do as many, shoot fewer weddings and diversify a little bit more. So we’re not relying on the weddings. And, you know, it was tough because I do – the good weddings are still going to be great, but the weddings that are problematic were incredibly challenging last year. And for the first time in 20 years, I was like, I think I could be done. I think I could be done. And then you get a couple of good weddings, and then you’re like, what was I talking about? It’s the best job in the world! It’s amazing. But the pandemic as well taught me that you can’t keep your eggs in one basket, and you have to shoot a multiple levels of photography if you want to stay successful. The full-time wedding photographer is a rare thing at the minute. I think there’s a lot more people like myself that have had to diversify since the pandemic just to earn a few quid in the quiet months.

Joe Lenton

So are you actively screening your clients a little bit more now so that you can choose the ones you think are going to be a bit more fun and work better with you?

Scott Johnson

Yeah. The problem we found that the weddings we shot last year were all booked during a pandemic, and it was a Zoom call or a message over WhatsApp or Instagram, and you can’t pick up no red flags in that. It’s so important to get people in and have them face to face. So every client, if they live miles away, then obviously we do it over Zoom. But other couples travel from west London to come and see me because it’s so important, because not every client’s right for me and I’m not right for every client. And that’s so important. And the art of saying no sometimes is very powerful.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, absolutely. It can be difficult for – especially when people are early in the in business, they feel they’ve got to take everything that’s coming because they’ve got those bills that have got to be paid. But, you know, it’s like, you know, if you start to get known for something that you don’t want to do, that’s a problem because you’re going to attract more of it.

Scott Johnson

Exactly. Yeah. Show what you want to sell. It’s like every car advert you see on TV, they’re showing their top end spec, you know, but they’re saying prices start from this at the bottom in the small print. And if you’re showing your prices start from this work, then that’s what you’re going to get. If you’re showing your signature images and if it’s commercial, portraiture or weddings or whatever, show what you want to sell and it will attract the right client.

Joe Lenton

So tell us a little bit about what you’re adding into your weddings and what sort of thing you’re trying to attract for that, what sort of client you’re after there.

Scott Johnson

I don’t believe – you go to the convention, for example, WPPI, or Imaging over in the USA, and they’ll say, you’ve got to try and find your customer avatar. And I disagree with avatars because if I stuck with an avatar that I had pre pandemic or certainly ten years ago, I wouldn’t have had the clients I’ve had. And I’ve had my biggest spending client that I’ve ever had was not my avatar. So I think it’s – which is, you know, avatars can work. They absolutely can work. If it works for you, brilliant. But for me, I’m a people person and we’ve got to connect on that level because they might think my photographs are the best in the world, but they think I’m a knobhead, they’re not going to book me. It’s simple. It’s as simple as that. Whereas if, you know, they might have, want to throw five grand at a wedding, but if I’m not getting the vibe off the couple, I won’t book it. It’s, you know, we’ve got to be – it’s got to match on a personal level, otherwise it’s never going to work.

Joe Lenton

No, absolutely. Because, you know, the expressions on a micro level really change as we are with someone that we relax with and interact well with. So, you know, all the posing and everything changes when someone is relaxed with the photographer.

Scott Johnson

Agreed. Yeah, totally agree.

Joe Lenton

I mean, with these kind of avatars, I think sometimes they can be a useful, vague rule of thumb. But I remember seeing one online not long back that said, you know, you could target somebody in their seventies who lives in a castle and going a little bit further down that route and saying, oh, they’re a celebrity, and so on, and that comes out as that could be either King Charles or Ozzy Osborne.

Scott Johnson

I can tell you who’d be more fun.

Joe Lenton

You can think, but those two are totally different, even though in various aspects of creating an avatar, you could say they look the same on paper. So people are people.

Scott Johnson

Money doesn’t buy you class, Joe. It’s, you know, people that come to me that say that we’ve got all the money want to throw on the ground at the wedding, and it’s a car crash. Whereas someone comes to me and they’ve got ten grand for the whole wedding and it’s the best wedding in the world, because they’ve spent the money wisely and properly, rather than just show off how much money they got. And I think that’s a big difference.

Joe Lenton

Yeah. So with your portraits that you’re now doing as well, is that something that you’re just doing in studio? Is it something that you’re also mixing with your location work?

Scott Johnson

I’ve always been out and about on location because I didn’t have the space to shoot in a studio, and Fujifilm kind of forced my hand a little bit back in August, where I was booked to launch – I used to be one of their brand ambassadors, but I still work very closely with Fujifilm, and I use the GFX system at the minute. And they launched a new GFX in August, and they said, we want you to come and run a workshop. We’re going to bring all the guys from Europe across to show how good the camera is. I thought, great, cool. Shoot some weddings, it’d be awesome. I get there and, oh, no, we’re doing it in a studio. I’ve gone, oh, what? And I haven’t shot studio portraiture since I was on cruise ships. And I had to think very quickly, right, how do I do this again? But luckily, I’ve been on enough workshops with amazing portrait guys like Gary Hill for one of them. I’ve been on a couple of his workshops. The guy’s incredible. So I just remembered what he was saying, and we pulled it out of the bag. I was like, God dodged a bullet there. Jesus. And then I thought, actually, no, I can do this. So I bought some backdrops, and I’m now shooting portraits in my sales space. So it’s either a showroom for weddings or a studio. It’s not big enough to be both, unfortunately, so… But now I’ve had clients come in post pre. Sorry, post! Old wedding clients brought their families in, brought their kids in. It’s been great. It’s been really good fun, and that’s given me a bit of a spark to push on for this year.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, it’s a nice way of seeing those clients again and getting a little bit of repeat business out of them.

Scott Johnson

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I used to turn the work away, and go “no, I don’t do portraiture. Go and see someone else.” Which is nuts, you know, turning away good money. And now we’re trying to do a little bit more of it and again, try and plug that gap in the winter because, you know, I think you’ve got to be multifaceted in this day and age to survive because winter’s a long old time in weddings, mate. I tell you, it’s a long time.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yep. So, you know, we talked about the fact that, you know, you kind of enjoy being with with people, and that helps you with your weddings and so on. I mean, do you think you kind of have to be a people person to do weddings and portraits? How much do you think your personality sort of unlocks that for you?

Scott Johnson

It certainly helps. It certainly helps. I mean, if you’re engaging with the people, because, let’s be honest, in this country, we’re not as in, as ingrained in the profession as they are in the USA, for example, because they have sweet 16s, they have senior portraits, they have graduation at college. So they have their photograph taken professionally maybe eight or nine times before they get married. In this country, generally, it could be the first time I’ve ever been photographed professionally. And it’s a big kind of – there’s a lot of nerves there. And it’s about breaking that nervousness down and just talking to people, you know, having a little laugh at a joke. It’s knowing where the line is a lot of the time as well. You know, you can’t – sometimes I get away with absolute murder, but sometimes you just know, okay, that joke is not for tonight. Today, it’s being socially aware. And I think that just comes with experience. I think, you know, they’ve got to like you if they like you – I’ve said this expression, I tell all my clients that I want you to look back on that day and think, man, that was a lot of fun, I really enjoyed it. Rather than think it was a chore. If I think it’s a chore, I’ve not done my job properly. It’s just get them off the back foot, breaking down a couple of exterior walls and getting through to the real person by doing that, just by talking, just being nice and talking to people and just being personable and being funny where you need to be funny. Empathetic where you need to be empathetic and sad when you need to be sad. So just being aware of where you are and what you’re doing and what you’re there to achieve.

Joe Lenton

So are you then kind of selling it more about the experience than the photos? Or would you say they have a kind of an equal weighting when you’re selling it to somebody? What sort of things do you emphasise? Because I think often you’ll get photographers who think, well, I’ve just got to go cheap. And because all it is is they’re after some photos, you know. I mean, obviously you’re going to be wanting to put together a little bit more of a premium package for people with some good quality prints and so on. But, you know, how does the waiting lie for you when you’re approaching potential customers or when you’re selling it through your website?

Scott Johnson

It’s all about trust, Joe. It’s all about – I say, I can be the best photographer in the world. You need to let me be it. And if I’m suggesting this or suggesting that, you’re going to have to trust me. Weddings that we start shooting in April and May and then back in September and October I advise all the couples to have the speeches first because the best light, that golden hour, that hour and a half that we get around 6:30 to 7:30 before sunset. That time of year can often happen during the speeches. And as a creative, there’s nothing more frustrating than seeing the most amazing light drop down behind a marquee and you’re in there photographing speeches. It’s like, oh, come on! So it’s about educating without patronising the couple to say, look, I really recommend 1) you don’t want to spend 120 pound on a plate of food, your groom get nervous and you not eat it and it all goes to waste. So get the speeches done first so you can relax and enjoy your dinner. And then if the sun goes down nicely, I can come and grab you between courses to get some nice images. If you don’t want to do it, that’s fine, but I’ll always ask the question. And when you’re kind of putting it over and using your experience to reassure and, you know, this is why you’re paying the money for having me to come out and do it. They buy into me a little bit more because I’m just reassuring and basically I give them one less thing to worry about on the wedding day. That’s what I try and do.

Joe Lenton

It almost sounds like you’re kind of slipping into the role of wedding planner a little bit there.

Scott Johnson

I’ve always said, when my time comes and my back finally gives up, I’ve always said I would shift into becoming a toastmaster and being that kind of not forced on the day, but that little steering rod to guide the day as it needs to be guided. Because I’ve shot for 20 years, I’ve probably done over a thousand weddings, so there’s not much I haven’t seen. But, yeah, we’re there. We’re counsellors, we’re wedding planners, we’re dress fitters, we’re makeup artists, we’re multi hats. On the wedding day, yes, we’re there with a camera, but we’re the supplier that’s there the longest. We’re there from – if I’m doing a full day wedding and the wedding’s at two, I’m there at half 11-12 setting up, but I’m not disappearing till nine, so we’re there the longest. So that’s where our experience – and I get asked all the time, what do you reckon on this? On that? Well, maybe think about doing it this way. Oh, that’s a great idea. I haven’t thought about that and it’s just reassuring a couple that they’re booking me for a reason.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, absolutely. You’re adding value all the way there. It’s right from the beginning when they’re thinking about the day and then on the day itself, and its just adding value at every single stage. It’s not just you kind of floating around in the background and will deliver some pictures at some point.

Scott Johnson

Which we do, obviously, you know. But, yeah, it’s way more than that. It used to be when I was in this industry when I was 18, and I remember the photographers who would shoot film would come into the lab that I used to work at and they would literally do a four hour shoot. They would arrive half an hour before the bride left and disappear when the cake was cut before the meal, and that was it. There was no prep or first dance or anything like that. It was literally in and out. Thank you very much. But we’ve had to evolve with the times now. And it’s not a bad thing. The evolution in photography in weddings is good and bad, but I think from the people side of it and experience that we can now deliver, it’s definitely a good thing.

Joe Lenton

Do you think people have realistic expectations from, like, wedding magazines and so on, or do you find you really do need to educate them quite a bit as to what’s involved in creating those sorts of narratives and with images?

Scott Johnson

A little bit of column (a), a little bit of column (b). I think it’s, as you know, I live in the heart of Essex, I’m in Chelmsford and I’ve shot weddings everywhere. And we go, oh, I’d love a photograph on a beach at sunset. You’d be getting married in Braintree. There’s no beach in Braintree. It’s just so, again, you kind of have to – we can do a sunset, but how about we do it like this? Yeah, but I love it on a beach. Then get married there. Go to Clacton. Let’s go to Clacton for an afternoon and do it there. Yeah, so you have to – the good, the bad side of it is then you’ll get a list where a bride has just copied and pasted out of a magazine. And I just say to the couple, I can do this, of course I can. But I’d rather photograph your wedding and the moments that happen at your day than try and look for something or engineer something that might not happen. Let me photograph your day as it happens rather than someone else’s. They go, oh, that’s a good point. I think, “yeah, it is!”

Joe Lenton

Oh, absolutely. And, you know, when you’ve got the experience and you’ve got the technical skills and you’ve got the creativity, you can make the most out of all sorts of situations. I mean, you must have had some pretty ropey rainy days at times and been looking out the window thinking, oh, great, we haven’t done any outdoor shots yet.

Scott Johnson

Yeah, I did a talk in Norway this time last year, I was flown out to Norway to do one of their version of the Society’s convention and they wanted to call my talk, I won’t swear, “crappy locations, no problem.” But use the s word.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Scott Johnson

I can’t call it that. I can’t call it that. “You should it’d be great!” I went, no, I can’t call it that. So, yeah, we called it something different. But, yeah, I’m known for turning something. Turning a sow’s ear into a silk purse. Many times on a wedding day, it’s looking for, just looking for light. Look for light and the rest is easy.

Joe Lenton

I remember a few years back seeing one of yours, I think it was, you were lying down next to a puddle, getting a lovely reflection shot in with the, you know, it makes it look almost like they’re standing next to a lake, whereas it’s just a muddy puddle on a rather knackered driveway.

Scott Johnson

Yeah. People say to me, where’d you get the puddle from? I said, I made it myself.

Joe Lenton

Absolutely. Yeah. Excellent. Yeah. So, I mean, the work that you did before becoming a wedding photographer, did that kind of help you to refine where you were going? Or was it a case of testing genres until you actually hit upon weddings and thought, now this is really me?

Scott Johnson

Yeah, pretty much that. As I said, I touched on earlier, I worked on cruise ships, and you have to be everything –

Joe Lenton

Cruise ships. I heard a rumour about that. Did you really?

Scott Johnson

Yeah. A little in joke there. But no, I. You have to be everything there. Portrait. I’ve shot. I shot weddings on the cruise ship events. You name it, we had to do it. And I – weddings was – I generally fell into it. So I came off the cruise ship. I got a job in Jessop’s selling cameras and working in the lab there. And then a guy who I’d known from when I worked in professional labs, when I was a hand printer, set up his own business and said, I think, you know, I’m looking for someone to come and help. Do you want to come and do it? I’m like, yep, I’ll give it a try. And that was in 2004, and I’m still here, so, yeah, 20 years. It’s crazy. Absolutely crazy. But, yeah, it wasn’t – I wanted to shoot music and sport. That’s what I wanted to do.

Joe Lenton

Okay.

Scott Johnson

And I still shoot a bit of sport sometimes.

Joe Lenton

And is it boxing you’ve done? Only about a year or two ago, didn’t you?

Scott Johnson

I was out in Paris. I was competing in the jiu-jitsu championships and I was accredited as well. I took the camera and did the European championships out there and I loved it. And it’s just, it’s something – I love sport photography. There’s a real skill to it and, you know, capturing that moment, that decisive moment in a thousandth of a second and nailing it. One of my favourite guys is a guy called Neil Leifer, and he’s a boxing photographer and he’s the guy that took the Ali picture when he’s beaten Sonny Liston. And he says it’s not about being the best photographer. It’s about being in the best place because the best photographer is behind him. You can see the best boxing photographer of that generation – you can see between Ali’s legs in that shot when he’s got his fist up and he said, he’s better than me, but I was in the right place. And it’s just knowing where something might happen and kind of getting your head around it that way. That’s what I enjoy.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, I think in a way, it’s kind of similar between – I know it might seem that sports and weddings are totally different, but in a sense, being able to read what’s going on, being familiar with the kind of patterns that occur, you can start to work out where you need to be and when.

Scott Johnson

Yeah, no, absolutely. Especially when you’re working with kids. Kids, as you said, that is, that is herding cats at a wedding, trying to get flower girls and page boys lined up for a picture, I can tell you. But then it’s sometimes it’s just say, “no, off you go. Let them go. Just let them go.” Because if you keep them there, they’re gonna get the hump, they’re gonna start kicking off and say, no, let a kid be a kid. And then I’ll just go and follow them and photograph them having fun, which is what kids are all about. And you’ll get way better pictures. And it’s just knowing when to not push that envelope and say, actually, I’m going to let, no, let’s send the kids away. We’ll come back just later on. It’s a much, much better way of doing things. And being situation socially aware of an opportunity that may present itself is certainly the key.

Joe Lenton

So with things like sports photography, is that something that you do kind of more for fun or is that something that you’re bringing into your professional portfolio as well?

Scott Johnson

Fun. Just fun. Just fun. I earned a couple of quid when I was in Paris last year from competitors when they know I had a QR code and sent the QR code out and, you know, made a couple of quid from pictures. But it certainly wasn’t – I’m not going to, you know, give up weddings for sport, but it’s just something I enjoy. As I said I enjoy taking pictures. I don’t care what it is, I just enjoy doing it. And I’ve got a bit of an insight in the sport and it’s just knowing what might happen in the position that you see. Well, I think they’re going to try this technique. So I’m going to move myself around a bit to try and get that reaction if that technique goes on. So it’s just, again, it’s just being a bit more aware of what’s going on in front of me.

Joe Lenton

I mean, some photographers like to do like a personal project because sometimes their professional work isn’t as fulfilling as they want it to be, that might be one reason, or they want to learn a new technique or whatever. I mean, you know, do you, would you, would you think of it in terms of being like a personal project or do you have a particular one or do you just like to make sure that you just do some fun shooting whatever it is, just to keep yourself in love with the photography?

Scott Johnson

I’ve been shooting architecture for about, oh, wow, probably six or seven years. That’s, that’s what I enjoy. That’s what I really, really enjoy doing is photographing old buildings. But the modern architecture at the minute is just breathtaking. And trying to make something artful out of just bricks and mortar is – I love it. And it’s just something that…

Joe Lenton

Tilt shift and a ten stop, isn’t it?

Scott Johnson

I’ve never shot a tilt shift, to be honest.

Joe Lenton

You’ve not? Oh, architecture and no tilt shift?

Scott Johnson

No. So even the image that won with the architecture photographer of the year last year before last. No, no tilt shift. Just, just edit in Photoshop. But no, I love it. I was in London about a month ago doing it and got some nice pictures and I was in Paris again just after the convention and I was walking around getting some shots and stuff. I’ve always been wanting to tick off my list for a long time now, so it’s not – my mates just thinks I’m doing another fellowship. I’m absolutely not. The thought of doing another fellowship terrifies me. This is purely for fun and I just like taking nice pictures of nice things.

Joe Lenton

Yeah. Yeah. Having done my fellowship not that many years ago, I’m still definitely not in that place of thinking, oh, yes, let’s do another one. I know some people seem to like to collect them almost.

Scott Johnson

But I went grey when I did my fellowship and the second one was a bit easier. But the first one I remember I was like, man, this is – I’m never doing this again!

Joe Lenton

It’s tough, isn’t it? Yeah, it’s stressful. Yeah. So you said you were in Paris for a jiu-jitsu was it tournament? Competition?

Scott Johnson

Well, it was supposed to be, yeah. So. But I broke my finger just before Christmas training for the championships and it’s still a bit bent and that’s about as straight as it can be on a webcam. But, yeah, it’s. I had to pull out. I couldn’t…

Joe Lenton

For those not able to see Scott’s finger, I can confirm it is wonky.

Scott Johnson

Yeah, it’s. It’s just – it was frustrating cos I did quite well last year out there and I wanted to go and have another go, but my body was like, no. And I just made, I made the grown up decision to withdraw my entry and I went to go and photograph it and then they cut down the amount of accreditation passes this year. So I didn’t get accredited this year, so I just went out to Paris for two days and shots some buildings. It was a lot of steak and a lot of chips.

Joe Lenton

Well, yeah. Silver lining to the cloud, I suppose. Yeah. As long as you like your steak pretty rare. I think in France, you know, everything is kind of almost still mooing when you get it.

Scott Johnson

Yeah. I mean, normally I’ll just say, bring me in a live cow, I’ll eat what I want and ride the rest home. I love it.

Joe Lenton

Yeah. I remember when I was working in France for a bit and there was always a couple of people from our university there. It was like a placement for during our degree and I was like, at the canteens, oh, here comes one of the English. Give them a bit of boot leather.

Scott Johnson

I’m one of these rare breeds that I actually don’t put any sauce on my steak. I like to eat and taste the steak for the meat than what it is. Why spend 40 quid on a nice steak and put some two pound peppercorn sauce on top of it? I never understand it.

Joe Lenton

No, no. Good quality food – you want to taste it. Absolutely. Get good ingredients in the first place and it makes a difference.

Scott Johnson

Yeah, totally.

Joe Lenton

Yeah. I suppose you being an elite athlete like that, you have to watch very carefully what you eat, do you?

Scott Johnson

I don’t know about elite athlete! But no, certainly I have to make weight. I’m in a certain weight category that I can’t go over. I can go over. But it means I’ll be the smallest one in the weight category above me. I’m definitely better, but as I’m sure you can attest, the older we get, the harder it is to keep the weight off. And especially why they put the European Championships three weeks after Christmas, I’ve got no idea. They’re just being mean.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, the thing though, I suppose as well with sport, with martial arts, there’s quite a lot of self-discipline has to go into it, not just into not eating before a tournament.

Scott Johnson

Yeah, I mean, I’ve been involved in martial arts since I was ten. I started karate when I was ten. I got my black belt at 13, carried on till I was 30, then my knees gave up, and then started Brazilian jiu-jitsu almost three years ago. But it’s certainly the karate aspect was discipline. And knowing that you’re here to learn, you’re here to not talk and muck about, because you muck about, people get hurt. It’s as simple as that. And the jiu-jitsu now, it’s a great escape. I think anyone, especially when you’re working in our kind of environment, you need that level of escape. You need that release. I think because going back to last year, it was a tough year, and without the physical release of doing something active like that, it would have been a different – it would have been a lot harder. But I think we owe it to have a hobby where you can if it’s walking or if it’s going, taking pictures or it’s sport like I do, it’s just, it’s so important to switch off. And when you go into that space, nothing else matters. If you have the worst day in the world, having the worst day or the worst week, you step on the mats, you slap on your bump, and you have a six minute round, and nothing else matters. And you’re just thinking about something that has no relation at all to your day to day work. And that is the best advice I can give anybody. Just switch off, find that thing that you don’t have to worry about anything for a couple of hours. And it’s the best – you probably see on my Facebook I put on there – I’m generally a nicer person after jiu-jitsu.

Joe Lenton

Yeah. I mean, people these days are a little bit more aware of things like sort of mindfulness, and some people sort of find the whole idea of trying to sit still and calm their mind absolutely terrifying. I mean, I’m somebody who finds it very hard to sort of be still. And I think hobbies like sports can be a very good way of doing that because you have to focus on what you’re doing, especially in martial arts or you’re going to get.

Scott Johnson

You’re going to break a finger or. You know, it’s something that was technically my fault, but anyway. But, yeah, you need – it’s so important. I remember my first WPPI that I was speaking at back in 2018. I hired a car and went to Death Valley.

Joe Lenton

Oh, yeah.

Scott Johnson

And it was February, so it wasn’t – it was still, you know it was hot, but it wasn’t scorching. And there’s a place called Devil’s golf field or Devil’s golf course, sorry. And it’s just a short drive from Death Valley. And I parked the car and I walked into the desert. And I remember sitting there and I’ve never heard silence like it. They say science is deafening. There wasn’t a breath of wind, an animal noise or anything. And I just sat there. Having spent six days in Vegas speaking at an event and doing the whole that kind of thing, I sat there and it must have been an hour, and I just didn’t – I laid down on it was obviously sand dunes. I remember laying on the sand, looking up at the – watching the sunset in complete silence. And I was just like, man, you need to let your brain rest because you can drive yourself nuts if you don’t. You need that time where you just go for a walk. If you’re having a bad day in the office, you work from home, just go to the shops and back. Go and get a cup of coffee or a paper, go buy some lunch, but let your brain just switch off. It’s so valuable at the minute.

Joe Lenton

Oh, absolutely. I mean, it can be a great thing when your hobby becomes how you earn a living. But on the other hand, the flip side of it is, if that hobby is then always about making a living, about your career, about the business, you kind of need to find something else to de-stress with a bit.

Scott Johnson

Yeah, you do. You know, beer helps sometimes, but.

Joe Lenton

Yeah. Yeah. And thankfully, you can get more German beer over here now, which I’m very pleased about.

Scott Johnson

Yeah, you can, but no, definitely I think you need that level of release, whatever it is, you know, just find that one thing that you can, that you look forward to doing when work is finished. I think that’s really important.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, years ago, I used to do fencing. That’s not as in putting up fences, but as in the sword fighting. So, yeah, that was sabre, epee and foil. I used to do a little bit of each of those. And, you know, one of the things that I remember from that is that even when you’d been doing it for a while, there was always that process you went through of warming yourself up, of the discipline to do your basic moves, keep your footwork good and accurate. It wasn’t like, oh, you’ve been doing this five or ten years, you don’t need to practise your footwork anymore. Everybody at the beginning of the session, everybody, without exception, was doing footwork practise before you got anywhere near picking up your kit and getting on with it. And there was that kind of discipline that actually then enabled you to be freer once you were actually in the fight.

Scott Johnson

You know, we have black belts that have been training for 15 years are still doing their forward roles, and the hip escapes to warm up because, you know, it’s, you got to stick to the fundamentals. Whatever you do, stick to the fundamentals and then later on down the line it will become instinctive. And whether that’s photography, whether that’s anything, especially, I think especially photography where, you know, if you get the basics right, then it’s okay. Then when you’re doing the hard stuff, the basics will come freely and more easily to allow you to be more creative in the things that may be challenging, like off-camera flash or you’re trying something different, but you stick to the fundamentals. The rest is pretty much simple.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, I think, you know, with, with the kit being quite accessible these days and it being digital, sometimes people can slip into being a bit lazy. But I find actually, that’s why I’ve done the sort of talk – tools, not rules – at the convention. If you can get your head around technique, it’s not there to hinder you. It’s not there to hold you back. It’s not there to put you in a box. It’s there to give you the freedom to create. You know, it’s, it’s a tool. So it’s just, it’s just so sad when people don’t want to put that work into their technique or to their understanding of their craft because they’re actually limiting themselves by doing that.

Scott Johnson

No, I agree. I think we’ve got complacent and lazy with digital. And I purposely shot my second fellowship on film because I wanted to push myself and challenge. But you stick to the basics. You stick to light, you stick to composition, and you stick to exposure. And, you know, and when you shoot, as you know, you shoot the film, there is no chimping. You can’t see – let me open the back of the camera and have a look! Because, you know, it’s gone. You know, you have to trust in the basics, trust in the fundamentals. And the rest would just happen in front of you, which is, you know, and I think, you know, film has had a bit of a resurgence, not so much now, but certainly, I think in the early, you know, 2010s, film was definitely making a recovery. But like vinyl, you know, it always has a cycle. And I think, you know, it’s, you know, stick to the basics and the rest is simple.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, it is interesting how those kind of analogue forms seem to have come back a bit, you know, both with film and with vinyl. You know, it’s sometimes you see people in digital thinking, well, how do I get that kind of experience with the digital camera? And read all these bizarre articles like tape up the back of your camera and only take one lens out with you, don’t take a zoom lens and all these kind of things and, and you think, well, at the heart of it, it’s just kind of, you know, focusing yourself, discipline yourself down. Don’t, don’t be lazy. You know.

Scott Johnson

It goes back to the martial art. You know, sometimes you get beat up, sometimes you get beat up and you get turned inside out by an 18 year old purple belt, which is fine, you know, that’s what we’re there to learn. But you got to take a deep breath, take a step back and go, no, I’m not letting that happen again. And the same with photography. You, sometimes you can rush so much, you make mistakes, whereas if you just stop, take a couple of deep breaths and go, right, how am I going to compose this? How am I going to expose this? How am I going to – what length? And then you would just find it just – it would just naturally happen.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, absolutely. And you can find yourself in tricky situations where for some reason, you haven’t got a piece of kit that you really wanted to have with you. I mean, I’ve done a shoot before where I was shooting some headshots for a business, and the intention was to have a rim light. So to have a long strip box on either side behind them to give a little bit of a rim light to them. And I somehow managed to leave behind one of the adapters that attached one of the strip boxes to the light.

Scott Johnson

Yeah.

Joe Lenton

And, you know, instead of having a cry in the corner and throwing my hands up in the air and despairing and giving up, you know, you come back to, well, okay, what are the principles of how light works? How am I going to get around this? Let’s set up right near that wall there. Use that wall to bounce the light, angle the light towards the wall. Use the wall to bounce the light back onto their shoulder. From that side. It’s slightly different shape to the, to the strip box the other side. But it does pretty much the same job and nobody knew the difference. When you know that technique, you can, you know all the technical elements, they help you out when you get a bit stuck.

Scott Johnson

And what did you do when you realise you hadn’t got it? You went, right, how am I gonna get around this? You stopped, you took a breath and you, and you thought about it. So like anything, just don’t – you can busy yourself so much where you forget to think. Just stop, take a step back, have a breath and then think.

Joe Lenton

Well and it’s easy to get so reliant on kit, you know, you think, well, I always use that camera, I always use that lens to do such and such. And I want to have these lights in place. And sometimes you haven’t got the space, sometimes you haven’t got the access to the kit for whatever reason. Or sometimes you have been a prat like me and left something out of your kit bag!

Scott Johnson

Last year I left an entire camera and its lenses at home – here. I go to the venue. I’m like, “oh!” We always have spares, so it wasn’t – But then then it’s my faster camera. The GFX is amazing, but it’s not the fastest, especially in December when it’s darker. Focusing the new one, the hundred mark two, is amazing, but I’ve got the 100s, which is, which is great. But I’m like, okay, that’s cool. We’ll adapt and we’ll overcome. And that’s what we did. And sometimes you just – so I shot with one camera and two lenses. I shoot primes. So I had one camera and two lenses all day and the pictures are amazing. And because I had to stop and think, you know, I didn’t, I didn’t fall into the trap of autopilot. I had to stop and think like chess four moves ahead. What am I going to do? And then it was a better coverage as a result, I think.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, absolutely. You know, you can end up with silly little things. I was on a beginner’s workshop one time and they go, “oh, no, my zoom doesn’t reach that far.” Well, I said, well, have you tried your other zoom? What other zoom? Your feet! Walk nearer! But it sounds really silly. But so often we can get so lazy with kit and everything that we just forget obvious basics. And so learning and drilling the basics in, like with a sport, just gives you that foundation that when something unexpected comes along, you can deal with it.

Scott Johnson

Yep, absolutely. I mean, again, 20 years in, there’s not much I haven’t dealt with, so there’s always – you think you forget stuff, but it’s like that song you haven’t heard for 15 years on a radio. You know everybody, you know all the words, you know all the words. It’s in there somewhere. Like photography, it’s all in there somewhere. And at times of crisis, it will just pop up and go, ah, no, I’ve done this before, I can do this. And you just deal with it.

Joe Lenton

Yeah. And in a way, sometimes it can end up showing you how little kit you actually need to get a decent photo. You know, sometimes you might think, well, actually, I like shooting on location, but I also like to have a bit of fill light coming in here and I’ll have a bit of that, a bit of the other. I’ll have an assistant with a reflector over there to make sure it’s all nicely balanced. Then when you find yourself with just you, with a camera, with an 85 mm prime lens, you can still create beautiful stuff without a load of kit.

Scott Johnson

Complexity is the enemy of execution. Always. You can overcomplicate stuff to the point it hinders what you’re trying to achieve, where you strip it right back and it makes life so much – I mean, I’ve got a T5 van, so I’ve got all the gear – all my light stands in there, my modifiers, so they’re there if I need it, but it very rarely comes out unless I’m gonna try this shot today. I go in the van, I’ve got the equipment that I need, but generally I’ve got a little roller case with a camera and a few lenses in, and that’s all I take out now.

Joe Lenton

So, I mean, I don’t know about you, but over the years there’s been stuff that I bought that I had convinced myself I absolutely needed, and then it doesn’t come out the kit bag. And you think, why on earth did I get that?

Scott Johnson

Yeah.

Joe Lenton

Have you been there?

Scott Johnson

Oh, all the time. I’m notorious for not buying things at trade shows now. So I’ve thrown so much money down the drain at trade shows because – so the whole reason I joined the Societies back in 2009 is I went to Focus, which is now the Photography Show up at the NEC. I was looking for a monopod because I was shooting speeches with a 70-200. I thought I could get a monopod just to make the longer end of the focal length sharper. And the societies were giving away a free monopod with memberships. I thought that would do. And that was it. So that’s the best thing I’ve ever bought at a trade show was a free monopod with membership of the Societies. But yeah, I’ve bought all stuff at trade shows, modifiers and batteries and God knows what else. It just sits there. I just end up selling it because there’s no point. Don’t know. They’re really good company and I’ve worked with a lot of companies, don’t get me wrong, and they’re amazing, but they’re very good at making you spend money when you don’t need to at trade shows.

Joe Lenton

Absolutely, absolutely. And I think when you’re doing photography as a business, yes, you want things that you can use to be creative and have fun. But I kind of got into the situation of thinking if I can’t make a business case for it, then I’m afraid I’m going to have to do without it. You know, if I can’t say this is going to make a difference because… And it’s going to help speed me up by x amount or whatever. Unless it can be somehow vaguely quantified, you think, nah, you’re just getting sucked into that, you know, oh, I want it, I want it. More gear. More gear.

Scott Johnson

Yeah, it comes down to needs and wants. It comes down to, do I need it or do I want it? And that’s the way I break things down. Now, do I need a Ferrari? No. Do I want one? Of course I do, but I don’t need it. My van works great, thank you very much. It’s like, do you need a Rolex or do you need a Mickey Mouse watch? Both tell the time exactly the same way.

Joe Lenton

And that’s a very fetching Mickey Mouse watch you’ve got on, by the way. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And all too often people want to upgrade their cameras or get the new, the latest lens and so on. You think, well, is it actually going to offer you anything different? Is it really going to change the way you shoot? How many of the functions on your camera do you even use anyway? Why do you need another load?

Scott Johnson

I mean, not even 10%, I reckon not everyone here, about 10% of the buttons they push, that’s it.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, it’s like the shooting speed and so on. I mean, for me, most of my work is in the studio and is slow. It’s on products, it’s manual focus. So trying to sell me a camera by saying it’ll shoot 120 frames a second, all with autofocus it’s like, well, yeah, and?

Scott Johnson

I mean, obviously, you know, if you’re shooting wildlife brilliant, it’s going to be perfect for you. If you’re shooting sport brilliant, but I’m shooting – when you’re photographic guitars, you know, they don’t move that quickly.

Joe Lenton

No, exactly. It’s having the right tools to do the job, isn’t it, really. That’s all you need. And the rest of it all comes from within the old grey matter.

Scott Johnson

Exactly. Well, less grey, more, you know, scalp matter now, but, yeah.

Joe Lenton

Yeah. Do you have any kit, though, that you’ve got your eye on?

Scott Johnson

Yeah, you know, I tend to go through, obviously, the amount, the volume of weddings that I shoot, which about 40 a year. So that’s a high number of weddings. I tend to change my camera about every three years, three or four years, because they have a life. They have a life and I get them serviced every year at Fujifilm. I do look after them, but they do have a life. And when I had the GFX 100 mark two back in August, I’m like, oh, that’s really something special that’s on the list of replace of what I might get this year. But it comes down to money, you know. If I can’t afford it, I won’t get it. What I’ve got – the new camera that comes out doesn’t make my camera any worse. And that’s where people fall in the trap. “Oh, it’d be better.” Yeah, but your camera’s still good. What you’ve got is still good. It’s still. Exactly. No, it doesn’t change anything. Yes, it’s new and shiny and Andreas and James at Fujifilm are very good at pushing stuff on me. I’m like, no, go away. Stop it. Stop it! But it’s of an age now. Where is this purchase gonna make me any more money? If it does, then I’ll think about it. If it’s not, then I won’t. It’s as you said, you’ve got to be where times are a little bit harder now in the social industry and money’s that little bit harder to come by. You’ve got to be a lot more careful about where you spend it. And I think you can very, very easily spend a lot of money and waste it on the wrong things, whereas, you know, things like updating your website every couple of years, that’s an investment. You got to do that. Going on the odd training course every now and again – that’s an investment in yourself. You got to do that. Buying a new lens because it’s got five more mm and half a stop extra light? It’s not going to change the world.

Joe Lenton

Yeah. I was then going to ask what sort of things should you put your money into as a professional and, yeah, I mean, I suppose websites and so on. It’s kind of – it’s your marketing, it’s making sure that you’re out there. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got all the fanciest latest kit in the world if no one knows you’re there.

Scott Johnson

Yeah. And training, you know, train, train, business training, if you’re learning something new. Like I said, I’ve been doing portraiture. I’ve been doing a lot more courses on portrait lighting and shooting in small spaces. It’s investing in yourself and it’s, you know, I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve spoken at events all over the world, but I will still attend the class if I think I’m going to get value out of it. And I’ll sit in the back and I’ll make notes and I’ll get picked on by the speaker because, you know, I’m known, very known at events and things, but, you know, I was at a Jerry Ghionis workshop at WPPI last year because it was a talk he’d never done before about mindset and creativity. And I thought, this is going to be perfect. I sat there for 2 hours and I took about a million notes because just because people see us as speakers and judges and chairs, but we are still at the coalface working photographers and we’re here to learn as just as anyone else is. And it is so important to not forget that and rest on your laurels, because before you know it, you’ve done nothing for five years apart from the same old thing and, you know, it’s comfort is the enemy of progress. And if you get comfortable in what you are doing, you’re going to get complacent. You get complacent, you’re going to get overtaken and you’ve got to be, you know, invest in yourself. Absolutely. Every time.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, absolutely. All too often people will put all their money into the kit and then they haven’t got any money for training, or they look at a sort of a training event and see, oh, a few hundred quid, oh, that’s a bit much. And you think, yeah, but what that equips you to do… I mean, at whatever level you are, I think if anyone thinks they know it all, they’re in trouble. You’ve always got to be open to learning more. And it can be, it doesn’t just have to be because it’s a different genre. It can be within your own genre that actually someone else’s perspective on it can suddenly make you think differently about how you do it. And that helps keep you fresh, for one thing.

Scott Johnson

I totally agree. I was chatting with Fiona McKean at the end of year judging at Societies, and she was just – we’re just chatting you know, around the dinner table when she was saying, I’m like, I never thought of it like that. And I’ve implemented it in my business. Moving forward, it’s just a casual conversation at the bar and everybody knows the conventions are great, but all the best conversations do happen at the bar. And it’s just a quick half a conversation and it’s, I’m like, oh, my God, I did not think, I didn’t see it like that. And it’s, you know, every day’s a school day. The day I stop learning Joe, is the day I give it up.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, even if it’s not learning something new, sometimes it’s just being reminded why you’re doing what you do, you know, because you can go through the paces sometimes and go through the motions and, you know, get that slightly, you know, lethargic feel with it all. And you’ve had a few clients that haven’t perhaps been ideal or something, but then actually talking to another photographer about their business and just a slight change of perspective can help reinvigorate you and re-energise you to think, oh, I’m going to pick my camera up today and I’m going to go out there and I’m going to get on with it.

Scott Johnson

It’s a very isolated job as well, isn’t it? I mean, I spend a lot of my time here just sitting by myself. I’ve got podcasts on and got two cats to annoy me all day. But, but it’s, it’s, you know, it’s knowing that you’re not the only one fighting that fight. It’s knowing that you’re not the only one that, you know, are having the challenges that you’re facing. And it’s bouncing, you know, issues off each other and, well, I dealt, I understand now I had that, like, I dealt with it this way. You go, oh, yeah, okay, that’s, that’s awesome. And it’s giving, you know, that, you know, the conventions are amazing. Just for reconnecting your friendships and just – it’s reminding you that you’re not in, you’re not doing it on your own. There are many, many people out there that are in the same boat as you facing the same challenges and it’s, that’s a, that’s a great thing because, you know, weddings are up and down and you think you’re smashing it and all of a sudden people say to you, how’s business? You go, yeah, it’s a bit quiet. Yeah, I’m quiet too. And they’re like, they’re panicking thinking it’s them, but it’s not, it’s the industry. It’s the industry and I think it’s just great for that kind of thing.

Joe Lenton

That is where things like the Societies of Photographers are so helpful. I think especially photographers when they start out, can often be, well, actually I’m not going to meet up with so and so who’s also a photographer locally because they’re the competition and they’re kind of wary of each other. And then you go to a societies convention where you’ve got people from all over the world who can’t even possibly be your competitors or anything that makes it easier and you suddenly realise actually talking to these people is mutually helpful. It’s not something where you’re suddenly going to reveal a secret, which means they poach all of your customers and you’re going bust. You know, that kind of over-protective attitude actually harms you in the long run, I think.

Scott Johnson

I completely agree. I did a talk for Fujifilm here just down the road and I thought, do I hide stuff? Do I keep stuff back? I thought why? I’m being paid to give information and help other photographers grow. So I withheld nothing. I did my normal talk if I was up in Darlington, for example, but this goes right back to the start of the conversation – people book me for me, they like what I do, but they book me for me so I could tell my competition down the road what I do. But if I don’t like that person, they’re not going to book them, they’ll come to me anyway. So that’s where it’s okay to share, you know, it’s okay because coming out of COVID we were doing weddings for each other, left, right and centre. Because I get COVID, I need cover and vice versa. Actually. I think it made the industry a tighter unit coming out of COVID because we were all literally in the same boat trying to help each other get through it.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, really, really does help with that support, because, as you said, it can be such an isolating, sort of lonely industry otherwise. So finding ways of connecting with others can be so – I mean, for me, that’s one of the things I really enjoy about being a judge at the convention, is that everybody on the panel judging with you, they’ve all got knowledge and experience you don’t have. They all see something in an image that you don’t, and you learn from each other, and you get enthused again coming out of that place thinking you want to get stuck in again, you know?

Scott Johnson

Yeah. The frustrating thing for me was the convention was three weeks ago. I haven’t got a wedding for four more weeks. I’m chomping at the bit to get out and be creative, and I’m not yet. So I’ve got a pre wedding shoot next week. That’s the first time I’ll use my cameras in anger since December. So I’m looking forward to getting out and doing something cool. But, yeah, you leave there totally inspired to be better, I think, and that’s so worth going to.

Joe Lenton

So has that led you to think of any goals that you want for yourself for this year? Are there things that you want to achieve this year?

Scott Johnson

Well, I’m entering competition this year, so I’ve not been allowed to enter the last few years because I’ve been one of the judges at the overall judging in December. But I’m on a rotation year this year, so I’m allowed to enter competition. And I said to Terrie, who’s head of judges, I want to try and achieve a gold award in portraiture. I want to try and do that because I’m not that proficient in it. I’m okay. But I want – my goal is to try and get, well, a highly commended or a gold in portraiture this year. That’s what I’m going to try and achieve.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, I know it’s a very business related goal for you as well, then, isn’t it?

Scott Johnson

Yeah, yeah. It’s going to help push. You can market it a little bit, and it’s something. Yeah. I like to give myself little challenges. I’m very competitive when it comes to anything, really. I only have one rule: it’s not over till I win! Simple as that, no matter what it is. But now I’m quite competitive, and I like to push myself. But then we have, you know, I compete not just in jiu-jitsu, but in photography. We have a wooden spoon award at convention every year.

Joe Lenton

Oh, yes.

Scott Johnson

So it’s the lowest score in print within a group of photographers. So, you know, obviously you want to score. Well, we don’t try to win it, but it’s just a little bit of fun to take away. I won it one year with a 73 score in print. You know. Yes, I’ve won awards all around the world, but I’m still scoring 73s. It’s, you know.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think it’s great having goals like that. And I think from, I mean, I don’t know about how you feel about having sort of different strands to your business and then maybe being at different levels, because that’s sometimes something that when I’ve done different types of work, I’ve been conscious that I have a bias towards something that I enjoy more and I spend more time on, so I’m better at it. And you kind of think, do I then keep offering the other one because it’s not up to the same standard or, you know, focus your attention on bringing it to the same standard. I mean, you know, you’re working on awards for your portraiture. You can show you can win awards for that. I suppose people can then see it’s on the same sort of standard or getting there as your weddings.

Scott Johnson

Yeah, I think so. I think I’m always – even at weddings – I’m always working on the weakest aspect of what I do. So I’ve recently introduced off-camera flash, and I’m getting better at it because it’s another level, another string to the bow that if the weather doesn’t play ball, it’s not going, oh my God, what do I do? It’s like, okay, we’ll just shoot some flash work. We’ll just do this or do that. And it’s always working on the weakest part of my game. That’s what keeps me creative, that’s what keeps me motivated, that’s what keeps me moving forwards. And then before you know it, I’ll get really good at flash. Then all of a sudden, something else that I’ve taken my eye off the ball a little bit needs work. So I’ll just shift the mindset. It’s always a rise in tide raises all ships. I think that’s what you have to put in your business and, you know, work on one thing and it raises everything.

Joe Lenton

What about fun things? Have you got some fun thing that you think, I’d really like to have a go at that?

Scott Johnson

Oh, what would I love to photograph? You know what? I’ve always, I’ve always said I would love to have a go at the Olympics. I would love to have a go at the Olympics. And I remember back when it was announced in two thousand, I think four or five, I was working for a pro lab at the time, and when it was announced that London was getting the Olympics in 2012, I thought, I’m going to photograph those Olympics. And I didn’t. And I thought, yeah, obviously weddings took over, but I’ve always said, I’d love to have a go at the Olympics. I’d love to have a go at doing something like that, where you are, literally, that you’ve got a billion people watching you. If you can get that one shot like that one of Usain Bolt when he won with his loose, with laces untied, get that one image that, you know, it’s gonna go around the world and that’s pretty cool. I’d love to have a go at that.

Joe Lenton

Yeah. Yeah. Well, do you think you’ll start pushing in that direction with your sports photography, start chipping away at that goal? Or is that just a pie in the sky wish, do you think?

Scott Johnson

Well, if I’d have got accredited in last month, then yeah, but they tightened up, so I’m hoping to get accredited for the London Open, which is at the end of February. And I can just – again, it’s just doing more shooting more, getting a portfolio together before you can start pushing it and approaching agencies. So it’s going to be a slow burn, but it’s, again, something to help plug that winter gap for weddings, you know? Yes, the winter weddings are lovely, but I went, well, I’d go from December 16 to March 5 without a wedding. So it’s a long time. It’s a long time. And, you know, you got to try and, you know, make hay whilst the sun shines. But with the weddings becoming a little bit harder to get hold of and the winter gap becoming longer, you’ve got to try and find a way of supplementing the income. If sport is it and the portraits is it, then I’ll grab it with both hands and do it.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, well, it’s great that you’re setting a path to get there. I mean, because quite often people might think, oh, I’d love to photograph a sports car or something like that. And it’s like, okay, yeah, what are you doing to get there? Oh, it just would be nice to do it one day. Yeah. Well, guess what? Unless you’re extremely lucky, it ain’t gonna happen. You know, you’ve got something you’d like to do, but just having it as a like to do, it’s just a wish. It’s just something vague. You know, if you want to really give yourself a chance of getting there, and there’s obviously no guarantees, but you set those smaller goals. You set your path so that you can go down it. And clearly for you, you like to achieve things. As you say, you’re competitive. So for you, when you’ve got a goal there, it’s not just a wish. That’s something that I wouldn’t be surprised to see happen in a few years time.

Scott Johnson

I got a no award for one of my images at sport in societies last month, so I’ve still obviously got work to do. But, no, it’s just, yeah, if you want something, go get it. Don’t wait for your boat to come in. Swim out to the boat. That’s my advice. Don’t worry. If you want something, do it. Just do it.

Joe Lenton

Is that how it happened right back at the beginning when you went into weddings then? I mean, how quickly did that passion develop and the opportunities? Is that something that unfolded very quickly for you, or did you have to chase after what type of wedding you really wanted to do for a few years before you got there?

Scott Johnson

Yeah, pretty much that. I mean, the qualification route. I knew the end game was fellowship in weddings. That was. That was the end game.

Joe Lenton

Okay.

Scott Johnson

And then, so you start shooting for it and then all of a sudden people say there – and there are – there are two types of shot. Your shot for your client and your shot for awards and then – but the qualification route, what that helped me do was, was blur the line between both and then I’m just kind of shooting stuff that I would put in for an award and the client now likes. So it was, it was a transition and that was – But, yeah, it mean, I was second shooting for somebody for a couple of years and then I was getting booked out more than they were and it was like, oh, maybe, maybe I can do this. And then after two years of working him, I set up The Edge and the rest is history.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, excellent. So, yeah, I said right at the beginning, the edgephotography.co.uk is Scott’s website. Please do go and have a look on there. There’s a small sample of his work. I mean, he’s got a huge body of work behind him, weddings and his portraits that he’s now doing as well. Check out Scott’s work on social media and as you can hear, he’s quite an interesting, nice guy as well. You’ll find him at the convention with the societies and highly in demand. So we’re very grateful to Scott for coming on the podcast today and sharing a bit with us. It’s been great for me to finally have a chance to sit down and talk with you because conventions are kind of everybody’s milling around and you hardly have that much time with each individual. So I’ve really enjoyed being able to catch up with you, Scott, and thanks very much for coming on.

Scott Johnson

No, it’s a pleasure, mate. I’m going to be up at TPS, The Photography Show, in March, doing some talks up there, working for Fujifilm, and I’m on one of the stages up there doing some talks on photography. And then in June, I’m one of the speakers at Click Live. So if you want to come and see me and put my money where my mouth is and see how I shoot and what I get, what I get, then come and see me at Click Live. We’re doing some live workshops there with models all around this beautiful venue in the middle of England. So come and see us up there.

Joe Lenton

Sounds like a great opportunity. Thank you very much, Scott, and thank you all for listening. This is the Focused Professional podcast.

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