From the Mind of JScott

Last week I had the opportunity of a lifetime to attend my first ever After Dark Education  (which I will be referring to as AD the rest of the story) in Kansas City, a quick 5 hour drive from my place. As its website says it's an "experience" as it's "neither a 'conference' nor a 'workshop'; it's the best of BOTH worlds." I had always heard other photographers talk about AD but only knew that it was this mystical sounding thing with superpowers where they kept you up late and forced you to cram in as much learning in as short amount of time as possible. Well, my thoughts were proven correct--except for the superpowers. Flat out, this thing ROCKED! For 72 hours I crammed in as much learning as possible. Topics ranged from ways to market yourself to lighting a high school senior to creating composite images (aka collages with a 21st century feel) to ways to maximize your sales. I was surrounded by some of the best photogr

So I realized this morning that I never blogged about Alive and Running 2012 and just had to share some thoughts... Runners prepare for the start of this year's run for suicide awareness and prevention. I have never been directly affected by suicide and honestly I hope that I never am as long as I'm around. But to many suicide is real. It happened to someone very close to them. It's not just something on the news or in TV shows or a movie. Shock. Sadness. Anger. Despair. Depression. Bargaining. How does one ever move to acceptance? Can they? Should they? Two family members embrace during the day of the 2012 race. I'm no psychologist. I'm a photographer. I capture images for a living. So when I was approached by a friend to photograph a 5K that was created for those dealing with the effects of suicide I thought, "Alright, it's just a race. I'll take some action shots, sell some, it'll be an easy job." This was hardly "

For those of you that know me at least a little bit (even from just bumping into me) know that I'm usually never at a loss for words. This is why is strikes me as so odd as to why I can't stay current with my blogging. Let me preface this by saying I'm new to blogging. I just started doing it within the last year or so. But that's still no excuse in my opinion (or how the hipster kids would say "IMO"). Things have been crazy busy lately and while I'm not complaining there are times when I imagine a day where I can just sit at the computer and type my brains out. Not sure you'd really give a damn about what I had to say but it'd be out there for you to check out. So about my blog...I'm thinking in the future I'm going to try to blog each session, even if it's just a few more thoughts than what I normally put up on Facebook with my albums. I think offering the fans of my work a little further look into what I'm thinking is b

Fresh out of high school I really wanted a job at the local newspaper. I didn't care what I had to do to get it; empty garbages, vaccuum, scrub the toilet. Whatever I had to do to get onto the staff as either a writer or photographer or both I was willing to do. After weeks of bothering and annoying the editor (believe me, almost every week on the same day at the same time) I was in office trying to lobby him for a job. Eventually he gave in. "Alright, you want a job?" he asked. "Boy do I have a job for you." I spent the next 5 days in a sauna of a barn at the Delaware County Fair taking down the names of all of the winners of the animal shows  and taking a snapshot of them in all their animal showing glory. I was getting to kick start my dream of becoming a professional photographer. What does this have to do with judging? Well, last night I was selected to be the  official judge at the annual Buchanan County Amateur Photography Contest ,  put on with h

It's been a few days since the end of the Delaware County Fair so I thought I'd take a moment and recap some of the highlights and thank a few people! First off, I want to personally thank everybody that took the moment to check out my work, hear my story, learn about JScott Images  and book sessions or purchase parade photos. It was great getting to meet you and I look forward to providing you the highest quality professional photography possible!! It was hot. Like really hot. ALL. WEEK. LONG. Thank goodness for my fan otherwise I'm not sure I would have survived. I'd also like to thank Jeannie Domeyer, her sidekick Shelly (never did get her last name), the staff and security team of the Delaware County Fair Board for assisting me leading up to and during the week of the fair. They were great to work with and helped make my first ever booth experience an enjoyable and successful one! I also want to thank all of the vendors, especially thos

Growing up, the vendor "barn" at the Delaware County Fair was a place to stock up. Ink pens. Keychains. Koozies. And just about anything else a person really doesn't need more of all for free in front of them. Now it becomes an ideal spot for me to share with the people of Manchester and surrounding communities in and around Delaware County my photography business and just what I can offer them. I ended up with a corner spot, prime location as I'm right next to one of only two entrances in the barn. Traffic by the booth was sporadic yesterday early on but man, once it got going, it didn't seem to stop. At one point my dad was kind enough to drop off a brown bag lunch (seriously, it was a lunch in a brown paper bag...I haven't had one of those since my elementary school days) which gave me a much needed boost. I worked the booth from noon to 9pm. At the start things were pretty laid back, I had a few people stop by to check

Wikipedia defines a Bar Mitzvah as the " Jewish   coming of age   rituals ...  According to  Jewish law , when  Jewish  boys become 13, they become accountable for their actions and become a Bar Mitzvah." ****************************************************************************************** I remember the email. Do you shoot bar mitzvahs? "Um, sure!" I replied. I obviously was not going to say no. I had no clue what I was getting myself into. About three weeks ago I had no idea what a Bar Mitzvah was. To me it was just that party that you see in the movies where they put a kid in a chair and bounce him up and down. I figured it had something to do with religion, I just wasn't quite sure how exactly. With only a few movie scenes and a Wikipedia search under my belt, I threw myself headfirst into one as I was hired to photograph such an event for a wonderful local family. Simply put: I had a blast! The family starting the chair dance, a staple

A few of my shots from MAIPP 2012. (First off all let me send a huge THANK YOU to the MAIPP board for the awesome opportunity to serve for such a highly respected organization! Without all the work put in by Fred Fiddelke, Barb Grabill, Steve Kelly, Eric Niceswanger, John Mohr and countless others, none of this would have been possible! I also want to thank the University of Northern Iowa for providing awesome facilities to work with that were clean and comfortable all week long!) This past week I had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to serve as a consultant for the Mid-America Institute of Professional Photography workshop that was held at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls. MAIPP is, according to its website ( www.maipp.com ), "an affiliated school of the Professional Photographers of America" and has been around since 1980.  For what it's worth, that makes it one year older and wiser than me. :) From what I knew prior to taking part is that

First off, thank you for stopping by my blog. As you can probably see it's gone through some overhauls lately. And considering this is my first post since December 2011, it probably needed a little TLC. So, where do I begin? Well, since the last time I put up a post a big event happened! I graduated from the Professional Photography program at Hawkeye College  in Waterloo, Iowa. A very proud 2012 graduate!  This was truly one of my life goals. I had been approved for the program back in the spring of 2000 right before my graduation from high school but got "cold feet" when I saw the cost of equipment. So glad I decided to go back to school! A photo taken from the Professional Photography Program's page on the Hawkeye College website. It's a little outdated but it's still pretty "Schaaaaaaaweet!" I learned so much, some things that I already knew but much more that I didn't. Most importantly, I learned about the drive and dedication