I've been adding a bunch of new images to the Scott Shots Galleries lately, here's a few:

"Downtown Truckee, CA" - This abstract photo of Downtown Truckee, CA was achieved by zooming the camera's lens during a long exposure.

"Eerie Tahoe Sky"- This eerie Tahoe sky with a sliver of a moon was photographed at sunset near Martis Peak, Tahoe.

"Downtown Truckee Tracks"- These railroad tracks were photographed in Downtown Truckee, in the early morning.

The evolution of Scott Shots Photography

Many great things have been happening with my photography business this year. Here is a few:


-Added 2 Canon 21.1 megapixel cameras to my arsonal and a few new lenses. The 1DS MarkIII and the 5D MarkII.

-Added more services like Real Estate virtual tours.

-New shopping cart solution, you can now order gift items, like beer mugs, with my images on them. You can also license and download my images for advertising and marketing purposes (stock photography). Check out the new slide show on my profile and click on the link to check it out.

-New Macbook pro to take advantage of 16 bit printing on my new printer.

-New printer. My 44" wide Epson 9600 broke down for good so I am replacing it with a new Epson 9900, Epson's latest and greatest 44" wide printer. 11 inks! for a larger color gamut.


Business has been good this year and I'm very excited about the evolution of Scott Shots Photography! If you need any photography services in the Tahoe area, please consider me. Thank you.

Scott Shots Photoshelter Site

You can now purchase my images at the Scott Shots Photography Photoshelter site! There you can order fine art prints printed by me, less expensive prints printed by 3rd party printers, and gift items like keychains, playing card, and mousepads. You can also easily license and download my images for stock or advertising purposes. Many of my images have been added, many more to come. This will soon be embedded into my http://www.scottshotsphoto.com/ website. I am very excited about this new purchasing shopping cart and I hope you enjoy your experience on the site.

Search my Photoshelter site here:

Good Things to Come

I have been working hard on getting a new shopping cart solution on my website. You will soon be able to easily order scottshot prints from me or a third party for less $. You will also be able to licence and download my photos from my website. It is not up yet but here is a slideshow widget that photoshelter.com offeres with an account.

Tahoe area scenics - Images by Scott Thompson

Q&A - What's a good camera for shooting artwork?

Question:
Hi Scott, I am in the process of getting a new camera and hoped I could impose on you for an opinion. I'm looking for something I can use to photograph my paintings to produce high resolution images for publications (i.e. at least 8"x10" at 300 dpi) as well as to use for source photos. I currently have a Nikon D70 that I've been pleased with but it has only about 6MP. I'm considering the Nikon D90 (12.3 MP). Any thoughts or alternative recommendations off the top of your head?

Thanks for your thoughts.
-Don

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Answer:
Hi Don. The Nikon would be a great choice, and you already have a Nikon lens. I also like the features of the new Canon Rebel that does HD video capture. More important than the camera body though, is what lens you are using. You may want to consider using a quality prime lens, or a lens that doesn’t zoom, in the 50, 85, or 100mm range. You will get less barreling or pin cushioning on your images. In other words, the edges of the paintings you are photographing will be nice and straight and not slightly bowed or curved in or out. Hope that helps.

Have a great day.
-Scott

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Thanks for the input, Scott. That is helpful.
-Don

Scott's Summer 2009 Exhibit Schedule

It is time for Scott's Summer Shows 2009! Please see the schedule below to visit Scott and to see and purchase his work in person.

May 23, 24, & 25 - Beth Weber's arts and crafts fair. Located at the Kings Beach Plaza between the State Beach parking lot and the Coon St. Signal. On Hwy. 28, Downtown Kings Beach. Overlooking beautiful Lake Tahoe. Fairs are free to the public and open 10am to 5pm.

June 26, 27, & 28 - Beth Weber's arts and crafts fair. Located at the Kings Beach Plaza between the State Beach parking lot and the Coon St. Signal. On Hwy. 28, Downtown Kings Beach. Overlooking beautiful Lake Tahoe. Fairs are free to the public and open 10am to 5pm.

July 9, 10, 11, 12, 17, 18, & 19 - Tahoe ARTour 2009 - Join Scott and 31 other North Tahoe Artists for this wonderful open studio event. More info can be found at North Tahoe Arts or the NTA facebook page. This is the one time a year Scott's studio is open to the public without an appointment. Scott's studio can be found at 12297 Schussing Way . Join Scott to learn about his processes and equipment he uses to produce his fine art photographs.

July 31, August 1 & 2 - Beth Weber's arts and crafts fair. Located at the Kings Beach Plaza between the State Beach parking lot and the Coon St. Signal. On Hwy. 28, Downtown Kings Beach. Overlooking beautiful Lake Tahoe. Fairs are free to the public and open 10am to 5pm.

August 7, 8, & 9 - Beth Weber's arts and crafts fair. Located at the Kings Beach Plaza between the State Beach parking lot and the Coon St. Signal. On Hwy. 28, Downtown Kings Beach. Overlooking beautiful Lake Tahoe. Fairs are free to the public and open 10am to 5pm.

August 28, 29, & 30 - Beth Weber's arts and crafts fair. Located at the Kings Beach Plaza between the State Beach parking lot and the Coon St. Signal. On Hwy. 28, Downtown Kings Beach. Overlooking beautiful Lake Tahoe. Fairs are free to the public and open 10am to 5pm.

Tahoe ARTour 2009

Come explore the backstreets of the North Lake Tahoe / Truckee art world! The 16th annual Tahoe ARTour offers free self-guided tours of 31 art studios in the region. The juried open studio tour is a chance to meet individual artists and view or buy original art. This popular cultural event is sponsored by North Tahoe Arts, who will kick off the event with an artist's reception July 9 from 5-7pm at their gallery in Tahoe City. The ARTour is being held on two consecutive weekends: July 10, 11, 12, and 17, 18, 19, and the artist's studios will be open to the public Friday to Sunday from 10:00am - 5:00pm. This event is free to the public and is a great way to get to see art being created in the North Lake Tahoe and Truckee area. Original pieces are for sale directly from the artists, and artists will be discussing and demonstrating their techniques. A variety of art mediums are featured, including oil, acrylics, watercolor, ceramics, printmaking, photography, glass, woodworking , weaving and wearable art.

All the artists are juried into the Tahoe ARTour to insure the quality of work will be excellent. Seven new artists will be joining 24 returning artists this year to create an exciting new ARTour gallery exhibit at the North Tahoe Art Center at 380 North Lake Blvd. in Tahoe City. The artist's reception on July 9 will be the public's opportunity to meet the artist's in this year's tour and view an example from each of this year's 31 artists. The gallery exhibit will run from July 1 - Aug 2. Call 581-2787 for more information.

Last year, ARTour successfully expanded to include 2 weekends, allowing ARTourists the ability to see more studios and not feel rushed. Geographical areas of the tour include Tahoe City, West Shore, North Shore, King's Beach, Incline, Truckee, Tahoe Donner, and Glenshire. Free ARTour brochures include detailed maps to the studios, photos of each artist's work, and short statements by each artist. In July, the Tahoe ARTour brochures will be distributed through many locations including North Tahoe Arts, 380 North Lake Blvd.,Tahoe City (next to the fire station), the Truckee Donner Chamber of Commerce, (in the train station in downtown Truckee), and at participating art studios. You may also download a brochure with maps online at http://www.northtahoearts.com/artour.php For more information, please call North Tahoe Arts at 530-581-2787.

ALRIGHT!!! Here are all the photos from the Minus 7 Melee contest at Donner Ski Ranch!!! If you participated in this event, e-mail me so I may give you the password to your photo album. Enjoy...


Minus 7 Melee Snowskate Contest 2009


The Minus 7 Melee snowskate contest made it to the local paper. And they used my photo! Check out the article here at the Sierra Sun.

Do you Snowskate? Check out this website: www.Snowskate.tv

Photos from Minus 7 Snowskate contest.

I had a great day Saturday shooting the Minus 7 Snowskate Melee contest at Donner Ski Ranch, CA. Many competitors showed up to race and show off their park skills. Local radio station KTKE showed up to announce the event. The snowskaters there are bringing the sport to a new level. It was a whole lot of fun, even got to ride the course on my snowskate after the melee was over.

Shooting Minus 7 Snowskate contest

A good friend of mine, Kurt Zapata of Minus 7 snowskates, is putting on a snowskate contest at Donner Ski Ranch, Tahoe, on Saturday April 4th. I'll bee shooting the event. Great times to be had by all. http://www.donnerskiranch.com/

What's a snowskate? Check out this youtube vid:

I love my snowskate, but I'm no where near as good as the guys in the vid. They're great for backyard jibbin'.

Scott Thompson's Bio

Scott Thompson, born 1976 in Van Nuys, California, has always had a love of art. His formal training began at Humboldt State University, where he took many drawing and painting courses. Later he moved to San Diego, where he was given an old Olympus OM-1 by his grandfather. Scott decided to take a black and white photography course at Mesa College and was immediately hooked. He started working at a camera store and continued to take courses in photography. Scott has also served time in a 1-hour photo lab, worked as a resort portrait photographer, and has done some band photography while living in L.A.

Currently, Scott is living in Truckee, after moving there April 2002 with his wife and son to live the mountain lifestyle. Living there has allowed nature photography to become his primary art focus. He loves to get out and explore the beauty the Tahoe area has to offer.

Scott Thompson photographs with a variety of cameras and film. With one of his methods, he uses his Canon EOS3 and Fuji Velvia 35mm slide film. His film is processed by a professional lab and sent back to Scott where he takes it to his digital darkroom. This is where Scott becomes what has been called a hybrid photographer. Meaning he mixes traditional shooting with digital printing. Scott scans his film into the computer by using a Canon Canoscan FS4000US run by VueScan software. Next he color corrects the image in Adobe Photoshop to match the original transparency as best as possible.

Scott’s newest method is purely digital. Scott owns and uses a Canon 1DS Mark III, a 21.1 mega pixel digital camera. Even though Scott has mostly gone digital, he still tries to keep a traditional look and feel to his photographs and prints. Scott prints on an Epson Stylus Pro 9600, one of Epson’s 44” wide archival inkjet printers. The paper he uses for his limited edition prints is a fine art, 100% cotton, and acid free paper.

Q&A

I've been a pro photographer now for many years. I used to work at a camera store and at a couple photo labs. If anybody has any questions about equipment, techniques, locations, or anything else photography related, please ask.

I currently own a Canon 1DS Mark III, Canon Eos3, Olypus OM-1, Epson 2200, Epson 9600, Canon Canoscan FS-4000US, CH Advantage Pro mat cutter and a whole lot more.

Scott Shots Photography Services

Scott Shots Photography provides fine art photography and photography services.

Fine art Photography- I can help people, businesses or art galleries with blank walls. My large fine art photography prints can help fill in your blanks.

Real Estate Photography- I can help Realtors, rental property owners and home owners who need high quality real estate or architectural photography. Let me capture your home in its best light.

Advertising/Commercial Photography- I can help businesses with advertising, commercial or stock photography needs. Weather it's for a billboard, magazine ad, or website, I can provide you with a picture that is worth a thousand words.

Family Photography- I can help families in Truckee, North Tahoe, and Reno who desire large family photographs in a location of your choice. Why use a studio when our backyard is the perfect backdrop.

Custom Printing- I can help other photographers with fine art quality printing needs. Get your work off the computer and onto the wall.