SHOOT TO THRILL
Sean Scott couldn’t ask for a better job — travelling the world taking photos of the locations from your dream holidays
Renowned photographer Sean Scott has forged a reputation for producing stunning images at exotic locations few others have the privilege of ever getting to. You name it, he has been there. But after 17 years travelling to remote countries, the father of three still harbours a desire to do more.
He yearns to take photos of polar bears in the northern part of Canada, return to the Maldives to shoot surfing competitions, visit the Cook Islands, and explore more of New Zealand and the Arctic Circle.
The Tourism Australia Ambassador started taking photos after a road trip to Tasmania with his girlfriend, now wife, Fiona.
While making a living climbing power poles for Energex and selling his photos at markets on the Gold Coast, Scott dreamt of showcasing the most beautiful and incredible places in the world.
Nearly two decades on, he is doing it.
“I couldn’t ask for a better job,” Scott says. “Every day is different.”
The 42-year-old’s photographs of wildlife, glaciers, the Northern Lights, Ayers Rock, surfing legends, sunsets and sunrises, and tropical islands are seen by hundreds of thousands of people the world over.
He has 226,000 followers on Instagram and 103,862 likes on Facebook.
Scott opened his first gallery in Burleigh 13 years ago but really took off with the advancement in technology and social media.
“It is a tricky world (online),” he says. “If you genuinely love photography then it is great but it doesn’t guarantee you success.
“It takes hard work to make it in the industry.
“But some people do really well online.”
Scott says coming up with new ideas and ways to shoot subjects and landscapes becomes more and more difficult because of the overwhelming amount of images being uploaded to Instagram and Facebook daily.
Every time the father of three grabs his camera he blocks out all the images he has been bombarded with and tries to look at a scene or animal with fresh eyes.
“I try to be open minded and take original and creative shots,” Scott says.
“It sometimes gets confusing when you visit a place you have seen photographed already – you don’t want to copy anyone – so I let my own creativity take over.
“In the past it was frowned upon to take a photograph that looked like someone else’s but now it is almost impossible not to.”
He says while he has never been too concerned with people “copying” his ideas, a lot of people in the global photographic community were increasingly frustrated by it.