Local Resident Scott Utley Finds Joy In Photography By Writer and Contributor Emily McGinn
Scott Utley has always liked taking pictures. But it wasn’t until he shattered both his heels at work 22 years ago that he embraced his passion. Unable to work, he went out, bought a camera and since then, he has just kept taking pictures.
“It just became something I did all the time, and it grew from there,” Utley says. “I've never made any money on it — it’s just something I like to do.”
Like most photographers, he started out with a simple point-and-shoot camera. From there, he taught himself through practice.
"[The key] is basically taking a lot of pictures, and for every 500 pictures, you might get one really good picture, and then it just takes a lot of patience,” Utley says. “Learning came pretty easy to me because I understood the lighting and how the camera worked.”
Utley focuses largely on landscape photography, exploring the coasts of Long Beach and Palos Verdes. A Torrance native, he finds inspiration in the California coastline — one of his favorite subjects to photograph. He enjoys sharing his best photos on social media, including his Facebook page.
In addition to coastline photography, Utley enjoys astrophotography because taking photographs at night presents new ways to play with lighting. Lighting plays a major role in all of Utley’s photographs, from his coastline shots to snaps of the sunset. He takes advantage of golden hour (before sunset) and blue hour (after sunset) to add nuance and various hues to his shots, and he likes to pull natural elements into the mix for added dimension.
“I like clouds,” Utley says. “Clouds can make great photographs. After a storm, you could take long-exposure pictures and the clouds streak across the sky. There's a lot of things that come into play.”
Utley recalls taking photos during the winter storms last year as a particular highlight for him. Traveling up and down the coast, he took pictures of the high surfs coming in with the storms, which deepened his passion for ocean photography.
“It's just getting out there with nature, really,” Utley says. “It makes me feel like I can just calm down, get away from everything else and just be in total silence. It keeps a smile on my face. I just like being out there in my own little world, just taking pictures.”
Utley has experienced situations where he has lost photos because of hard drives failing, or where he does not get the shot he wants. But he says it does not deter him — he just keeps going.
“It's not the end of the world. There'll always be another picture there, and you'll always be surprised by the next picture,” Utley says. “I've taken millions of pictures, but there's always just one out of thousands that pops out to you and makes your whole day and makes it all better.”
For Utley, photography is a form of connection for him. He describes photography as a way to make him “feel like [he is] part of the world.”
“It's been a fun journey. I just enjoy it so much,” Utley says. “I wish I could do more. I wish I had more space on my computers to take more pictures.”
Check out Utley’s work here.
Bio:
Emily McGinn is a journalist based in the Los Angeles area. She enjoys reporting on and writing about a variety of topics from lifestyle to news, especially in her areas of specialty, environmental science and political science.