Today we’d like to introduce you to Scott Brumbaugh.
Hi Scott, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Every picture is said to “tell a thousand words”, but I believe that those words should tell a better story. That is kind of where mine begins. I was an outdoors and landscape photographer who lost his gas money and had to reinvent himself as a portrait artist. I started out with limited skills and no experience with flash photography. I jumped into the TFP (Trade For Pictures) communities and gained access to models, but with no portfolio there was nothing to entice them to choose to work with me. So, I fell back onto my personal philosophy of never competing if I cannot win. My competition had education and much better gear on their side, so I could not “outshoot” them. I chose to chase creativity instead. Most of what I was seeing was stagnant fashion shoots that all looked similar if not the same. Dramatic, outside the box portraits with a deliberate backstory became my goal. Mainstream photography’s story told, “The model was very pretty.” So, mine had to say, “She came from a dramatic past, and she is not only surviving but is soon to take over the world.” Through the process, my skills improved slowly based on the philosophy of identify and destroy the cause of failure. I would wallow in my shortcomings and humiliation for a while, then research the solution to the specific way that I failed that time. The next shoot would have a whole new failure to research and eliminate. The key was to not get stuck and bitter but to identify one thing that I needed to change. Tip – if you are very very specific, YouTube is a great learning tool, but you must be specific. So, through it I developed my own style, lighting, and angles. Slowly my art became recognizable, and my marketability increased. I still refuse to compete with teen fashion photographers because, honestly, I would get slaughtered in their world. Instead, I choose my path of backstories and dramatic possibilities.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
If you are going to choose a path outside the mainstream, stick to it. Every time I try mainstream concepts, it is a struggle because this is art not mechanics, and mainstream themes do not come natural to me. I’ve heard it said that if all things are equal (our skills), the only thing that we can truly market are our eccentricities. I have run with that theory as best I can. It would be much easier to do sessions with kids in vintage trucks, but that is not me. Kid on a tank, maybe.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Portrait photographer who specializes in dramatic, story-based portraits.
What makes you happy?
The ability to give someone something they could never provide themselves. When they get to see themselves as that heroin or survivor of disaster who will never bow, or when they get to see themselves in that adventure that they love to do, but now they are the outsider seeing how amazing it can be. I find happiness and fulfillment in their pride.
Contact Info:
- Email: BoomyOutdoors@gmail.com
- Website: BoomyOutdoors.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/othersideofboomy
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BoomyOutdoors
Image Credits:
Scott Brumbaugh
