The Dead Pixels Society podcast
News, information and interviews about the photo/imaging business. This is a weekly audio podcast hosted by Gary Pageau, editor of the Dead Pixels Society news site and community.
This podcast is for a business-to-business audience of entrepreneurs and companies in the photo/imaging retail, online, wholesale, mobile, and camera hardware/accessory industries.
If you are interested in being a guest on the podcast, email host Gary Pageau at gary@thedeadpixelssociety.com. For more information and to sign up for the free weekly newsletter, visit www.thedeadpixelssociety.com.
The Dead Pixels Society podcast
From Motorsport to Nature Photography and Beyond, with Scott Bourne
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Prepare to be inspired by the legendary Scott Bourne as he takes us on an extraordinary journey through his illustrious five-decade career in photography. From his serendipitous beginnings at the Indianapolis 500 to becoming a revered figure in outdoor nature and bird photography, Bourne's story is one of passion, adaptability, and relentless pursuit of excellence. Discover how a chance encounter and a borrowed camera set the stage for a groundbreaking career, leading to influential roles such as being an Olympus visionary and launching the pioneering Photofocus.com.
Bourne opens up about the gritty realities and rewarding moments of his multifaceted career. He shares invaluable insights on transitioning from motorsport to wedding and portrait photography, underscoring the importance of flexibility and hard work. Learn about his innovative strategies for monetizing niche markets, particularly in eagle photography, and how he navigated the seismic shift from analog to digital technologies. Bourne's anecdotes, from securing a gold badge pass to capturing a career-defining crash photo, illustrate the blend of luck and determination that fueled his success.
In this episode, Bourne and host, Gary Pageau, also explore the broader photography landscape, touching on the experiences at expos, the nostalgic resurgence of film photography, and the evolving camera designs that cater to modern photographers' tactile preferences.
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Hosted and produced by Gary Pageau
Edited by Olivia Pageau
Announcer: Erin Manning
Welcome to the Dead Pixel Society podcast, the photo imaging industry's leading news source. Here's your host, Gary Pegeau. The Dead Pixel Society podcast is brought to you by Mediaclip, Advertek Printing and Independent Photo Imagers.
Gary Pageau:Hello again and welcome to the Dead Pixels Society podcast. Today we're joined by the dean of Marketing, education and Sales in the professional photography world, Scott Bourne. Scott, it's a pleasure to have you. I've known you for I don't know how many years and it's just great to see you out and about.
Scott Bourne:Hey, it's great to be on. I just want to make sure I'm in the right place, because I'm not dead yet.
Gary Pageau:Well, no, we're not. No, it's true, and it is more. There's a story behind that which I'll get to another day. But for those 12 people who have no idea who Scott Bourne is, can you give a little recap of your first 70 years on this earth?
Scott Bourne:Well, I've been a professional photographer for 50 years.
Gary Pageau:Right.
Scott Bourne:Got started in photographing motorsports. Did that for six years because I grew in photographing motorsports. Did that for six years because I grew up in Indianapolis. That was just sheer luck. Then I did the wedding and portrait thing until I realized I don't want to be yelled at by bridezillas Sold my wedding studio Did pretty well. Then I went into doing outdoor nature photography because, frankly, I made quite a bit of money on the studio so I didn't really have to make a lot of money on my photography, but I ended up getting pretty good at it. And then I started narrowing it down from nature to wildlife, to birds, and then I started to make as much money again and so I finished the last 25 years of my career as a bird photographer and so I finished the last 25 years of my career as a bird photographer and I had the high honor and privilege of spending five years as an Olympus visionary.
Scott Bourne:Very few people get asked to rep a major camera company and I appreciate that I did leave when they sold the company to JIP and the pandemic. It kind of blew everything up. Right right right, I've worked with a lot of people. You know my friend Skip, my friend Scott Kelby. I've, you know, spoken at every major photo conference in the world. I've got 14 books.
Gary Pageau:I don't know. You know just a lot of stuff. I mean in the website world. You were early in that. You started one of the photo websites in 1998.
Scott Bourne:Yeah, I started photofocuscom on November 2nd 1998. They didn't even have RSS yet. There were no podcasts yet, so you couldn't syndicate anything. We called it an online magazine. Right, right, right. And every camera company actually got on board with us, except Sony. They refused to acknowledge the Internet. I thought that was always phony and they said you won't be around long. And here we are, 25 years later, still in publication folks.
Gary Pageau:Yeah, I was going to say Photo Focus is still around Now. You're not directly engaged with it.
Scott Bourne:No, I sold the company several years ago to my friend who became on as a business partner after I started it. Richard Harrington Rich has been around the circuit. He's mostly known for his video work. He runs the video conference at NAB. He's done a lot of training for Adobe and Apple.
Scott Bourne:He's done some work with Milio now isn't? He Works with Milio, works with Fuji. He worked for me at Skylum when I took over at Skylum for a couple years making Luminar. So, yeah, he took over Photofocus. It's still in publication. Our staff has been as big as 25 people and it at one time was a multi-million dollar operation.
Scott Bourne:So, yeah, I started that. Then I started Twip with my friend, alex Lindsay and Ron Brinkman Most people don't know him, he was a big shot at Apple at the time and we started this Week in Photo, for which for some reason Frederick Van Johnson gets credit for, although he was not on the show for the first year, so I don't know how he gets credit for starting it. But anyway, fred came on later. I did that. But then we kind of got to a deal where I wanted to make Photo Focus a podcast and Alex and those guys didn't really want to give up Twip. So we were at Twip with my friend Leo Laporte this Week in Tech and so I just started a brand new podcast for Photo Focus and said my goodbye to this Week in Photo. But yeah, I started that one and then I started the Photo Focus podcast and then I started.
Scott Bourne:We Shoot Mirrorless with Marco LaRusse for Fuji.
Scott Bourne:I've done a bunch of them. You know I'm sort of like a bad penny. You can't get rid of me. Look around, you'll find me. I've done as best I can to be everywhere, because that's what it takes in business to succeed.
Gary Pageau:Well, I was going to ask you a little bit about that, because some would say you know with your variety of interests, right, I mean you've had. Say you know with your variety of interests, right, I mean you've had, you know, obviously, a working photographer, you know that's a big piece of it then. Then you shift focus to you know ornithology, if you will, photography, right, bird photography and then you become a software executive, you become a publisher, you do all these things. Uh, what was the thing that made you realize you could do all these things? What do you think was your central skill?
Scott Bourne:Oh, this is so easy to answer. I'm just too stupid to know I can fail. I'm the guy who's like, yeah, I can do that. And I'm never someone who listens to people say, well, no, you can't, Right, Because I, when I started it out, people say you can't make a living as a motorsports photographer. That's a dream job. You think you're going to travel around with you know Formula One race car drivers and IndyCar drivers and meet pretty girls and get paid to use your camera. And I was like, yeah, I think I can. And I did for six years and then later on, when I started as a bird photographer, you can't make a living as a bird photographer. After three Porsches, two Ferraris and a couple of Lambos, I think I proved that you can. So I'm just a guy that's too stupid to know I can fail.
Scott Bourne:I asked the prom queen out to the high school dance and I was not the guy that she was supposed to go out with. Trust me, and she said yes, turned out. Nobody else asked her. So I think, people that are now in the business, the lesson you can take from my success what limited success I've had is that just work your your butt off because I get up at 0430 Revoli every morning, still, even though I'm retired. You know the day starts for me at 430. You make calls, you touch base, you try to get your work everywhere, you try to talk to everybody. You know you want to have three or four social media touches a day. You want to get involved, go to all the conventions. That's just what it takes to survive, survive. And now that we don't have the conventions, there's a lot of people think I'm dead because they don't see me anymore.
Scott Bourne:you know they could always say scott will be over at that booth or whatever and, and it's true, it's really taken a big hole out of a lot of us old guys uh, footprints, and that's why I decided to retire, because I I don't. You know, the world is now designed for guys with man buns, wearing you know the kind of clothes that I guess you'd call them plaid clothes, with work boots and standing on mountaintops looking over a scene in Norway and that's an influencer, I guess. And they have a great YouTube channel. I don't know that any of them have actually made a living as a photographer Some of them might have, but you know they look like lumberjacks. They've never been in a forest. I get suspicious. Anyway, I'm just a fat, ugly old man who's done the job for 50 years. Nobody cares about that anymore. So I think, listen, you know, everything is designed around this system of the old guys. Move on, the young guys, women come up. I think it's great. You know, the old trees have to fall in the forest so the young trees can get some sunlight.
Scott Bourne:I had my day, you know. I had my day in the sun. I'm trying to spend my last few years doing whatever I can to help those people grow, because I figure I was lucky enough to get a few minutes on the throne. Now I'm going to help somebody else get up there. It's been a great life. I've lived a life, gary, so much better than I deserved, so much better than I ever thought I would get. And it's all just because I worked at it and put myself out there and never took no for an answer. And I guess another version of this is I never asked anybody for permission.
Gary Pageau:Right, so let's talk a little bit about the beginnings. Of 50 years ago, you said you started in indiana. So what? What made you pick up a camera versus, you know, picking up a microphone?
Scott Bourne:I did that too, picking up a bass guitar I did that too I just it just centralized that I was best at photography of all the things I was interested. I did work at a radio station as a DJ as a kid to put myself through school and I have been a lifelong musician. But I couldn't make money at those things. Really, it's just basically luck. I grew up in Indianapolis, not far from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Everybody knows the Indianapolis 500, the greatest spectacle in racing.
Scott Bourne:My half-sister was married to a guy who was the editor of the Bloomington Herald Tribune, the second largest newspaper in Indiana, but not a big budget there and he got an all access pass to the race and said, hey, I know you got a camera, scott, you want to go down there and take some pictures. I can't pay you, but you can use the pass and if we do run a picture I can give you 25 bucks. And I was pictures. I can't pay you, but you can use the pass and if we do run a picture I can give you 25 bucks. And I was like, heck, yeah, for 25 bucks I'll go. And I had gotten a camera from an old photo journalist from the indianapolis star guy named jack russell. Uh, because I was dating his daughter, jackie, and I knew that he was a serious photographer and I'd played with my brownie and stuff and I thought you know it'd be cool. He goes well here. Well, here I got this old Nikon FTN, you can just have it. Little did he know that I used that camera to take pictures of his daughter in a way he probably would prefer. But anyway, that was really my interest in cameras, frankly, jackie Russell. But I thought what the heck, I like race cars, I'll go shoot the race. So I got this badge they used to give you a badge instead of a big credential and I had the gold badge which meant I could go over the wall. So it's in nowadays in racing parliaments that's called an over the wall pass. They don't give out many of those, so I could go anywhere on the track.
Scott Bourne:And so I'm walking through gasoline alley with my little Nikon FTN and a 50 millimeter lens and one roll of Tri-X, because that's how much I could afford. And I'm thinking, yeah, take a few pictures, see what happens. And as I'm walking I walk past an icon. You know, all the big companies have boosts there to support their photographers. The guy sees the gold lapel pin, he goes hey, I see you got an icon there. Do you want to try out some of the new camera stuff? And I'm like sure, and he hands me an f1 with the first motor drive, which was like one and a half frames, a second now. I thought, man, this is cool and this is crazy millimeter f4 lens.
Scott Bourne:I'd never seen a long lens like that. I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but my whole life is spent just saying yes to everything and figuring it out. So I took it. I went a little bit further and a guy from associated press had a booth. He goes I see you got a gold lapel pin. Who are you shooting for? I said Bloomington Herald Tribune. He goes you want a string for us? Now, gary, I didn't know what it meant to be a stringer, but I said yes anyway.
Scott Bourne:And he slaps this AP armband on me, gives me a number, hands me this ginormous bag of film with the same number and it's full of Tri-X. Same number and it's full of tri-X. He says just run these rolls of film through your camera, stick them in the empty bag. A runner will come by every 15, 20 minutes, pick them up and we'll take them upstairs, develop them. If we use any of your stuff, you'll get paid. I'm like, great.
Scott Bourne:So I was going to go out there and back then you could stand really close to the track, nowhere close to where you can. Now you'd be way back. And I go out there and some old grizzly guy who's been doing this all his life sees me goes kind of new at this, aren't you kid? And I'm like, yes, sir, I got no idea what I'm doing. He goes tell you what. Just stand next to me.
Scott Bourne:Every car that goes by, just pan with it, press the shutter button until you run out of film, take it in that bag, just keep doing that all day and you'll be fine. So that's what I did. I had no clue and tom sneva was nice enough to crash his car right in front of me at the short shoot of the second turn and the engine whizzed by my head and I got this great shot and it ended up running on the front page of every sports page in the united states. And I got a check for three thousand, I think, in fifty dollars, which was enough to buy a camaro back then. And I said wow, that was.
Gary Pageau:Don't see what year was that? That was 70 something Anyway, wow.
Scott Bourne:So that was a lot of money, dude. It was all the money in the world. I didn't know that much money existed. I was like I'm going to be a professional photographer. So actually I met some people through that and I got a job at Hemings Motorsports news which doesn't exist now and they paid me a grand sum of $52.50 each and every week to be a traveling photographer for them to cover the races. Now you may not realize this, but even back then 52.50 wasn't a lot of money and I ended up sleeping in a lot of race vans and eating at a lot of race buffets and, thank God, those people took good care of me and loved me and took me around, took me around and I did that for six years and never got a raise. So I figured either A I suck at this or B this isn't much of a perfection, because I need more money and that's when I started doing the wedding and portrait stuff, so I left. It was hard to leave all the stuff that came with it, but I needed more money.
Gary Pageau:And then you did the studio. How long before you sold it?
Scott Bourne:Six years. I went to Arkansas, of all places, because a guy had a job opening. He says I'll train you how to make portraits with a Hasselblad. I didn't know what a Hasselblad was but I said, sure, I'll go. And he paid minimum wage, which I think back then was a buck 25 an hour. So I ended up getting a raise. Actually I I think I was making 65 bucks a week with him and he shot me. He told me how to use a Hasselblad 500 series camera and 80 millimeter lens and how to set the lights, and I did that every day, six days a week for six months and figured it out. Okay, I understand it. And occasionally he'd say, no, this is broad lighting, this is short lighting, and stuff that people don't learn anymore. So I actually got lucky to learn that. So I went and started my own studio and one thing led to another. Next thing I know is booking 50 weddings. You know a year, but again at the end of six years of that I was actually making a lot of money but I hated it. And mothers and mothers-in-law versions one, two and three. Sometimes you know, you got three different ex-wives telling you what to do. You know, and I'm like I'm not even married to any of you people and you're telling me what to do. It just it was. It was fun for a minute.
Scott Bourne:I made good money, sold the studio to my assistant, made enough money to just sort of decide what do you really want to do? And I want to go out and do a nature photographer. I ended up meeting a guy named bill fortney. I don't know if you ever met bill. He's with nikon for many years. He had a company called great american photography weekend. Um, he now is a fuji guy, but, uh, he hired me to teach some workshops. I worked with david middleton and, uh, john shaw and bob christ and you know a whole bunch of old names that people won't recognize. Franz Lantig I got to be with someone.
Scott Bourne:In other words, I got to work with the best photographers in the world and amongst them I was the very least. So it was like my dad always said buy the cheapest house in a nice neighborhood, that's how you'll make money. So I was like the least photographer amongst all these greats and I just soaked it all up, baby, and I learned and I actually started to get good. It took me a while then. Uh, then the internet came along and I had an immediate interest in that, poured myself into it and started the first website for photography, photo. Well, second, I think, photocom, and started phil askey had started that a few months before me, but I was right behind him and um, so I did that. And then the next thing you know I think it was Adobe was the first sponsor they called me and said we'd like to sponsor your website. And, of course, gary, at the time I just did it because I was doing it, I didn't really have a plan, and they said they said how much are you going to charge for an ad.
Scott Bourne:I was like I don't know how much you want to pay me. They said it's five thousand a month.
Gary Pageau:Good, I said, yeah, I'll take Apple that and Microsoft.
Scott Bourne:Thing I know a couple other people apple called, microsoft called I'm making 25 grand a month. I'm like, wait a minute, I don't have to pick up a camera, I'm making 25 grand a month just writing about picking up a camera, so that that sort of started a whole new chapter in my life. One thing led to another and I got an old saying I'd rather be lucky than good any day. And I was a little bit lucky, but I was willing to take the chance.
Gary Pageau:Well, that was the thing is. I mean, when you look at the things you've done, you've taken advantage of a lot of opportunities right, which are probably outside of your comfort zone.
Scott Bourne:Yeah Well, one of the first rules in the world is, if somebody says, would you like your check now, would you like me to pay you now, you always just say yes, right. So everything that's happened to me has just mostly been luck and my willingness to put myself out there and work hard. I mean, making stuff, gary, is really the core of what makes me tick. I got to make stuff. Even in retirement. I got to make stuff.
Scott Bourne:I'm not a guy that's going to sit in front of the TV. I've had some of the nicest TVs you can buy and it just dawned on me that only starting with the pandemic did I ever sit down and really watch them, because I was always too busy. The only thing I ever watched on TV was like Seahawks. But I had these like million-dollar TVs, great systems I'd pay guys to set up and then never turned them on. But now I watch TV because I'm retired but I have to make stuff. So my idea is just go out and make something all day, every day, as many things as you can. Productizing photography is where, frankly, a lot of photographers fall down on the job and I got to say, a lot of manufacturers fall down on the job.
Gary Pageau:What do you mean by productizing? Okay?
Scott Bourne:So you've got this ability to create imagery using all these fantastic tools. But I'll just make this as kind of a Zig Ziglar business lesson. I'll just go real quick, if you don't mind. It's like all right. If I walk up to you and you say what kind of business you in, and I say I'm a printer, immediately what happens is you have big question mark forms on your brain because you're not exactly sure what that means. But if I say, gary, I make business cards, you're like oh, I use business cards.
Scott Bourne:You know what that is. So one thing is a printer. One thing that makes business cards the product from being a printer is the thing that people buy, not the thing that you do. So I'm a photographer, question mark. You know. You have to productize that. Okay, I make calendars, greeting cards, uh, posters I. I shoot weddings, I create advertising materials, I do photography for business identity. You have to productize it. You have to make products that people care about and that, frankly, they need, because you know it's like hi, hire me because I have this camera. It doesn't work. It's like hire me because I can help your business grow with these fantastic images.
Scott Bourne:One of the things I'm known for is I specialize in taking pictures of bald eagles. So in order to monetize and productize that, I hired a smile and dial operation, what we call a telephone soliciting company. My friend Dave ran one and we bought list every business in North America that had the name Eagle in it. It turns out there's like 70,000 businesses with the name Eagle in it, like Goodyear, tire, eagle and Rubber, thousand businesses with the name eagle in it, you know, like good year, tire, eagle and rubber. So they would call all those places like seven times a year, each one, and say hi, I represent one of the world's leading eagle photographers and I noticed you have the name eagle in your company. Uh, you know, the guy that I work with can create some of the best eagle images you've ever seen. They might help you grow your business. Can I schedule a time for him to meet with your creative department? With Tuesday or Thursday work, that's a 10-second pitch and on the strength of that, we generated seven-figure income just on the eagle pictures. So you got to have a product Now where the manufacturers have fallen down.
Scott Bourne:In my opinion CIPA the reason that the camera companies have gotten their butt kicked for a long time, the last two years is they didn't see the effects of instagram and the iphone on their business. They refused to because, frankly, some of them are a little arrogant and they thought you know, we've been doing it this way for 70 years 50, I mean. You know. Look at companies that have been in business for like 100 years. We're fine, we don't need your advice, we're okay, we're fine. Well, they're not fine.
Scott Bourne:Look at the SEPA data. The numbers are like people don't buy cameras because they buy these and they certainly don't buy printers because it all goes on Instagram and I started talking to these companies 15 years ago. Nobody listened to me. I was like folks number one if you sell a camera, it ought to be bundled with a printer. There's no exceptions. It ought to be bundled with a printer because it ain't a photo till. It's a print in my mind and and because I'm old, before the internet existed, digital existed. To us, the print was the backup. Know, we didn't have a backup hard drive because there were no hard drives.
Scott Bourne:I try to teach this to kids.
Scott Bourne:They're like well, could you have used a zip drive? And I'm like there were no computers, no, they keep going. Could you have loaded it to the cloud? There was no such thing as the cloud, there was no such thing as the air. It takes about 10 minutes for them to grok the fact that there was this whole analog world before they were born, where, you know, the wall had the phone on it and their cord and that was it. You know, I did just fine in that world. By the way, I kind of missed that world. It was pretty easy to navigate.
Gary Pageau:Well, there was the thing called the copy negative.
Scott Bourne:Yeah, yeah, I did all that stuff.
Gary Pageau:That was the copy.
Scott Bourne:So, with all that in mind, I thought to myself these printers aren't going to sell because they're not. Everybody's going online with their images. The camera companies and the printer companies sometimes they are the same. They need to match up and say we're going to do a bundle deal. And when they ignored Instagram and its impact, we saw the entire point-and-shoot market just disappear, I mean just overnight, because they're not selling against these. So right now, if I were Leica, for instance a perfect example or Fuji Now Fuji doesn't need to sell their rangefinder cameras because they won't be able to ever fulfill the current orders. I think they're three to four years backlog.
Scott Bourne:But let's pick somebody that's got a new product, like has the new D-Lux 8. Okay, that's actually smaller than this iPhone and it takes way better pictures. I mean way better. It costs less than this iPhone with tax. And Apple Care was $2,300. This is the top of my iPhone, that thing's $1,500. Apple Care was $2,300. This is the top of my iPhone, that thing's $1,500. So you could put $800 in your pocket, go on a trip and take your D Lux with you.
Scott Bourne:I would be selling against these if I was like it. I'd say don't buy that, buy this. You want real good pictures. A lot of people upgrade for the camera. Well, buy the cheapest phone you can that you can talk and text on, and buy a nice camera, Go out and have fun.
Scott Bourne:But see nobody's doing that marketing and they're getting their butts kicked and they're not going to listen to somebody like me, but they should. It's as simple as that. And there's also not enough since the pandemic and it's reasonable to understand why that happened. But back in the old days, for instance, smugmug used to have meetups. I used to lead some of them for them. You know we had 300 people come to one I led. In Las Vegas. My friend Rich Arrington talked and it was great. That kind of community-driven thing isn't happening anymore and the lack of it is really hurting the hardware and software manufacturers because there's no place other than YouTube for them to hawk their wares. And how many guys wearing a man bun standing on a mountain in Norway looking like they're lumberjacks can we look at and how's that really going to resonate with us?
Gary Pageau:You know it's funny you talk about that because I've talked to like different groups, like in the US. Here there's the PRO group, right, and that's the camera dealers, right. They have their own buying group. A lot of their individual members have classes they do, and some of them actually do like photo safaris and things like that. But there's really no comprehensive program, like you were talking about, where X manufacturer would support the PRO group to do these things.
Scott Bourne:Yeah, well, you're talking 10 or 12 people in a workshop. I used to do workshops, I've done hundreds of them and that it does help. But what I'm talking about like if you're selling equipment that bird photography you know bird photographers might want to buy Well, coming up here in November is probably the biggest event in the West for bird photographers. Bosque del Apache has their usual fly out of sandhill cranes, snow, grease, tens of thousands of these birds migrating from Colorado down to South America along the Rio Grande and what we call the central flyway. They're going to land there, just like they have every year for thousands of years, and hundreds of photographers come there from all over the world every year. In fact, we have a thing called the flight line, which is this one pond near the front of the entrance. There'll be 300 photographers with over $8 million worth of glass there on any given day in November, early December.
Scott Bourne:Why aren't the manufacturers bringing helicopters full of representatives and gear and programming? You know, occasionally olympus would send me and I would do a couple of talks and that was a good effort and it did matter. But I mean, I think they should be scheduling the equivalent of photo uh, expo, you know, at these things so that that we have an incredible, like big concoffiny of sound and visuals and like, let's make this a big event because that's an opportunity where the people who buy the product and these are people who have the money to buy the product are standing there. They just need to be spoken to and while they're there, they're out in this beautiful nature. They're not watching those YouTube videos. They couldn't give a rip, you know. They're standing in front of some of those beautiful scenery in the world waiting for the birds to take off, and when they do, they take off by the tens of thousands of these giant flocks. They're not going to give that up to watch a YouTube video.
Scott Bourne:And you've been an advisor to several hardware companies right, and they pay me big money and never listen to me. It's just….
Gary Pageau:So we'll use that. I mean, I guess the question is is it because you know the margins on this stuff are so tight?
Scott Bourne:I think that's part of it. I'll just be. I mean, listen, I think Olympus during the five years almost five years I was a visionary. They did a pretty good job. They sent me around to a lot of these expos and but I'm one guy and you know they'd send one other, their field tech rep, and they'd send and it was good and we we helped sell a lot of cameras and Gary from Hunt's Photo was usually at a lot of these things, cause he's pretty, he's one of the more visionary photography stores.
Scott Bourne:He would go to these things and make relationships. Gary's a great guy to deal with because he understands the value of a relationship. Still, he sells relationships. They don't have a big web presence. They kind of almost discourage. It's like you know, no, no, call me, just call me and tell me what you want. I will help you get the best price, I'll help you get the best gear and they do that really well and so he would follow me around and a lot of these things and that was pretty good.
Scott Bourne:But frankly, there were a few other camera manufacturers would show up for a week, but Boleskate goes on for six weeks and they ought to be there all six weeks. I mean they should have every division binoculars, cameras, lenses and they should have lots of people there, because they can't buy the kind of advertising online that they would get at that event. There's another one at McGee Marsh in Ohio. You know the big week. It's a big giant migration. That place is just a zoo. You know Cape May, new Jersey. Now I'm just picking one vertical here, gary. We've got other verticals that are of interest to wedding, sports, documentary, photojournalism, landscape, and I think the manufacturers need to be out at these places building relationships, because there's going to be a blowback against AI, against YouTube videos, against this impersonalization of our industry, and you already see that the young people are like I want a film camera. Yeah, I want a film camera.
Gary Pageau:That's exactly. I was just at a conference a few weeks ago, the the ipic conference for the independent, and they're. All they were talking about was how much film they were bringing in, because it's all the young people processing film and it's crazy. They don't know what to do with their hearts.
Scott Bourne:Young people think the harder something is to do, the better it is. They'll learn the. I used to collect cars and I'd have a Corvette at a show and some guy would come along. Some young guy would come along and say, yeah, that's real nice, but I miss the old Corvettes. First of all, you weren't born when the old Corvettes were here, because you're like 20. And second of all, I had some of those cars. They got four miles to the gallon of the gallop. They stunk. They really weren't that fast. They took forever to stop. They weren't safe. No, I don't miss those at all. I don't miss them even a little bit.
Scott Bourne:This here is a modern masterpiece, you know. But hey, that's where we're at, because you know what that really is, that nostalgia. It's all about that lack of authenticity, a lack of communication, a lack of family, a lack of togetherness, a lack of belonging. Lack of family, a lack of togetherness, a lack of belonging. These people, everybody wants to belong. Gary, that's the thing you know. After food, sex, sleep, a roof over your head, belonging to something is the next big human deal. That's what everybody craves, and they crave it a lot. And you know that we're seeing something you and I didn't see growing up. When I grew up, nobody talked about being fulfilled in their work. They talked about getting a job and doing what they were told and making it.
Gary Pageau:Yeah, and you're from fulfillment outside of work, yeah $1.25 an hour.
Scott Bourne:take it or leave it and be happy. Now, people, well, I'm not working unless I'm fulfilled. Well, god bless you if you can pull that off. But the fulfillment thing is something that we could deliver as an industry. Still we can't. You mentioned my friend, skip Cohen. Skip, you know, there's a time when there wasn't anybody in the photo industry that didn't know Skip and he and I would walk to the show floor at WPPI. We couldn't go 18 inches before someone would stop us, skip another 18 inches. We were like we always made this plan every year let's walk the floor together. We'd get about three booths and we'd be there eight hours because everyone knew him. That kind of congeniality, that kind of family. I mean some of these people, you know, I knew them like family. I saw them eight or 10 times a year at these conventions and I had more relationship with them than people that lived in my neighborhood.
Scott Bourne:You know we're missing some of these things. I'm not saying I got all the answers, but that's. I think that's the big opportunity right now. Whether or not anybody will execute on it, I don't know. I've been paid six figure sums for this opinion from people and they didn't, they didn't. They kept paying me, but they ignored me. So, my friend, they kept paying me but they ignored me.
Gary Pageau:So, my friend, Well, you know, but it is interesting, you said, because some product categories outside of photography have managed to do that right. You know I do a little trail running, right. So people who make trail running shoes, you know they go to these trail races and they let people try the shoes and they let them and they make fans out of them.
Scott Bourne:Look at bikes, you know e-bike industry took off during the pandemic and you know, um, I'm in the process of moving down to las cruces where I plan to spend my uh, remaining years in new mexico and there's a gigantic bike community there because they have all these trails and all the big industry players have events there and hundreds and hundreds and sometimes thousands of people show up that sense of community and even, to a degree, it's what drives car culture. I used to collect cars and you know you go to the porsche. You know meetup, it's the meetup that's. You know, people sit around, they don't drive their cars, they sit in a saturday at a at a parking lot and talk about their car. It's the camaraderie, it's the fellowship. That's what people crave, gary, it's the fellowship.
Scott Bourne:Now we've tried to do that through things like Twitter and Threads. I see a little bit of it on Threads. I actually met a guy named Dimitri Mack and he's sort of like the mayor of Threads. He was one of the first photographers on there. He's a great kid, lives in Brooklyn, spectacular portrait music photographer, ukrainian resident until he was about six, moved here when he was a little kid, emigrated, became a citizen, spectacular guy. We're chatting on Threads. I flew to Brooklyn to meet him and we spent a couple of days shooting together. It was one of the best experiences of my life, you know, getting to hang out with a guy and he knew the city, took me around, we were having a great time and that's that easy for you to get around.
Scott Bourne:I did have to rent like a little scooter. I use a mobility device because I can't walk very far, because I've had some medical challenges, but he rolled with it and helped me and, oh man, we had so much fun and I got some great, great photography out of it and you know that kind of thing needs to happen on a bigger scale. If we could do that, we can save our industry.
Gary Pageau:if we can't, we're all gonna we're all gonna be looking at more of these things and you know that's gonna be, that's it, it's gonna be that talk a little bit about kind of revolution as a photographer, because I we we reconnected on threads and I was like, hey, sam scott was here in the podcast. I'm watching what you've been doing and you've really taken up street photography yeah, I'm just doing.
Scott Bourne:I'm just doing stuff now. That's stuff I always wanted to do, but I, you know, I I'm a little bit backwards from a lot of people in the industry. I started my first job was as a professional photographer. I mean, like my first job wasn't at Wendy's or, you know, mcdonald's, my first job was as a professional photographer. So I've done this and it was really about chasing Jackie, yeah.
Scott Bourne:But I'm just saying I got paid ever since I was a kid to do this and it's my job. So that's how I bring home the bacon, that's how I pay the rent, that's how I pay for my clothes, my food. When you have that going on, you have to think about what your clients want, not what you want, right? So my clients for the last 25 years have wanted pictures of bald eagles doing spectacular things. I got a call from a guy at a fairly famous television network who said you wouldn't happen to have a picture of a bald eagle carrying a jackrabbit, would you? And because I'm a good salesman, I paused for effect and then said if I did, what would it be worth to you? He goes oh you, jerk, you've got it, don't you? I'm like oh, I got three of them. Now we can talk price. And if you don't like my price you can just call the next guy you know that has a photograph of a bald eagle carrying a jackrabbit up close and personal. So that was what I did.
Scott Bourne:But I've always loved all kinds of photography. So now I'm getting to do stuff because I don't have any pressure of a client. I'm doing a lot of street photography. I've unfortunately been bitten by the Leica bug. I think I have five Leicas now been bitten by the lyca bug. I think I have five lycas now. They just sort of they just sort of like start materializing everywhere and then I buy gadgets for them. Look at this thing, this, this little thing, is from godux. I don't know if that's how you say god, god, godux yeah, is that?
Scott Bourne:how you say look at this, yeah, that light thing. Yeah, look at this, come on, wait, tell me this isn't cool. Yeah, that light thing. Yeah, look at this, come on, wait, tell me this isn't cool. So this thing pops out like an old fashioned flash.
Gary Pageau:Yeah.
Scott Bourne:See, I bought that just because it looks cool. Anyway, it'll work on my Leica though. In any event, I'm having fun with it and I don't. I don't offer up that I have any expertise or skill at it, it's just for fun, and I'm still shooting some birds here and there and I still go out when I can. It's a. It's a big production for me to go out. I am going to try to spend a few hours, not weeks, like I usually do at Bullskay this year, cause I'll be in New Mexico anyway. I try to do all the things I always did, but I'm more interested in, like street portraiture and stuff like that right now, and, you know, if I get an assignment which don't know, those don't come much anymore, thanks to iStock Photo, but if I get an assignment, I'll go ahead and pick up whatever they want me to pick up and go shoot it.
Gary Pageau:Let's focus on a positive. Who do you think is doing it right? I mean, when you mentioned like Leica. Leica is really, I think, as far as a camera manufacturer you know they're not one of the top three in the world but they've really managed to cultivate an audience and a clientele around, not only just the Mystique or the Red Dot and all that, but also the fact they've managed to keep their product very, very current. You know, they have evolved it, they've added different things. I mean, yeah, they've gone kind of weird with the monochrome cameras I don't know how big those are.
Scott Bourne:I got one of those.
Gary Pageau:But when people talk about cameras are dead, I said, well, I mean, look at what Fuji's been able to do, look at what Leica's been able to do, and the fact that a Canon or a Nikon or whatever hasn't been able to create that sort of following, I think is just kind of interesting. It's just, it's a very different approach.
Scott Bourne:I think, like if you want to stay positive, I do think there's a reason I'm buying all these Leicas. I think Leica does get it right. I'll give you an example, Right down to the retail level. First of all, there's no Canon store in New York. There's no Nikon store in New York, but there is a Leica store in New York.
Gary Pageau:There's no Nikon store in New York but there is a Leica store in New York, well, and there used to be a Nikon store in New York, I know.
Scott Bourne:Now they pay rent to B&H. So I'm on my way. This is LSI. We're having a conference in Beverly Hills in October and there's a Leica store there and that's going to be the centerpiece place where we all meet up and then we're going to do three or four day conference. We're going to do some shooting together, have some presentations, look at new gear. It's going to be fun. But the Leica stores do it really well.
Scott Bourne:I went to the new store, the meatpacking district when I was on my trip to New York recently. I got to tell you, gary, it is a masterclass in how to run a photography retail outlet. I mean, you couldn't dial it in. They're not 99% there, they're 100% there. First of all, you walk in, and I had never been in a Leica store. I had no idea what to expect. The cheapest ones are like 6,200 bucks. Are they going to be mad at me? I'm not going to buy a camera.
Scott Bourne:I walked in. It was just a bunch of guys like us, just like normal guys and gals, and they all just love photography. They didn't try to sell me a thing. All they did is welcome me in. I mentioned hey, I've got a Leica Q2 monochrome in my bag. Don't think I stole it. They laughed and we walk in and they're asking me what kind of photography I do. Can I get you a Coke? Whatever? Let me show you around your coke. Whatever, let me show you around. I have a gallery with world. They had elliot erwood there just before I came I'm sad I missed it and they've got a lounge upstairs and the whole thing is there were people there that I thought worked there. They were just photographers hanging out.
Scott Bourne:Now, if you got photographers just hanging out all day and celebrating with you, you must be doing something right. You know they've built this plan culture and their stuff's super expensive. It is, in my opinion, worth it. Not everybody else's opinion. I get it, that's okay. Buy something else. I'm not being paid by them to say this. I'm a consumer of their products. I had really just been blown away by what that experience was like. Either there's some spectacular training going on or it just naturally comes to those people. But from all my friends who've been in a Leica store, similar experience no pressure, nobody's trying to sell you anything. They'll show you the stuff there if you want to know what it's about. But it's like and they're frequently sold out anyway, and they have photo walks there that hundreds of people show up. I mean, I think their last one last week had 300 people show up.
Scott Bourne:And how many of those people do you think, actually had a Leica. They said right up front you don't have to have a Leica, but you can bet that the bug starts crawling up the back of the shirt and pretty soon, it's going to dig into your brainstem, like it did me. And the next thing, you know, you're going to be like I need a Leica, I need another Leica, I need another Leica. Can I have five Leicas? And then just brilliant marketing. I think their sense of community through everything they do, though, is like top notch. They're doing what I used to do as a wedding photographer in terms of qualifying my prospects. Sure, you know, people would call back in those days on the phone, because there was no web, and they'd say how much are your wedding packages? And I'd say, ma'am, we're the most expensive wedding studio in town. You still want to talk to me? I want to go right up front.
Scott Bourne:I'm not a cheap?
Scott Bourne:I'm not. I'm not a bottom feeder that's going to go out after the $500 package. Right, you know I'm looking for a certain client and so are they, and they know their audience and they serve them. And there's beautiful, beautiful, beautiful magazines you can buy from them. They're expensive but they're like seeing photos in print. They remind me of Life and Book Magazine. All the young people listening to your show are immediately going to Google what's Life and Book Magazine? And they have the LSI, which is like a society, a national volunteer organization. I think they're doing it right. I think there's other companies having good financials in certain areas, like Fuji's doing super well in the rangefinder, which another thing I got to say. I'm not going to mention the company because we're going to keep it positive. I went to a company and said let's develop a digital rangefinder camera because this thing is going to it's going to be hot area. They said no, nobody wants one. Fuji sold out in like seconds when they got the new one and they're sold out for three years.
Gary Pageau:Well, I had a former Fuji exec told me. He said if you would have told me five years ago one of our main product lines were going to be instant cameras and high individual rain finders, I would have laughed in your face.
Scott Bourne:Yeah, yeah, this is the problem and I'll just be real honest because I've got a lot of experience. I used to live in Japan and most of the companies are from Japan and then there's a certain arrogance. You know they think they've got it dialed in, they don't really need our opinion on things and they'll hire us and ignore us, I guess. But you know, I'm not saying they're bad people. They make great products and they work hard and I think they're all sincere. I mean, I know at a company like Olympus because I've met a lot of people there those people are very sincere about improving their products. There's a Japanese concept called Kaizen which they believe in, which is always moving forward and improving. A lot of people think Kaizen means software updates, and it can, but it's much more than that.
Scott Bourne:The people that work there are dedicated, they love photography, they love photographers, which is more important and they're doing their best. But there's just. The marketing decisions are not good, and I think there's a little area. And the other thing is Japanese companies are very financially conservative. They are the most fiscally conservative companies in the world. And I think there's a little area. And the other thing is Japanese companies are very financially conservative Right, they are the most fiscally conservative companies in the world.
Scott Bourne:So that's one of the reasons why companies like Fuji, for instance, are backordered because they didn't plan for enough inventory, because they'd rather be caught with short than long. Right, because if there's stuff sitting on the shelf, somebody's getting fired Right, they'd rather have a backorder list that they can manufacture. Another thing for them, though, partly, is just, some of this stuff is hard to get still. People might understand or believe it, but the supply chain basically stopped working for two or three years, and just because it's open now doesn't mean everything's instantly great. We're still like we're still. We're still like we're three. It's like you've got an airplane ticket that's three years old. You've got to use it right, and then you can use this next one well, and then there was, you know, chip shortages, and there's still those boundaries weren't working very well.
Gary Pageau:I mean, all that stuff was, is they're still?
Scott Bourne:catching up on, and some of this, like the real expensive lenses, requires hand labor. Right, yeah, you know, and you can't just go to a factory and say give me all the 60-year-old guys that have 40 years experience, have them, come, stand here and I'm going to train them. There's two of them already and they're working on the line, and why do they move so fast? The other problem, and I'll just be honest, there's there's some ageism there. While these companies are getting rid of their older ambassadors, I've noticed, sure and uh, because they they've been around long, they might need the more money they, you know they may, because they don't have a man bun and can't grow what they're not. They're no longer welcome.
Scott Bourne:They don't have a big youtube channel and in so doing, I think they're missing their market because, to tell you the truth, I see who they're talking to and the people they're talking to buy these. Right. Why are you marketing to people that buy these instead of people like me that buy glass like this? I've never understood it. There's a real disconnect on who they think their audience is. They're like big youtube numbers prove we're in the right place. Big youtube numbers full of people that are cat owners are never going to buy dogs.
Gary Pageau:Right, yeah, exactly.
Scott Bourne:You don't submit your photo of a dog to Cat Fancy Magazine. It's not going to sell, so the audience has to be right. I know they're all doing their best. I really I don't think any of this is what they're doing. What?
Gary Pageau:they think is best based on what they're being told as a market and that's one of the things I talk about, you know, when I talk to marketing with people is the whole world is not your market and it's best to know who your market is, who your ideal customers, and just attack them and what will happen is that will spread, that'll widen, right. Like you said, you know, Leica does photo walks and other people will come to photo walks and they'll experience Now, they may not have been the Leica target customer this year, but maybe in a year or two, once they've been exposed they're going to pick up a Leica.
Scott Bourne:Well, mercedes has learned this. I mean, mercedes used to sell real expensive cars. Then they realized, ok, we need to. We need to use those as sort of hero cars to bring people in. They started selling cars in the $40,000 range, which is today not that expensive, and Leica is doing that with the Deluxe. It's a $1,600 camera. It's the cheapest Leica you can buy now, if you don't include the Sofort, which is really just a point-and-shoot Polaroid camera.
Scott Bourne:So they are trying to more or less democratize and get people to come into the funnel and then send them on down to the nicer stuff when they can afford it and once they've completely become part of that brand. But there's just not enough work done in that direction in general in our industry and I don't know we're on the cusp of it being too late for some of these companies to do it. I will say this I didn't have a lot of hope for Nikon and recently what they've done has brought them back and they're doing much better financially and looking at Japanese business structures around a thing called a kirutsu, which is a sort of central bank that owns a bunch of other banks.
Scott Bourne:And it works like a real estate investment trust, sort of a REIT. Everything's invested in each other, so if one goes down they can buoy it back up, and Nikon was on the cusp and Sony ends up owning all these because they're their own period suit. Their influence is unfortunately too big in my opinion, because they can control too much of what happens with sensors and all that. But one of the big problems is Americansicans are thirst for cheap stuff has helped put us in this conundrum.
Scott Bourne:There's a company in boise, idaho, called micron technologies. They make the same chips that they make in china. They just cost a lot more because they're made in america. But guess what? You can get them right. So what's a more expensive chip that you can get or a cheap chip that you're going to wait three years for? Right? You know, there needs to be some rebalancing of how this stuff works. There are some boutique companies making, for instance, tripods in America, making some gear in America that they can sell in there, and they recognize we're not going to be the mass market leader, but we can make a profit and serve our audience at this level and that's what people should do.
Gary Pageau:Just to go back to what you were saying, with Nikon you kind of didn't finish what you were saying about it because you got into the Kiriatsu thing. What was the thing you wanted to say about them?
Scott Bourne:Well, they came out with some cameras that are more like retro ZF. I bought one and it's an incredible camera for the money, and you know their. Their past approach was a little bit trying to be like Leica. We got the high end stuff and you know all that. I just all you have to do is look at their sales over the last 10 years. I mean, it's like a hockey stick going the wrong way.
Gary Pageau:Well, I always felt that and again I'm not like a super hardware guy, right, but you know, I always felt that and again I'm not like a super hardware guy, right. But I always felt that the camera manufacturers kind of went down a path where they're like get rid of knobs, get rid of dials, get rid of things like that and just touch screen and all that, and you're really losing the part of what people, when they use a camera, they like the knobs, they like the levers, they like the buttons. That whole tactile experience actually sets you apart from the iPhone and the other things.
Scott Bourne:And they're starting to go back that way. I mean, if you look at what appeals to people with Leicas, for instance, I have a Leica SL, which is their mirrorless camera it doesn't have a ton of menus. It has some good buttons and there's not a bunch of those, but it's like ton of menus. It has some good buttons and there's not a bunch of those, but it's like the simplify the things that I grew up with. A camera we need to be able to turn the aperture ring, we need to set the iso or the asa back then, with film, we need to be able to shut the set the shutter and I want those controls. So one of the things that appealed to me about the x100 series and I purchased every single one of them that's come out is that you had those controls. The Fuji X100 had an aperture ring and it had a shutter dial, and these are the things that I crave as an old guy. But, like with my Leica Q, here's a perfect example you buy that camera because of the lens.
Scott Bourne:The lens is worth more than the whole camera and I could do hyperfocal distance focusing on it because all the marks are there. Right now. A lot of young people don't even know what hyper focal distance you know zone focusing is about. They never because there's no marks on their lens. But you're right, it was a mistake to go to this all menu driven system and if you look at people's complaints when, when I was with Olympus, it was constantly about too many menus, too many nested menus. Right, we need, we need to get back to simplicity. Here's the problem. There's so many things in the menu. You're going like this. Meanwhile, george Bush lands the space shuttle on a golf course with Madonna on the tail, right in front of you. You missed it because you're doing all this.
Scott Bourne:Right, exactly the experience of photography is understanding that light and shadow make stories and you've got to be part of this to capture it, and your vision needs to be out here, not down here.
Gary Pageau:Right. Even though it's a digital sensor, the exposure triangle, or however you want to talk about it, is the same.
Scott Bourne:Yeah, yeah. All that I want to do is get the camera out of my way, because the hardest thing in this deal is the seeing.
Scott Bourne:I can teach a monkey to press this button, but the seeing of it, the young people always ask the same questions what camera should I buy? I'm like, maybe none right now. Just rent some when you're ready to go shoot and then practice seeing. None right now. Just rent some. When you're ready to go shoot and then practice seeing. Walk around like ansel adams did with a notebook and and write down like oh, the light was coming from this angle and look at the scene and maybe sketch it and then, when you're ready, go make a picture. The the being more deliberate this is something I learned when I was in japan being very deliberate and being, uh, careful in your choices and being able to articulate with specificity why you press the shutter button right. That was something I always strove for so I never used.
Scott Bourne:You know, people come back with terabytes of stuff from a workshop. I had made 18 pictures. Right, I want to be able to say this spoke to me. Here's what the story was, here's what I'm trying to do, and that stuff requires a camera that gets out of my way. If I'm going like this, I can't be thinking about that.
Gary Pageau:Do you think that's sort of a year that goes back to your very first Indianapolis 500, where you only had the one roll of film. You know where you had to think. I better make this count until you got the big bag from the AP.
Scott Bourne:Well, I did the same thing all day. That day, I mean, I I never changed my shutter speed or my aperture and all I did was press the shutter button and hear my one and a half frame per second motor drive go right, and I thought that was so cool. And about four cars could go by, maybe five, and then I'd put the roll film in and do it again. All All I was concentrating on was the field, looking at the field and where they were at and trying to follow. And you pick a car, which, by the way, that skill really translated well for me in bird photography, because when you're photographing flocks of birds, the way to be successful is you've got to gamble on. I'm going to pick that bird, there's 12 birds. I'm going to pick that bird, there's 12 birds. I'm going to pick that guy right and isolate him. Now, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but if you get a winning shot, it's because you isolated that one bird and you learned how to stick with him. Well, that's just something I learned how to do race, race photography. So all this stuff does kind of go down the chain and help you.
Scott Bourne:No matter what kind of photography you're doing, even street photography. I find things in it that I can learn. I can bring from my portraiture work when I was in a studio and probably, if I go back, same thing would apply. There's the more time you spend with a camera trying to tell stories, the better off you are as a photographer. And, uh, the more companies who service photographers recognize that that is where the meat and potatoes mix the better off they'll be.
Scott Bourne:If there's a company out there, it might not even exist yet, gary. If there's a camera company out there, it might be some new camera company. We don't know If they really get this, if they really understand it. You know what these people are here because they crave community, they crave belonging, because they want to have something that helps them share their point of view. That's what photography is about.
Scott Bourne:I want to share my point of view. We can both stand at the same place. Your picture is going to be different than mine. You have a different point of view and I want to share my point of view. I have a need to do that. That's why I'm a professional photographer. That's my way of talking. It's like there's my picture. That's what I think. It's something that I have to tell you. After doing it for 50 years, it still thrills me. It still thrills me that I can do this. Frankly, I don't want anyone. In fact, I almost wore my camouflage shirt today. I don't want the IRS to find me. I mean, I've just had such a great run and I didn't deserve any of it.
Gary Pageau:Well, you worked hard and you saw opportunities right. I mean, that's two things, that.
Scott Bourne:That's a little bit I could do, but I'm just saying it's a. I recognize I've been privileged to have these opportunities and you know, if I was born in California I probably wouldn't. I'd be a surfer instead of a starver. Who knows? Yeah.
Gary Pageau:So where can people go to keep track of you? You mentioned threads. You're very active on threads. That's where we kind of reconnected. So talk a little bit about threads and where people can connect with you in the future.
Scott Bourne:Threads is Zuckerberg's product. It's run by the guys that run Instagram, but it's like Twitter was in the old days. It's their answer to Twitter. It's not as toxic. It's not a place for that kind of stuff. There's a lot. There's a big photography community and they recognize it. In fact, they brought my friend, dimitri Mack, into their New York headquarters to do a one-on-one with him to ask him about you know why he was so active there and talk about the photography community? Because you know I have only, like, say, 11,000 followers, but I have more than a quarter million interactions last month on threads with my work. That's right.
Scott Bourne:I tell you what you know. If you had talked to me five years before the internet and told me there was ever going to be any of my stuff that saw a quarter million people, I'd be pretty jazzed about it. You know, it's, it's, it's so. Any of my stuff that saw a quarter million people, I've been pretty jazzed about it, you know. So that's good. So I'm on threadsnet at bornscott. For some reason I can't use my Scott Bourne. I have to use bornscott, which is my Instagram handle too. And then I have a website, scottbournecom. I got nothing for sale. I don't have any presets, I don't have any workshops. I don't have any workshops. I don't have nothing. I'm just there. If you want help, send me an email, scott at scottborncom. I'll try to help you.
Gary Pageau:Great Thanks, Scott. I appreciate the time. It's always a pleasure to catch up. This has been a fun conversation. Hope to interact with you on Threads. More the merrier.
Erin Manning:Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Dead Pixel Society podcast. Read more great stories and sign up for the newsletter at wwwthedeadpixelssocietycom.
