Adam Scott

Adam Scott's Obituary

Last year, a therapist I was seeing, asked if I'd ever written my own obituary or eulogy.  I hadn't, but the idea intrigued me, so, I wrote a few words.  That was a year ago, and today I revisited those words, and I thought I would share them here. 

Adam never liked funerals. He thought they were strange little plays for the living, polite performances where people finally said all the things they never managed to say while you were still around to hear them.

But Adam tried to showed up. Always, and everyday. For the people he cared about, he showed up in big, messy, meaningful ways, often the way he wished someone would show up for him. Most of the time, though, he walked through life solo, figuring things out as he went. No map, no manual, just instinct and a stubborn kind of hope.

He made mistakes. A lot of them. The kind that left dents and bruises, and stories. No one was harder on Adam than he was on himself, but even when life knocked him flat, he somehow kept getting up. And when no one believed in him, that’s usually when he did his best work.

Adam was a cliff-jumper by nature, not the bungee kind, but the metaphorical sort. He’d leap into new ideas and build the parachute on the way down. Sometimes he landed gracefully. Sometimes… not so much. He failed often, at love, at money, at faith. But even when life fell apart, there was always a spark in him that refused to go out.

That spark looked like a camera in his hand, a story half-written at midnight, a sudden burst of inspiration when everyone else had already given up. He was a self-taught writer, a photographer who saw beauty in the broken, and a collector of wild ideas.

If anything true can be said about Adam, it’s that he lived. Not neatly. Not safely. But with heart and curiosity and a little bit of chaos.

And as his favorite Sinatra song goes —
He did it his way.

by Adam Scott

I Accidentally Became a Photographer (and It Kind of Worked Out)

I stumbled across a quote today from Annie Leibovitz that said:

“The vast trove of my work intimidates even me sometimes.”

And I thought, same Annie, same.

It reminded me of something I haven’t thought about in years. I’ve talked about it before, but over a decade ago, I picked up a camera with the fragile hope of saving a failing marriage. My first wife was a wedding photographer, and I figured maybe, if we shared photography, we might find our way back to each other. Spoiler alert: we didn’t. But what I did find was something entirely unexpected, an obsession, and a love of photography that rewired how I saw the world.

In those early days, I was insatiable. I carried a camera with me everywhere like a secret I couldn’t stop telling. I bought roses at the grocery store just to photograph their colors. I spent twenty minutes outside a library circling a tree like it was some sacred relic of light. I photographed sunsets, boats, log piles, whatever stood still long enough to let me.

But more than anything, I wanted to photograph people. I’d scroll endlessly through Tumblr, lost in that dreamy haze of aesthetic portraits, and I wanted, desperately, to make something that beautiful too. The only problem: who was I going to photograph?

So I asked everyone. Friends, coworkers, anyone who made the mistake of standing too close while I had a camera in hand. I’m sure I drove people insane. Some said yes, a few said no, and those no’s stung more than I’d like to admit. I still remember one friend politely declining a family session I offered. I hung up the phone, flushed red, and sat there embarrassed for days.

But I kept shooting. And shooting. And shooting. Over and over. Failing often, learning always.

Fast forward to now, and I’ve worked with models, celebrities, businesses, brands, conventions, people and projects I never would have dreamed of back then. When I look back over it all, the countless photos, the mistakes, the small victories, it’s honestly overwhelming.

Because every tiny choice, every photo that seemed insignificant at the time, built into something bigger than I ever planned. A decade of moments, stitched together in light and memory.

And sometimes, just like Annie said, I look at it all, and I’m intimidated too.

by Adam Scott

Is Capitalism Quietly Destroying Photography?

Is Capitalism Quietly Destroying Photography?

I had a thought this morning, the kind that sneaks in before coffee and refuses to leave. Is capitalism killing photography?

Now, before you roll your eyes or grab your economics textbook, hear me out. Capitalism is good at one thing: finding where the money is hiding and setting up camp. And once it sniffed out photography, well, it went wild.

Take the selfie stick. Once the punchline of every tourist joke, it became a symbol of our times, a tool for a problem we created ourselves. As Alex Cooke wrote:

“The selfie stick, once mocked as the ultimate tourist cliché, became ubiquitous because it solved a technical problem created by a psychological compulsion. People needed to document themselves in every location, but arm’s length wasn’t sufficient to capture both self and context.”

That line hit me. Hard.

Because Cooke goes on to talk about how the rental world has jumped in to feed this compulsion. Fake luxury, available by the hour, private jets, mansions, and infinity pools, all ready for your perfect photo. Entire “Instagram-ready” studios built for the lens, not for living. A place to pose as the person you wish you were.

And then came the line that stuck in my brain like a splinter:

“…the compulsive purchase of camera equipment as a substitute for developing photographic skills or creating meaningful work.”

That one hurt, because it’s true.

If people keep chasing the next camera instead of mastering the one in their hands, the market will adapt. Cameras will get “smarter” but not better. They’ll be built for convenience, not craft — another product made to be replaced. Once-solid metal frames become plastic shells. Once-honest tools become toys.

And worse, we’ve started handing our artistic instincts over to machines. AI now tells us how to edit, how to crop, even how to feel about our own photos, but it steals our unique fingerprints off our work.

I remember when my wife told me she could spot my photos instantly. She said she could tell by the way I saw light, the angles, the quiet moments, the mood. That was my style. My thumbprint on the world.

AI can’t do that. It edits your photo the same way it edits a thousand others. It flattens everything into one uniform aesthetic.

And so we end up here: in a glossy, fake paradise where influencers rent jets by the hour and everyone’s “authentic” life looks suspiciously identical. Capitalism sells us a dream, and we take the picture.

I don’t think we can stop it, not completely. But I do think we can fight back in small, stubborn ways. By learning. By practicing. By getting it wrong, and then getting it right. By falling in love with the process again.

Because the long, messy journey of figuring out how to use your camera, how to really see, that’s where the art lives. That’s where you live.

And no algorithm, no rented jet, no plastic camera will ever be able to fake that.

by Adam Scott

Going Back to College

I saw a post on Instagram today, a friend of mine working on her graduate degree, surrounded by a glorious mess of books, notes, and half-drunk coffee cups. The kind of photo that screams, “I’m learning important things and losing my mind in style.” I’m genuinely happy for her. Really. But I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a little sadness tucked in there too.

I never graduated from college. I’m the only one in my family who didn’t, and most of my friends have more degrees than a thermometer. My gaming squad, the people I play Fortnight and Helldivers II with, includes a handful of folks with Masters and PhDs. And then there’s me, proudly waving my high school diploma like it’s a backstage pass to the wrong concert.

Truth is, I wasn’t encouraged to go to college. I barely limped across the high school finish line, and if I’m being honest, school and I just never really clicked. But not going to college has haunted me for most of my adult life. A quiet little ghost that likes to whisper, “Hey, remember that thing you didn’t do?” I’ve lost job opportunities because of it, some that I was more than qualified for. It’s a weird feeling, being told you’re not enough because you didn’t spend a fortune proving you could follow instructions and stay awake through lectures.

Every once in a while, I’ll start daydreaming about going back. I’ll scroll through college websites, poke around the programs, and imagine what it’d be like to finally finish something I started a lifetime ago. But then reality barges in, college is expensive, life is busy, and time feels like an endangered species. If I did go back, I’d want to give it everything. But that would mean giving up the little pieces of free time I’ve fought to protect.

Maybe someday I’ll figure it out. Maybe I’ll go back, get that degree, hang it on the wall just to make peace with that ghost. Or maybe I’ll keep doing what I’ve always done, learning the hard way, carving my own crooked little path through the world.

Either way, I’ll keep growing, even if it’s not on anyone’s syllabus.

by Adam Scott