About

About Me

Hello! I’m Scott Minard. I’m a Photographer, Filmmaker, Divemaster, Freelance Gaffer and Electrician, Camera assistant, Expedition leader, Professional Deckhand, massive Space Nerd, and more. When you work in this industry independently, you have to stay creative and on your toes in an ever-evolving world, but I’ve made the most of that to have a wide variety of skills that make me uniquely capable of shooting anything, anywhere. Underwater? Absolutely. 15k ft in the air in tiny airplanes? Regularly. Up a mountain? You bet. In the snow? Yep! (Even if I hate the cold.)

I am proud to say I’ve been an in-house editor for USA Today, had a commercial I wrote, shot, and edited on PBS Arizona, had a photo above the fold on the front of the Business Section in the Wall Street Journal on a Sunday, was head of content for both photo and video for an organic wholesale distributor ‘Organic By Nature’, I’ve been a Summer Camp Counselor and Photographer for Camp Norwester, had my music video played in every Hard Rock Cafe in the world during primetime for a month, won national awards for both Photo and Video and created good enough Documentary footage to have FOX steal it outright and broadcast it nationally for daytime television. And have won national awards for both photo and video.

As far as me as a human, here goes. I was born and raised in Phoenix Arizona, I spent my weekends out hiking, climbing, mountain biking, trying to catch critters like snakes and scorpions and generally learning how to “bounce” as I was always falling, jumping, or slipping off of something in the dessert…only occasionally into a cactus. When I got to high school, I developed a passion for film and photography. However, my school neither had a program, nor a club to learn such things. So, I went and bothered a member of the faculty until there was an inaugural film club. Which, not yet understanding the concept of “careful what you wish for,” I now somehow had to lead… As a 16 year old. But it went well enough! It’s now a 3 year program at my high school, having taken over half a building.

Today, I am a space nerd. An F1 nerd. And of course a camera nerd. I think the grandest adventure man ever embarked on was to the moon, and you better believe I can tell you too much about the Apollo or Shuttle Programs. Tiny fragments of half a dozen spacecraft hang on my walls in my office. I worked as a deckhand on a dive boat for almost two years. It’s how I earned the rank of Divemaster, and every weekend I was creating content and helping run the boat. I did my best to Inspire a passion for scuba diving and the ocean when I was on deck, and explored every nook and cranny looking for critters and treasure when I was below. I’ve seen giant sharks, Sea Bass big enough to swallow me whole, and if you

check out my Instagram page you can see footage I got nose to nose with a sea lion. I’m also starting a training regiment to climb the highest peak in the Lower 48 with my 70+ year old father this October. I have been lucky enough to go and shoot content in over 20+ countries, across 4 continents. This has instilled in me a deep passion for people, and their stories. I have made mini-documentaries about people in remote cities in Myanmar, and interviewed a professional “Spider Man” who poses for photos in Times Square. Places are fun, adventures are cool, but people are my passion. Telling stories of people in unique ways is what makes me want to continue to relentlessly work in a sometimes comically hard and unstable industry. Stories are really all we have in this life. Making stories. Our stories. The stories of others. That, above all else, is my passion. Well, that and occasionally trying to catch a snake I see on the side of the road when I’m back home in Arizona.

I love people and their stories. I want to know the craziest thing you’ve ever done, and/or what’s the next dream you’re working to accomplish. Not just because that’s how you find out how to best present someone’s project, but because humans, the stories they have, how far they can go, and what they’re capable of are my real fascination.

This next bit sounds like a cliche you will find on any budding photographers website but there’s a distinct truth to it: what I love about what I do is the ability to freeze a tiny perfect human moment, a tiny part of that person’s story, and save it forever. That, and either taking the extraordinary and making it relatable, or taking the ordinary and making it extraordinary. That look the groom gives the bride when he sees her walk down the aisle on their wedding day. That moment of relief when the expedition pays off and you make it to the top of one of the seven summits, or, finding a new appreciation for how amazing your dishwasher is (I mean, think about it: you put dirty dishes in a magic box and they come out PERFECTLY clean. That’s amazing. That’s a video right there.)

As much as I do love working on the edge of the envelope, I find the opposite to be just as fun. I’ve worked with Lawyers, water bottle designers, clothing brands, medical companies, and more. There’s a universal theme that comes around with each and every client I’ve ever had: human connection. Check out the SheIn video on the home page of my website. The video isn’t about the clothes, it’s about the people having fun buying the clothes, and at the end of it, you want to go check out the Shein page, because you want to feel the excitement those people felt on a day out shopping. That’s what I love. Taking something, whatever it is, and relating it to the human side of the equation. If you can do that, your product/service/event/moment is sold or immortalized forever. I have never in my life repeated a setup for headshots, or event photography. That’s just not the way it works, I took the time to find out about the individual, or event and captured it in a way that was unique to that specific shoot. That’s what I love to do, and at my core, that’s who I am. I’m about people.