Summer 2008 issue

Photographer with the Light Touch

All photographs on this page are strictly copyright Scott Hortop

Among the amazingly rich and diverse talents in this small community we number some top quality photographers. Scott Hortop, our voluntary photographer for Thames Ditton Today, is one of them. And not the only one who has emerged as a dazzling butterfly of the genre after an earlier pupation as Something Else. In his case, a tax adviser with KPMG for two decades.

Scott didn't exchange a briefcase for a camera case overnight. "My father was a keen amateur and had all the darkroom equipment, but once married he didn't get to use it," he recounts, "so I used it. Because few kids had these facilities I did well at the annual Eisteddfod where the rules stipulated you had to do everything yourself!" Many years of amateur photography saw him progress from black-and-white photos through colour transparencies to full colour prints, and from the darkroom to image processing on the laptop, learning along the way to understand light, line and the principles of pictorial composition that distinguish a true photographer from the rest of us happy snappers.

Scott's facility with web technology allied with camerawork led to his being drafted into KPMG's team that put together intranets and websites for clients. When the tech bubble burst at the end of the millennium, he was first to volunteer for a substantial redundancy package that gave him the confidence to try something 'completely different.' Scott undertook courses at the London College of Printing to acquire skills in Studio Photography, scanning and printing, an understanding of light in three dimensions, and business aspects of selling photos.

Meanwhile Scott steadily built up a portfolio of excellent photographs and gradually, a varied clientele in the world of business photography and in 'lifestyle' photography. The major part of his work comes from corporate photography in the City, and from portraiture, when customers want "something less sterile than you get from studio photography." Scott enjoys having other people around and prefers social or lifestyle photography to other areas of what can at times be a somewhat solitary profession: "When there is half an excuse I work with an assistant, Meeyoung Son. I can also take more risks in what I'm shooting because she'll always be ready to pick up a camera and get a shot 'in the bag'." Scott specialises in unposed photos, and will spend a great deal of time putting subjects at ease until they behave naturally, and barely notice he is there. "I like to take them doing interesting things - such as a graffiti artist in the act of painting graffiti on a wall - it was a wall made available for the purpose near the Hayward Gallery" - he adds hastily.

As with the commissions for Kingston Hospital, Scott will often spend hours in position until suitable shots present themselves: "If I stay in some place long enough, enough interesting things will happen!" And they do. He doesn't miss accountancy at all.

Keith Evetts

See Scott Hortop's web site or call 0208 398 2735