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Scott Thompson
C A P T U R I N G TA H O E ’ S B E AUT Y F R O M B E H I N D T H E L E N S BY KAYLA ANDERSON | PHOTOS BY SCOTT THOMPSON
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Scott Thompson at work Wildflowers at Paradise Lake Thunderbird Lighthouse at Sunset Old Highway 40 at Night
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’m looking at a print of a picture taken of Old Highway 40 above Donner Lake. The curvature of the icy Rainbow Bridge spans beneath a slowly rising sun, creeping its way over the Sierra Nevada. Between the bridge and the sunrise, a pool of puffy clouds obscures the view of the lake. The combination of the sunburst and inversion on this frigid winter morning is stunning and I wonder who got up at an ungodly hour to capture this shot, who is the person behind the lens. The person who took “Donner Lake Sunrise 36” is Scott Thompson of Scott Shots Photography. His love of taking photos began when his grandfather gave him an Olympus OM-1 camera that he used for a black-and-white photography class in college. He loved the course so much that he ended up changing his major from veterinary services to something more in line with photography. Thompson bounced from Humboldt State University to San Diego Mesa College — where he took the photography class — before getting a job at a prominent camera store in North Hollywood called Valley Photo Service. It was during his time at the store when 20
he believes he got his real education in photography, meeting professionals, developing film for celebrities and absorbing everything he could about the photography industry.
“One of my favorite things to do is pack up my dog and drive 5 minutes to be at an amazing lake and enjoy nature. It’s so nice to have options.” - Scott Thompson “I definitely learned a lot from working there,” Thompson says. In the late 1990s, he started Scott Shots Photography and continued honing his skills, shooting odd jobs. His sister lived in South Lake Tahoe and he spent a winter living with her and working at Heavenly Mountain Resort as a sharp-
shooter photographer for the season. Then he went back to Los Angeles and a lot happened in his life within a short timeframe. “I got married, had a kid and decided to move the family back up to Tahoe,” he says. Thompson continued going to his favorite places to capture landscapes, turning them into prints, including them in books — with 20 of them ending up as covers of Tahoe Weekly — and even starting to make NFTs (non-fungible tokens) out of them. When asked what he likes to shoot the most, Thompson says, “Definitely Tahoe area landscapes, Donner Lake and wildflowers. The fall colors are amazing to shoot up here, as well as big-view landscape photos of Tahoe and all of the little lakes in the back country.” Sunrise and sunset are his favorite times to capture Tahoe and Truckee landscapes. Thompson has taken aerial photos of Emerald Bay while hanging his camera out of a seaplane and says his most memorable experiences of taking pictures usually happen whenever he’s
out on a boat or on a kayak with his dog Quill. He enjoys being close to nature, alpine lakes, dark night skies and shooting Rainbow Bridge on Old 40 above Donner Lake, which makes up some of his best-selling prints. “It’s one of my favorite areas to shoot; living in Truckee I go there often,” says Thompson, who has more than 1,000 photos in his collection. His most recent cover for Tahoe Weekly features the photo he shot for the April 6 edition taken at Sand Harbor. “I had a photography friend in town and was playing tour guide with him. I took him out one evening, and there was this beautiful sunset and lightning storm — and I found this great scene,” he says of the juniper tree in front of an alpenglow backdrop. “One of my favorite things to do is pack up my dog and drive 5 minutes to be at an amazing lake and enjoy nature. It’s so nice to have options,” he says. Scott Shots fine-art prints are available to view or buy at Lift Truckee and The Pub at Donner Lake, Art Obsessions and The Village at Rancharrah in Reno, Nev., and The Genoa Gallery in Genoa, Nev. | scottshotsphoto.com n
