Photography advice from Scott Dworkin.
“But the questions I get asked, how do you get published? How did you get access here? How did you do this? Number one thing, you need to be a professional. You need to treat it like a business first.”
— Scott Dworkin, professional photographer
In the third part of our interview series with Scott Dworkin, we discuss photography advice for photographers who want to take their business seriously. Read more to learn the importance of professionalism.
Based just outside Los Angeles, California, Scott Dworkin has built a career at the intersection of aviation and photography. What began as two separate passions eventually converged in 2010, when he decided to merge his love of flight and visual storytelling into a single professional pursuit.
Text below transcribed from a portion of an interview conducted by Betty of Cradoc fotoSoftware in August 2025 To view this and other interviews, please go to our Cradoc fotoSoftware YouTube Channel.
The Importance of Helping
I had a real estate agent because I help my wife sometimes, and we were in a meeting two weeks ago. This guy’s one of the biggest, busiest guys out here in Thousand Oaks. He sat with me and he was talking to a group of us. And he’s like, if you want to use my marketing materials, take them. If you want me to tell you what to write in an email, call me. I can help you. I have my clients. You have yours. So when people reach out to me, I’m like, you want my help? I’ll help you. I’ve had a few people ask me, how did you publish your book? I’ve connected them with my publisher even. I’m like, I’ll call the vice president of my publishing company and connect you. You want to talk to this public affairs officer in the Navy? Here you go.
I have a colleague that has told me in the last many years, if there’s one thing you can do, Scott, is if somebody reaches out to you on Facebook or Instagram, be a mentor, right? I don’t have all the answers. I know what I did and I know what worked and what didn’t. But at the same time, I’ve run into photographers that are not very nice. And that, as strange as it sounds, it’s mostly in aviation in the music stuff. If I was standing at a show, and I have one photographer in particular that I’m thinking about, but if I was standing at a show and I hadn’t shot that band and they use various kinds of lighting and special effects and pyro and explosion stuff, I could say to him like, what settings do you use? And he would tell me. And it was like, you know, with cycling, with this guy that I mentioned earlier, or some of the other guys that we used to hang out at all the races, I’d say, where do you stand to get the best shots on the course? That turned into a couple of them saying, we have this gig. We can’t do it. Do you want to take it? Paid gig, go take it. We’re busy.
Those in the aviation thing, it’s actually the opposite, which is a whole different conversation. But the one thing that I say is if somebody were to say to me, I liked the photo, how did you take it? Here you go. I wish I could say it was a little different in aviation, but I haven’t found that. I don’t know why. I don’t know what that’s about.
I’ve done a couple other interviews when my book got published. I was fortunate enough to do a couple of aviation-related podcasts, and the big takeaway that I have said on all of these is, and I mentioned this a few minutes ago, as much as I love aviation like the next person and as much as I love photography and cameras, and I’m kind of a nerd, I like all the tech stuff about cameras. I also understood from working with my dad and working out there, you have to be professional and you have to treat it like a business. If you’re dealing with the military, and there are gatekeepers at every step of the way, they’re going to say no. That’s what they do. You can’t be a jerk. You can be privately annoyed, but you have to be professional; treat it like a business first. And I feel that same way with other photographers. Like if somebody else wants to try to publish the next book on naval aviation, I’m going to help them. I know what I went through to do it, and it wasn’t fun. And I’m honest with them. And I’m like, if you want to go through what I went through by all means, but here’s the steps you need to do to do it. And not a lot of people are like that. I’m not saying it’s just me; a lot of the photographers that I know are like that.
Photography Advice – Learn from Your Peers
And then on top of that, ask other photographers. If they say go to hell, then move on to the next one. They’re not all going to be that way, but if they do, move on to the next one. If you get a no from this unit, they don’t want you. Move on to something else, but keep asking questions. I mean, you have to, I mean, it was like you said, the curiosity part, it was just like, hey, I have this magazine. I see these photos. How is that person getting into your airplane? I don’t know, but I’ll find out for you. Or, like I said, I stumbled into two people that are like, we know how to do that. You know, and it got exponentially harder. Obviously, like I said earlier, going from a helicopter to say, well, I want to go fly in the back of an F-18, is a completely different layer of approvals, and the amount of no’s that come before a yes.
Photography Advice – Dealing with “no”
I’m sure you’ve seen it with the other photographers that you’ve talked to or any business you’re involved with. You’re going to get told no most of the time. And sometimes you have to accept no, you just do. And there may be good reasons and there may be not. I can tell you in my career in the last 15 years, the amount of Department of Defense public affairs officers that have said no to me where the reasons are ridiculous are more than the ones that say no for a legitimate reason like oh we’re going to be deployed when you’re asking to come. That’s legitimate, right you’re going to be in Iraq, or we’re preparing to deploy so there’s reasons we can’t have you out covering our unit for security reasons because this stuff we’re training I’ve mentioned this many times to other photographers. It’s my biggest pet peeve; I’m trying to help, right? I’m trying to tell your story, I’m trying to promote the military for the next 15-year-old that I was that wants to join that, wants to see what it’s like behind the wall, the the fence whatever you want to call it, you know a day in the life of. Maverick is a great movie but it’s not accurate, so people like me and other people, I’m not saying I’m the only one but people like me that do this are here to tell your story. When I am told, we can’t fly you or we can’t do it because let’s say one of the excuses I hear all the time is if we do it for you, we’re going to have to do it for everybody.
Okay. I hear it all the time. That sets me off. That is where I will get not aggressive, but I’ll say, okay, let’s have this conversation over the phone. Here’s my conversation. I’m not special and I’m not better than anybody else, but if I send you a request with a letter from a magazine that says they’re endorsing my work and they’re going to publish my work. So it’s an official letter of intent, which is the requirement that you have. Plus, I send you the link to my website. Again, not saying I’m special, but you can clearly see that with my background, having worked for the Air Force after I left the Air Force and I started my own business, by the way, I also had a three-year contract working for the Navy part-time, but as a Navy photographer at Point Mugu. So, If you got a request from somebody who has a Facebook page where they just post a lot of airplane photos, again, nothing wrong with that, but they said, can I come out for the day? Oh, can I fly in your airplane? And then you get mine.
I think with your training as a public affairs officer, you can easily delineate the two and put your eggs into this basket to put the paperwork in to start that process of getting it approved. But to just flat out say, no, we can’t do it because then every photographer under the sun that loves airplanes is going to call and say, well, you flew Scott into your airplane. Why won’t you fly me? Well, that’s your job. That’s your side of the game. To be the professional that says there are certain people we do this for because it is of value to the military or law enforcement.
I mean, LAPD, it took me years to get into flying with LAPD. They’re very media shy because they’re always embroiled in some kind of scandal here, but their air unit isn’t necessarily. And they kind of saw the value. But it took years from the bureaucrat side of LAPD to say, no, we don’t want anybody around. And as soon as I say, let’s get past that part of the conversation. Let me explain to you what I’m going to do for you, where it’s going to end up and what value you can create from that. I don’t want to hear well, then I’m worried that the next photographer is going to come in. But for those photographers, like I said to you earlier, if somebody called me and said, how did you get in with LAPD? I would tell them.
This is a great article – How to find a photography mentor that will give you what you need. And in our former blog post – Advice for Photographers, Julie Bidwell goes into the importance of photographers networking.
About Scott Dworkin
Based near Los Angeles, Scott Dworkin is an aerial photographer and former Flight Test Photographer for the 412th Test Wing at Edwards Air Force Base. His work, published in international aviation outlets, documents missions across the U.S. Armed Forces and Department of Defense. One of few civilians to fly in high-performance military aircraft, Scott brings both technical precision and creative vision to his work. He has covered aeromedical operations in Afghanistan and aviation testing across the U.S. Scott holds advanced aircrew qualifications through Air Force and Navy training programs.
Website:https://www.mach91aerialphotography.com/about
Copyright: All images belong to Scott Dworkin used by Cradoc fotoSoftware with permission of the copyright holder. Use of images or content by any person or entity other than Cradoc fotoSoftware for any purposes is expressly prohibited.
See other great interview transcripts:
- Todd Bigelow
- Jonathan Kingston
- Julie Bidwell
- Steve Whittaker
- Scott Dworkin
