For his full portfolio, please visit www.scottnathanphoto.com. What is your background? What type of photography do you specialize in? I’ve been an enthusiast my whole life. I got my first darkroom at nine years old, but didn’t turn pro until my late 30’s. While my clients and assignments have been all over the place, ranging from landscape architecture and Playboy to the U.S. Marines. My bread & butter though has always been beauty: hair & makeup campaigns for Dita Von Teese, Urban Decay, Too Faced, Schwarzkopf, Sultra, Bio Ionic and many more. Throughout your career, what has been your favorite shoot? It’s tough to pick a favorite shoot. In hindsight, the ones that have touched the most people feel great. For example, Katy Perry’s first ever advertising job when I discovered her and introduced her to Too Faced Cosmetics before she had a record deal. Or all the work I’ve done over the years with Dita stands out too. The work I enjoy the most involves storytelling. Color, comedy & irony are always in my mind. Creating a world that exists nowhere else but my imagination is always appealing. At the moment, I’m enjoying the opposite of all that. It’s a still and video portrait series I’m doing for a museum & gallery installation. It is two 10 minute video portraits of people in my life. Austere lighting, minimal hair and makeup. Eyes directly to camera. They were all shot with K5600’s Evo Kit. Between one and three lights. Having come up in the studio business with 2400 and later 3200 watt second strobe packs, I wasn’t sure 200 Watts of continuous light would cut it, but these lights are powerful and the quality is breathtaking. Why do you choose to use continuous light/HMIs? To heavyweights in film & photography, HMI needs no introduction. It’s textured intangible quality is magical and undisputed. Trouble was, in the past, they were big, hot and blindingly expensive. How do you like to use your Jokers? I use all the go-to dozen or so light modifiers that I owned already. Beauty dishes, grids & reflectors and the occasional softbox. I love that K5600 makes adaptors for anything you could ever want providing limitless options for light shape and texture. I love the Fresnel lens and use it a lot, along with the rest of the lens kit. The scrims offer me tons of control over output. They’re super efficient. I’ve never blown a fuse with them, something I can’t say about the last HMI system I was using. They’re so small, pinpoint precision is a snap as is working in small spaces. I love being able to switch between daylight & tungsten bulbs. I also love that the whole kit fits inside of

a little roller bag. I use Jokers because they’re bulletproof. This is the only business K5600 does. Every assignment is mission critical and I’ve yet to have an equipment failure with any K5600 product. I feel that every face is a puzzle, to be solved in every pre light. Everyone has their angles and it’s always an exciting challenge figuring out how to best light each one. I’ve been using the Mola Softlight reflector with an adaptor as the key light, boomed overhead. I’ll often use white or silver showcard underneath for an eye catch light. I’ll use black solids for negative fill. I’ll often use shoots or cinquefoil to create pinpoint hair lights or background shapes. I’m making it sound complicated, but I tend to fly by the seat of my pants, come up with ideas on the spot and play play play. What is your favorite shoot using a Joker so far? Picking a favorite shoot is like choosing a favorite child. I love so many in this new series. Rachel Hunter, Esmé Bianco from Game of Thrones, Jesse Golden, who is in the new Joker print ads. I guess I’ll say my favorite is the next one. Big thanks to Scott for taking the time to answer our questions. Are you a Joker or Alpha fan? If so, let us interview you.