These are not my rules. They are the rules of life. I’m not dictating how you should act, merely suggesting how you could act. At the end of the day it’s your call.

If you have been involved with photography for an extensive period of time it is inevitable that you will have learnt some stuff. Technical, creative, business stuff. Stuff that isn’t written in books or featured in YouTube videos. Stuff picked up through personal situations and life-time experiences. The kind of stuff you wish someone had told you.

Stuff that you feel may be of benefit to others. Which you share with others from the good in your own heart. Such actions are the opposite of gate-keeping they are gate-opening and yet for this to happen it requires the recipient of the stuff to see that the gate has been opened for them. Not only that it is open but that the stuff giver showed them the way.

We live in an increasingly self-centered world. I think we can agree with that. Where insecurity promotes a feeling that no weakness could or should be shown. Where it is important to present yourself as self-sufficient, in charge and capable. Such a belief can lead to a lack of recognition of those who gave you stuff. Who gave you a leg-up, opened a door, suggested an idea or a path to take. Those people who deserve recognition and a thank you.

That recognition or thank you is a payment in kind for the help and stuff you were given. A tip of the hat which will be greatly appreciated. Not to do so and to claim total responsibility for any success is to misunderstand the spirit in which help has been given.

In my career I have helped many photographers. That’s not a boast it’s just a fact and some have shown their appreciation and some have not. I’m not bitter just honest.

Does it matter if you don’t show your appreciation? Maybe not in the short term but if you are serious about photography you will hope to be in it for the long haul and then it does matter. If you are disrespectful once, chances are you will do it again and again. The world of photography is small and word will soon get around with the result that those offers of help and stuff will start to disappear.

The best way to approach photography is to be nice. Say thank you and recognise the help you have been given. Enjoy the success of others and always remember that we are all the result of the teaching and learning of others. Formally and informally.

Dr.Grant Scott
After fifteen years art directing photography books and magazines such as Elle and Tatler, Scott began to work zas a photographer for a number of advertising and editorial clients in 2000. Alongside his photographic career Scott has art directed numerous advertising campaigns, worked as a creative director at Sotheby’s, art directed foto8magazine, founded his own photographic gallery, edited Professional Photographer magazine and launched his own title for photographers and filmmakers Hungry Eye. He founded the United Nations of Photography in 2012, and is now a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, and a BBC Radio contributor. Scott is the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019), and What Does Photography Mean To You? (Bluecoat Press 2020). His photography has been published in At Home With The Makers of Style (Thames & Hudson 2006) and Crash Happy: A Night at The Bangers (Cafe Royal Books 2012). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was premiered in 2018.

Scott’s next book is Inside Vogue House: One building, seven magazines, sixty years of stories, Orphans Publishing, is on sale February 2024.

© Grant Scott 2025