Meet Scott McCormick of McCormick Photos & Design in Aurora

Today we’d like to introduce you to Scott McCormick.

Scott, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I was a musician for most of my life. During that time, I was lucky enough to play with some of my heroes and I even got to write a bunch of music for EPSN and Disney. However, after several years of touring with my band, Boulder Acoustic Society, we all started to feel disenchanted on the business side of music. So, I opted to wholly depart from playing music. We split the band, and I quit everything except for maintaining a few students at Swallow Hill Music. Once I left music, the world around me kind of exploded…

My mother died, I got a divorce, my father disowned me, and I was absolutely broke. So, I found myself living in Cheesman Park for several months with a suitcase full of random things I had from my past life: a cell phone, a camera, some clothes, a couple of books, a laptop (which got stolen after a bit), and a bicycle (which also got stolen). During those months of homelessness, I spent my remaining money at Tom’s Diner on Colfax every night with my computer to try to figure out another path other than the one I had known my whole life. Design popped up as something I really wanted to explore. Every morning I would leave the diner after learning as much as I could and practicing to stumble back to Cheesman to sleep. I put a book on my chest every day so I wouldn’t look conspicuous and hopefully wouldn’t be rousted.

After several months of studying and sleeping in a park and the band’s tour van (on nights with terrible weather), my amazing friend, Michael, offered me a house to stay in and I started doing some design work for Swallow Hill. Long story short, everything stemmed from that. I began to study photography. I was able to afford a house (that likely should’ve been condemned) and shared it with local musician Kyle James Hauser, and wonderful photographer, Mallory Olenius. After a lot of working for free (or extremely cheap), I was able to start up a company that’s now worked with Smithsonian, Mandolin Orange, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Gregory Alan Isakov, Railroad Earth, and a ton of others. Since those early days, I turned a lot of attention on doing album art and brand development for bands all over the world.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I mean, it kind of started super low. So, in a way, it’s never been very smooth. However, I feel extremely lucky for the amount of recognition and support I’ve gotten over the years. I’ve now been doing photography and design for about ten years, and it’s definitely a lot of ups and downs continually. I suppose I wish I would’ve approached the whole endeavor with the knowledge about running a company that I have now. Unfortunately, most of my pitfalls have been due to a lack of understanding on how to automate and streamline things I need to do to keep everything running. Doing so has now offered me the creative space and opportunities to continue to grow and avoid burnout.

McCormick Photos & Design – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
It’s aptly titled McCormick Photos & Design. For most of my career, I’ve worked with bands on album art, marketing, brand development, and creative solutions. However, a couple of years ago, I took all the experience and knowledge I’ve gained and moved into working with more companies. Because of the diversity of what I do, my job tends to flip often between primarily doing photography, aesthetic development, and marketing assistance.

I think the main thing that sets me apart is the recognition of trends and a hunger to propel beyond them. Conceptually, a lot of photographers and designers sometimes lack a true voice as they follow whatever is popular at the time. It’s important to recognize what people are looking at, but it’s also important to develop your own style and personality. As most of my job has been catering images to bands who’s sounds widely vary, my art has had to shift to match – in fact, I’ve had a lot of folks go to my website and ask to see “my work,” because they think I’m just gathering a compilation of imagery that I like and hosting it on my site. So, the struggle for voice is real. However, I worked extremely hard at trying to determine what makes me: I build everything for real and avoid Photoshop when possible, I love shooting film, and I offer a fresh, creative approach to everything I do.

Maybe it’s those things that I’ve worked so hard on that make me a helpful resource for anyone who’s asked… and maybe that’s what I’m proud of. Being able to help.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
I actually hired a phenomenal business coach about a year ago, Nicole BZ, to try to help me define this very thing. I think what I’ve come up with is: Don’t try to separate business from personal – they are one in the same. I view success by striking a balance between involving my family in my work and separating myself from everything in order to strive for higher quality and deeper understanding. That’s success in my mind, being pushed to try to learn all the time. Anytime I sink into depression or questions of self-worth, it’s typically because I’m offering space to question myself rather than continually learning what I can do to exceed my own expectations.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.mccormickphotos.com
• Phone: 720-295-5043
• Email: scott@mccormickphotos.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/mccormickphotos

Image Credit:
Photo of me by Merne Judson III

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