A portfolio of product design leader, and creative deviant Shaun Scholtz
Journey Into The Past
I wanted to be a graphic designer. Life had other plans.
Before I ever touched a wireframe, I spent four years on film sets, working as a technician on TV shows and movies while writing and shooting on the side. It was good work. Genuinely. But the whole time, I kept thinking about design. About those insanely cool Flash interfaces showing up on the FWA. About the thing I’d originally set out to do.
So in my spare time, I started building websites. Terrible ones. The kind that would make a 2004 MySpace page look restrained. I had the ambition but none of the foundation, and I knew it. BCIT fixed that. I went back to school, got serious about digital media and development, and came out the other side with my first real job as a front-end developer and designer.
From there the title evolved faster than the skills could keep up. Interactive art director, specifically the non-traditional kind. Not an ad guy in a blazer. More of a hybrid: part developer, part designer, part digital storyteller who couldn’t quite commit to one lane.
What I found in that work was that the problems were what kept me interested. Not the screens. Not the pixels. The problems. User experience design was the name for what I’d apparently been doing all along. I just hadn’t known it yet. That realization was fourteen years ago, and I haven’t looked for another path since.
A portfolio of product design leader, and creative deviant Shaun Scholtz
Where My Heart Likes To Dwell
Music
I love music. What you see here is only a sample of all the live concerts I’ve attended during the course of my adult life. Music has always had a profound effect on my mood, my soul, and my memories. Now, as a father, my daughters and I have forged a deep relationship through it. Music has become a bridge between us: how we express ourselves, what drives us, and how we connect to something with a hardline to my heart and soul.
A portfolio of product design leader, and creative deviant Shaun Scholtz
Where My Heart Likes To Dwell
Film
Who doesn’t love a good movie? Especially one that lets you escape reality, imagine remarkable worlds, and watch the hero struggle and prevail. I love movies that make you rethink gratitude when you see how brutal the world can be. I love laughing at movies. Crying at movies. Standing up and literally cheering for the hero. Like music, movies have a vivid connection to my childhood; these are a small sample of the ones I call favourites.
A portfolio of product design leader, and creative deviant Shaun Scholtz
Photo
graphy
I love snapping a good picture. Not for likes, not for anyone else, but for my own enjoyment. I remember being a little obsessed with having the right equipment, lens, and bag, but these days I mostly rely on my phone. Most people don’t care how you took the picture. Some days I don’t even remember how I captured it. I remember where I was, who was there, and a little about why the shot mattered. On the other side of the lens is a story to tell. It’s that simple.
A portfolio of product design leader, and creative deviant Shaun Scholtz
MY DAUGHTER. SHE LOVED ‘FLYING’ ON MY FEET, ONLY I WOULD LAUNCH HER INTO THE AIR REPEATEDLY. IN THIS ONE, I HAVE HER BALANCING ON BOTH MY FEET, WHILE HOLDING HER HAND AND SNAPPING THIS PICTURE WITH MY OTHER.
I have an old friend and former work colleague who always had a great eye for street photography (areml.com). One wintery day in December, I just decided to take my camera out to Granville street and see what shots I could get. This was my favourite one. There’s a sense of symmetry to where most of the men are looking, but also the one guy who’s noticed me, and is curious (or likely suspicious too). Either way. Lot’s going on.
One of the best small venue concerts I’ve had in my life! Idles came in played hard. At one point, they had us all huddle on the floor forcing everyone to lean on one another. We were all laughing, smiling, saying ‘Hi!’ to everyone. This concert lives rent free in my mind forever!
Sometimes I see things in the images I take that make me look further. They may seem mundane. They my feel banal. But when I messed with the contrast, there was a cinematic feel to this. Gave me David Fincher vibes.
This was a random photo shoot for an old friend who was venturing into her Yoga practice. We wandered the streets of downtown Vancouver just as the sun came up, and found this wonderful but odorous alley with some graffiti scribbled on it. I thought the shirt, and the wall had connection. Hence the image you see here.