It's By Nature - Hotaling November 4, 2010

Sylva Herald & Ruralite, The (NC)

November 4, 2010
Section: News and Sports

Hotaling’s landscapes to be part of Sylva After Dark

Maggie Tobias

New images by award-winning Cullowhee photographer Scott Hotaling will be among the offerings at Sylva After Dark, a monthly downtown evening of art and music slated for this Friday, Nov. 5, from 6 until 9 p.m. The first-Friday events take place May through December and are organized by the Downtown Sylva Association. Hotaling’s photographs will be on display at Main Street’s It’s By Nature gallery, where he’ll be November’s featured artist.

A 2004 graduate of Smoky Mountain High School who earned a zoology degree from N.C. State University last year, Hotaling says it’s the adventure, not the photograph, that’s his ultimate goal.

When he shoots a winter sunrise, a typical wake-up call is 2 a.m.

He may or may not have had good sleep, and there’s only adrenaline in his veins when he starts off for the mountains. A car will only take him so far; soon the snow’s too deep to drive in. Then it’s a matter of snowshoeing or skiing as far out as he can until he’s utterly alone.

“It’s pretty incredible not to have a single soul within miles of you,” Hotaling said.

When the sun rises, Hotaling’s ready with his camera and tripod.

“A cold landscape and warm light is much more interesting than a warm landscape with cold light,” he said. “The snow takes on the element of the light that’s around it. It’s like a giant canvas.”

Not many would have the fortitude to follow Hotaling on his frosty mountain excursions, which he’s taken in his own Jackson County and as far north as Alberta, Canada. But that’s part of why he takes pictures – so people can experience the hard-to-find wonders in their own region.
“I want people to see the landscape at the best possible time,” Hotaling said. “I think we live in an incredibly beautiful place, and I intend to show people that.”

People can experience Hotaling’s adventures second-hand at It’s By Nature. The images he’ll display will be a cross-section of everything he’s photographed, from snowy mountains to sunsets to storms.

Seeing people’s reactions to his work during art openings is something he enjoys, he said. But for Hotaling, the experience of taking the photograph is long over and he’s ready to “exhale, then think about the next one.”

Though he says he was tame as a kid, he can’t get enough adrenaline now. He loves to document natural landscapes – the more extreme the better. Imagine slogging a metal camera stand through a lightning storm just to get a good picture.

“I enjoy feeling a quickened pace in my heart ... and realizing that I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen,” Hotaling said. “I can’t tell if I’m scared
or excited, so I just keep going until I decide.”

Hotaling’s love of adrenaline has taken him to the roughest parts of Arizona, Montana and California; and it’s propelled him up 14,411-foot Mt. Rainier in Washington, where he worked as a volunteer climbing ranger in 2009, more than a dozen times.

“That took a lot for a North Carolina boy,” he said.

For Hotaling, photography’s always been more of a hobby and a way to document his travels – his camera doesn’t always come with him if it would get in the way of his climbing, he said. The rest of the time, he keeps his pack light, only carrying the essentials: a Canon 5D, two lenses and five filters for capturing different kinds of light.

Sometimes the idea of a photo directs his adventures.

“I get photos in my head and I spend long periods of time executing them,” he said.

Hotaling began taking pictures during his first years at N.C. State where he started as an engineering major, “which was a grossly poor idea,” he said.
In January he hopes to start a Ph.D. program at the University of Kentucky, so he can teach, he said. Photography will never be his only job, but Hotaling says he’ll keep taking pictures. There’s too much he hasn’t seen and too many perfect moments he’s never captured.

“Life is short,” Hotaling said.

Hopefully it’ll be long enough to tackle ranges like the Alps, the Himalayas – maybe even a sunrise climb in the Arctic.

“I’m good at suffering,” Hotaling said, adding that he’d go “anywhere that’s harsh. Whether it’s hot, cold, snowy or dry.”

Hotaling insists he’s not all that good at photography, even though the awards his pictures have won say otherwise.

“Winter Gold,” one of his personal favorites, was taken in Great Smoky Mountains National Park last December, with the gold of the sky peeking through branches heavy with snow and reflecting in a shallow stream. It won a Special Mention in last winter’s Appalachian Mountains Photography Contest.

Hotaling’s had his work featured in publications like Our State, The Sylva Herald and Wildlife in North Carolina, the magazine of the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, just to name a few. He’s won the landscape category in Wildlife in North Carolina’s photo contest for the past three years and earned the People’s Choice Award in the AMPC in both 2008 and 2010. He was a finalist in the Canon in the Parks contest in 2007, and he’s been called “a master in the making” by Nature’s Best Photography Magazine.

Hotaling would deny that he’s a “master.” If people know his name, he wants them to know it for the right reason.

In fact, he doesn’t even like the term photographer; it sounds pretentious, he says.

He’s just Scott: “the guy who likes exploring the mountains.”

To see more of his images, visit www.lightofthewild.com.

It’s By Nature will host a wine-and-cheese reception for Hotaling during Friday’s Sylva After Dark. For more information, contact 631-3020 or itsbynature@gmail.com.

In addition to Hotaling’s photographs at It’s By Nature, other special events planned for this week’s Sylva After Dark include:

Heinzelmannchen Brewery – 5- 8 p.m., free food and beer pairing.

City Lights Bookstore – 7 p.m., former Cullowhee resident Charles White will read from his new historical novel, “Lambs of Men.”

Penumbra Gallery – Owner/photographer Matthew Turlington will release 10 new images, just as he did in October. The new images are a variety of landscapes Turlington has captured over the last two years and include snow scenes, autumn colors, and waterfalls and streams.

Annie’s Naturally Bakery – free bread pairing featuring dinner rolls with herbed butters and cranberry sauce along with hot apple cider.

Gallery 1 – Winter Members Show opening, with the show continuing through December. Participating artists include Tim Lewis, Joe Meigs, Perry
Kelly, Ellen Hunter, James Smythe and Bill Clark. For more information, call 293-3407.

James Smythe Studio – The artist’s paintings will be featured in his West Main Street studio from 6 until 8 p.m.
Papou’s Wine Shop and Bar – Free wine tasting.

For more information on Sylva After Dark and other downtown events, contact DSA at 586-1577 or info@downtownsylva.org or visit www.downtownsylva.org.

Images associated with this article:
In “Cold Mountain Sunrise,” Cullowhee photographer Scott Hotaling captures a January 2010 sunrise from the summit of Devil’s Courthouse along the Blue Ridge Parkway. He said the temperature that day hovered around zero degrees, and nearly 2 feet of snow covered the ground. Hotaling will be November’s featured artist at It’s By Nature and will be available at the gallery to discuss his work during Sylva After Dark this Friday, Nov. 5, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. The Downtown Sylva Association sponsors the monthly first-Friday art and music events May through December.