Phrasemaker

Starting like any other landscape photographer, Scott Leggo has managed to grow his art into a million-unit business. Starting with a few sales to friends and family and exhibition wins, Leggo’s business has developed a dedicated team with a client list boasting big names like Telstra and The Australian Government.

I chatted with Scott to learn a little about his artist’s journey and glean some business expertise too.

Where did your photography start, and when did you start taking it seriously?

Growing up, I used to love the time I spent outdoors and over the years grew to love travel. But, over a number of years a lot had fallen out of my life in terms of what I actually enjoyed, replaced by work that increasingly offered little reward other than long hours and hectic travel.

It all came to a head in 2006, and I decided that landscape photography would be a great ‘excuse’ for me to get outdoors and travel on my terms, not that of my employer. I thought, wouldn’t it be awesome if I could travel around to these great locations and photograph them and come back with great images that would look great on people’s walls. That was the genesis of the idea, and I guess why in many ways I’m not traditional in how I came to photography with no formal training or ‘art’ background and why I’ve never been interested in shooting weddings or portraits etc.

As time has gone on, another aspect that has continued to appeal is the business aspects of my photography. I now thoroughly enjoy the freedom and flexibility of effectively being my own boss and being unconstrained by what can sometimes be frustrating bureaucracy in larger organisations. I also get a lot of satisfaction from the challenges that are inherent in trying to grow a business along the path to achieving the vision we have. Undoubtedly, I’m now much more relaxed and happier than I was when I set out on this photography journey, so in that regard I definitely made the right decision in pursuing photography and what drew me to it in the first place.

Who have you been inspired by?

I’d say my mother and her family. I’ve learned a lot from my Mum about art and seeing paintings and drawings from her parents and other members of her family – all incredibly gifted artists in their own right.

Yet not too many people outside of the family have probably ever heard of them, despite the fact that they produced some truly brilliant paintings and drawings. For me, they’re inspirational because it’s family heritage and while I never knew my Grandparents they clearly got great satisfaction out of their art, while struggling to find funds to indulge their passion.

Beyond family, since I was kid I loved David Attenborough documentaries, and that hasn’t really changed. Many of these documentaries feature amazing locations, captured and portrayed with brilliant cinematography, all wrapped up in a package that educates. I find these shows incredibly inspirational in terms of places I want to travel to, but also the desire to photograph these amazing locations and share images of the beautiful world we live in and to help educate people about the planet on which we all share and the environmental challenges the globe faces.

And where did your business start? What was your first sale?

To be 100% honest and as silly as this sounds, I don’t actually remember who or what photo was my first sale. I remember those first few sales initially came about mostly from referrals with family/friends and then grew to the broader public from there.

Once I had established a website in 2007 and began marketing, online sales followed. It was then that I realised what was possible. I then did my first exhibition, and my next and so on. The business has just been a continuous journey of starting small and building on that, learning, applying lessons.

I’m a believer in the notion of 1% better every day and seeking continuous improvement. That’s been fundamental to the business growing. With that approach, we’ve now sold over a million copies of my photographs to customers here in Australia and overseas. As the saying goes, from little things, big things grow. It’s certainly a very different business now compared to when I first started.

What were some of the major milestones along the way?

Yes, there’s definitely been many milestones, some good, and some hard lessons along the way too! Opening the first gallery was definitely a big one. Having the opportunity to have people see my photographs in person and see what the larger wall art prints look like in person was great. In today’s day and age, anyone can make themselves look good online, but being able to have people see your products for real, knowing they are dealing with a legitimate business that is capable of delivering for customers is another thing entirely.

After five years of the first gallery, we then opened our second gallery, applying many of the lessons learnt we gained with the first. Now, while still having the gallery, much of our focus going forward is online. Despite being based in Canberra, we’re very much a national business, and being online means we can serve a much larger customer base. The gallery provides the ability to serve customers in person, but also gives us insight into what our customers’ needs are, so we can keep improving, including online.

We recently won the Creative Category in the export awards, which was another milestone and strong recognition that we have built a leading business exporting Australia to the world. With 10-15% of our revenue now from exports, we really are sharing the beauty of Australia with the world. That is a milestone we’re proud of.

You mentioned hard lessons, what was one of these bumps in the road?

Oh, where do I start, there’s plenty! That said, without a doubt, some of the biggest challenges and mistakes have been around marketing. We advertise on radio, TV, in print and online, so have most bases covered. But it hasn’t always worked. There’s lots of promises out there from advertising and marketing agencies, or business ‘advisors’ about what they can achieve in terms of results. Most fail miserably to deliver. We have certainly spent, and wasted, a lot of money on marketing efforts that have delivered little. It’s money we will never see again.

I think there’s a lot to be said for accepting that no one truly knows your brand or business like you do. In that regard, we have learnt to be very cautious about anyone, or any business, making big claims, who hasn’t taken the time to actually understand our business, can prove they can actually deliver, and are willing to back that up with their own skin in the game.

Like all things in life, the key is to learn from the experience, which we have mostly. But we have found marketing difficult, and some of our lessons have been very hard won. I’m particularly cautious these days before we commit to marketing efforts, keen not to repeat mistakes we have made in the past

I like that you also sell puzzles with your art. Were there other products you tried along the way?

Our purpose as a business is to share the beauty of the Australian landscape with others. We do that with my landscape photography, but there are many product avenues to do that. We did calendars for a few years, but we found declining interest in calendars, so we no longer offer those.

Our main focus is premium quality, Australian made wall art, but other products like jigsaw puzzles are just one of those options. They came about during the early COVID restrictions when we wanted to offer a product that could help people through increased restrictions and then lockdowns. That period was a boom for puzzles, but things have returned to more normal levels now.

Beyond wall art and puzzles we have an Australia coffee table book showcasing photographs from around Australia. We also sell acrylic blocks which make great gifts and are perfect for bringing a pop of colour to people’s desks or smaller spaces where maybe they don’t have the room or permission to hang a print on the wall.

As for more products, additional books are planned and I’m currently working on two book projects to bring out a couple of books hopefully in a year or so. One will be on a topic that has never been published before. It’s quite exciting to be putting this one together and to be capturing the photos for this.

You’ve worked with some major clients: Telstra, BHP, the Australian Government. How do you build those connections?

Like most things, it takes time to both build the reputation but also build the networks and connections. With big brands like these, they want to see that you’re established, produce trusted quality products and are easy to deal with and understand how to work with them. Both my wife and I have had experience working with large companies prior to this business, so I think that has provided a good foundation we’ve been able to draw upon. That said, word of mouth and reputation is critical too.

Either way, much of what we have achieved has been by making sure we put the customer at the heart of our thinking. That means thinking the entire time about things from their perspective, solving their problems, making things easy for them. I see many businesses making changes because it works for them or makes their life easier, based on what they want to do, or their preferences, not that of the customer. Thinking like a big business and understanding their unique customer perspectives has helped us in regards to servicing the needs of those bigger businesses you mention.

“Thinking like big businesses”, can you give an example?

To put it bluntly, big businesses aren’t buying products from the person at the local markets. If you want to play in the big league then you have to step up and be in that league. You need to think, act and genuinely deliver a product or service at their level, that meets their needs. Big businesses buy from businesses, established brands, not individuals.

You need to have the infrastructure and supply chains that can deliver consistently, with systems and process needed to comply with big business procurement processes. Big businesses have growing requirements on suppliers to meet their ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) obligations. As a supplier to them, you need to understand this and be able to address their requirements, whether that be around ethical sourcing, modern slavery or numerous other matters.

While many may bemoan the added procurement layers, you have to accept that’s what’s needed to play at that level and deliver that for them. You need to make it easy for them to purchase from you. If you don’t, then you won’t get a look in.

Running the business and shooting are very different jobs. How do you make time to photograph?

I’m not going to lie, it’s hard sometimes. I’m lucky to have a team that run the gallery and online store. That gives me the capacity and opportunity to travel. That said, whether I’m away travelling or back in Canberra I still need to manage the business. As a small team that means that plenty still falls to me, so it is a careful balance. I’d happily be away the whole time, but it is a matter of balancing running the business too, especially with a young family.

But I do manage to spend plenty of time travelling, growing the collection. I’ve been away a fair bit over the last few months, proof that the juggle can be done. None of this would be possible without the team behind me, so I’m very grateful for what we have and the opportunity that affords me. It simply wouldn’t be possible without them.

You’ve travelled a lot. What places are still on your list to photograph?

It’s a long list! It’s funny, the more you travel the more you realise is out there and that you haven’t seen. I think of it like an ever expanding spiral that you can’t get off. There’s simply so much out there to explore.

My main focus for photography is Australia. With such a big country and so much I am yet to photograph, the list is pretty long of what I’m still dreaming about. I’ve spent more time along coastal regions than central areas of Australia, so I’m keen to explore more of the ‘middle areas’ of the country. Not just pure ‘outback’ areas, but some of the less travelled areas that border the desert areas.

That said, I’m always drawn to the high country and there’s still so much more I want to explore and photograph across the Australian alpine areas. One of the challenges of landscape photography is that it is often so dependent upon the weather to create great light. That means that sometimes much of my travel is low yielding in terms of photographs I’m happy with. So while that sounds bad from a business perspective it just means I’m going to have to go back again – it’s a lucky life.

Thanks for the chat, looking forward to your new book!

Thanks, and yes, will let you know when the book comes out. Likely late next year.

You can find more of Scott’s work at his site, on his instagram, his facebook page, or visit their gallery in person at 33 Jardine Street, Kingston, ACT.