Scott Schilke: Photographing Races and Rockets

Marco’s Scott Schilke still remembers how he felt the Christmas Day when he received his first camera as a gift from his parents. Little did he know he’d get that same feeling some four decades later as a credentialed media photographer at NASA launchpads and in victory lane at the Indianapolis 500.

“My parents gave me a camera when I was 16,” Schilke said. “They took me to the Daytona 500 in 1971. I just fell in love with racing. It became my life. I’ve been shooting it since 1971.”

When Schilke, 64, who enjoyed a successful career as a condominium manager on the island, looks back on his career, one lesson stands out.

“I think condominiums here on Marco—and also the racing and rockets, they’ve all been dreams and stages of my life,” he said. “I could have given up with so many different issues and problems and no’s, and doors being slammed in my face. But if you have perseverance, heart, passion and don’t give up on your dreams, you will be successful. If you have persistence and heart and passion—who’s going to stop you? It may take time, but it will happen.

“I am somewhat adventurous. I’ve done the condominium side, took care of the family, did the responsible thing. Now I storm chase, I do the tornadoes, I chase supercells in the summertime. Lightning is my third passion, after racing and rockets. This is an amazing place. Especially in the summertime. I love lightning. The power of mother nature.”

Schilke came to Marco Island after working at several Deltona Corporation sites around the state. The Deltona Corporation—led by the famous Mackle Brothers—were the developers of modern Marco Island. Schilke’s duties at the various Mackle-built communities included cutting grass and other entry-level jobs. But even as a young man he was looking for ways to make things run more efficiently at his various positions—and he let the powers that be know what he saw.

“I found inefficiencies in their operations,” Schilke remembers.

The Mackle Brothers were impressed with what they were hearing about Schilke. Frank Mackle, Jr., president of Deltona Corporation, asked him to join their operations on Marco Island, where there was a lot going on.

“In the early ‘80s when I started working for them on Marco Island, Deltona had seven buildings coming out of the ground: the four South Seas Towers, Summit House, Royal Seafarer and the Surf Club. For two years I was assistant manager at all four of the South Seas Towers. After that two year stint, Frank Mackle, Jr. hired me to be the first manager at Summit House. That was their flagship. I was 26. So I became a manager at 26 and I did it for almost 40 years. “

Schilke spent 12 years as the manager at Summit House before being lured to Hideaway Beach.

“I was there almost 25 years,” he said. “It was a wonderful career.”

The 24/7 life of a condo manager was not conducive to the pursuit of his photographic dreams. But his lifelong obsession with photographing auto races paid off in an unusual way.

“With racing I have a lot of historical pictures dating back to 1971,” he said. “There’s a big market for them. So I sell them on Ebay.”

One of his best customers became one of his biggest allies.

“One of the Sebring photographers, who’s always been credentialed, started to buy photos from me. I started getting to know him more. Then out of the cold blue he said, ‘Scott, you seem like you’re a good photographer, I can get you in. Give me your name and your information and I can get you credentialed.’ That opened the door.”

As he did with his shot at condo management, Schilke attacked his opportunity with gusto.

“All it took was that one race. But there was a lot of pressure because you have one shot, so you better do well. And you better make the editor happy. That was 2011.”

Schilke’s next big break came when he hooked up with a prestigious racing website for his racing photography.

“I became a press photographer in 2011 for automobilsports.com, they’re out of Luxembourg.”

Schilke captured his “career” photograph while photographing a NASCAR event at Talladega, Alabama, when Bobby Labonte’s car caught on fire. That is when he learned just how dedicated—and brave—a racecar driver can be.

“It was the last lap of Talladega,” Schilke said. “I asked him, ‘This is the final lap of the race, you’re in sixth place. Do you still have your accelerator pumping gas into the fire?’ He said, ‘Absolutely, this is pay day.’ There’s fire fully in the windshield, under him and down the side and he’s still pumping gas into the fire just to finish the race. That’s guts. He’s good. Bobby Labonte. That’s my career photo.”

The highlights of his race photography career are his visits to victory lane, a space where only select photographers are invited. Being in victory lane for the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500 is at the top of the list.

“Victory lane at Indy is extremely hard to get in to,” he said. “Very difficult. So that was another big moment. I’ve probably been in 30-40 NASCAR/IndyCar victory lanes. When the driver wins, they’ll usually do a burnout, where they smoke the tires just to celebrate. The crowd loves it. It’s a great photo op. It’s normally around the start/finish line. The crowd will stay just so they can shoot the burnout through the fence. So after they’re done with the burnout then they’ll drive to victory lane. This is where they’ll climb out of the car. The confetti or the beer is flying everywhere. It’s a special moment. So to get in there, it’s a tight situation, it’s usually an additional credential level just to shoot victory lane. A lot of photographers who are shooting the race can’t even get in there. So being in victory lane with the driver and the team and all of the excitement, that was always cool.”

Schilke’s next dream was to shoot rocket launches. He reasoned that his experience as a media race photographer might make his transition possible. He had a rude awakening.

“That was 2016,” he said. “I was still a condo manager. And a job can tie you down. I tried on my own. I figured automobilsports.com is big enough, she gets over three million hits a year, 100 million hits since its inception. Europe, Africa and Asia are basically her market. I thought that would be big enough. I have hundreds of races under my belt. I thought that NASA, SpaceX would see that I’m a bona fide media photographer and let me in. I tried. It did not work. I failed miserably. I must have had 60 no’s. I tried. It took a year. “

But Schilke was undeterred. Instead of giving up, he decided to find another way to attack the challenge.

“I figured, ‘I’ve got to start shooting launches with the public.’ So I finally learned—I’m a little hard-headed—I’m very determined. I finally learned, ‘I know what they want, so I’ve got to go out and do the best I can from a longer distance.’ Because when you’re shooting with the public, you’re 13 miles out, eight miles out. Editors want crisp, detailed photos. And you have to keep them happy. I talked my editor into using them on a racing site, which turned out to be really easy. My editor was excited about this. She wants to be different than everyone that covers racing. She has a section called Lifestyle. That’s where a lot of my work is now.

“Finally the United States Air Force, they’re called the 45th Space Wing, they gave me my first crack at it. That opened the door to other space editors, they saw my work and they hired me on. So that really did pave the way. But trying to do it on my own, that was tough. That was a real wake-up call. It was kind of demoralizing. It’s a tough market to break into, but man, is it rewarding.”

Being a rocket launch photographer takes an immense amount of preparation and planning. So much so that Schilke had to drastically limit his racing photography.

“I’ve cut back on the racing because the rockets take a lot of time,” he said. “I just can’t do both.”

Schilke is one of around 25-100 photographers worldwide who photograph the NASA/SpaceX launches. One of the things he appreciates is being on the hallowed ground where some of the most famous launches in history have taken place.

“Pad 39-A, where all the moon shots took off from and a lot of the shuttles took off from—very historic ground,” he said. “It’s really cool just to be out there.”

He sets up five cameras at the launch site, 24-48 hours prior to the launch. He protects his cameras with ammunition boxes that he’s customized for the unique conditions his cameras have to endure.

“The rain, the dew at night is a big problem, it covers your lens. If your lens is dewed over it looks like you’re shooting a sunset through a shower curtain. You have nothing to work with. Nothing to send to your editor. For me, I probably put two weeks of effort into my rocket boxes to make sure that all the components work. You have to have a heater for the dew. You have to have the batteries to last. You have your cameras go from sleep to wake up just before the launch. And you’ve gotta have the right kind of triggering to go off. We’re in a safety zone two miles away during the launch. The reason why is that the shockwave will kill you. The heat will kill you. And the biggest thing is the toxic fumes from all of the propellent. So dependent on the wind, if you’re within that one mile-to-two mile range you would die. Burn your lungs. It’s extremely toxic. It’s very, very, caustic. Most of the time we have to wear rubber gloves when we come back to retrieve our equipment. Because if you start touching your eyes, your lips, your face, it’ll feel like you’re on fire.”

Just getting through security is a major challenge.

“You’re out there with those rockets. So there are a lot of different clearances, background checks, security checks, dog sniffs, vehicle searches—all sorts of things. They really check you out for every single launch. Terrorism is an issue. They have to be careful. All of our equipment that we put out there gets inspected.”

Then there’s the bus ride to the launch site with the other photographers.

“You’ve put in two weeks of effort before the launch even happens. Then there’s this mad rush to get out of the bus. You run out of that bus to the undercarriage of the bus, grab your equipment—and everyone’s trying to get their stuff at the same time. So there’s a lot of jockeying going on. Then you run to find your spot on the launchpad. There’s favorite spots on every pad. Pad 40 has a palm tree, so everyone wants to be in the spot to frame their picture with the palm tree. Everybody’s fighting for that spot. Lots of pressure. Lots of jockeying. You set your cameras. You’re tapping on the box, making sure it triggers. Get some confidence that it’s going to work. But you still don’t know about the rain, about the dew. There’s time constraints. So there’s jockeying and fighting. NASA and SpaceX have time constraints. They need you off of that pad because you’re going to hold up the show. So sometimes we have five, 10 minutes to set out equipment. And it has to be perfect. And you feel pressure.”

The payoff comes the day after the launch, when the photographers are bussed back out to the launchpad.

“You have to wait that night, get on the bus the next morning. The site has to be safe. The next morning when you get back out there it is like Christmas morning. You can’t wait. But are you going to get coal or are you going to get your red, shiny bicycle under the tree? You just don’t know. So every launch, when you get back on the pad, it’s just like Christmas morning. That part I like. It’s the best part.

“My first rocket launch, I put my equipment out on the pad, and you go back a day later and there are no images. Nothing on the camera. The cameras never turned on. And my editor’s expecting pictures. I got nothing except what I got from the media center, and they weren’t very good. So it’s been a journey. But it’s been rewarding.”