I'm not a complicated man, but my work is rather complex. Wow, that sounds cocky, and I don't mean it that way. Don't roll your eyes and click away. I just mean I have a diverse background, in the type of work I do and in my clients. My roots are as a photojournalist and documentary photographer, and New York Times assignments made up the bulk of my 30s, all over Asia. I parlayed that background, my heritage if you will (go ahead, roll your eyes again, I get it), into dozens of luxury hotel shoots around the world for top brands, along with documentary style work for some NDA Fortune 500 clients. I also love photographing wildlife conservation stories, and yes, all of this causes some internal conflict, so spare me your judgment, but I'm doing my best to find my balance.

Through all these changes, I always kept a standard photojournalist website. Image driven, not much about me or my style or approach, terrible SEO, just big pictures and traditional galleries like Reportage, Travel, Portraits, Street, and Projects. I was moving on to new kinds of work, but my website was living in the past.

I should add that on top of working as an individual photographer, I also run a production company with my wife called Mott Visuals. We do a bit of everything. DJI is a huge client of ours for their enterprise video and photography, but we are best known for our luxury hotel shoots, both video and stills, along with casting and full production. Oh, and I'm not done. I also founded AskMOTT during my TV host days, back when I was the face and judge of Photo Face-Off on History Channel Asia for five years. When Covid hit, I morphed that into a YouTube channel and photography education platform, also called AskMOTT. Through all of it, my portfolio website got a bit abandoned. Bad SEO, outdated galleries, built for the work I wanted in my 20s, not my 40s.

I had just revamped my entire Mott Visuals website with the founder of a marketing agency called Torch, based in the USA. It was such a pleasant experience working with their founder, Rus Ackner. He did all the work, but it felt collaborative and easy, and I learned so much. That site was also stuck in the past, again terrible SEO and search rankings compared to where I felt we deserved to be. Rus turned that around for me. I have always been about website aesthetics, but not as strong on content and client user experience. He changed that, and through the process he became a friend.

So it was inevitable that I would want to do the same for JustinMott.com. I needed this site to be different from what it was 20 years ago, because I am so much different now. Not aimed at editors, but not losing my editorial roots either. Rus made me ask myself, AskMOTT if you will, some good questions. Who is this website for? What am I selling? How is it different from Mott Visuals, and how do I want the two to work together? Leave me alone, Rus, I'm a photographer, not a marketing strategist.

Where I landed was that this website would be my introduction to the internet. Does that make sense? Land here to get to know me. Learn about my editorial background through those portfolios, but also see how I bring that same natural light and authenticity into my commercial and lifestyle work. This is a site for someone who might hire me for an editorial shoot, sure, but it is more geared toward a client who wants an editorial style photographer for a commercial job. It should also validate my credentials for the people who watch my YouTube videos and might want to book a mentorship, join my photography community, or come on a workshop with me.

As for colors and style, I love an industrial aesthetic, so Rus and the team factored that in. We went with a green that feels symbiotic with Vietnam, and you can see it echoed in many of the images. We wanted to strike that balance: Vietnam based, yes, but honest about the fact that I work globally, which is how I want to be seen and how I should be seen.

The galleries are simple now. Editorial, Lifestyle, Portraits, plus my personal projects, because storytelling is at the core of who I am as a photographer. We added case studies because I wanted to show what I can do across a whole shoot, not just one strong photo, but a set of images that work together to tell a story for media and for companies. We also built a Press area, since I have been interviewed quite a bit about photography, and that complements the AskMOTT brand well.

On messaging, Rus made me think hard about something I already knew but had never really put into words or built into my brand. We are at a huge tipping point in photography, with many brands choosing AI visuals because they are cheaper and easier to produce. But I am confident that plenty of brands will hold their ground and even lean into their authenticity. Those are my clients. Those are my people. So leaning on my strong background in media, with its strict ethical codes and deep roots in storytelling, felt right, and felt like a smart move.

I realize not every photographer has the budget to rebrand with a marketing agency. Still, it helps to think like one. There are plenty of designers and template sites out there that will make your website look good, but without a story, the brand usually falls short. A huge thank you to Rus, his son Harrison, and the whole team at Torch for a beautiful product, and mostly for sparking that fire in me to market myself and stand by who I am and what I offer as a photographer and storyteller.

Browse the new website here and let me know what you think.