09/17/2026
PEOPLE BEHIND THE HORSEPOWER
A SLICE IN TIME
Scott Hamilton | "An Image in Time Photography"
Before Scott Hamilton stood beside a dragstrip with a camera, he stood beside his father at a neighborhood service station in Jacksonville, Florida.
At Lester Hamilton’s station in North Shore, full service meant pumping gas, cleaning windshields, checking oil and tire pressure, and taking care of the people who trusted you with their cars. Before catching the school bus, young Scott helped get the station ready for the day.
That trust lasted beyond his father’s retirement.
“Customers would come by the house because they would not trust anybody else to look at their car,” Scott remembers.
Service ran through the family. Lester was a World War II veteran, and all four Hamilton brothers served in the United States Air Force.
Scott began as a ground radio operator, communicating with aircraft over the Atlantic. While stationed at RAF Alconbury in England, he volunteered for the telephone shop—an opportunity that changed the direction of his working life.
“That was the best thing I ever did.”
He learned telephone installation, repair and data circuitry, skills he carried into work with the Florida Air National Guard and federal civil service, then GTE and Verizon. Decades of his career were spent helping people stay connected.
Photography became another way to hold on to those connections.
It started with a camera purchased for his wife, Stephanie. Soon, they both wanted to use it. Another camera followed—and then more equipment. Stephanie also gave the venture its name: An Image in Time Photography.
Scott and Stephanie have been married for more than 30 years and have two grown children. Behind the cameras and race weekends is a family he speaks about with pride.
His racing roots run just as deep.
His father loved NASCAR. His brother Ken became Scott’s greatest inspiration in motorsports and motorsports photography. A Jacksonville Motorsports Hall of Fame inductee, Ken’s racing history includes a Nova, a D/Gasser and a front-engine dragster.
One of Scott’s earliest experiences photographing a race was watching Ken compete in a nostalgia dragster at a Drag Race for the Cure event in Douglas, Georgia.
Today, Ken remains his favorite person to photograph.
“Of all the people I photograph, I still enjoy shooting my brother.”
At 79, Ken gives those photographs an added meaning for Scott. Whenever his brother races, Scott wants to be there to capture it.
At the track, Scott looks for burnouts, launches and the details surrounding them: a crew member’s expression, a moment at the starting line, even a hat lifted by the exhaust.
“The cars are the stars,” he says.
But those cars carry people, family histories and years of effort into every frame.
Away from the dragstrip, Scott also enjoys photographing his friend Tony Mikus’s band, Big Engine. The stage offers different light and movement, but the same opportunity to catch a moment before it disappears.
His connection with the racing community includes recognition from Southeast Nostalgia Drag Racing—an award that belongs alongside the photographs he has made of that community.
Ask Scott what he hopes people will see when they look back through his work, and his answer is straightforward: growth. He hopes they notice that he kept learning and that his photography kept getting better.
He has a simple description for what he captures:
“A slice in time.”
From his father’s service station to his brother’s race cars, from military service to a career in communications, Scott’s story is filled with connections worth preserving.
Now he preserves them one photograph at a time.
Follow Scott at An Image in Time Photography:
Who has captured a racing memory that matters to you? Give that photographer a shout-out.
It all starts with a conversation.
Image note: The service-station scene is an AI-created illustration representing Scott’s father’s station.
