Scott Clarkson was first in the darkroom at age 14, developing 5 x 7 large-format negatives and printing on his step-father's enlarger in the basement of the home in St. Charles, Missouri. In 1976, he relocated to Washington, D.C. for a job on Capitol Hill after attending Indiana University, Bloomington (BA-Political Science). He attended law school in Virginia (George Mason University School of Law, JD 1982) and began his legal career in Washington, D.C. and then in Los Angeles (where he managed a small boutique law firm from 1990 to 2010). He was appointed as a United States Federal Bankruptcy Judge in January, 2011, where he serves in the Central District of California. This has allowed him to continue his interests in documentary photography. Creating recent photography exhibits which include places such as Ukraine, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Pakistan, and Kashmir, Clarkson has continued to be drawn to important segments of recent world history, and especially in areas where history is now being made. His 2007 book Windows to Vietnam - A Journey in Pictures & Verse, co-authored with poet Veita Jo Hampton, was a highly acclaimed work, and was chosen as "editors pick" by the United States Military Academy (West Point) Association of Graduates, 2008.

Clarkson uses a Hasselblad 500c/m (120/220 film), a Leica M9, a Leica M8 (35 mm digital), a Nikon F100 (35 mm film) and a Nikon 90 (digital). Clarkson is a Member of the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) (http://www.asmp.org), the National Press Photographer's Association (NPPA) (http://www.nppa.org/), and the Leica Historical Society of America (www.lhsa.org). Clarkson is a member of Lightstalkers.Org (www.lightstalkers.org/scott-clarkson).