All language subtitles for B&H OPTIC West Day 01 - Main Stage

whatever the customer needs even when

especially when the items are rare so

true could you give us an example Irving

we help millions of customers all over

the world come on just one example well

there was NASA NASA NASA what's the big

deal we have everyone big and small so

what did NASA need a unique House of

block lens for a space mission I guess

no one else had it but we did but we

often have what others don't

love it what else can you tell us about

this story that is the story copy that

Irving and thank you for sharing for all

your needs big or small check out B

h.com

go back to work now

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here we go

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foreign

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[Music]

this is a real b h customer story

I just came to b h to take her

photographer Target the next level she's

an artist by choice pizza maker by birth

and b h customer for Life am I missing

anything here teacher entrepreneur

product designer and a photographer and

a restaurateur I forgot that part

impressive Steph I gotta be honest I

don't know where to look first is that a

microscope yeah that's my trinocular

axio lab and that's what I use to make

bioart bioart what's that bior is where

science and art meet amazing so what

came first camera or the microscope so

first came in the microscope then the

camera and thankfully that's where being

accepted

when I first went to b h trying to find

a camera for my microscope I thought it

was a little Oddball request but turns

out they've done this before and they

knew exactly what I was looking for

what's great about working with people

at b h is that they use the gear that

they're selling you so what are you

looking at now cheese sauce peppers

onions Olives Pizza toppings

hmm I'm sensing a theme Here uh yeah my

family started a pizza restaurant in

1960. whoa 60 years of pizza what's the

secret we use cheddar cheese

okay so what's next for you Steph I want

to take this tiny thing that I've been

looking at and blow it up using

projectors I just have to figure out

what equipment I need I like where this

is going so b h you know we're gonna

we're gonna talk again Steph we're

always here when you need us sure to

save me a slice for your next project

head to the experts at bnh.com oh yeah

I've definitely put him under the

microscope cat fur looks crazy

this morning we're at grindel island and

it's the most amazing forest and a

perfect place to really try out our

photographic skills we've been looking

at the dappled light and how to cope

with that in the forest but also zooming

in and getting those amazing macro shots

of the ferns and the growth of the ferns

you also have these trees here the

thicker Spruce the hemlock which has

this incredible patterns and allows you

to be able to get almost abstract

photography out of the rainforest

so we've been learning about how to

shoot with this dappled light a couple

of different techniques we've been

learning around HDR which allows you to

be able to cope with the bright light as

well as the dark light we've also been

looking at just the angle of the light

where is the light coming from and

focusing on taking photographs into the

Shadows so that you don't get that big

contrast as well as trying to look for

rays of sunshine to light up the forest

this is a real b h customer story Jack

and barber professional Wildlife

photographers and b h customers for 30

years live in remote Alaska hey what's

the population there about 50 to 52

people and bears would definitely not

New York anymore it's just quiet here

it's beautiful the wildlife photography

out here is amazing while they could

order equipment from any number of sites

they don't anytime we need anything b h

is our go-to we can send an email we

have used the chat feature and of course

the phone of our phones are working if

the phones are working hi Jack

I needed a tripod and it had to be light

it had to be sturdy so I talked with

somebody at b h I think his name is

Charles and he pointed me toward a

certain tripod and liked it so much that

I bought a second one nice one Charles

when it comes to getting gear things

were shipped quickly packed well made it

through the harrowing Journey going from

plane to smaller plane to somebody's

hand thrown to somebody else put in the

back of a truck and arrived unscathed

that's quite the schlep it must be

incredible when it gets there oh it's

it's like Christmas I mean honestly it's

better than Christmas yeah it's my

birthday B H has everything that we need

I mean when have we ever looked for

something and it wasn't available well

there was bananas yeah

but hen is indeed wherever you live b h

is ready to help chat email and if your

phones are working give us a call

[Music]

on this eclipse the Sun is going to rise

above the Horizon and it'll be like a

big smile looking at you because it'll

be a crescent Sun

the whole thing about Eclipse chasing

links so many feel-good opportunities

friends environment location and an

eclipse itself

the Moon is always casting a shadow out

in the solar system but periodically

that shadow passes over the Earth if we

happen to have them lined up in the

right position when that happens we want

to be underneath that shadow when we're

looking forward to see what's coming in

eclipses you spot one that's

particularly interesting to you and one

beside an over Antarctica is the cream

on top of the milk because it's such an

exotic location

the total solar eclipse is such a

beautiful thing because it brings

everybody together and for one minute

everybody's going to be looking up and

enjoying just the same moments and so

I'm really excited to take some photos

but then also set the camera down and

just enjoy it

that one moment when the totality Moon

sun and the corona

I can't believe it I can't believe what

kind of magic we witnessed and

introducing the new payboo credit card

you can save the tax or choose special

financing for your purchases made on

your paybu credit card so you want to

save the tax on a camera laptop and

drone no problem no need to wait for

credits or cash back like other credit

cards the b h payboo card pays you back

instantly or save over time and choose

special financing and pay it off over 6

or 12 months it's easy use your new

payboo card as payment at checkout then

choose your available options either pay

Boost savings or special financing see

your savings or promotional plan right

on your receipt in-store or online

applying is easy your approved paybook

card will be instantly available for a

first purchase at checkout the new

payboo card same funny name your choice

of exclusive benefits apply today

and we got our Cube

there we go

sure

how's the stream going

what's happening

all right

nope videos are over that's it we're

ready to rock

that should be we're exactly on time 9

40.

beautiful thanks thank you

I do I do

I'm not hot I'll keep my microbes

foreign

hi everyone

good morning class

how we doing today

correct

all right

so thank you so much for coming and

welcome to optic West it is an amazing

honor to be here we've been planning

this for many years as a matter of fact

we were supposed to be in San Francisco

on March 22nd and 23rd of 2020.

and I remember it was around March 5th

sitting in my director's office and

we're like what's going on I don't think

it's going to happen so we uh we closed

down b h we had that stupid pandemic

happened and we turned around and we did

virtual events kind of a show of hands

who here was watching our virtual events

virtual Optics okay I bet you

appreciated that probably in those those

dark days it certainly was great to work

on those presentations and those during

those days because it kept us focused so

I'm really thrilled to say that uh it's

about two and a half years only three

years later and here we are in

California so let's just give a Round of

Applause Just to the

so what's allowed us to be which is

pretty amazing and you know we shifted

from San Francisco to Monterey and that

yeah

I think it was a good idea

that was fronting that actually really

suggested Ray he's a Santa Cruz guy so

he figured it would work out really well

and he also told me that this is

Hallowed Ground the Monterey Conference

Center that the the First Tech

conference happened here and it really

broke open uh so much technology that

comes out of this region so just a a

quick shout out I want to give thanks to

Carol and Lou who've been who've been

coming to B H Photo for many years I

used to run the event space program in

the store I don't know if you guys have

seen the the videos that we produced out

of the event space but Carol and Lou

were regulars at the event space and you

guys followed us out all the way over

here did you take the Staten Island

Ferry to get here was that uh

so that's pretty amazing stuff

um okay so uh a couple of questions here

I said Monterey a lot of claps how many

people are from Monterey

and I'm going to say Carmel and Monterey

will kind of combine it how many people

came here from San Francisco

all right pretty good how many people

came from outside of California

how many people came from outside of

North America

okay and New York we get we get New York

optic we do get some out of country

people coming in but we'll work on that

and uh all right so

um by the way I'm David brommer pleased

to meet you all

say who I am thank you so much

um

for those of you how many people have

been to B H Photo in New York City

that's a well-traveled crowd okay all

right so for those of you that aren't so

familiar from b h I'm going to play a

short video for you guys give you a

little bit of the history of b h b h is

turning 50 years old next year

pretty pretty good uh I'm happy to say

that I just had on Halloween my 25 year

anniversary so I'm going to be turning

55 and have been at B H half the time

that they've been open I just waited for

them to start up before I joined the

company get the get the momentum going a

little bit

so here is our beautiful video about b h

uh

we have audio

okay hold on a second

um

my first time working with this

production company out here so

click in here do we

you guys seemed up on that okay

for

first um you guys got my emails this

morning

okay I really don't know how that

happened I really truly don't but uh I

got my first email from someone saying

that's going uptick in June not optic

West so thanks for bearing with us and

taking that over all right we're back in

line thank you Gents

okay so let's start this over we're on

four can I get a countdown

three

yeah

let me cancel that

this is a brief history

okay one more time let's do the

countdown six

five this is a brief history of b h

everyone's favorite photo and video

store the year was 1973. the Mets went

to the World Series the first cell phone

call was made

and blame me and Hermann opened a

specialty photography shop at 17 Warren

Street New York City they had a simple

philosophy be honest treat people right

and they will come back thanks Irving

also free candy and it worked over the

next 20 years we expanded a move to West

17th Street then 34th Street and 9th

Avenue and added more products lighting

binoculars telescopes audio video

tripods computers printers mobile

televisions projectors drones and even

more free candy now it's three stories

on over four hundred thousand products

and over a thousand employees

we take millions of orders online and

ship to 179 countries and Counting

you can talk to us in person on the

phone DNA talking to help you where am I

check out our checkout baskets also

check out our checkout numbers also

check out the flare on Murray's vest and

everyone's favorite part are conveyor

belt

the benefit of the conveyor belt is you

don't have to worry about the product or

schlepping around anymore until checkup

nice these are the owners they still

come to work every day they're around

here somewhere anyway this is Jeanette

oh sorry she's busy this is our

warehouse this is yaakov and Lady

fighting over lighting kits

b h is not a chain b h is open every day

except Saturdays of course

now you know almost the whole story

we are b h

[Music]

so Jeanette was at the check when you

see Jeanette ask her if she's busy

Jeanette is an amazing co-worker I work

with the best people in the world I

really do and b h is really a big family

as you get from that so at b h is a big

family y'all are my second cousins

but say hi to Jeanette she uh she

organizes so much and keeps us going so

what are we doing here what is this what

is this optic thing so

it was

2018 and uh I was aboard the limblad

Expedition National Geographic seabird

along with Rock Lee Hopkins Carolyn

Delmonico and Gabriel biederman matter

of fact we got Ralph right there in the

back he's holding up his he's got the

blue shirt he's got the hat on

and that's that's Ralph National

Geographic's Director of Photography

program and we're in the lounge and we

were having an amazing time shooting and

doing this land and sea expedition in

the Baja of California in the sea of

Cortez and we said boy you know what the

world needs is a conference dedicated to

The Great Outdoors an adventure

Expedition photography and then sort of

morphed a little bit into fine art

photography we've really been growing it

but that's the seabird and that's where

we conceived of this idea and uh what we

said is that we're going to make a

conference that celebrates The Great

Outdoors it inspires photographers to

travel and implores conversation and

ecology and the importance of technology

and photography so between limb blood

Expeditions and B H Photo we got that

all covered we got the technology we

have the knowledge we've got all that

expedition brings us to the amazing

places so quick show of hands who here

has been on a limb lad Expedition trip

all right we got to work on that so

Ralph is on the table

is actually life-changing to be on a

lindblad Expedition strip uh I'm still

that Galapagos who who's been to the

Galapagos here I know I'm asking a lot

of questions that the Galapagos change

you

like right when you come back from there

you're just swimming and and thoughts

and it's pretty amazing so we came up

with optic optic being the outdoor

photography travel Imaging conference

and we did our first one in 2015 and now

it's 2022 and we've slipped at an optic

All-Stars in between we've expanded to

optic West who knows if we'll do an

optic Central but uh it's been a great

ride and this was a shot from our our

first optic and that's art wolf in 2015

at the New Yorker Hotel around the

corner from B H Photo and we always

tried to push things like the time that

we flew a brand new DJI inspired drone

indoors

now this was rough

I said let me tell you that that drone

kind of got in mind of its own and flew

around a little but uh that's kind of

how we roll you'll see in the back uh

that is uh roughly Hopkins without a hat

on

I think he left it a hotel room here in

the back and and there's art wolf uh and

then we decided that uh you know what a

limb blood Expedition takes place on

ships so we would emulate that in New

York Harbor and how cool is that in New

York City we have a Colossus we've got

the Statue of Liberty so when we brought

optic West out here we figured you

didn't have a statue but you guys did

have whales so tomorrow morning at 6 a.m

we're going on a whale watching mini

Expedition now I know a lot of you folks

wanted to jump on that trip and it's

going to be loaded with gear from Canon

Nikon Sony and sigma and we're going to

have flip nicklin who's actually right

there in the back next it

foreign

aboard a boat

um I'm going to quote Jaws we're going

to need a bigger boat

so we got two boats so we got plenty of

boats for everybody it's going to be

amazing you go to the b h booth and

spend 50 bucks on anything you want it's

really easy to do because you've all

gotten the specials book and the

specialist book has discounts and really

cool stuff on everything and give you a

pro tip if you don't need anything right

now which I can't imagine you could

always get a 50 gift card and redeem

that whenever you want so we ask you all

to join the whale mini Expedition

tomorrow do we have any land lovers here

okay for land lovers we have a sunrise

photo walk going on with Mark Silver and

that's going to be just in front of

where the uh the Old Fisherman's Wharf

is that'll be meeting at the Pacific

house you'll see all the photographers

so we got you covered Land and Sea uh

you don't have to do the 50 gift card

for the photo walk that's a little bit

more impromptu but we do ask the 50 uh

purchase or a ticket for the for the

boat ride that's just to make sure that

you take to actually come

all right so the coolest part about

these all these Optics was our keynote

speakers and it was really is a great

honor to be able to bring people like

art wolf

by his son John Paul caponegro Michael

Kenna Franz lonting who's our keynote

speaker again second time Scott Kelby

second time you guys all know Scott

Kelby

he's a Photoshop guy he's a pretty

Lightroom guy uh Brooks Jensen who's a

big influence of mine he's the

magazine

we brought him to brought him out to uh

to New York

uh photographer and one of the first it

might Leo kicking out

okay so I'm gonna

or there's about 80 different Furs that

we

get

the beginning

okay all right I think we're working now

okay so that's kind of the keynote

speakers and our speakers and uh we went

off into the sunset and here we are now

in beautiful Monterey uh now this

couldn't be done without the help of uh

some some staff so I want to play a

video and this video is going to

introduce you to the amazing staff of b

h and when you see Irving Fisher he's

the guy that hired me 25 years ago he's

an amazing guy all right

this is a story about a magical place

where everything's amazing

especially the people

we can tell you everything there is to

know about over 400 000 different pieces

of gear tell them lennington we have a

17 millimeter 24 millimeter 45

millimeter he does this all day we'll

help you find the right thing which is

often not the most expensive the A9 is

great but I think the 6500 is better for

what you need that's pretty rare and

just like you we love to explore and

share our passion because we're creators

as well

Israel and Jake like to make videos for

the web oh I love it when he does this

oh by the way if you can't meet us in

person you can always chat with us

online

think of us as collaborates production

Parts problem solvers this is Greg he's

made five gold records

and here's Jay the King of the

candidates wait wait I'm not ready Jake

sometimes we geek out and help each

other but mostly we're here to help you

like Lenny who's still going because

there's a lot to say when you're making

some pretty important decisions

so now you've met 16 of over 1 000

employees 16 reasons our customers like

to do business with people not

algorithms we are b h

all right let's hear it for our staff

thank you so much my co-workers for

putting this together

I've saved a very important mascot for

last this is Eisenhower he's been at

Optics since 2017. see everybody Ike

they're all waiting for you

so this is a little Eisenhower he he's

he's my emotional support animal and

keeps me going so I want to thank Ike

for coming out to all these shows I did

the 2017 one we did a piece on the

reintroduction of wolves in Yosemite and

he was a he was a little puppy and the

Wolves were howling and it was amazing

he was like wait a minute is this what

I'm supposed to do but this is a

non-howling Chihuahua so thanks Ike

thanks for being here and uh also this

is Eisenhower's mother Barbara

yes Barbara braumer my wife we met a B H

Photo at station number seven in the

store uh 23 years ago 24 years ago

24 years ago so we have a saying at b h

you go to b h cameras your video cameras

your lighting your computers your drones

and your wife or husband can be found so

we're not the only marriage story that's

come out of b h as well

okay so we talked about the history of b

h we talked about the staff we talked

about the birth of optic we talked about

the amazing partnership with limblad but

what really brings this all together is

our sponsors so right on the other side

of that wall we've got about 28 sponsors

that have come all the way out here to

show you the latest and the greatest

equipment so let's make some noise for

our sponsors everybody

let's bring it up so they could really

hear it okay

all right

so I'm gonna play a quick game here who

who shoots with Sony let's have some

Applause for Sony

okay they've got the new A7 Mark V out

there for you guys to play with who

shoots with Nikon here

pretty good pretty good pretty good all

right Cannon

okay I I think Cannon's got it on the uh

now we've also got Fuji we've got Leica

here we've got a number we've got all

the great camera who's a Leica shooter

here

all right pretty good pretty good pretty

good awesome okay you know you could be

poly cameras you could shoot with Nikon

can and Sony and Leica you know it's

there is no perfect camera there's only

everything together okay so uh so our

sponsors thank you so much

um you guys may know me from the event

space and I did a popular program called

uh it was called better photographic

better photographic wait it was called

better what was it called it was called

beyond the rule of thirds better

photographic composition and it was a

really popular program and on YouTube it

has over a million views which is pretty

insane so before you guys learn all the

incredible things from our speakers I

just want to go over a couple of quick

things with you some Basics so we're

going to cover the rule of thirds we're

going to cover positive and negative

space we're going to cover gesture light

and Shadow Vanishing points and we're

going to talk about color

so the rule of thirds I'm sure you're

familiar with it but let's just rehash

it the rule of thirds is like

tic-tac-toe for photographs your subject

should be at the intersection of the

horizontal and vertical lines

very simple so put your subjects in that

spot don't put your subject smack dab in

the middle of the photo that doesn't

make for a good composition Giotto from

The 14th Century would say no

another thing I'd like to ask everybody

is that don't cut your horizons in half

make sure your horizons happen in the

top third or the lower third this is

about Paris and a view of Montmartre

looking up into Mart so another big one

and this was taught to be by George

Bates my high school art teacher is

positive and negative space the negative

space in this picture is the sky and of

course the uh the tombs and the

Tombstones are the positive space so

creating an intersection of negative and

positive space creates a dance and your

eyes when you look at the photograph

will kind of bounce around a little bit

anytime your eye looks at a photograph

and it stops at one point and doesn't

look anymore we're not doing a good job

your eye should dance around the

photograph and inspect it that's a shot

from a square format houselblad of

chimetero munamali in Milan

now positive and negative space comes in

different ways it's not always just

about sky and this photograph from uh

from Mexico the negative space envelops

the subjects in the positive space and

it's kind of nice I like that little tip

in the top it kind of brings you in and

Spins you around the photograph

so that's your positive negative space

super important always try to

incorporate that in your pictures and

this is a tough one this is getting

gesture this is the porchetta Maestro

from camochia in Italy his name is

Stefano komori and if you ever visit

Tuscany you got to go to Cortona and go

to kamuchia on a Thursday morning and

get the porchata of course if you're

keeping kosher stay away from that

porchetta but otherwise it's pretty

amazing stuff he puts on a show while he

cuts the porchetta from everyone that's

his daughter and his wife and he always

does a show about he's gonna kill his

wife

um if you are in desperate need for

gesture photograph drag queens this was

this was during a gay pride parade and

uh gesture really forms itself in hand

movements that positive and negative

space and it really imbues life into the

photograph

now what is the photograph photographs

are light and Shadow try to find the

light and Shadow try to source that out

where you see bright highlights Dark

Shadows and everything in between and

that's the zone system

fog is pretty amazing and we were out

Big Sur this uh yesterday morning and

you guys got a lot of fog here

although I was told that the fog is

actually called a marine layer

and in San Francisco the fog is called

Carl

you guys are very complicated here in

New York we just say it's freaking foggy

the last point is the vanishing point

the vanishing point happens way in the

back of your photograph and that draws

the eye out to the Horizon so I always

try to be conscious of the vanishing

point this is when the the Giants were

in the Super Bowl in New York City and

this is Sixth Avenue they really changed

the city for that big uh that big that

big game

that was versus the Seahawks I believe

and I think the Seahawks won I'm not too

sure I'm not I'm not a jock I'm an

artist okay uh this is uh dog green

sector at Omaha Beach in Normandy and

you can see where the cliffs meet the

final Horizon in the background that's

the vanishing point shot with an 8x10

camera about five days around June 11

five days after the actual Normandy

landing at around 5 45 a.m in the

morning I love photography don't you

guys love photography I mean standing

there where this and where the the

Normandy invasion happened with a camera

documenting it I mean that's what it's

all about but you may say that's some

good black and white work David okay

thank you very much what about color

well color when color explodes in front

of you get your camera out and take

pictures of it explore color always look

for very vibrant color always be

attracted and point your camera towards

where the color is or Point your drone

straight down and you see this I was

thrilled when I saw this through the

through the little iPhone that was

capturing what that what my mavic mini

was showing and I don't know if you guys

could see this but there's a heart in

there right you see that heart that's

because we love all you guys

all right now there is one last lesson

that I didn't mention before and uh this

is a pretty big one and it's how to save

the tax now what's your tax here in

California

okay so let's do a little bit of math

here if you spend if you buy let's say

what I call the holy Troika of lenses

maybe a 10 to 20 a 24 to 70 70 200 2.8

and a full frame body you're going to be

spending around eight to ten thousand

dollars do you want to give nine hundred

dollars to the state

no you want to save the tax and we've

got something really incredible a B H

Photo and it's called the pay boo card

and the pay boo card actually calculates

what the tax is and then activates it as

a discount afterwards you could actually

use the pay boot card two ways you could

do it where you could do a delayed

payment or you could just save the tax

how many people here are paybu are using

Pay boo okay good A lot of people see

that Jeffrey that's pretty pretty good

we're doing good with that

um on a personal note I'm gonna tell you

just a funny story about paybu you see

gay beaterman we got into watches and we

were buying these expensive watches I I

know we just had money to burn we got

tired of buying cameras so we bought

watches and it was killing me to pay

eight point twenty five percent tax when

you're buying an expensive watch and I

lamented and I told the torno Bucher

dealer I was like you guys need to hook

up with payboo we had to send our

watches all the way to Oregon and New

Hampshire to to not to avoid paying the

tax that's really a bummer get a pay boo

card and if you sign up today if you're

a new customer we'll give you a fifty

dollar gift card as well into the the

pay Boost so you'll get to save the tax

and you'll you'll do it backwards and if

you really want to think about it this

is a card that basically has a 9.25

uh payback to you which is pretty

amazing so what's here for pay boo guys

come on

all right so

um

optic is all about our keynote speakers

and our speakers and we have a very

special speaker of the first day of

optic West his name is Franz launting

and Franz I don't know where you are

you're going to come out to the stage

where are you Franz

pop he's here okay

um ladies and gentlemen I present to you

Franz lonting who's going to present to

you guys his Bay of Life series and uh

France welcome to optic West

[Applause]

hey France it's a pretty good idea to

come out here

I know it thank you David thank you

thank you all right all right once again

guys

good morning I'm Franz lanting and it's

my pleasure to lead off the optic West

Conference and to welcome all of you to

Monterey Bay which is a very special

place because of the people because of

its nature and also because of its

connections to photography and that's

what I'm going to talk about with you

but before we do that I'd like to get a

better sense of who's sitting here in

front of me and also I would like to

welcome everyone else who's tuning in

from the rest of the world but

I'm curious how many of you are actually

living and working here within Monterey

Bay

that's a good percentage how many of you

are from other parts of California

how many of you have come from other

states of the country

anyone from outside the United States

a handful

well for those of you I have a surprise

because you know we're going to make a

free copy of our new book available to

the person who's traveled the fighters

to get here

so just kind of show your qualifications

after the show we have a table where we

sell these books and then talk with

Talia and she will determine who's come

the fathers and you can walk away with a

copy of this book

[Applause]

we have a big version of the book as

well for our partners and our sponsors

but you'd have to have come from Mars or

thereabouts to walk away with one of

those no seriously if you want to make a

contribution to our project you can walk

away with one of these books as well

Monterey Bay

this is a really finicky clicker

something may go wrong in the course of

the show

I've lived here for more than 40 years

and I consider it a real privilege

this is what makes Monterey Bay so

special

whales lunge feeding with gulls hovering

overhead fish pilling out of the mouths

of the whales and sea lions to try and

grab some fish on the go everything is

there and this is all happening but in

sight of the shoreline

not many places in the world where you

can see this flip nicklin may experience

it in his front yard in Alaska but not

many places where you can experience

this I mean you come out with us

tomorrow morning you may have a chance

to see this for yourself

we're going to learn a lot about f-stops

and shutter speeds and ISO settings and

of course it is conference but I'm going

to focus my talk on something else

these f-stops are important No Doubt

but I'm going to show you in the course

of my talk how you can connect your work

with the rest of the world

I'm going to talk with you about how I

use photography to establish a sense of

place

apply a sense of purpose

and how you can make your photography a

step towards becoming part of a

community

I never thought when I was growing up

spending my student days in this gritty

working class neighborhood in Rotterdam

that I would be so lucky to stand here

today that I would be so lucky to

experience these whales lunch feeding it

was a different world

I've always had a passion for nature

and I would escape from these dense

neighborhoods in the city of Rotterdam

to the beaches along the North Sea and

that's where I began to practice

photography way back when

I'm self-taught as a photographer I made

all my own mistakes and believe me there

have been quite a few

and I started playing with black and

white photography developing film doing

prints

I like this really grainy aspect of this

landscape

and that is where I had my first

encounters with Wildlife now I had no

clue how you would practice Wildlife

photography back then there were no

books there were no was no internet so

everything was trial and error dead

goals were much easier to get close to

and this image was my tribute my way of

expressing empathy with a creature that

had passed on

a big step from their Dead goal on that

beach in the Netherlands to this

I like to get eye to eye with the

animals that I photograph both

physically

and mentally

I'm going to show their point of view

and I want to give viewers a sense of

the world that they're part of

in this case it's a Wandering Albatross

with wingspan of up to 11 feet and he is

trying to impress a female who's saying

big deal I got these same wings

I learned a lot about the craft of

visual storytelling from the lady behind

his massive desk her name is Mary Smith

she was a legendary photo editor at

National Geographic

and that visitor chair was the place

where she received all the greats of our

time Jacques Cousteau Louis Leakey Jane

Goodall and so on and I ended up in that

same visitor chair more than a little

bit intimidated as you can imagine

Mary taught me so much

and along with her other colleagues at

the geographic I learned how to start

using photography for visual

storytelling

and that led to a whole string of

stories in the magazine lots of covers

and you probably have seen quite a few

of these over the years

a heroic lifestyle it's a dream job

right to go off for months at a time to

spend time with emperor penguins on sea

ice but let me tell you it's cold

and it's tough

and you better come back with the

results because the Director of

Photography at National Geographic was

fond of

saying things like we publish pictures

not excuses

and there was a sign on this door that

said please wipe your knees before

entering

now that was a joke

but when you first arrived there for

your first appointment it didn't seem so

humorous

months at a time in the field how do you

keep track of what you're doing

I developed a Polaroid back extension of

one of my cameras and then periodically

I interrupted what I was doing to shoot

a Polaroid and I would laboriously write

down the settings on the back of that

piece of Polaroid

meanwhile the ship the film would be

shipped off and it would be weeks before

I would hear anything back now for those

of you who grew up with digital

photography this seems awfully primitive

right

but those are the tools of the day

things changed for me after I met

Christine Eckstrom at National

Geographic where she'd been a staff

writer in a books division for a number

of years

after we became a team in life and work

things changed Chris is sitting here in

the front row

and normally you know we present

together on stage but today it's just me

because this is a photography occasion

but if you want to hear us speak

together consider coming to Stanford

next Wednesday or join us next Saturday

in Santa Cruz whoever doing a big

program just go to our Instagram or our

website and you'll find more details but

back to what changed

Chris started off as a writer I started

off as a photographer but then we

started teaching each other I learned

more about writing I taught her visual

skills she became a videographer and

these days of course we finish each

other's sentences in life as well as in

work because we do the writing together

it's a really unusual process we help

each other over the bumps in all respect

and in the course of that teamwork we

began to do things differently we began

to do things more independently we

started producing books which gave us a

chance to develop longer narratives with

a more personal point of view than

stories that were assigned by National

Geographic magazine

I've seen a lot of change in the natural

world since those early days on that

beach in the Netherlands

I captured this image of bulls standing

by a Waterhole in Botswana a bit in

October moon rising as a tribute to the

Timeless quality of elephants in Africa

small detail I stood up to this far in

muddy water with elephants behind me and

off to the sides

because I was after that perfect

reflection

this is perfection beyond belief

but these days the world of elephants is

shrinking

no more freedom to Rome elephants need

their own between dry season areas wet

season areas but there's all these

obstacles in the way people their

infrastructure

when this Safari Lodge in Zambia decided

to add an extension to their buildings

they cut off the approach route

for elephants to reach a favorite mango

tree in the courtyard

the elephant said no problem we've all

just walked through the lobby

without a reservation

so it may seem funny but it is actually

quite poignant and of course this is

happening not just to elephants in

Africa this is happening to wildlife

habitats around the world

in Borneo my Chris and I have worked

when I was making this image we could

hear the bulldozers in the background

we all love to connect with nature I

think it's something really deep inside

us Professor Rio Wilson wrote a whole

book about it called biophilia you know

we want to connect with the beauty the

Harmony and the completeness of nature

on a very visceral level and I think

that is what drives many nature

photographers to pursue that to capture

that and then to share it

and that's what I've done for many years

as well emperor penguin chicks on sea

ice of Antarctica

hard to think of anything more adorable

but it isn't like that anymore

the last time we went back to Antarctica

the ice is giving way to mud

and the snow is giving way to rain these

are not Emperors these are chin strap

Penguins but the changes still amount to

the same catastrophe in the making just

two weeks ago

the U.S fish and wildlife service

finally declared emperor penguins an

endangered species and be actually

contributed to the information that was

presented to the U.S fish and wildlife

service in my photographs so

we hope it's a good thing but now

they're qualified to be recognized as

part of new policies that the U.S has to

follow when it comes to climate change

I'll come back to climate change later

on

but I'd like to switch to Monterey Bay

because that is what we're here for at

least I hope you do so I forgot to ask

how many of you are happy to be here

today

okay can I see your show of hands

thank you

Monterey Bay

very special place

Chris and I have been coming back from

assignments abroad year after year and

then we have a chance to compare what we

have here with what we experienced

elsewhere now this is not a pristine

ecosystem like the okavango Delta is a

lot of people live here which you can

see in this image that Shoreline that

ends up at the Monterey

are we lose the sound is back and see

where we are it's that Peninsula on the

North and then the coastline disappears

in the upper right and that's our Big

Sur begins but you see there's a lot of

human activity there's a lot of

Agriculture Urban Development and so on

but at the same time it is a grandiose

place where Land and Sea connect in a

way that we know no equivalent of

Elsewhere on the planet and we've talked

with a lot of experts

and nobody's been able to point to

another place or land and sea meet in

quite the same way this is the big

circles by the way on the morning when

all the ingredients came together for an

atmospheric photograph like this

the density of marine wildlife in

Monterey Bay is unparalleled

this is extraordinary this is a beach

with sea lions and elephant seals at the

northern tip of Monterey Bay at a place

called Anya Nuevo you'd have to go to

the edge of Antarctica to a place like

South Georgia Island to find anything

equivalent how many of you have been to

South Georgia

lucky few so you know what I'm talking

about

the density is unparalleled

the number of species of seals and sea

lions and whales and the sheer numbers

and they congregate here because of the

same reason they congregated South

Georgia Island because the water's so

cold and it is so nutrient rich

but onshore it is just as intricate this

is an aerial view on the Northern end of

Monterey Bay and you can see all these

valleys and Meadows and Woodlands there

are all these ecological niches that

support rare and endangered species

we have Coastal streams that start in

the hills and their vital arteries that

connect Land and Sea

and they support migratory fish like

coho salmon the southernmost salmon in

the world spawned here in Monterey Bay

along with their close relatives to

Steelheads I made this image using a

split cam a split view camera an

underwater camera adapted for showing

things both underwater and above water

and I use a specialized macro wide angle

lens to make this image of a very large

salamander but using that lens made it

look even bigger

this is a unique species known as the

Santa Cruz giant black salamander occurs

only in a few spots

we started this project about Monterey

Bay applying all these techniques that I

had learned from working abroad and it

was a real pleasure but it was also a

special challenge to reveal these

creatures that exist here

I applied camera traps one of them was

adapted for capturing infrared black and

white

I set it up at a trail where I knew

animals would come and go

nice Scenic background and one day

this was capture a young Bobcat mother

with a kitten strolling along in midday

dappled sunlight

and the big cats too the mountain lions

I could show you a whole gallery meet

the pigs the deer the birds and so on

this is where we are Monterey Bay now

different people will Define it

different ways but the simplest way for

us to recognize Monterey Bay is not just

as a place name on the map offshore we

draw a circle around it a 50-mile circle

with Moss Landing at the center and then

you see it touches Big Sur in the north

Half Moon Bay sorry Big Sur in the South

Half Moon Bay in the North

we go all the way Inland to the Diablo

range and offshore we include that

amazing phenomenon known as the Marine

Canyon of Monterey Bay

two and a half miles deep

steeper than the Grand Canyon and you

don't have to go very far offshore to go

straight down and a long way down before

you hit the sea floor and that is one of

the reasons why this place is so special

but look at all these mountain ranges

running parallel to the coast I could

talk about this map

for quite a while but we have to move on

but here you see the lay of the land

let me tell you about the seasons

David talked about the fog I'll explain

the fog in a bit

our seasonality is different here it

really confuses people who arrive from

elsewhere

there's no weather people say the

weather is always the same and other

people say no we have four seasons Every

Single Day

you always layer no matter where you go

our spring comes with poppies blooming

but they get blown apart by the spring

wind

that spring wind is so strong

that it blows grooves it sculpts the

vigilation the vegetation along our

Coastline as you can see here

and it is that wind that is the engine

that drives the whole system

it's the wind that brings the whales

that's why we chose that as a subtitle

for our book when that wind begins to

blow

it stimulates cold water to Rise Up from

the deep it blows away the surface

layers upwellings begin

full of nutrient-rich water and when

they're exposed to sunlight

the food chain begins

plankton explosion and that fuels

everything

from Krill to blue whales

and is also responsible for the fog

I mean that cold water ends up at the

surface of the ocean where it touches

the shoreline blankets of fog begin to

form

and when that fog moves Inland because

it gets really hot in the interior in

the Salinas Valley you get this

blankets of fog it's like a horizontal

slow-moving ring and it moisturizes

everything

from the Redwoods to the agricultural

fields to our cities

to the skin of our women

Monterey Bay attracts migrants from all

over the world

hundreds of thousands of migratory

seabirds arrive here every summer from

New Zealand

they're called Suri Shear Waters they

fly from New Zealand to Japan to Alaska

and they arrive here to fatten up before

they fly back to New Zealand again

sea turtles swim to Monterey Bay from

Indonesia

to eat jellyfish here during the summer

monarch butterflies flutter in from all

over the American West because the

winters are benign it doesn't freeze so

much

but unfortunately because of habitat

loss and pesticide use farther inland

their population has plummeted by 95

percent in the last 30 years

they're now officially an endangered

species I never thought we'd see that in

our time

I love doing this I love being in the

moment intersecting myself at Birds on

the move a flock of sanderlings on their

way from the Arctic to Patagonia here

today gone tomorrow

but being in the moment

even though it's exciting and it is what

Wildlife photographies appeal is

it's just one dimension of practicing

photography here in Monterey Bay

I want to talk with you about influences

who has influenced me

this for starters

how many of you are familiar with this

book not Man Apart

only a handful so I'm glad I included it

in the show because this was a landmark

photo book about the California

coastline photos of the Big Sur Coast

poetry by Robinson Jeffers but look

who's on the title page Ansel Adams Lynn

Bullock

Elliott Porter Edward West and Phillip

height Bill Garnett and Shawan

who's who in early environmental

photography all pulled together by David

Brower who remembers David Brower

only a handful David is a man with a

passion for nature and he had a vision

about what he wanted to achieve and he

came up with the idea to use Photography

in the service of conservation and he

simply put came up with the concept of

coffee table books celebrating nature

for environmental campaigns

that seems commonplace now but it was a

brilliant Innovation when David started

doing that and not men apart was one of

the first books

so I've welcomed you to look up David

Brower in the books he's published it

influenced me greatly when I first saw

this book and that gave me the idea that

maybe one day I could start doing

similar things

Ansel Adams one of the greats who lived

and work here he lived south of Point

Lobos for many years this is one of his

images of the point lobel's Coast

I mean Bullock not quite as well known

as Ansel Adams but they were peers

win among many things was known for

portraying the Grandeur of the coast and

the Redwoods and then posing models

young and old

one of Wynn's images one that I'm not

showing here

was responsible for influencing me to

make this image

of retreating tides on a coastal Reef

mixing the early light of pre Before

Dawn with the first Warm light and then

you get this lovely mixing blue to

purple to yellow and orange thank you

win

my tribute to a redwood forest

what do you think is going on here

cross lighting

I could not have made this image if I

hadn't known about this painting Albert

bierstadts a celebrated landscape

painter from the 19th century and from

him I learned about

the significance of cross lighting it

creates depth look back at this one I

had to use six assistants hiding behind

the trees with lights to create a

similar effect

foreground Middle Ground background

thank you Albert

opposite effect

not creating depth flattening things out

using a longer lens

everything is in the same plane

this is not about depth this is about

light and color

thank you Georg sharab

pointillist

read up on what Sharon his colleagues

found out about the use of these kind of

pointless effects to represent light and

color

painters have been way ahead of us

photographers with their insights in

nature

I created this abstraction of a piece of

local geology

with this in mind

starry night thank you Vincent

to the north of Monterey Bay there's a

famous surf break we have lots of good

waves here in Monterey Bay we have lots

of surfers too but this one is very

special Mavericks at Half Moon Bay

only the bravest of surfers dare to

write it

most photographers stay on the other

side but I wanted to get this view I

wanted to capture the Luminosity of the

wave the skipper of that raft was not

that happy with that decision

because it's kind of shallow there's

lots of rocks he says how long do you

want to stay here so well

anyway it did work out

High shutter speed because I wanted to

render motion

I had done

the most famous wave in art history

When the tide goes out all these wonders

become revealed at the tideline of the

Monterey Bay

tide pool in Point Lobos I'm not going

to talk to you about the limpets and

everything else in there but what I

heard in my head was John Steinbeck

it is advisable to look from the tide

pool to the stars and then back to the

tide pool again if it's John's way of

making the connections between the

universe and what exists at your feet

Steinbeck was influenced by the man he's

paying tribute here knowing that

Ricketts was instant after the first

moment I knew him I knew him better than

I knew anyone

those two struck up a friendship

that became really significant at

Ricketts

comes through in the pages of

Steinbeck's writing Ed Ricketts was a

visionary

an ecologist before his time a marine

biologist who had a lab on Cannery Row

that lab is still there

is this old wooden building if any of

you go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium

while you're here which I strongly

recommend you try and do you'll pass by

this building it's still there the doors

are closed

the lab's still there the way it left it

without Ed Ricketts I'm not sure there

would be a Monterey Bay Aquarium today

because it was the marine biologist who

clustered together and gathered with the

Packard family he came up with this

vision for a new aquarium that would be

based on the riches of Monterey Bay

thank you Ed

I'm talking about collaborative

creativity here today

each of us starts off alone

but if you start thinking of the

connections you can make with other

artists emit activists emit scientists

you can do way more than you can do if

you're just looking at the shutter speed

and the apertures on your camera

when Brett Weston made this Photograph

another one that influenced me deeply

there were very few photographers here

he was a Pioneer in the way he saw

the way he celebrated the Big Sur Coast

at karapara beach

and I've stood there myself

to commune with nature

this grandiose way

of land connecting with ocean

and you can feel like a hero there when

you're by yourself on an early morning

but these days

photography is all about sharing the

experience thanks to digital photography

we can capture and share images

instantly

and it's the reason you all are here

because you're not just soloist

you have become members of a community

I love teaching photography I love

passing on life lessons and lessons I've

learned from holding cameras in my hands

for decades and I love inspiring people

to grow and making them do things that

they've never thought of doing before

whether it is

to think of other combinations of

settings or artistic Concepts so we

teach workshops here periodically around

the Monterey Peninsula and at the end of

this conference on Tuesday we're doing a

one day intensive session

and I welcome any of you well not all of

you

but come to the table outside the

auditorium if you're interested to know

more

one day experience and you can see

there's a lot of happy people I'm going

to share a couple of images from the

most recent session Peter Joseph did

this in the same Beach where breath

Weston stood

with a camera that can do so much more

and here you see the secret settings try

to keep that ISO low and extend the

shutter speed and Peter is actually in

the audience I didn't even know that

Peter where are you

there you are great image man

[Applause]

Ying

same place

totally different composition used color

instead of black and white conversion

settings are good ISO 4000 she forgot to

reset that the image would have been a

little bit more detailed if she'd

brought it down to to 100.

Ravi said ocean who needs ocean I like

the plants

J maisel once said if you think things

look good in front of you look over your

shoulder look behind you

wisdom

intricate plant life great setting f29

extended depth of field everything was

done right and then I noticed in that

same direction this guy he was a

volunteer for state parks eradicating

exotic plants the ice plant that looks

good in Spring but it really Smothers

all of our native plants so we need

volunteers like David to do that

there's always a new point of view you

can be really intimidated by all the

tripod holes that Ansel Adams and wind

and Edward and Brett left here along the

coast and I'm not even talking about

others all of you

there's always a new point of view every

time I take people out it is amazing

what Julie did I had not seen that

before thank you Julie

in our Bay of Life project we're

embracing the work of other

photographers because it makes the

project more complete it expands the

range and by the way I'm from Holland so

I'm a little bit leery to go underwater

too much

Patrick Webster is a master at lighting

and here he captured the Resurgence of a

kelp forest

Chase Decker is a specialist in

capturing marine mammals in motion this

is not easy you could go out a hundred

times and not see this happen let alone

that you're there with the right

settings to do this when the dolphin

surface so thank you Chase amazing image

and these two previous images are

included in our book by the way I don't

know the settings here but I think it's

about a thousand and tomorrow when we go

out on this whale watching trip how many

of you are going to join

quite a few the rest of your landlubbers

or deep sleepers

okay

by the way it's going to be friggin cold

bring all the layers you can and then

some

and keep that shutter speed fast

when you go farther down life becomes

surreal scientists from ambari the

research institute Affiliated at the

Monterey Bay Aquarium have pioneered

technology of robotic submersibles that

go way way down

and they see things like this vampire

squid which is neither a vampire nor a

squid but that's one of these deeper

stories

and then at the bottom at the bottom of

Monterey Bay

things like this a dead whale had sunk

to the sea floor

and then it became a banquet a feast

that's been going on for years

attracting deep sea octopi and weird

fish and bone-eating worms

amazing yet another one of these

fantastic stories

I could talk with you for hours about

Monterey Bay you get the idea

but we need to move on from the Natural

History to the environmental history

people have lived here for more than 10

000 years

10 000 years

they were tending the bay

the biodiversity that we praise today

around Monterey Bay was a mosaic of

foodscapes for people who made their

living off the land and the sea

and they left their imprints

in places like this the secluded cave

deep in the Big Sur wilderness

painted handprints that were solidifying

initiation ceremonies about which we

really do not know much because their

culture was completely disrupted after

Spanish colonizers arrived in the 1770s

forced indigenous people to Cluster

around the missions they died from

disease it was a horrible period

and a culture that had coexisted in

nature here came to an end in a matter

of two generations

but

it's not the end of the story

Native Americans are refining their way

back into Monterey Bay are

re-establishing themselves and putting

new footprints

on the landscape a year ago Chris and I

were honored to be invited by the

yamamutsen people

to document a ceremony that had not been

performed in 250 years

every year around this time

when the first rains come

and the streams begin to rush towards

the ocean again the salmon start

Gathering offshore

they want to swim upstream it's their

nature

and onshore

people like the amamutsin would gather

to sing them Upstream

to welcome them back

had not been done in more than two

centuries

but because a dam had been removed on a

coastal Creek and New Habitat was

restored

the yamamutsen were invited to sing the

salmon back

Linda yamani who lives not far from here

has revived the language of her

ancestors which very few people knew how

to speak anymore

she's from the Rumson

tribe

and she's also single-handedly revived

the Fine Art of basket weaving

she literally had to go by small

pictures jpegs from museums in Russia

because there's only a handful of these

original baskets left

she took us to her favorite spot where

the plants grow that make the finest

baskets

talk about a sense of place

things changed

when white people arrived here

a period of plunder began

for a couple of decades the main

Commerce along this part of the coast

consisted of slaughtering marine mammals

whales and seals and everything else

well-heeled citizens from Monterey are

witnessing the fencing of a humpback

whale in two generations

all these animals disappeared

two generations

same thing happened with the sardines

the sardines that gave rise to Cannery

Row and all these Enterprises Ed

Ricketts was warning them

this is not sustainable and nobody paid

attention because the prophets were too

big

redwoods after the Gold Rush everybody

needed construction wood

and in a matter of two generations the

original Redwood forest in the Santa

Cruz mountains were cut into pieces

add another wave after the earthquake

and the fire in 1906

and then the turnaround began

activists from the San Francisco Bay

Area banded together and established the

semper violence Fund in the nick of time

they were managed to save the last big

Redwood standing in big Basin it became

the first state park in California

Hallelujah

they look very well healed but they were

the original Tree Huggers sorry

here we go again and thanks to them and

many others

we have ancient redwoods standing within

a one-hour Drive of millions of urban

residents in the San Francisco Bay Area

but it's not just the three huggers

that are part of this story as we're

presenting it

we need the wisdom and the Practical

knowledge of people who are making a

living off the land and the Sea the

people with dirt under their fingernails

they have their own wisdom but Allah

McCrary established a Logging Company

after the big trees were long gone and

people thought they were crazy and yet

they managed to find a way to harvest

redwood trees sustainably and they

became radicals who taught

the California Department of Forestry

that our standards were to Lacks tighten

up this is a better way to do it thanks

a lot and Bud

we need people like this guy Dave Stroup

supporting steelhead isn't that a

magnificent fish

okay

at a hatchery north of Santa Cruz

elephant seals

slaughtered never is almost none left a

hundred years ago

and then they were given protection

first by Mexico

and then 50 years ago 50 years ago this

year

The Marine Mammal protection act was

established in Washington D.C

and then The Endangered Species Act

and thanks to that elephant seals have

made a comeback

in the coming ashore as we speak for the

winter rituals

peregrine falcons the fastest birds on

Earth

could not Escape their fate because of

the effects of DDT

I think their eggshells crushed their

chicks

but in 1973 DDT was banned thanks to

Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring

published eight years prior to that

California condors

went down the same path close to

extinction

in part because of lead poisoning lead

shot animals killed they feed on the

carcasses

gone

they've been reviled it

now there's more than a hundred flying

free along the Big Sur Coast

and it all adds up

to

a success story

that is pretty unique

but it didn't happen automatically it

didn't just happen naturally

amid an election coming up in a few days

it's really worth

keeping in mind that yes

politicians can make a huge difference

if we elect the right people

we can do this again

[Applause]

because of the right decisions made 50

years ago we are benefiting from the

results every day here

it's improved our quality of life hugely

and it's enabled creatures like these to

bounce back

including mountain lions

given protection while Ronald Reagan was

governor in the state of California due

to lobbying

but mountain lions have a hard time

dealing with our human infrastructure

especially roads this one tried to cross

Highway 17 it was killed by a car taken

to a lab for forensic analysis

Chris and I

am very proud to be convened the first

meeting of stakeholders to explore what

could be done

was there a place where an underpass

could be created to enable Lions to

Earth from the northern part of the

Santa Cruz mountains to the southern

part of the Santa Cruz mountains

a few weeks ago

there was this ceremony it's finally

happening

[Applause]

it takes a long time to bend things

around it took the land thrust of Santa

Cruz County many years of lobbying and

financial campaigns and it took the

efforts by Senator John Laird and other

politicians in Sacramento to twist the

arm of Caltrans

but now they really like what they're

doing there and this is becoming a

template for other parts of California

and we're going to see a lot more of

these underpasses and overpasses to heal

the landscapes

the land trust of Santa Cruz County just

purchased this property to create more

connectivity between the Santa Cruz

mountains in the North and the gabalam

range to the South

and we have other partners who are

working with Watsonville Wetland watches

creating trails along an urban Wetland

important for Birds migratory Birds but

also hugely important for people who

live in densely packed cities

and most of the population there is

Hispanic

so we're working with them on their next

initiative to re-green Watsonville

the ugly word the scary term climate

change

I never thought

that we would see this happen

so fast so close to home

Chris and I are educated we work with

lots of environmental organizations

but the effects of climate change turn

from an intellectual concept into a

scary reality even the CCU fire hit us

two years ago

it burned down to the beach

nobody thought that that would happen

the Santa Cruz mounts were thought to be

impervious to fire Foresters called it

the asbestos Forest

nope

it burnt all a big Basin burnt

a few months earlier we stood there at

the top of these Hills that were burning

in that previous image but ecologist

gray Hayes because the place is full of

endangered and unusual plants and of

course I never thought that this image

would become part of History

because it'll never look the same

certainly not within our lifetime

here's a short video clip that we made

when we went back into the burned area

of its state parks

there had not been a forest fire in big

Basin in hundreds of years of this

extent extent because of fire

suppression

Native Americans used to burn all the

time it was part of their way of

managing the Landscapes but

after they were kicked off the land that

practiced that knowledge has stopped and

we need to bring it back

after I made that image Chris and I

rushed back because we thought we might

lose our home and we panicked and tried

to do what we could the sheriff showed

up and said you got to get out the fire

is coming scared everyone and then we

talked with neighbors

and we decided to stay

we were not so sure authorities would

have our backs once we would leave our

properties

and we have a strong neighborhood and we

have capable people

so we created our self-defense

and we fought the fire

and we managed to save our neighborhood

but many people are not so lucky a

thousand families lost their homes in

that CCU fire in 2022

including our friends Matt and Anne

Rowley and Swanton

lost everything they had

they faced a daunting Prospect of

rebuilding

like so many other families

so many Hoops to jump through insurance

companies new regulations

and it's a really sorry

statistic to share with you that two

years after the fire from the 1000 fire

victims

less than 50 have started to rebuild

many won't do it at all they can't face

the reality of it Matt and Anne are now

climate refugees they've moved North

and that's one of the big stories of our

time

Nature's turning against us because

we're turning against nature

no matter whether you get hit by a

hurricane or by a flood or by a fire

it's an expression

of nature being out of balance with us

or we being out of balance with nature

and we need to resolve that

fires turning into fire storms

we need these winter storms to come off

the ocean every year in fact we're

dangerously dependent

on a handful of winter storms here

to replenish our water supplies

it's totally unpredictable

depends on obscure weather patterns in

the middle of the Pacific and then they

come ashore giant waves Peter Mill local

surfing hero loves them

but can we count on these waves can we

count on these storms to continue as we

need them

that's the big question here

we need the rain we need the fog

to keep the forest green

and I'm glad to experience these first

rains it may not be what you had in mind

when you came here you might have been

thinking about Sun but thank God we have

some initial rain

[Applause]

this is how I captured it on our Meadow

we live in Bonnie Dune at the Northern

end of Santa Cruz

and the longer shutter speed that visual

life the rain is a very difficult thing

to express in photographs

and we need the fog the fog is our air

conditioner without fog Farmers would be

in serious trouble here

it's an unpaid ecosystem service

so Chris and I have been exploring

Monterey Bay the way we've done it

elsewhere

and after a couple of years we suffered

from the same syndrome that scientists

and technocrats suffer from we had all

the facts and figures

but how do you turn that into a story

Joseph Campbell another friend of Ed

Ricketts

and John Steinbeck who also lived here

in Monterey put it this way he said

people forget about facts they remember

stories

and that's a takeaway for all of us

so we tried to do this

simplify the complexities and we created

this

if I can remember this

no I can't quite I should know this by

heart now

but here's the most simple way to

express what Monterey Bay is all about

the Bay of life

is a unique Confluence of land and sea

energized by the sun here in the middle

shaped by the forces of fog and fire and

influenced by the actions of people

that's a story

we started playing with these ideas the

way we always do because we don't agree

about everything but gradually something

takes shape and it's just the two of us

we try things out ask friends to comment

but it's just nurtured very close to our

hearts

and now it's a real thing we've

published a book here we're doing

presentations like this one here thank

you for attending

but now the robber needs to meet the

road

it's no longer Just the Two of Us

we need all of our partners to become

part of the story so I'm really glad

that bnh has given me the opportunity to

evangelize about Monterey Bay here thank

you many thank you David thank you

everyone else

and we say thanks to

all these other organizations and

companies we're really thrilled that the

Santa Cruz County Office of Education

which manages our school system is

embracing the book and turning it into a

new curriculum for students across the

county

[Applause]

in English and Spanish I should say but

also have we have plans to publish the

book in Spanish

and the organizations go on

so I'd like to end the presentation by

sharing a short video clip with you

because of course we're also producing

video and this is just a few Clips here

and there that we're weaving into the

exhibitions and other presentations so

and I'll explain a few more things about

what we're trying to do while you see

these lunge feeding whales

gulp the fish in front of you

we really want to make a difference with

this project it's

four people of the region we want to

start from the ground up educate our

kids

and share with them how special this

place is

how it was pulled apart and how it's

been brought back and how there's a

coexistence here of sorts here's the

famous peregrine falcon

this is not just a story for people here

in Monterey Bay

because there's no more pristine nature

on the planet as I mentioned earlier

we need to start healing our planet

place by place

and if Monterey Bay

can be healed

then we hope that this is a story of

Hope for people elsewhere here's Matt

Rowley still working with the fish even

after he lost his home and we need these

stories of Hope because there's a lot of

bad news

every single day

we're at the beginning of a new climate

change conference in Egypt

don't despair

don't despair there are people who are

really trying to make things happen in

Egypt and we can all do our part the big

redwoods in big Basin scorched by the

fire the Flames went 200 feet up in the

air

and we thought these redwoods were gone

no they came back

and state box is now proactively

applying fired away Native Americans did

that prescribed Burns

the people who are running cattle in the

Uplands are providing habitats that's

Corridor for wildlife

that's a little bit too close for

comfort I would say

and then

as the best expression

if these grandiose meeting of land and

see the big waves

and the surfer paying tribute

she's just watching

happy to be there

like we all are

[Applause]

so you can see a lot more on

bayoflife.net check it out you'll see

more of our partners work and more of

the events bayoflife.net you can get

copies of the book there as well if you

don't want to carry them home from here

one more image

after that fire in big Basin we went in

it was tough to watch

and then the red boots came back

they started re-sprouting from their

base from their crowns even from their

trunks

that's a resilience

they were prepared for the fire

are we

are we able to cope with changes that

are happening in our lifetime

I'm not so sure about that yet

now let's take our cue

from the world of nature

and applying it to our own lifestyles

so that we can achieve a better balance

and practice what you preach with your

photography and how you apply it

work with others

apply a sense of purpose establish a

sense of place

develop your sense of community we're

stronger together

thank you

so much France that was beautiful thank

you so much

okay ladies and gentlemen once again

Franz Lansing

[Applause]

I'll be at the table outside to sign

books and answer any questions maybe we

may have do we have time for questions

or we run out of we're going to bring

them out outside all right you can ask

questions to Franz outside he'll be in

the uh in a gallery of his images that's

brought here by Bay photo up next we

have Aaron babnik a Canon Explorer of

light we could roll that Canon

commercial

so much

that was sick

foreign

[Music]

[Music]

foreign

a second to move around we're going to

start our next presentation in about 30

seconds

we do have speaker meet and greets going

on if you exit the Expo floor to the

left and that's a there's a schedule on

some TVs you can see that going on

we turn our presentations very fast here

at optic

how you guys doing down there

okay I always count on you for a good

shot

okay camera company is very dear to my

heart is Canon my first serious camera

was a Canon camera it was a Canon T90 I

don't know if anyone remembers the T90

did anyone shoot with Canon FD lenses

back in the day

all right a couple people those are the

old manual focus cannons

um yeah I'm old so uh Aaron babnik is a

three-time veteran of optic I really

have to say Aaron's presentations uh pay

close attention she is laser focused and

delivers some amazing information she's

going to talk today about locations

versus Landscapes which is an

interesting play on topics so let's give

a warm optic welcome for Erin babnik

thank you

[Applause]

all right okay hello everybody I'm super

excited to be able to present to you

today this topic which enables me to

pull together strands of many themes

that are near and dear to me and also to

share with you some great ideas for

moving forward not only with your own

photography but also with helping the

planet to stay beautiful for generations

to come

but before I get started on this I would

just like to thank Canon for bringing me

out here to speak to you all today so

thanks Cannon

[Applause]

so landscape photography

is a term that seems deceivingly simple

if we try to break that down into two

words the term seems as though it should

describe itself

but in fact it's actually a very uh

slippery combination of terms that are

indeed difficult to pin down

a landscape that's the first part of the

word obviously should have something to

do with land

and of course most people do think of

landscapes in that way a landscape might

be something like this one where you

have a sense for where the photographer

is standing you have a sense for the

context you have a sense for What

attracted the photographer

to that location

and you have a sense for what sort of

environment this is and and uh how

special this moment may be in that place

so land can Encompass all of these

things landscape as we'll see actually

is a much bigger concept

than any of that

but let's um let's move on to the second

part of landscape photography that's the

photography part

that too actually is not that easy to

Define for some people back in the day

if photography once we first went to

digital

uh that didn't count right a photograph

was something that was printed on a

piece of paper

and that was it and these definitions

have had to change as time has gone on

photography now involves this incredibly

sophisticated equipment if you can get

it

and it really is an absolute just

Miracle of human achievement that we're

able to take this sort of equipment out

into nature and work with it and produce

what we can with it because a whole lot

of collaboration goes on in order for

that to happen not only between you and

nature but also between you and those

Engineers who actually came up with all

that stuff so this is this is my gear

that you're seeing here my Canon gear I

use quite a lot of different lenses got

a pair of r5s so the photography part of

the equation for me looks like this at

the very essence of it

but of course those two ingredients in

landscape photography the land

landscape and the photography

um only get us part of the way there

and what I would like to impress upon

you today is actually that third

ingredient which is really so important

and often gets left out of the equations

when we are in discussions of what's

going on and that is the photographer

and the role that you play in any

photograph that you make

a landscape is so much more

than just the land and it's so much more

than just all of that amazing technology

that you can throw at it

when you produce a landscape you're

producing a part of yourself

whether you like it or not you're

putting something of yourself into that

that image

and this starts all the way from when

you decide where to go there are so many

creative decisions involved in landscape

photography it can be easy to forget

that they are in fact decisions

and it can also be very easy for people

to see a landscape and think

Well yeah if I were there I would take

that image too

right

I push the button sure

and it can be very easy to think that

we're the magic lies

is is in the land

and that can that can have very negative

consequences for the land as we'll talk

about in a bit

so it's not to say that this is really a

semantic issue between you know how do

we talk about our Landscapes it's it's

also how do we think about them and what

how do we frame them and how do we

encourage others to think about them and

in fact what do we do in in response to

those thoughts that we have about them

indeed when you go out into a landscape

you don't necessarily just get something

like this here's a another photograph

from exactly the same location

okay it's the same place different Dune

around the corner from the other one

all right and I've I've overlaid a

pseudo Focus Point grid here just to

give you a sense of the fact that so

many decisions go into creating a

landscape even just choosing which Focus

Point sometimes can have a big effect on

how your image ends up looking

so you could have something like this

you still have that beautiful sand

verbena

blooming in the desert and you still

have those beautiful dunes and you still

have that beautiful evening light but

what you have here is only a little bit

of the photographer just a little bit

what happens when you put more of the

photographer into it when you put more

of yourself

is you end up with something else

and I feel as though we need to give

ourselves credit

for that part of the equation and in

fact allow ourselves to speak about

landscape photographs as a collaboration

between nature and photographer

in this case there's a whole lot of me

going into this image it represents a

lot of my interests my compositional

interests my post-processing interests

speaking of post-processing a lot of

people think

that that's you know back in the day

especially there's nothing whatever to

do with dark room work and there's this

major division between everything that

happens before you press the shutter and

everything that happens after I don't

happen to be in that camp I I embrace

all of the tools that I have at my

disposal including Photoshop so my

images do

probably Express that love of playing

with the tones and the colors to help

tell the story that I want to tell in

this case the the story of this

incredible incredibly beautiful delicate

flowers toughing it out in an

environment where they seem like they

should have no business thriving and yet

they do that's where they want to be in

this Windswept harsh desert environment

and there they are

for some people however Photoshop is

just that's what happens when all else

fails it's a verb describing that

process for me

um It's a Wonderful creative space that

can help to bring out

more of what you feel and see and

experience and more of what your

relationship really encompasses with a

landscape and yes it's actually this

place is pretty crazy there's actually

less Photoshop in this one than you

might think

so before we get into unpacking all that

I've just said comparing the difference

between what is a location and what is a

landscape

um let's just let's just talk about the

idea of looking Beyond locations and why

that might even be important

why why bother I've already given you a

hint about that but locations

essentially

are a place where

they they it's a place that stands

between coordinates essentially

and what we have in in the world is the

ability to go to those coordinates and

produce something these days that is

pretty close to something that someone

else has produced that's one option

but we also have an option to consider

all that we bring to a place ourselves

and to let that factor in as well we can

go to a place and we can think about how

much we love locations because what

landscape photographer doesn't in fact

locations have come to define the genre

to a great extent up until 10 years ago

most landscape photographers titled

their photographs just after where it

was Mesa Arch at Sunrise something like

that right I tend not to do that and

I'll talk more about that later on

because I would like at least to get

nudge people into considering that third

part of the equation which is the

photographer and that relationship that

I bring to the whole equation

but yeah we love locations right we we

create location books we might create

location galleries we have location

bucket lists

if we didn't have the locations we

wouldn't have the photography they are

important no doubt and indeed even just

straightforward documentation of

locations is of extreme value especially

in a day when so many of them are

disappearing either because of climate

change or because of things that happen

because of human visitation but I'm not

saying that there's a zero-sum game here

between under between focusing on

locations and focusing on landscapes but

it is an important distinction and it

helps for all of us to make that

distinction Loom large in what we're

doing

for example when I'm out in the desert

photographing a space I don't

necessarily have to photograph that

especially famous view next to me but I

might

if I don't though if I go to a place and

I think in terms of only the location

that it is that might cut off Avenues of

exploration and avenues of consideration

because if my goal is to document the

location

purely and not put something of myself

into it I may think that certain

decisions need to follow I may go there

and and I may be closed off to seeing

anything that I didn't know already

existed there for example in this place

I'm standing right next to a very iconic

View Way off to my left

it just wasn't what was of interest to

me at the moment instead I saw this

wonderful undulating light working its

way across the desert in the background

at 400 millimeters so just exploring

with the telephoto lens I didn't even

need to move my feet I was able to come

away with something

where I had something to say and I could

Infuse a little bit more of myself into

it exact same location as that iconic

composition now it's not to say that

those iconic compositions aren't

important and indeed in some cases even

necessary we we definitely need people

to document the wonderful world as well

but if you move beyond that if you look

Beyond locations there's a world the

whole world is your oyster and there's

so much out there that you can do

for example this is an image from the

French Alps it's a place that is

pretty high up in in the mountains and

it's not a place that just anyone tends

to go but those who do go are usually

very enthralled by a set of Cascades

that are the first thing you see when

you get up onto this High plane and in

fact when I told a friend of mine who

had been there that I was going he said

oh you you don't you know about the

Cascades don't you I didn't actually so

you got it you gotta shoot the Cascades

they're the coolest thing they're right

up at the front

uh and so then I looked up a few images

and I wasn't able to find many because

believe me this isn't the place that a

lot of people go but the few that I did

find indeed they included those Cascades

but when I went up there you know I just

wanted to look at what else was there

now like I said it's not easy to get to

this place it's close to 4 000 feet in

elevation gain it's a very rugged

environment very Rocky uh you have to

really be willing to get up there get

out there and hoof it for a while but

it's an incredible place and indeed the

water is really impressive if you go

beyond those Cascades there's loads of

it this area has a lot of glacial melt

coming down and I spent the first day I

went up there twice two days in a row I

haven't spent the first day just

exploring the water beyond the Cascades

I thought that was pretty marvelous and

and that was that was definitely an

interesting process of thinking through

the water and being attracted to all of

that but then my own instincts started

to kick in I found this tiny little

batch of flowers and here I am doing a

little Focus stack of them and those

really Charmed me the most as much as I

enjoyed the water and I did work some

photographs of it it was sitting there

with those that little patch of flowers

that really really did it for me because

I saw a story there now I could have

come away with just something from the

water and it would still be that

location just right to the side of where

I'm standing

is is water right so here's an image

again with that that overlay of the

focus points is to remind you that the

magic doesn't lie only in the location

there's a little bit of the photographer

in this image

but just a little bit this is me walking

around just sort of taking sort of

record shots and trying to just sort out

what what all interests me get get it

out of my system that there's water

there play with it but what happens when

the photographer pours more of themself

into the image you eventually find that

story that connection that comes from

your relationship with the land and in

this case the way that those rocks

Embrace those flowers really reminds me

of what I was talking about with the

flowers in the desert that somehow

that's where these flowers want to live

and they Thrive there in this crazy

rugged environment and and there aren't

a ton of them as you saw in the video

but just little patches

but there they are called this one the

Walled Garden that was my name for it

so now I could have photographed just

the mountain in a million different ways

and that is an important

beautiful mountain mountain with that

kind of a pyramidal structure

um you know it's

exceedingly attractive so it's not like

I just didn't photograph the mountain

like I said with that earlier image

where the there was an iconic view off

to my left well in this case I

photographed what was the most big

amazing thing that I could have right

um but in a way that spoke to me and

that told a story about that area

so what happens though if we put too

much emphasis on just the location if

we're telling people I photographed this

place and we have nothing more to say

about it or if we're telling people if

you want a great shot go to this place

you'll this is what you can do there

or and if we leave out that part of the

equation that is you the photographer

what happens what is lost what is at

stake and I think it's really important

to talk about that part of it for

conservation purposes because what

happens when

places get too much visitation when you

direct people too much to a place

because they think that's where the

magic lies

you end up with

loss right the lights go out on that

place eventually imagine if in 1930

Edward Weston produced pepper number 30

and he put that on Instagram and

everybody said oh man I need to find

this pepper field

because that pepper is where the magic

lies and so they all go running to the

pepper field wielding cameras and

completely trample it but I mean it's

kind of I laugh but it is kind of what's

happening these days there are entire

areas now where wildflowers no longer

grow because they have been trampled it

really is a problem so is is the answer

to

to close off these places so no one

could could go there I'd like to think

not

right I'd like to think that going to

these areas and being able to explore

them for yourself should be part of our

discourse part of our conversations with

ourselves and with everyone else who we

talk to and who with everyone who sees

our images

we photographers are the one who create

are the ones who've created the problem

really you know we are the ones who are

perpetuating that problem not because we

don't mean well we do we love our

locations

and we care about them we want to

celebrate them and we want to talk about

them

but we need to be mindful I think

of what role we play in actually

producing and give ourselves some credit

for that

so now that I've said all of that now

I've said what are locations and what is

at stake in this

this creation of a landscape photograph

let's let's just let's just unpack that

term landscape a little bit more what is

a landscape anyway

now it might seem like it's pretty

straightforward

as I said but actually a landscape

all right that's different than than

just land and it's different than just a

set of coordinates landscape is

essentially a mental construct

it's a mental construct built up of

traditions

of stories of mythologies

of all of the experiences that people

have had going to other places that

might remind them of this one or

experiences that they've had in that

place

you can't unexperience a place you can't

unexperience your concept of land even

if you've even just seen it in a movie

you're probably coming away with ideas

about

areas about biomes

and it's helpful to appreciate that what

people get out of seeing your images is

so much more than just going to that

location and appreciating that it needs

to be protected that's one thing

they also can see your images and they

can they can dream a little

right and land a landscape brings with

it so much

so much that you put into it if you've

if you've if you've done done that but

also so much that they bring to it your

viewer I often say that

the the viewer will often see more than

you ever intended

they'll understand more than you had in

mind

and you probably had in mind more than

they'll ever understand and that's okay

because that's how art works it's

actually one of the cool things about it

the beautiful open -endedness

that is

creation

right so

um I don't think I can put it any better

than a guy who went absolutely viral in

2010 in a YouTube video perhaps you've

seen this one he's outside and there's

this beautiful double rainbow forming

and you know this this video and he's

out there and the rainbow's just getting

brighter and brighter and he's having a

very very intense emotional moment and

what does he say

it's a double rainbow

anyone know this one

a double rainbow all the way

what does it mean

you know that one right

right it's really it's you know it's

wonderful if anyone can have that kind

of a response to Nature it really is

uh and as a landscape photographer it's

wonderful if you can bring some of that

to people

give them that that sense of that wonder

that sense of wonder but another thing

that Landscapes can do

is

call on all of those traditions and all

of those mythologies for people and let

them just dream a little about things

that may have nothing whatever to do

with specifically that land or that

moment

for example that image that I just

showed you earlier of the desert

landscape with the rainbows

wide open areas like that

are not everywhere in the world and in

fact the here we here in the American

West we're very lucky to have a lot of

it and that's why landscape photography

is so

um so very popular in almost uh born

here now there are a lot of landscape

photographers all over the world but the

United States certainly has a lot of

those absolutely classic Vistas because

we just have so much of these wide open

spaces and and even before the age of

Photography back in the age of painting

that kind of expansiveness of the land

became very wrapped up with the concept

of Freedom especially for westerners who

are leaving the East and going west to

obtain freedom in these wide open

expanses of space and so therefore when

we go somewhere else this is Iceland for

example we do tend to take those ideas

with us

those those are parts of the mythologies

that I was talking about that tend to

tend to stay with us and depending on

what you bring to landscape and your own

experiences

um they play out in your own decision

making in your own relationships with

that land and in the way that people

view what you've done

likewise mountains

I'm I'm largely a mountain photographer

I spent a lot of time in the mountains

mountains are known in the mythologies

of many cultures as places that are

close to the Gods

and it's hard not to even even if it's

just subconsciously it's hard not to

have some kind of sense of awe of

mountains on that level

regardless of what you believe whether

or not you believe Zeus lives on Mount

Olympus or not

um you know these sorts of environments

do carry those mythologies and

traditions with them depending on who

who's viewing them it's never going to

be absolute of course

but it's a thing

so

having having laid out what it is

that's at stake and what is really

different between pursuing a location

and pursuing a landscape what I'd like

to do now is give you some sense of how

you can actually put some of these ideas

to work for you

and how you can put a little bit more of

your own good self into your landscapes

so what I've tried to do is break this

down these ideas down into five helpful

habits that you can get into and there's

a little bit of overlap between these

but I think that if you go out and you

think that you're having trouble moving

beyond the idea that you're in this

particular location that these five

habits

can help you to sort of move beyond that

so I'm going to in the interest of

trying to make them somewhat memorable

keep them brief in titles here light

before landmarks hide and seek embrace

the unknown connect the dots and speak

softly

so you'll see what I mean about each of

these

so let's talk about light before

landscapes

so

when you go somewhere

and you know that there's something

really amazing on offer as I said

earlier it can be hard to see what you

don't

know is there because you're so fixated

on what is

now this this image is one that really

speaks to me and it is not a famous

mountain and in fact it's not even the

most prominent Mountain it's probably

about the 30th most prominent mountain

in my view I'm photographing it at 400

millimeters from an area where I had a

360 degree views a view of mountains I

had a lot to choose from it didn't have

to be this one and in fact there were a

couple of really famous Peaks nearby and

it would be very easy to go to this

place and say if you go there you have

the best possible view of this other

famous mountain

so of course I I feel somehow obliged to

photograph the other famous mountain but

if instead you go up there and you think

I'm just going to respond and I'm going

to think about what I see and what the

light is showing me you might see this

so I just love the way that this

mountain seemed to be catching light at

the very most interesting part of it

almost like it's sending signals out

into space or something and it's very

suggestive to me and I love these kinds

of moments of visual poetry that are

much easier to find if you're just

allowing yourself to

sometimes there are areas where you can

find a photograph that will never be

there again

atmosphere is great in this regard so

this is actually an image from Death

Valley where I spend a lot of time teach

a lot of workshops there on this

particular day when this Cloud inversion

was happening

none of the landmarks could have been

more interesting to me and I've been

fortunately my workshop that was with me

agreed they had so much fun really

thinking through their options for this

incredible expanse of the the park that

was covered with this incredible

atmosphere and the telephoto lenses came

out and if you've never seen a bunch of

photographers that dialed into what

they're doing you really should because

it's a beauty beautiful thing to see see

people that are just responding so

intensely to what they're seeing

and and all pointing in different

directions

because they're just they're all the

point is they're seeing right

um they're not they're not just going

for

the landmark

now there's nothing wrong with with

landmarks I do I do really appreciate

them as I said I showed you you know

sometimes I'm absolutely trying to find

a way to tell a story about a landmark

but it's not the only way

sometimes I'll be standing right next to

a landmark is another one of those

occasions there is one of the most

famous now massives when he first

started going there it wasn't but uh now

it is just to the right of me here and

this is again another one of these super

telephoto Landscapes where you wouldn't

have even seen it if you hadn't had that

telephoto lens out to find it we were

hunting around and could see in the

distance this incredible moment of light

and the way that these two peaks seem to

be kind of leaning into each other for a

little dance uh their Charming veils

fluttering behind them these sorts of

moments really get my imagination going

and it's incredibly fun to find them

finding the light

is really really fun if if you just

allow yourself to do that so here's a

scene forests you know Forest scenes are

I just sort of eternally complicated but

if you go into them thinking that

maybe you'll just go look for the

biggest most famous tree but if you go

into them thinking where's the light

there's there's so much that you can do

just going to find what where is the

light how can they frame the light how

can they tell us some story about the

light coming into this charming magical

environment

on this moment I was snowshoeing around

for days looking for the light

and I was in an environment where I

thought I knew what I'd come to

photograph when I got there

the light just wasn't working for that

and so I just explored further and

further and one morning got up very

early way before dark strapped on the

snowshoes and the headlamp all I could

see was snow

in in the light of my headlamp and when

I got up to this High plane I could see

this little crack of light

on the horizon and I had scouted that

plane the day before and I I was so

excited I just knew what I could do up

there this is not an iconic place it's

not a place anybody will ever think to

go except for maybe in the summertime

when they're when they're hiking but

to get these photographs it really does

help if you have that mentality that I

am producing a landscape

so sometimes if it if if the landmark is

not speaking to you look for the light

usually that's where you'll find

something

hide and seek

this one I think is probably the one

that is most closely connected to my own

personal style I love atmosphere I love

finding ways to hide the context of an

image

and you'll probably notice this this

image is on some of the posters for for

this event this is this is again a

little tiny peak in an area where I had

a massive probably 180 degree view of

Peaks and again it's a it's a sub Peak

to a bunch of bigger ones

and I'm I'm really just zoomed in on

that one because there's there's light

there and there's a story to tell but

also because

I don't get too much of the context it

was this window of atmosphere and this

little Peak showing there and even

though it's big brother next door was

also out showing itself there was a lot

of context and it didn't have the same

missed sense of mystery about it

so this was an area where I could really

isolate this one little Peak and there's

this wonderful story about it coming out

surrounded by atmosphere and of course

very soon after that it was completely

engulfed

this this peak here

reminded me of uh I don't know so it's

it's a passing snow squall going over

the peak

and again another really famous set of

Peaks nearby and this is the little one

just generally doesn't get all the love

although it's not

it is it is still a very impressive Peak

that some people would know well

but um

I've often had people who've taken

workshops with me and then they get into

the post-processing session get

something like this and they think we

need to crank up the clarity slider I

can't see I can't see enough of the peak

to me like no no no no no that's where

the magic lies the mystery of of hiding

something in the frame

add something to the image to a great

extent if you're just thinking in terms

of this is a location this is a favorite

famous mountain and I need to show it

very clearly I need to give a very

descriptive view of this very handsome

Mountain you're not going to do this but

if you think that you want to infuse a

little bit of mystery a little bit of

poetry into what you're doing

you might

and this can happen anywhere atmosphere

can be moving sand for all I care

I just love it I love those moments that

do not reveal everything they actually

conceal a whole lot these are those

moments where

the the

atmosphere is giving us the story by not

giving us too much context and pulling

us out of the story

so some images have almost no detail at

all be very hard to tell where I was

standing where are my feet

what does this place look like this is

just backlit sand

at Sunset and all you're getting is a

little bit of Rim light off of the dunes

and to me these Dunes reminded me of

ocean waves or something like that just

a beautiful moment of light that takes

you away from the fact that it's even a

desert and it reminds you of something

that it that it isn't even

right so that's moving Way Beyond just

the landscape

these moments can be super exciting they

don't have to be

these these bigger grander scenes they

can be very very exciting just by

removing the context yourself through

cropping find these these moments where

things come together and the strangeness

is what you're showing not the context

now I could show you the top of the

Ridgeline here in the sky above it you

get a greater sense of scale I could put

a person in the landscape you'd get a

greater sense of scale we often hear

that landscape really needs a person

because that gives a sense of scale

I I'm of the opposite Camp I want to

take the person out of there because it

gives away the sense of scale right it

gives away the game and it kind of robs

the place of its mystery I'd rather not

show

exactly the descriptive

view of a place I'd much rather show

something that's a collaboration between

me and nature

and sometimes that means just going

really small getting right down next to

the ground

and

and letting your imagination play with

what's down there

and I I believe that these are

Landscapes too these sorts of images in

fact uh years ago I was speaking at a

conference in England at which John

Blakemore a very celebrated British

photographer was speaking and uh he had

reached at that point I think he was 80.

and once he had reached 70 it became

harder for him to go out to the areas

that he frequented the most for

landscape photography he was getting a

little less mobile

and so he spent 10 years

photographing his living room

as a landscape

and he said to the audience at that

event he said and he showed showed these

images they were wonderful they were

very evocative of outdoor spaces he just

couldn't go out there anymore so he did

what he could right and he said should

we allow these as a sort of domestic

landscape I think we should I agreed

with them

right so what is a landscape it can be

very wide open but a landscape like I

said is is a concept and the more that

you bring to that idea the more

conceptual that it gets usually the more

interesting that it gets so I love

finding areas where I see something that

it's not like surf crashing on a beach

in this case it's not it's two layers of

mud coming together

but the more that you go out there and

you just work with that those sort of

concepts of landscape the more that you

have to work with

so related to this idea of hide and seek

is and and by the way the Seek Part I've

been telling you all along without

really emphasizing it so I'll do that

now you are having to seek out what it

is that you're looking for if you're

hiding part of it you're also seeking

right so exploration I walked 10 miles

through knee high water in a River

Canyon to find this little patch of mud

so a lot of seeking involved in all of

this too but that's a whole other talk

that I often give is on exploration but

I just want to say that that is the

other half of the Hide and Seek equation

so let's talk about embracing the

unknown because this is

this is where uh

this is where you just have a lot of

opportunity if if you are struggling to

get away from that idea of the location

and what is important about this place

supposedly what do they tell me is

important just go to a place where it's

never the same so sand dudes are awesome

for that they're always changing that

stuff's moving around all the time uh

good luck taking exactly the same photo

twice although the dunes tend not to

move that much they are always changing

character they're subtly changing shape

I have this one Dune that they take my

my workshops to in Death Valley I call

it the squiggle Dune and the squiggle

Dune is now becoming more of like it was

a beautiful S curve now it's more of a z

and sometimes it has sort of a corduroy

finish and sometimes it looks like Silk

um and it's just wonderful how much

students change you never really know

exactly what you're going to find there

so if you can just sort of embrace these

sorts of areas mud tiles are another

place if you go out into these areas

where

the water is able to interact with fine

silt those will tend to form mud tiles

and these are all over the Southwest

this one's in the Mojave Desert these

mud tiles were so big I could stick my

back then uh Canon EOS Mark III

uh 5D Mark III down into those cracks

with a wide angle lens on it

no problem they were they were huge so

um amazingly you find that and then this

whole Playa I was told two weeks later

was gone so was completely erased by

Nature another flood came in covered it

over and that was the end of that so now

there might be something else there it's

wonderful to go out and explore and find

areas where the ground itself is

actually changing all the time

and even if you find just little patches

of these areas there's something that

you can do with that too it tells a

great story about the place

lots of places have this ability the

black sand deserts of Iceland you go out

there and you just you really just never

know what you're going to find this

little whirl on the edge of the lake

that's not always going to be there

right it takes a certain set of

conditions certain water height all

sorts of things need to happen the more

that you go out and you just look for

areas where things are likely to be

changing the more that you're going to

get far away from that idea that you're

doing something specific and descriptive

it's wonderful just to climb up high and

look down on stuff

so here I am in Acadia National Park

just climbing up on a rock and looking

down and lo and behold there's this

crazy ring

of undressed trees next to all of their

friends showing off everything they've

got

right is it the circle of life a circle

of friends these sorts of ideas really

get my imagination going

and it does require just getting out in

these areas where you don't know what

you're going to find it could be

different certainly a bunch of trees in

autumn that can change radically from

one day to the next especially as wind

comes and their colors change and so

changing areas are an area where you can

go and really find more than just what

you expect to be there

connect the dots let's talk about that

now what am I talking about connect

connecting the dots essentially what I

mean about that is

how are you going to present your images

are you going to just present them as an

expose on a specific location totally an

option and there are lots of good

reasons why you might want to do that

right if you want to produce a

documentary about why a certain area

needs to be protected it's going to be a

movie about or or a book about that area

right and you're going to have a series

of images from that area that's not

necessary

um but

that that sometimes I should say

sometimes that is necessary but it isn't

always so let's just say if you're going

to a place and there happen to be some

sand dunes there

and there happen to be some salt Creeks

there

and you really like salt creeks

and you really like the the beautiful

leathery textures of mud tiles and you

photograph that too and you think that's

so crazy and oh my gosh while I was

there there was a storm and then there

was this lingering atmosphere that just

kind of hung around and played across

the landscape and it was like there was

this one little fragment that was there

for three days and it was like it was

like that visitor who comes to stay at

your house and just sleeps on the couch

and never leaves and there's so many

stories that you can tell there

and then and then we went back to the

dunes and they were and then on the

dunes there was this crazy

correspondence with this amazing storm

cloud overhead and the way that it just

the angles of the clouds seemed to Echo

the angles on the ground and your

compositional senses are just going

crazy and then you thought well there's

a Salt Flat there's this wonderful Salt

Flat and the way that the water is

turning the salt into

shapes that look like lace doilies is

crazy how that works it's amazing how

nature can do that and then you went to

this other larger Basin and the salt

there was turning into these polka dots

that people call the potholes and they

seem to go on forever and and lo and

behold the sky realized that the ground

forgot one and it's bringing it bringing

that little hole of one that hole that

matches what you see on the ground and

there's a story there isn't it it's the

missing piece the sky is bringing it

down to join the puzzle on the ground

now I could have I could I could tell so

many stories there's so many things that

I could say about all these amazing

places and and if I'm just putting these

images in my portfolio or if I'm just

sharing them

there's so much that I can say besides

the fact that everything that I've just

shown you

was in Death Valley

right okay so maybe that's not always

the most important point

that would be one way of connecting the

dots I could leave all of that out that

I just said I would say here's a bunch

of shots from Death Valley

when we do that and there's really not

any immediate need to do that we're

missing an opportunity to do other

things and to remind our audience that

there is much more to Death Valley than

Death Valley there is our relationship

with it there is that human element that

the photographer brings to it the

decisions that the photographer makes

so another thing that might really

interest you another way of presenting

your images might be some other themes

maybe you really like sun lit craggy

Peaks

and you might find sunlit craggy peaks

in places where most people don't go

because they're looking for something

else and you're just looking for sunlit

craggy Peaks and so you're loving nature

you're loving these these areas

right but you don't need to direct

everyone to them and tell them that if

you this is a photo about X and if you

go to x you can have that photo too

different message right

different sunlit craggy Peak different

place I can produce a whole portfolio of

images on just some like craggy Peaks

because I do this a lot and they could

be from all over the world

and I could still tell a very nature

oriented story

about these these areas there's there's

just there's always so much to say here

we are yet again totally different

environment totally different biome more

sun like craggy peaks in this case sea

stacks

right and none of these are even in the

same country

they're not the same environments but

they are still nature

nature giving us these beautiful moments

and the more that we get people

interested in looking for something

other than a location and a specific

spot or those triple tripod holes are

the more that we encourage them to think

about what our contributions are to the

photograph what it is that we bring to

it

which is so much more than just just a

an identified place on a map

so the sunlit craggy Peaks thing it

could be interesting immersive

Landscapes and dialogues between what's

on the ground and what's in the

background I love finding those sorts of

things too

or

you know the way that the the ground is

always changing there's so many stories

you can tell about that these

environments it's crazy red lava rock

and Iceland

again similar compositional interest

getting low to the ground with mud tiles

I've already shown you a number of these

but in this case I call this image Moon

dial because to me there was something

about the passage of time going on here

which is hard to ignore when you realize

that these environments are so

changeable

and that image that I one of the

earliest images that I showed you

have a desert with pink flowers

I called this one Kindred Spirits

because it so reminded me of that one so

I'm producing a theme a companion piece

on a theme of two totally different

areas

right so I'm I'm totally appreciating

the fact that these are fragile plants

in fragile areas in two different areas

and in an area where very few people

would ever be able to find this because

we were traveling out uh in monster

trucks out in the highlands of Iceland

uh rolling around like a giant creative

laboratory for nine days but it could

just as well be some place where people

could find it easily and you know there

are all sorts of ramifications for

directing people those sorts of places

without giving them a whole lot more to

think about

so I already talked about atmosphere I

love the way that atmosphere can tell a

story and give you

something that isn't always there the

way that the atmosphere is just Clinging

On to this pyramidal peak in the

background or the way that the

atmosphere here seems to get looked like

an asteroid or a comet shooting through

the air

or the way that the atmosphere here

allows these trees all to seem to be in

chorus together moving out of the way or

leaning in and waiting for the light to

shine through

the way that the atmosphere rakes across

a landscape and you get some sense for

the way that those formations of rock

were actually were formed because of the

interplay of the weather and the light

and the forces

and I sometimes see things that aren't

really there a rocket ship taking off

for example

if you're never really and if you're

really interested in in landscape in

atmosphere like I am you'll find it like

I said in the strangest of places like

the deserts of California and you'll see

it in things that aren't even the

atmosphere this is just water but to me

it looks like a bunch of clouds swirling

around at the bottom of a waterfall

so these these sorts of opportunities

for you to really dig in and explore

and by explore I don't just mean boots

on the ground and me and exploring ideas

they're everywhere maybe you're really

interested in seasonal runoff you can

find some seasonal runoff in lots of

places the way that that is not always

there is fascinating I love the way the

waterfalls change their force and their

power depending on the season

sometimes seasonal runoff produces

streams that are not there any other

time of the year and

it's just marvelous to be able to go out

there and if that's your project you

really want you're really interested in

that you will find it and you will put

more of yourself into that

so lastly let's talk about this fifth

idea of speaking Softly

and by that I mean there are a number of

choices you can make after the

photograph is done after you've put all

of yourself into it you've processed it

you've decided to put it out there

we all like to think that a photo should

speak for itself and in many ways it

always will it will never say exactly

what you want it to and people because

people will understand what they see in

it what they bring to it

and as I said that's part of the fun

but what you do say matters

and we have so many opportunities to say

something about our photographs whether

that is just titling them

now there's nothing wrong with just

putting a location name as your title

and in fact it's more expedient there's

a lot less mental energy that goes into

that right it's pretty hard to sit down

and what are you going to call it they

called this one gold rush right

personally I would rather come up with a

title that's trite rather than the one

that seems indifferent

I'm hoping that by giving my photos that

kind of a title that encourages people

to think a little bit beyond the

location may not always work but it's

it's worth a try

I called this one the ma

I saw this big mouth of a monster or

something in the forest and it gives me

ideas it's not just what happens

afterwards actually while you're in the

field language coming into play can be

very useful what do you see and how can

you make someone else maybe see that

so what you have to say about the images

can also either direct people to them or

not you might have an area like this

that's incredibly fragile

and then you might want to think twice

about telling people exactly where that

is in your caption now there's been a

whole

um brouhaha over geotagging and I won't

get into that but I'll just say that my

my Approach is it's all the same

everything is fragile it needs to be

protected and so I'm just kind of vague

about it this is in the Mojave Desert

that's enough

right that's as far as I go

um because some places okay sand dunes

they're maybe not that fragile

but that way I don't have to make the

call I don't have to be the one to say

how fragile is that place how much does

it need to be protected

I'd rather just assume that they all do

so there you have it the five

light before landmarks hide and seek

embrace the unknown connect the dots and

speak softly

if you are able to embrace these ideas I

think you'll go farther

with understanding that photography does

have that third ingredient which is you

and that what you're doing is having a

relationship with the land

and that can only lead to good things

so the next time you're out in nature

with your camera

and you're looking around

ask yourself this

is what I see here just a location

or can I find myself here too

thank you

we don't have time for questions right

okay

thank you so much Aaron Irene will be

out at the cannon Booth doing a q a so

if you wish to learn a little bit more

about those Landscapes and why not

Aaron's at the cat at the cannon booth

and one more time let's give a round of

applause for everyone when she comes out

thank you so much okay so

before we go to lunch we got a very

special speaker up next I would like to

introduce a great friend of mine and

also the guy who one of the co-founders

of optic Ralph Lee Hopkins the uh

Director of Photography program for

limblad expeditions Ralph

everyone having a good time

well it's my honor to introduce

flip nicklin I mean what a better

name for a whale photographer than flip

but I met flip years ago at a

conservation conference

and we hit it off it was like we were

brothers and then he invited me he did a

very mean thing he invited me to Hawaii

to photograph Wales and who knew that

the whales are like five minutes

offshore and I was hooked so I started

working with flip for the whale trust

Maui raising money

for whale research but flip goes back to

the days

when you had 36 shots in your camera to

capture things under water and he was an

underwater photographer so he's one when

you talk about one of the pioneers of

photography

flip micklin is one of those people

great man great photographer and a great

friend here's flip

[Applause]

so

whales and cameras

I can tell some stories today but I'll

tell you about a story I heard 22 years

ago it was on a Expedition cruise ship

in Alaska

and I was the National Geographic whale

guy on board

and the naturalist Linda Richardson came

up to me and told me a story about a

friendly dolphin in Southeast Alaska

if the dolphin that was interested in

people coming up to people so she went

to see it

and when she went to see it she saw the

it looked interested so she took her

clothes off and jumped in the water and

it swam with her

I hear lots of interesting stories being

the whale guy for National Geographic

and I I think she could see I was a

little skeptical about what she was

talking about but she was prepared

she had someone with her with a camera

and she brought out the black and white

prints and there she was stripped down

to her skivvies in 45 degree water in

Haynes Alaska swimming with the Pacific

white side dolphin

two things were clear

one it was a true story

and second this woman was absolutely

crazy

in all the best ways

we've been together ever since

yeah

mmm

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

hi I'm flip nicklin

and for the last 43 years my career has

centered around swimming with whales

taking their pictures and telling their

stories

we are now well past the time when we

just saw whales in museums

we head out and meet them in their world

in Hawaii in Alaska and around the world

with whale watching

as a kid in the 50s having whale

watching being looking at a puffs of

smoke in the distance off the coast of

San Diego

I never dreamed that whale watching

would become so big and that people

would be able to see them face to face

and video photography and stills have

become a big part of telling their story

whales are just a great subject for

photography

whether it's with your phone telling the

story of your day of whale watching

whether it's using whales as a subject

for art these magnificent giant animals

and the things that they do

or in my case trying to tell the story

is an editorial photographer mostly for

National Geographic the story has

changed so much over time but it didn't

start with pictures like these

and I had no plan to do this for a

career

it was all my father's fault

we didn't have very fancy cameras when I

was growing up

but a friend of my father is a business

acquaintance was Connie Limbaugh the

first diving officer at Scripps

Institute

and Connie was a Pioneer diver and a

Pioneer marine scientist

and he was he died in a cave diving

accident in France in 1960.

and his widow Nan gave my father two

cameras uh Rollie Marine two and a

quarter underwater camera with a flat

port and a flash attachment where you

shoot flash bulbs

flat port

and a 16 millimeter Bell and howl

's camera with a Samson Hall housing

and my father started trying to learn

how to be a photographer

I think it was a pretty sure thing that

I was going to be a diver

my mother's father and Uncle did

underwater construction work with Hard

Hat Gear building things like Piers

along the California coast and in the

60s my mom was even a cover girl on Skin

Diver magazine

my father Chuck was a sport diver and

Champion spear fisherman

and in 1959 opened the diving Locker the

second dive shop in San Diego

uh and my brother Terry and I grew up in

a diving world that was uh largely about

spearfishing and spearfishing contest

and then in January of 1963 my father

wrote a whale

my dad was off of La Jolla diving with

friends

and they saw whale in the distance we

saw whales all the time gray whales went

close to the coast going north and south

under migration but this wasn't a great

whale it was a Brutus whale and it

wasn't going anywhere because it was

caught up into the anchor line of a gill

net

my father got in the water with a camera

and one of his buddies with the spear

guns to swim up and photograph and film

The Whale this was before whales were

General Giants it was a big powerful

animal and they weren't sure what was

going to happen it was really a a big

adventure and and uh uh thought to be

fairly dangerous at the time

and after they had photographed the

whale and filmed the whale the whale was

very calm and my father swam up and

actually got on the whales back and and

had his picture taken by his friend Bill

to court

they took their pictures to Rola

Williams a sports editor at the San

Diego Union and he was someone you'd

take a picture of a big fish or a big

lobster too it was good advertising for

the the dive shop but the pictures were

really popular they ran into the San

Diego Union and across the country

and and it probably would have stopped

right there except they had movies they

had 16 millimeter movies which was a big

deal at the time and there was a young

man with a variety show after the late

news in San Diego a very young Regis

Philbin who had my dad on to show his

his film to show the pictures of whales

underwater on film after the show they

took that film they sent it to New York

into a production company called Goodson

Todman Productions and one of their

shows was to tell the truth three people

came on telling a wild Story one of them

was telling the truth my father went to

New York he was the guy on to tell the

truth telling the real story

and in the audience in the TV audience

was Bates little Hales he was the

underwater guy for National Geographic

in the 50s and 60s he looked at my

father he'd been thinking about doing

Wheels underwater and my father was a

whale expert he'd seen one

seeing that first whale led to all kinds

of things for my father he became the

go-to second guy on whale projects one

of the first documentaries on humpback

whales gentle Giants of the Pacific he

started working for National Geographic

on a number of projects but especially

the first big humpback whale story in

1979 this was the story with the small

record songs of the humpback whale to

sort of introduce singing humpback

whales to the world

and he came to Hawaii on an IMAX film

Nomads of the deep the First underwater

IMAX film

I tried to find a picture of my first

underwater camera but it was sold like

even on EB I couldn't find a picture but

this is the camera I use now it's a

Nikon d850 they got a big dome it's a

CNC housing it works all the time and uh

I think this year I'm going to use a 20

on it and it's uh boy it's you're a lot

better it shoots about the equivalent of

150 plus rolls of 35 millimeter film

without opening up the back and worrying

about dripping into it when you're

changing film

it was really Bates little hails that

got me interested in photography and

introduced me to the world of National

Geographic and National Geographic

assignment photography

when I was going out with uh Bates and

my dad usually driving small boats and

pulling anchors once in a while he'd let

me borrow a camera and take a picture

and at the end I got to I was teaching

uh diving scuba diving to Geographic

photographers and writers in San Diego

so I was teaching uh scuba diving and

running a dive shop in San Diego when

one of my students Jonathan Blair

invited me to come for three months to

the Northwest Hawaiian chain to be an

assistant on a story for National

Geographic

I got two pictures published in the

magazine from that story and I never

came back to the diving Locker

I was going to try and make a living

with a camera

I took all kinds of Oddball jobs uh

photographing science in the oil

industry got a few pictures published in

National Geographic but it was about

three years before things started to

really make sense for me

the first proposal

I sent in that was accepted by National

Geographic was to do sharks and shark

research

and then I met Dr Jim darling

and a whale named Frank

the first whale picture I shot that

became popular was of my father with a

humpback whale as we were shooting the

IMAX film Nomads of the deep in 1979 off

of Lahaina

most of the whales we were filming were

curious whales whales that came up to us

whales we called friendlies

and then on March 10 1979 we were called

Over by Dr Jim darling to photograph

Frank

drifted over in slack and looked down

and

and saw something

and sure enough it was the whale and at

that point we realized that

you know oh my oh my you know I mean

these singers are diving as if they're

going to go down to the bottom but they

get you know 10 30 40 feet below the

surface and just stop

and with the visibility there being

double that you could

especially if it was a lighter colored

singer or it had weight on the flippers

you could see it from the boat

you know you guys were in the

neighborhood and were able to come over

and film it

and that just changed everything uh all

of a sudden

uh we weren't just recording songs and

trying to understand what they were

doing uh when they were singing we could

actually locate and watch and film and

study the individual it was doing the

singing and uh

realized that we could actually learn

something here

and that that led to me changing my PhD

from studying gray whales to Humpback

whales and the just a whole bunch of

other things happened

you know was it you know both sexes

which some you know males and females or

was it just males and

realization that we could go out and

actually find these animals on a daily

basis and then

um you know with uh your abilities to

get down there and take photographs of

them

you know the objective in 1980 was

simply to find as many singers as we

could find and uh uh take as many

photographs as we could of their

Underside and uh determine whether they

were males or females

working that closely with the animals

though led to all kinds of other uh

encounters and interactions with whales

doing you know Behavior social behavior

patterns and so on and uh all of a

sudden there were

a million questions to answer and we

knew that we could answer them

I had some of your photographs and I

showed them at this meeting and there

were people there who were who simply

could not believe it that you could both

locate and get close to and photograph

Wales at Sea like we did

they really couldn't grasp I mean I had

people come up afterward and saying how

did you do that

and these are you know old-time sort of

biologists you know we're only a few

years you know ahead of them because a

few years back we would have probably

asked the same question

I was saying we were fortunate enough to

be in Maui with such good conditions and

it probably allowed us a bit of a head

start on some of this stuff

no one realized

um

that these whales were actually

competing with each other or fighting

with each other

we didn't we didn't really know what

they were doing

um

and uh

one day it was Greg Silver we were out

in the boat and

we were with a group and he was watching

what was going underwater by hanging

over the boat with a mask on

he came up and he was just astounded

that he'd just seen one whale hit

another one

and then there was this sort of

aggressive

competitive type Behavior going on was a

complete Revelation at the time I mean

the whole sort of Nature and what was

going on out there and in fact the

nature of Wales changed with just uh you

know one really good observation with

sort of

open the doors to sort of

us realizing what we've been watching

for a long time

after the first few years of taking

pictures sort of as an aside to

recording songs I don't know we had

three you know a few hundred whales and

I had actually tried to give it away the

the cataloging nobody really seemed to

want it so I carried on and it became

the basis of my PhD

one of the

questions which arose was we kept on

taking pictures and Counting the

individuals

and we found that the number of you know

whales we actually photographed was

larger than some of the estimates for

the number of whales in Hawaii

um overall and of course

it was a bit of a

a contradiction there because we

certainly weren't identifying all the

animals we came up with a population

estimate of well somewhere around a

thousand whales which was

made a lot more sense uh at that time

than the

you know the couple hundred which

people were talking about

when I came to Hawaii in 1979

on the IMAX film and my dad had just

sent the Natural History documentary

gentle Giants of the Pacific that

focused on how nice whales were and they

wanted to be friendly and that like

people and then I'm out with Jim and

he's going

get the pictures of the bloody head now

if they're beating the heck out of each

other out here and you go there's a big

move between save the whales and and the

popular sport and love of Wales and the

the the mystery of the song and what

science was seeing and not that that the

first is wrong they are curious they're

wonderful they're beautiful and they do

all kinds of interesting stuff

and I think basically I saw my career

was going to be taking that intro's

interest of whales that love of Wales

and moving it towards some of the other

interesting things that science is

finding out that's usually years ahead

of the popular narrative and telling

those stories

the idea is that researchers were

excited about seeing and studying new

things about new Behavior about Wales is

what got me excited about whale

photography

and the timing was great researchers

were really just starting to work with

wild whales and learn how to study them

and I was trying to figure out how to

make that a story with pictures

and about this time the nikona's 15

millimeter lens came out

a small camera with a wide lens which

allowed me to free dive and get closer

to whales and made a giant difference in

the pictures I could take

at that point I was shooting Kodachrome

and we could take the film and if we got

in by three o'clock to a Photoshop

across from a space invader parlor in

downtown Lahaina we get it back at eight

o'clock the next morning and I'd be

there with the scientific crew standing

on the street in downtown Atlanta

holding up 35 millimeter slides just to

see if we got anything

film exposure was so critical on

Kodachrome that we would bracket our

explosion so even if you did everything

right only about a third of the pictures

came out properly exposed I came back to

Maui in 1980 as part of the scientific

crew mostly diving under singing

humpback whales and shooting pictures of

their bellies

and at the end of that season National

Geographic actually Mary Smith asked me

to come back to the office in Washington

and talk about a whale story

and this led me to going back in 1981

having my own place to live driving a

rental car having my expenses covered

and being paid

and in 1982 in April the article on a

new light on the singing whales came out

in National Geographic and uh I didn't

know it but I was on my way to being the

whale guy for National Geographic

I

I wish anybody could be as excited as I

was to get my byline and the First

National Geographic story and uh and all

the things that came with it back in

1982 including secondary sales of

pictures which was a big big deal at the

time and you know there were Italian

rights and Spanish rights and all these

secondary rights but the most

interesting secondary sale I probably

ever made was after that 1982 story and

I got a call from Jay Walter Thompson an

advertising company in New York City

and they said we've seen your story we

love your work especially this picture

of the mother and calf humpback whale

we'd like to buy we have a client that

wants that picture he just doesn't want

any whales in it

I thought he was kidding

but he wasn't and they were ready to

send me back to Hawaii to go out there

and shoot the same Blue Water streaks

without the whale in it when I found one

picture in the yellow boxes in the

throwaways where I'd miss the whale and

that was good enough that picture sold

for months

assignment pay for National Geographic

and and my world had changed

dramatically

I was going to cover research stories on

whales and dolphins for the magazine for

the next 27 years it was a wonderful

wonderful job

but in my world in the world of whale

research I wasn't the real guy I was

doing stories about the the whale guys

the men and women who did research on

whales and dolphins and spent years for

my weeks in looking and living with the

animals and trying to know them better

and it was a great great group to work

with inspirational people doing what

jobs that were thought to be impossible

back in the 70s learning about the lives

of wild whales and dolphins

especially memorable was work done with

Dr Ken Norris after he retired from UC

Santa Cruz we did stories on dolphins

and a story on belugas in the high

Arctic and they were interesting

interesting people to work with

so I was a

freediving

photographer from San Diego and had done

my first big story on Wales in Hawaii

the water's nice and warm it's a

beautiful place to work so the next

assignment I got from National

Geographic was to do krill in very very

cold water

most of the animals we were working with

were very very small shrimp like

Critters and most of the work was done

in southern Chile or Antarctica so I was

learning a lot

but luckily part of the Krill story was

going to be in Tidwell country in

Vancouver Island and it was going to be

a way to get a first look and a chance

to maybe shoot a killer whale story for

the magazine

this led to my second whale Story the

whales called killer working with Mike

big and John Ford and it was going to

lead to my next Whale story I just

didn't know it

uh narwhal unicorn of the Arctic seas

and getting me a kid from the beaches of

San Diego an introduction to a whole

different world

the assignment began

to Northern Baffin Island with a group

from the Vancouver Aquarium

we went out at upon Inlet out to the

flow Edge where the ice stops and the

ocean begins

this group only had a couple days out

there and then had to go back but my

guide said that was fine I could stay

there hope to get pictures he'd go drop

them off and come right back that day

well he was gone for three days and I

was in a place that was really different

than San Diego trying to figure things

out uh 24-hour Sun uh doing everything

wrong at the wrong times worrying about

polar bears a lot and sleeping with that

big shotgun in the background

I woke up and heard my tent moving

around and also the zipper got to be

undone and I had poked in it was Siegler

an Inuit from Greece Fjord and he looked

in and said you have to leave I said no

no I'm okay I'm with National Geographic

I have all the right permits he said no

where you are is not going to be here

tomorrow you have to leave and I did

with his help we moved to about 12 miles

away onto Solid Ground and after I I

woke up there looked out and the ice had

been on had broken off and moved away

and I realized I had a lot to learn

the second trip out to the flow Edge was

out of Arctic Bay with Glenn Williams a

renewable resource officer from that

small Hamlet and he introduced me to

oucalook and his grandson Andrew tuck to

Andrew's guiding skills and Glenn's

great advice would be key to any success

I was going to have in my work in the

high Arctic

and we would have some great adventures

over the next decade or decade and a

half

and over the years life on the flow Edge

became almost normal well normal with

still plenty of Adventure included

but for all I was learning

I wasn't getting any narwhal pictures

most of the time I saw whales too far

away and almost always just when I was

figuring out what I should be doing it

was too late to do it I could see the

potential but I sure wasn't going to get

it this season

after three and a half months in the

field the film review I got was nothing

usable yet

it was late summer during open water and

towards the end of our time when John

Ford the researcher I was working with

came and got us and said you should come

and see this there were narwhals they

were on the surface they were fighting

and the tusks were coming up it turned

out to be a dying female and a couple of

young males with her and other males

coming in and a fight going on

underwater

we were working out of two-man kayaks

the Narwhals wouldn't tolerate any

engine noise around them and when things

were quiet I couldn't get in the water

because the whales would just drift away

the only time I could get anywhere near

them underwater was when the fight was

actually going on

when I got in the water in midst of the

fight you'd see the female floating on

the surface and the young males fighting

off Group after group of bigger males

coming in wanting access to the female

uh the trying to get close one of the

young males came up and put his Tusk

aimed right at my chest she could feel

the little Sonic clicks as he was trying

to figure who I was it was just there

for a second it's amazing how many bad

things you can think about in that

second then he went back on to the fight

I mean it looks like a fight in a pool

hall with everybody swinging these clubs

the animals later on when we had him out

for necrops to give the dead female were

all sliced up from Tusk moves and the

female had been speared with a tusk

this fight went on for at least seven

hours it was the basis for the whole

National Geographic story on narwhals

and probably the hardest story I ever

did

story also opened the door for more than

a decade's work I would have uh with

Narwhals and other animals in the high

Arctic

this word started in the mid 80s there

wasn't uh

a lot of interest in the communities to

have people come in they had been some

bad experiences they wanted to make sure

the people who came in would respect

them and their culture and there wasn't

that much interest really from from us

to go north uh I think there was some

surprise that I kept wanting to go back

but there were so many great stories to

tell

these stories really weren't natural

history stories at their core uh there

are stories about research there are

stories about uh different cultural

looks at whales and that idea that uh

the same whale was looked at a number of

different ways all this largely depended

on where you were and who you were with

the more time I spent in the Arctic

looking for whales and other Wildlife

the more stories I could see my

freediving and underwater photography is

certainly what got me in the door at

National Geographic in 1976

but most of these stories had that as a

very small component trying to tell the

story with what I could do not just

underwater pictures

it was really whatever pictures whatever

it took to tell the story

we were giving lots of time

very little Direction and mainly we were

explorers who go out there and find new

things take new pictures and share them

in National Geographic

and when you went and didn't find what

you're looking for didn't find what you

expected that that was a good thing

all we'll just find those things you

didn't expect

and with subjects like Wales and the

Arctic and whales in the Arctic there

was plenty of that

I had great adventures in the Arctic

over a pretty long time the wonderful

experience and I'll forever be grateful

for the people who took care of me up

there and let me be a pretty successful

visitor

and of course it wasn't just the Arctic

for those 27 years I was visiting

researchers people working on whales and

dolphins around the world and able to

work with people doing a job that uh

they were passionate about and it was

going to get better

after 20 years of knocking around doing

stories around the world working with

all these great people

it wasn't lost on me that the first

place I worked in Hawaii with Wales was

a pretty nice place to work

and I had a really

good set of events largely because of my

longtime agent Larry Minden

I had a chance to sell my photo

collection and had some other windfalls

so I got sort of for the very first time

sort of financially ahead enough that I

went back to Jim darling and said let's

take some of this money go back to

Hawaii and see if it's worth going back

and continuing research there which may

be one of the animals will really get to

know

with the science and with photography

Jim darling and I came back to Maui in

1996 and the first year it was two guys

and I borrowed boat thanks to Mark

Robinson the next year we were part of a

BBC film and uh we bought a boat that

never satisfied it wasn't new but it was

ours

and by 1999 it wasn't just two guys and

an old boat we also had Megan Jones to

join the operation and in 1999 National

Geographic did my second story on

humpback whales

listening to humpbacks

based on new studies since I returned to

Maui

it became clear at that time that if we

were to continue and do the things we

hope to do we needed a more

straightforward non-profit status in the

United States

and so in 2001

Jim darling Megan Jones and and flip

nicklin that's me and an old boat called

Never Satisfied became whale Trust

our funding came from a little money

from BBC when they were working with us

some support from National Geographic

magazine quite a bit of support from

National Geographics Grosvenor Council

and direct donations

for Maui and and Far Beyond

and sharing our story with the community

and asking for their for their support

was going to become a big part of whale

Trust

we came back to Maui in the mid 90s I

was still shooting film but but the

cameras were much better we had uh

autofocus and auto exposure and

automatic bracketing so your percentage

of pictures that worked out was much

much better

and there were a lot more whales

and the star of 1998 was a whale we just

called The Friendly singer this was a

great whale the whale would go down and

sing for 20 minutes or so then come up

and hang around the boat look at the

hydrophone rub at the hydrophone at one

point had it under his pectoral tend to

drag the uh the whole recording gear in

gym into the water then he'd go down to

sing again for another 20 minutes then

come back and hang around under the boat

one of the great things about this whale

was that he would go down the sink for

those 20 minutes in the days of film

when you only had 36 exposures so when

he'd go down I could get in the boat

Change film and sometimes even change

the lenses and you get a whole different

look when you switched off those Ultra

wide lenses that we usually used

underwater for shooting whale

but the best part of the friendly singer

was that he was still hanging around the

boat when he was joined by another whale

and this was another male and what we've

learned since then is singers are joined

by other males and not by females as

often thought

but giant changes were coming to

photography at the turn of the century

with digital photography making remote

photography easier and giving a whole

bunch of new tools for trying to capture

images and tell the science story about

whales

by 2001 we were getting used to digital

photography in the form of consumer

video

so we had gear on board to capture

special moments special days when we saw

whales do new and exciting things now we

just had to shoot movies and figure what

to do with them

at about this time we were introduced to

a young man Jason Sturgis who wanted to

come with us and shoot video with us and

he's been a tremendous addition to whale

trust and now worked with us for over 20

years

I think it had been six weeks before we

had a really good day with Jason and uh

had to shoot the things he dreamed of

shooting uh since then uh in those 20

years we've had many great days in his

video really adds to our ability to sell

this to tell the story

things were changing very quickly in

underwater photography I had a different

system each year for the first three

years I was shooting digital but each

one was better than the last

and now I was shooting still photography

and with Jason shooting video and with

the cameras getting better and better uh

photography became a more important tool

to tell the story of Wales and whale

research with whale Trust

in the early days you're sort of

dependent on photographers and

filmmakers coming along for relatively

short periods to try and tell a story of

Wales that hopefully included the work

the research was doing

the new tools the new cameras uh both

still cameras and video cameras allow

research to tell their own story and

that's a big big difference

and as the science of Wales

became better and better equipped so did

digital photography that first camera

was six megapixels my most recent camera

is over 45 megapixels that first camera

you could only shoot four pictures

before you had to stop

now it's more than 50.

it was great that we had new tools

because there were new stories to tell

Megan Jones brought to well trust study

a female role on the breeding grounds

starting with the role of long diving

females and uh and the question what are

they doing down there

this led to the story of National

Geographic magazine in 2007 titled

appropriately what are they doing down

there

my role that world trust is documenting

behavioral research on humpback whales

it'll uh be my 27th year starting in

January

sharing what we learn uh in scientific

Publications and popular Publications

sharing with film Crews as they come

through and getting the word out in ways

that I really didn't imagine until I

came to work at whale Trust

in 2006 we started whale Tales a weekend

in Kapalua where we would share research

we were doing and others were doing in

Maui and Beyond and asking for public

support

this has continued even during the

pandemic or the virtual version that

we've done for the last two years but

this year we'll be live again back to

doing whale tales in Kapalua at the Ritz

Carlton

and in the 20 months I was at home in

Alaska during the pandemic I started

telling stories through whale trust

called humpback Chronicles stories and

Adventures around whale research

and of course photography is a big part

of all of these efforts

and not just mine we have a new member

of our group Ralph Pace who's working

with us and has for seven years now

Ralph is a tremendous photographer

Ralph and his family live right here in

Monterey

and she's really not new to it she's

been working with us since she was a kid

but Haley robs Spears now a graduate

student at UC Santa Cruz adds to the

scientific component and also takes a

really interesting pictures along the

way with the GoPro on a pole

from here I head back to Maui we'll be

working once again with Jim and Megan

I'll go out on the boat most days with

Jason and Haley and Ralph

and on the documentary boat

on the good days we'll still be swimming

with whales and telling their stories

we missed the 21 season because of the

pandemic but we were back this year

and uh we didn't know it but bubbles

were going to be a big part of this year

and on January 28th we had this little

calf that wouldn't go back to mom when

she went down she just swam around the

boat and for some reason blew bubbles

over and over again and uh it was just a

happy whale picture and a a great way to

be back in Hawaii

and it turns out there's a scientific

publication about bubble blowing this

month coming out and what we've been

seeing for 20 years but finally got

enough to do a peer review publication

on it is that male humpback whales

give bubble baths to female humpback

whales

we call it unofficially the California

jacuzzi move

but it's

out as a scientific publication this

year and and that idea that when you

come in however you're drawn into The

Narrative of whales there are a couple

things I should say in 1980

I've sent a proposal to do whales to

National Geographic and was told no

we've done whales

it was 18 whale stories ago and and at

the same time two years ago someone

asked Jim darling at a conference on a

scale of one to ten

how much do we know about humpback

whales and without a moment's blinking

time he said oh way less than one

this isn't the end of the story this is

the beginning of the story and I'll tell

you right now that all the things you

know about whales are just not even

beginning to see all the cool things

that they do and you're five years

behind stuff that's going to come out

that's all makes whales especially

humpback whales are really different

animals

and in 1963

after they'd film the whale

and photographed the whale

and said on the back of the whale my

father Dove down to take the line off

the tail of the whale

and I asked him if he still remembered

and what he thought about that on the

last side when we cut the whale free

it was it was just

I think the will was it was he was as

excited as I was in a will could swim

away and we just on the surface and saw

him live and and then all of a sudden he

came as a service

and and spouted and was going away and

we I felt we did something good

thanks Dad

sorry uh he's watching

you know

thank you

I really want to thank

[Applause]

I I can't thank all the people I should

but National Geographic invented me

and gave me so much freedom to be what I

became

whale trust is a great place to end up

where I am today and I'm a really happy

camper

limb lead Expeditions for being my

sponsor and for getting me around all

kinds of cool places and traveling with

my wife when I was doing it and optic

West in b h for having me here today and

all of you thank you very very much

[Applause]

since and you can come with us I'm sorry

let's do a little q a we got a little

bit of time on that uh we've got

Emmanuel we have has a microphone this

gentleman over here is a question we're

going to give Emmanuel his exercise

today

what I was a whale of a good

presentation huh

yeah flip um I I noticed now Tonga uh

Maria a lot of places are opening up so

where you can swim well I'll tell you

right now where the name came from

oh I'm sorry you got I'm sorry oh I

don't hear very well

so I was saying like in Tonga Maria and

you're seeing other places where you can

go swim with whales do you think that'll

happen in Maui

said to me I don't know

I'm sorry if you could repeat your

question one more time so my question

was the the the ability for tourists to

go swim with whales and photograph them

is starting to open up worldwide do you

see that happening in Maui it's a really

good question I mean all the stuff we do

and you saw a little permit things there

are under permit for researching

education and uh

it's a political question you know I

mean it is uh

I I don't know I I think it's a great

thing I wish everybody could could be in

the water and have a whale swim up to

him and that first story I did on sharks

was great and sharks are really

important but what you get look in the

eye of a whale or a dolphin is so

different than what you get look in the

eye of a shark it's a really really

special thing and plus

sharks still scare me a little bit

hi I have a question you said that

there's a lot of stuff that we still

don't know about whales we won't know

for another five years what is it that

you can give us a heads up on on

something that's really interesting that

they do altruistic humpback whales

humpback whales you've seen the pictures

in the Antarctic of killer whales

washing seals off of an ice float

humpback whales go in there and pick the

seals up on their belly and say come and

get them

humpback whales in Norway when killer

whales are hurting Harry into a group

steal the Herring from killer whales and

killer whales right out here in Monterey

when when they're going after baby gray

whales humpbacks have been coming in

breaking up the attempted kill so

humpbacks for for non not even the same

species are going in and causing trouble

for Predators what is that all about but

it sure makes them an interesting animal

thanks folks

okay thank you so much

okay ladies and gentlemen we're going to

take a one hour lunch break feel free to

grab some lunch write local around here

or if you want to go take some

photographs in our macro stations bring

them to the workflow area then bring

them over to the push pin gallery and

you could be winners

thank you

introducing the new payboo credit card

you can save the tax or choose special

financing for your purchases made on

your paybu credit card so you want to

save the tax on a camera laptop and

drone no problem no need to wait for

credits or cash back like other credit

cards the b h payboo card pays you back

instantly or save over time and choose

special financing and pay it off over 6

or 12 months it's easy use your new

payboo card as payment at checkout then

choose your avail available options

either pay Boost savings or special

financing see your savings or

promotional plan right on your receipt

in-store or online applying is easy your

approved payboo card will be instantly

available for a first purchase at

checkout the new payboo card same funny

name your choice of exclusive benefits

apply today

this is a brief history of b h

everyone's favorite photo and video

store the year was 1973. the Mets went

to the World Series the first cell phone

call was made

and blamey and Herman opened a specialty

photography shop at 17 Warren Street New

York City

they had a simple philosophy be honest

treat people right and they will come

back thanks Irving also free candy and

it worked over the next 20 years we

expanded a move to West 17th Street and

34th Street and 9th Avenue and added

more products lighting binoculars

telescopes audio video tripods computers

printers mobile televisions projectors

drones and even more free candy now it's

three stories on over 400 000 products

and over a thousand employees

we take millions of orders online and

ship to 179 countries and Counting

you can talk to us in person on the

phone DNA talking to help you or online

check out our checkout baskets also

check out our checkout numbers also

check out the flare on Murray's vest and

everyone's favorite part are conveyor

belt

the benefit of the conveyor belt is you

don't have to worry about the product or

schlep it around anymore until checkup

nice these are the owners they still

come to work every day okay they're

around here somewhere anyway this is

Jeanette oh sorry she's busy this is our

warehouse this is yaakov and Lady

fighting over lighting kits b h is not a

chain b h is open every day except

Saturdays of course

now you know almost the whole story

we are b h

Alpha

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thank you

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thank you

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thank you

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it's extreme environment all the time

has shaped the landscape itself it's

shaped the animals that live here and it

is very much shaped its human history

you really do feel when you're here like

you're living on the edge of the world

we're in some of the most beautiful

fjords that exist on the planet we're

always looking to find polar bears and

already as we have dropped our anchor we

have seen several it's Barren and Rich

at the same time and that's what I find

amazing

monstrous amounts of seabirds here

nesting in the Millions

Iceland really is the land of Fire and

Ice

it's the land it's the sea it's the

atmosphere it's really what the Arctic

is all about

our Voyage together explores where the

desert meets the sea

this whole set of mangroves right here

is a roosting area and a nesting area

for magnificent frigates wow how cool to

be back here today we traveled North

through whole Canal which is an

incredibly narrow channel

here's a place we have the opportunity

to see moms and calves some of them just

a few weeks old

it's a fantastically warm and wonderful

day here in Baja and we're seeing

incredible behavior from these gray

whales

oh that was incredible

these large Keyhole sand dollars two to

three inches across

I had no idea how beautiful this place

was going to be

it's really quite unimaginable until

you've been here

we are in the ismos of Central America

it's one of the most diverse places on

our planet

we're very lucky to get to walk the best

kept tropical rainforest in mesoamerica

the cause which was absolutely awesome

the fish were outrageously beautiful

schools of fish little tiny things

yellow striped

that's great I love it running into

Panama Canal is one of the more exciting

parts of my job I just see uh mechanics

behind it I mean the technology just

keeps improving definitely the high

point everything is so special in this

part of the world welcome to the journey

that will change your life

foreign

this is a strange beautiful remarkable

place the word unique absolutely applies

here there are so many creatures that

exist nowhere else on Earth

in the middle of equator isolated from

the rest of the world here animals don't

show concern to The Observers it's

something that you will never forget

we're with the giant tortoises and we're

walking through their natural home my

inner child is just like yes

Galapagos you never know what to expect

and I've often said that every single

week something new happens

look at this 91. don't move everybody

don't move it's gonna pass by next to us

never leave you if you go to the

Galapagos Islands you will have stories

for the rest of your life I promise you

as a photographer who works with

National Geographic it's such a

privilege and an honor to be able to

bring the National Geographic audience

to

visit some of the most remote spots on

the planet

[Music]

investigating the native plants looking

for endemic Birds

the ride coming straight at us straight

ahead of us now you can see them

it was amazing it was beautiful sharp

Ridge lines and Peaks that are so

defining for these islands people are

going back to their history and finding

ways to renew that so those layers of

history in the present day you know are

visible in the everyday lives of the

people that we're meeting I've never

seen anything like it it's most pure in

a way because nobody's here

this is the postcard that we all buy or

dream of going to see

this is a brief history of b h

everyone's favorite photo and video

store the year was 1973. the Mets went

to the World Series the first cell phone

call was made and believe me and Hermann

opened a specialty photography shop at

17 Warren Street New York City

they had a simple philosophy be honest

treat people right and they will come

back thanks Irving also free candy and

it worked over the next 20 years we

expanded a move to West 17th Street and

34th Street and 9th Avenue and added

more products lighting binoculars

telescopes audio video tripods computers

printers mobile televisions projectors

drones and even more free candy now it's

three stories and over 400 000 products

and over a thousand employees we take

millions of orders online and ship to

179 countries and Counting

you can talk to us in person on the

phone

or online

check out our checkout baskets also

check out our checkout numbers also

check out the flare on Murray's vest and

everyone's favorite part are conveyor

belt the benefit of the conveyor belt is

you don't have to worry about the

product or schlep it around anymore

until checkout nice this the owners they

still come to work every day they're

around here somewhere anyway this is

Jeanette oh sorry she's busy this is our

warehouse this is yaakov and Lady

fighting over lighting kits

b h is not a chain b h is open every day

except Saturdays of course

now you know almost the whole story

we are b h

real b h customer story

victims

b h we help folks find the products they

need isn't that right Irving yes

definitely we need to be ready for

whatever the customer needs even when

especially when the items are rare so

true could you give us an example Irving

we help millions of customers all over

the world come on just one example well

there was NASA NASA NASA what's the big

deal we have everyone big and small so

what did NASA need a unique hasselblock

lens for a space mission I guess no one

else had it but we did but we often have

what others don't love it what else can

you tell us about this story that is the

story copy that Irving and thank you for

sharing for all your needs big or small

check out B h.com

go back to work now

this is a real b h customer story

man this came to b h to take her

for taught by choice pizza maker by

birth and b h customer for Life am I

missing anything here teacher

entrepreneur product designer and a

photographer and a restaurateur I forgot

that part impressive Steph I gotta be

honest I don't know where to look first

is that a microscope yeah that's my

trinocular axio lab and that's what I

use to make bioart bioart what's that

bior is where science and art meet

amazing so what came first camera or the

microscope so first came in the

microscope then the camera and

thankfully that's where B and accepted

when I first went to b h trying to find

a camera for my microscope I thought it

was a little Oddball request but turns

out they've done this before and they

knew exactly what I was looking for

what's great about working with people

at b h is that they use the gear that

they're selling you so what are you

looking at now cheese sauce peppers

onions Olives Pizza toppings

hmm I'm sensing a theme Here uh yeah my

family started a pizza restaurant in

1960. whoa 60 years of pizza what's the

secret we use cheddar cheese

okay so what's next for you Steph I want

to take this tiny thing that I've been

looking at and blow it up using

projectors I just have to figure out

what equipment I need I like where this

is going so b h you know we're gonna

we're gonna talk again Steph we're

always here when you need us and be sure

to save me a slice for your next project

head to the experts at B h.com oh yeah

I've definitely put him under the

microscope cat fur looks crazy

Fred Smith here told us the B H Photo

helped change his life Fred tell us your

story

I was a fitness instructor in Atlanta

and I transferred to New York March 13

2020. right as the city went under

lockdown oof that's a rough timing all

the studios shut down but with bnh's

help I started workout with Fred it's an

online fitness platform with cycling

classes and off the bike classes taught

by me talk about lemons the lemonade as

I started looking for equipment

everybody I spoke to was pointing me to

b h I needed a camera a lens microphone

capture card audio interface oh Fred

we're running out of room here

well here's the thing that setup is

really complicated and that's where b h

came in I felt like every expert I spoke

to had been in my shoes before whether I

was on the chat or I called anytime I

had a question they had a solution I was

like ah I wish I called you earlier

we're always here for your friend say

where do you film all this let me show

you my living room is essentially a

recording studio everything in here

except for the couch and the TV are laid

out so that I can do my recording

amazing what's next for you Fred one of

the things I wanted to do for years was

start a video podcast so I started

something called join the convo we

discussed important topics in a safe

space Fred you're a real Mensch thank

you for sharing your b h story with us

if you are thinking of starting a

virtual business like Fred check out B

h.com

this is a real b h customer story Jack

and Barbara professional Wildlife

photographers and b h customers for 30

years live in remote Alaska hey what's

the population there about 50 to 52

people and bears would definitely not

New York anymore it's just quiet here

it's beautiful the wildlife photography

out here is amazing while they could

order equipment from any number of sites

they don't anytime we need anything b h

is our go-to we can send an email we

have used the chat feature and of course

the phone for our phones are working if

the phones are working hi Jack

I needed a tripod and it had to be light

it had to be sturdy so I talked with

somebody at b h I think his name is

Charles and he pointed me toward a

certain tripod and liked it so much that

I bought a second one nice one Charles

when it comes to getting gear things

were shipped quickly packed well made it

through the harrowing Journey going from

plane to smaller plane to somebody's

hand thrown to somebody else but in the

back of a truck and arrived unscathed

that's quite the schlep it must be

incredible when it gets there oh it's

it's like Christmas I mean honestly it's

better than Christmas yeah it's my

birthday B H has everything that we need

I mean when have we ever looked for

something and it wasn't available well

there was bananas yeah right

bananas indeed wherever you live b h is

ready to help chat email and if your

phones are working give us a call

a story about a magical place

where everything's amazing

especially the people

we can tell you everything there is to

know about over 400 000 different pieces

of gear tell them Lenny we have a 7

24 millimeter 45 millimeter he does this

all day

we'll help you find the right thing

which is often not the most expensive

the A9 is great but I think the 6500 is

better for what you need that's pretty

rare

and just like you we love to explore and

share our passion because we're creators

as well

Israel and Jake like to make videos for

the web

I love it when he does this

oh by the way if you can't meet us in

person you can always chat with us

online

think of us as collaborators production

Partners problem solvers this is Greg

he's made five Gold Records

play your voice and here's Jay the King

of the candidates wait wait I'm not

ready Jake

sometimes we geek out and help each

other but mostly we're here to help you

like Lenny

Miles because there's a lot to say when

you're making some pretty important

decisions

[Music]

we are b h

introducing the new paybu credit card

you can save the tax or choose special

financing for your purchases made on

your paybu credit card so you want to

save the tax on a camera laptop and

drone no problem no need to wait for

credits or cash back like other credit

cards the b h payboo card pays you back

instantly or save over time and choose

special financing and pay it off over 6

or 12 months it's easy use your new

payboo card as payment at checkout then

choose your available options either pay

Boost savings or special financing see

your savings or promotional plan right

on your receipt in-store or online

applying is easy your approved payboo

card will be instantly available for a

first purchase at checkout the new

payboo card same funny name your choice

of exclusive benefits apply today

introducing the new paybu credit card

you can save the tax or choose special

financing for your purchases made on

your paybu credit card so you want to

save the tax on a camera laptop and

drone no problem no need to wait for

credits or cash back like other credit

cards the b h payboo card pays you back

instantly or save over time and choose

special financing and pay it off over 6

or 12 months it's easy use your new

payboo card as payment at checkout then

choose your available options either pay

Boost savings or special financing see

your savings or promotional plan right

on your receipt in-store or online

applying is easy your approved paybook

card will be instantly available for a

first purchase at checkout the new

payboo card same funny name your choice

of exclusive benefits apply today

foreign

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this morning we're at grindel island and

it's the most amazing forest and a

perfect place to really try out our

photographic skills we've been looking

at the dappled light and how to cope

with that in the forest but also zooming

in and getting those amazing macro shots

of the ferns and the growth of the ferns

you also have these trees here the

sicker Spruce the hemlock which has this

incredible patterns and allows you to be

able to get almost abstract photography

out of the rainforest

so we've been learning about how to

shoot with this dappled light a couple

of different techniques we've been

learning around HDR which allows you to

be able to cope with the bright light as

well as the dark light we've also been

looking at just the angle of the light

where is the light coming from and

focusing on taking photographs into the

Shadows so that you don't get that big

contrast as well as trying to look for

rays of sunshine to light up the forest

so the thing that interests me the most

about exchanging with cultures around

the world is this idea well the core

idea of Storytelling in general I look

at storytelling is is this ancient

tradition that's been around for 10 000

years or more I look at it as an honor

to be part of that tradition today but

as part of the storytelling process I

think it's about exchanging about

learning about intuitively experiencing

people in parts of the world and being

part of the process to interpret it and

translate it through a different medium

[Laughter]

so it's not just about me going there

and telling the story it's actually

about the person I'm engaging in the

story with and the audience itself

getting the opportunity to get a glimpse

into other people's worlds into other

people's lives is absolutely a privilege

we should never expect that we can just

show up and get these opportunities it's

something that's that's given it's a

gift but when we do share I think it

opens up the minds and hearts of of

everyone involved

foreign

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Landing we got ready with a camera gear

to practice some of the wildlife

photography available here in Enchanted

archipelago

I'm very interesting and important tip

for wallow photography is to anticipate

the action and that's when the natural

is kicking pretty well we come in

because we do know the behavior of the

wildlife and we tell our guests to be

ready with the cameras because

something's about to happen

I really enjoyed the photography walks

how to anticipate a shot how to compose

a shot and as I was taking photos the

the sea lion came right up to me so that

was an incredible experience

my name is Bill won Snyder and I like to

photograph textures

some texture pictures I found really

interesting here was the coral and on

the shore walking along the beach was

where I could start to then photograph

them with my iPhone and you could start

to see all these cool patterns that

existed and then as you enlarge them

there was even more cool patterns that

start to unfold and then every single

one of those Coral even if I say the

same type of brain coral for instance

they all had different patterns that

were in them almost like within the say

the patterns that you might see in

somebody's fingerprint

as I look around I've got a couple more

days here in Belize and I know that

there's going to be some other really

cool textures that I'm going to be able

to see and the wonderful a chance for me

to explore another part of the world

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we are here at Din Yandy waterfall and

it is a beautiful time of day for photos

I love photographing moving water when I

can put my camera on a tripod and do a

very slow shutter speed and get that

nice silky waterfall coming down

I've been uh kind of shooting on my own

a bit I can get creative that way

we walked across the Arctic Circle and

some of us continued on out to the bird

Cliffs to watch some puffins backlit

blue sandals in their beaks perhaps

life-changing moment for some sitting

there as the sunset

we have beautiful landscapes

when guests leave here we hope they'll

be going home with great pictures that

can Inspire their friends and family to

care about the planet and to explore the

world like they have

these photo Expeditions are full

immersion trips

they're very special because we slow

down and we get to really enjoy the

wildlife and learn from the naturalists

and improve our photography skills

we just experienced the frigate bird

drumming on its red pouch and this is

the photographer's dream is to be able

to witness these wild creatures out here

and especially these islands are so

special they're the enchanted Islands

these are my favorite trips and the

Galapagos Islands is one of my favorite

places on Earth

it's a pretty amazing experience

everything is really beautiful and all

the photographers and the naturalists

have been very accommodating they've

taught me a lot which has been a great

experience for me I'm just amazed by

you know everything there is to see all

the beautiful birds and all the

beautiful scenery and there's a lot of

patience allowing us to you know have

fun and do what we really enjoy in life

it's been an amazing experience for me

foreign

Alpha

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thank you

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thank you

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thank you

come on where are you

to do

everybody got a good bite to eat

great

I ate a Starbucks sandwich in record

time I was saying 35 seconds

that's how we roll I'll give a couple

more minutes for people to meander on in

we've got an awesome program is coming

up next Kobe Brown from Sony

how many Sony people are Shooters out

here

pretty good

it's a nice cameras you know I I think

there's a

Colby's going to talk about the the

alpha system and the really heavy duty

cameras but I think that there's a a

unicorn camera that Sony has and it's

the rx10 mark IV does anyone shoot with

the rx10 mark IV that's right it's it's

a 24 to 600 millimeter self-contained

one inch sensor

uh weatherproof relatively small camera

body but what's cool about it is that

you could really operate it one-handed

so if you're kind of if you're in an

adverse condition or you're on a boat

you have to hold on to something you can

sit there and zoom with the one hand and

it's it's pretty cool I shot at a a

viral video with it which was pretty

cool if you

if you want to check it out it's on

YouTube and just search for uh 10 hours

walking as a goth New York City it'll

come right up it's got like over 14

million views is pretty amazing but the

quality on that camera is incredible and

it has a really good stabilizer built

into it it's sort of like if you had to

have one camera

that's it I kind of think it's like the

ultimate travel camera right it's it

just

you're waiting for the five

yeah

do you hear that Sony they're waiting

for the five come on

I I think you know things slowed down a

little bit with covet in terms of

releases all the companies were like

cranking out a new camera every year and

things slowed down but now we're back in

track and happening fast but be careful

when you wait for that five the six is

going to be right around the corner

I I was like like how do you know when

the best time to buy a new Macbook

computer is right after I buy mine

because that the new one will come out

it's like inevitable

uh so the five is I think 21 megapixel

21 and and the one I have them actually

I have the Mark II and I haven't I

haven't upgraded the five is I've played

with the five but the two I think is

like I think the same size a one-inch

sensor I think they've kept it the same

but it's got a Zeiss lens that's matched

for the for the sensor and that's what

that's what gives it it's it's Jimmy

Jammy also the 24 to 600 you really

don't need anything else so you're not

taking lenses off and introducing dust

into the mirror box and all that stuff

but uh that's my camera I take out I

feel like I'm cheating with that camera

you know it's like it's it's really

pretty sharp all right so

okay let's give this a another minute

and uh Colby's gonna be talking about

macro photography macro and Wildlife and

I think it's very apropos you know

during the pandemic macro was like was

the shiznit we were all doing macro in

our backyards and learning it and we at

b h we sold a ton of macro lenses so

it's kind of it's great you know it lets

you get a little closer to your

photography

come on guys that was a pun yes okay

thanks okay

alrighty um I think we could get this

going pretty okay so ladies and

gentlemen I'm going to present to you

Colby Brown he is a Sony Artisan he's a

veteran of optic he's an amazing

photographer uh B H has been uh working

on programs with with Colby and Sony for

uh for a couple of years and I believe

we sent you to Ecuador

yes Ecuador that's right next to the

Galapagos right okay ladies and

Gentlemen let's give a great welcome for

Colby Brown Sony artisan

always a pleasure thank you

excellent how's everyone doing

full bellies from lunch I didn't get

lunch because I was talking to people

but hopefully after this

um thank you guys for joining here at

optic b h thank you guys for having me

back all you guys tuning in online uh

thank you guys for watching as well

um you guys I'm sure I'll know by now

the deal here at optic is that

everything is being recorded So if

there's something that I cover or any of

the other wonderful talks that are here

that you missed something you're going

to be able to check and see it online

later on B H's YouTube website so that's

always great

um yeah so let's go ahead and get

started I have a lot of things to talk

about today wrapped around macro

Wildlife photography for a lot of people

that is an interesting handful of words

most people when you think of wildlife

photographers myself included for a long

time you think about the big telephoto

lenses and photographing big you know

predators and cats and bears and birds

and all sorts of fun stuff and I think

sometimes we miss the little things you

know kind of pun intended as David was

talking about macro Wildlife photography

has been a new passion of mine for the

last probably four years now but it's

something that definitely I didn't

expect to be as interesting and exciting

and to be as challenging as It

ultimately end up being initially once I

begin to open my eyes and and change my

mindset which we'll talk about during

this presentation so let's talk about a

few just real quick house cleaning

things Instagram even though it's a

little bit of a Dying platform these

days uh some of you guys might not enjoy

Instagram as much cooler photography is

where you can find me it's a great place

to reach out if you have questions after

this talk or want to talk about other

things or whatnot it's a great place to

connect of course I have my website cold

groundphotography.com we have a lot of

workshops all over the world where we

teach things like what I'm going to talk

about today with macro Wildlife

photography as well as tons of other

stuff in the wildlife travels astral

cultural space as well lots of great

information there especially if you're

Sony Shooters I have most gear setup

guides for free to set up the new A1

soon it'll be A7 R5 all sorts of fun

stuff or those thinking about migrating

or just general information and

knowledge is out there as well and then

as David had mentioned

um this summer the latest b h project

that I worked on with them was actually

down in Ecuador and the Amazon and what

we did is we put it put together a seven

part video series that focused on

Wildlife regular Wildlife macro as well

as some landscape and then we did some

editing and post-processing so it's

seven part free series on YouTube you

guys can check it out it's fun most this

most episodes are you know 15 minutes

long but it's really well put together

bnh's production team did a phenomenal

job we had a lot of fun doing it you

could find it right now on B H's YouTube

page all episodes have been released as

of a few weeks ago so it's worth

checking out we'll cover some of the

same things in this talk about them

especially the macro episode that we did

there but we expand upon it quite a bit

more because we have an hour rather than

15 minutes on YouTube

so let's talk a little bit about the

journey into macro photography so for me

I started doing photography full-time 18

years ago

um originally started out buying a

camera right when digital slrs were

first getting more affordable and more

accessible and I purely jumped into the

mindset or jumped in because I had a

love of travel I wanted to be traveling

I just graduated from college I wanted

to explore more of the world to step

outside my comfort zone and at the time

I I didn't have a family I was single I

was nomadic I didn't have a ton of debt

so I just sold everything that I had

after I graduated started traveling

around the world and picking up a camera

was purely by not coincidence it was

intentional but it was more happenstance

where I just figured that if I had a

camera maybe I could take some photos I

could write a story or two and it might

allow me to you know live The Backpacker

life and travel around cheaply around at

the time I was going to Southeast Asia

for a few years and just make a little

extra money on this side and what I

realized is that travel photography was

that in that origin or Inception point

it's always to me been about capturing

experiences out there but it was that

genre of travel photography that is

somewhat all-encompassing that pulled me

in that I found myself quickly kind of

gravitating towards different types of

genres and the reason for that is that

my personality doesn't too great when

there's too much consistency especially

in the creative space so if I do the

same thing over and over and over again

I get bored real quickly and so I

constantly found myself throughout my

career not Reinventing myself but

challenging Myself by dabbling in

different types of fields within the

genres of Photography and so it went

from travel to landscape I started a

philanthropic humanitarian focused

photography company called The Giving

lens which is still in existence great

stuff you can find on the internet about

that I started getting to you know

culture eventually found myself

interesting it in Wildlife photography

which initially was more about it was

more based on opportunity I'd find

myself going to beautiful locations

around the world to work on projects

that I was there to photograph you know

maybe Milky Ways over the solar day uni

in Bolivia but then there happened to be

amazing flamingos that I wanted to learn

how to capture and so initially my jump

into Wildlife photography was just that

it was based on opportunity

and leading up into the covid pandemic

I was kind of burned out to be honest

I've been traveling at the time for

almost you know was it 16 15 years at

the time constantly all seven continents

almost every single year and I found

myself needing a break and needing a

creative sabbatical so to speak and once

I got done of the the same 12 to 14

month break of life that most of us had

during that time space I found myself

re-energized and wanting to get back

into a lot of different things but it

was during that coveted break that I

really started diving much more into

macro photography for the same reason

David had mentioned we weren't traveling

which was what I had been doing

forever for 18 years you know covid was

interesting because I spent more time at

home with my wife and son since my son

was born and since me and my wife were

married 13 years ago and so having

something like a macro lens or learning

about macro lens and learning about

Flash photography which at the time was

very foreign to me it was a really fun

experiment that I really began to love

and find passion in in a place that I

didn't think like I mentioned before was

actually there

and so that's kind of like the whole

idea of like why macro photography it's

new it's different it's challenging as I

mentioned I got into Wildlife

photography with this idea of first

opportunity but then it became passion

like where could I travel to some exotic

locations and photograph some amazing

creatures that are out there you know

tigers in India you can get foxes and

Patagonia

two cons in Costa Rica

and through that same process of a

naming it to constantly challenge myself

try to do new and different things but

also based on that idea of opportunity

within the wildlife space I found myself

in places like Costa Rica and being like

Oh hey I'm here photographing all these

amazing species but like what's that

frog and that snake looks interesting

like all these things that I didn't

think I might have been interested in

all of a sudden I found myself based on

that opportunity as soon as you started

to dip your toe into that water I found

myself just captivated by a world that I

had overlooked for so long and I think

within the wildlife space especially it

is unique and different than most other

species to photograph because it is much

more accessible again if you think about

you know maybe foxes are prominent in a

lot of places in North America but we

don't have a ton of tigers and unless

you're Dr you're flying all the way out

to India or Sri Lanka and you're

spending a lot of money like there's a

lot of barriers to entry to do that and

the same thing with the gear right I

mean I use a 400 millimeter F 2.8 and a

600 millimeter F4 to 13 000 lenses a

piece on most of my big Wildlife trips

around the world that is not attainable

for a lot of people not only price wise

but also distance wise and all sorts of

other elements but when it comes to

macro photography we all have

opportunities to do this in our own

backyard I live in eastern PA now in the

woods out there about an hour and a half

outside of New York City and there are a

ton of opportunities for stuff out of

frogs and toads you know different types

of salamander all sorts of fun stuff

that again I just overlooked stepped

over didn't pay attention to that all of

a sudden once I got into macro Wildlife

photography and learned more about Flash

which we're going to talk about just

opened up a whole new creative door that

now I find myself planning trips all

over the world to find very specific

species of snakes they're very unique

forms of poison dart frogs in Central

and South America I just got done and

I'll show you guys some images from

Uganda going looking for some of the

most venomous snakes in East Africa and

it's having a blast being out there

photographing these amazing creatures

that are sometimes vilified

sometimes not appreciated just in the

same vein as like people that do

underwater photography think about

sharks with the general public I feel

the same way about snakes there's a lot

of misinformation out there and there's

amazing creatures if you learn how to do

it safely and of course you learn the

different techniques in order to Come

Away with some amazing images and

experiences which we're all hoping to do

so

let's first and start off about talk

about gear because again gear is

important here not as significant as a

general Wildlife photography but it does

play a role

so for me I'm a Sony Artisan as I

mentioned before so I've been with Sony

for seven years I worked with Canon for

a bit before that I've done projects

with Phase One Shot Nikon for a little

bit but for the last seven years I've

been a Sony artisan and so this these

days I predominantly shoot with two a1s

for everything the A1 in my personal

opinion biased or not is the most

significant camera that we've had

released a long time

the fact that you can get 30 frames per

second with the 50 megapixel camera 30

frames per second not a big deal for

macro but 50 megapixels is great for for

cropping in you have 15 stops at dynamic

range at ISO 100 which is still more

than most of the competition out there

you get backside illuminated stack

sensors super fast readout speeds really

great for autofocus which still plays a

role in a lot of macro work especially

with moving subjects things like that it

is still my go-to camera I can take this

one camera with me when I'm going to

photograph you know cheetahs at full

speed in Namibia yeah and then you know

head over to East Africa to photograph

snakes and then go to photograph birds

in flight and then go to photograph a

beautiful sunset it can kind of do a

little bit of everything for me that is

still like I said it's my go-to camera I

highly recommend to check it out if you

guys haven't the booth over there a lot

of great technology that's inside it

the new a7r5 is something that I'm quite

excited about I haven't used extensively

I'm actually taking it with me I leave

tomorrow to head up to Alaska to go

photograph bald eagles for the final

migration up in Haynes for the next week

and a half but it has a handful of

different technology inside it that I

think is quite interesting and is kind

of a Prelude or foreshadowing towards

where the industry is going

what I mean by that is that it's not the

61 megapixel sensor which is great more

resolution is great except for hard

drive space

um but it what it has is this new AI

processing unit that I'm sure at least

some of you guys have heard about so

it's the first camera in the entire

world that has a dedicated processor

inside the camera for AI learning and

this is tied towards autofocus and what

it can do is essentially notif recognize

the specific species of animal that

you're photographing and it can

predictively expect where it thinks it's

going to go it understands movements of

different types of insects which now has

eye autofocus for uh as well it can sit

there and look at certain types of birds

and and have a better idea of predictive

flight patterns like all sorts of

different things this is the first time

in a camera you have a processing unit

that is dedicated towards that because

previously what happens is that you have

certain amount of processing power per

camera and anytime you want to add these

new features it's taking away processing

power of potential other features and so

for the a7r5 it's really interesting to

see this being the first camera come out

with it I'm super excited to try it out

mixed in with the fact that Sony finally

has some image stacking capability which

some of the competition has had for a

while which is interesting from a macro

perspective but there's that AI

productive predictive processor unit

that I think is going to be interesting

especially as we see that start to

trickle in for the Sony lineup and to

other Sony Mainstay cameras as well as I

guarantee you you're going to see

something similar in some of the other

competition that's out there that's just

slightly behind in terms of that

specific processing feature set but

that's really interesting to figure out

and understand an autofocus space

exactly how can you step things up to

the next level because if you really

think about it we're starting to reach

the heights of what sensors can do with

a standard full-frame sensor with ISO

and noise even dynamic range you know

let's shoot median format you're not

going Beyond 15 stops of light and even

then it's only at ISO 100 the future for

a lot of what the professional cameras

you guys are using out there is going to

be an AI and it's to be in computational

learning a lot of the stuff that we've

seen start off with coincidentally in

the cell phone space

where Sony actually manufactures most of

those sensors including those in most of

your iPhones out there but a lot of that

interesting technology is going to start

trickling up into this camera into the

camera gear that we're all you know

excited to be using and it's going to be

really interesting it's going to be kind

of the new Forefront of where things are

going across the board not just in the

macro Wildlife space

so moving on to lenses the two most

common lenses that I use in macro

Wildlife photography Sony has the Sony

90 millimeter F 2.8 macro lens it is one

that's been around for a while uh to be

honest I'm actually hopeful that they

come out with a new version in the next

year or two with the new linear Motors

that are in most of other Sony Sony's

lenses but it's still a pillar lens when

it comes to microwave photography it's

super sharp it's great bokeh it's great

to control you have a lot of great

features inside it it's not overly heavy

90 millimeters is a nice distance you

get a nice one-to-one ratio with this

particular lens essentially means that

when you work with the minimum Focus

distance you get into one-to-one actual

size preview of whatever photograph

thing you're trying to photograph some

other macro lens or different ratios

instead of one to one which means they

will be enlarged a little bit larger

than they actually are in real life this

one in particular is the one to one but

it's still a great camera and still a

great lens and still something that I

use in most of my macro work

and then when I find myself working as

you guys will see here with

specific species that are

um how do you put it overly aggressive

and highly deadly

um there are times when you don't want

to be six inches away

from

a venomous steak that's extra bitey that

morning

so in those situations most of the time

I use a 70-200 the new 7200 F 2.8 G

Master lens this is the new version that

just came out it's half the weight of

the first generation it's incredibly

sharp it's it's smaller it's lighter

it's portable it's an amazing lens I

kind of joke around that it's so sharp

you can shave with it but it's a great

setup it's it's a great lightweight

option to be a little bit more of a safe

distance

um but yeah it's a great lens to use and

a nice compression I've also used 100 to

400 which can work if you're on a tripod

in a further away to really get some

nice compression with certain types of

species but more times than not I use

the 7200 in that range

so let's talk a little bit about light

now most of you guys that have been here

I'm sure at some point have heard

Scott calby talk I'm sure most of you

guys have anyone heard Kelby speak about

Flash before

so I've known Scott for a long time

Scott is a phenomenal educator in the

flash space I've spoken at a number of

events including kelby's own events back

in the day and up until recently I had

the same response anyone anyone talked

to me about Flash which they you know

they sit there and say you know what

flash are using or have clients ask and

my response was the same as it is for

anyone that doesn't fully understand

flash was that no no no I'm a natural

light photographer

that's generally this response for

someone that doesn't fully understand

how to properly use Flash and that was

absolutely me for a long time I would

sit there and I would think about Flash

or or I would think about Flash not

knowing necessarily where to start or

how to properly use it and think that

anytime it was used or that I

potentially would use it it would look

fake and it would look unrealistic it

wouldn't give me the results that I

wanted to and it wasn't until I really

started diving into understanding flash

off camera flash using multiple

different flashes which we'll talk about

a little bit in a second to really

control lighting especially with macro

Wildlife photography it was kind of my

Inception Point dipping my toe into that

flash World realizing so many

opportunities that I missed early on in

my career because of some sense of of

ignorance or at least I was you know

apathetic towards that type of approach

with this kind of Photography but flash

is super important in the wildlife space

so I have three different images here

I'm about to show you of a very

particular snake that I was was

intentionally went out to go find in

East Africa actually just two months ago

when I was in Uganda

and it's called a rhino rhinoceros Viper

it's a fascinating looking guy

it has these beautiful spikes on the

front of it you understand why it has

this name rhinoceros right beautiful

beautiful creature and the way that you

can photograph obviously any of these

subjects are generally broken down in

the macro Wildlife space into three

different spaces three different

opportunities that you can find yourself

in now of course you have natural light

now this is something that as obvious as

it sounds you could only do when you

have proper light now in the macro space

you don't always have that opportunity

because sometimes you're working under

dense jungle when there's not a ton of

light and sometimes you find yourself

working at night in the middle of forest

or your local pond or wherever it is and

obviously there is no light so you have

to use Flash so natural light is a nice

it's a very specific look when you have

light I usually almost almost always try

to get some natural light shots but I

can tell you I prefer the flash look

it's just my personal you know cup of

tea but it is an option out there in

certain situations

now in addition to Natural Light you

also have fill light

so this is the idea of using your flash

still off camera flash is most of the

type of flash that I use and you're

essentially just using the light from

your your speed light is usually what I

use

to be able to fill and add a little bit

of extra light but still have it be a

natural environment

these are great opportunities again when

you have some light to work with not

always the case but when you do have it

it can be nice where you can find unique

opportunities to use a little bit of

fill light you still get the nice little

cache light in the eye as you can see

there in this rhinoceros Viper

but it still looks much more natural

outside of that catch light

and then you can use Flash even during

the day to completely overpower all

light

this to me is really interesting it

gives much more of a studio look even

though I was you know sweating like

crazy and you know had bug bites and all

sorts of fun stuff in the jungles in

East Africa and Uganda it looks like

it's in a studio but you were out there

in the field and specifically using your

off-cam of flash I generally use two

flashes in this case it was one

high-powered flash with a stronger power

rating which we'll talk about in a

second in order to block out all of the

other light that was out there in the

field giving me a very distinct and

unique look to apply to the type of

image that I was looking to create

so what are your flower your flash

options

so every different manufacturer for the

most part carries their own flash

systems and those are great because I

teach a lot of workshops including you

know stuff where I'm teaching macro

Wildlife photography I generally use

more of the third party because they're

more universally accessible so I'm going

to talk a little bit about two different

products here

um one from aperture which is just kind

of a a general led light and then a

godox flash which you actually have out

here the godox place if you're looking

for a new Flash option we'll talk about

that in a second but the first option

and not my favorite but certainly an

option out there

or there are LED lights now this is an

apture MC RGB LED light the cool thing

about this is that you can dial in your

the color spectrum for whatever you want

so it can be great to create some very

unique and creative macro wildlife

images if you want to adjust the

background color or play around with

tone and tint with different types of

things

when I first started doing macro

Wildlife photography I took a couple of

these down to Costa Rica a few years

back and used them purely as my light

source and the problem is is that it

just never outputs enough light

so I couldn't use a high enough aperture

which we're going to talk about in a

second

um the the look and feel was okay but I

had to use slightly higher isos and

shutter speeds that I wasn't comfortable

with doing ultimately it's just I find

it much better to use a proper speed

light now the reason that I like to use

speed lights rather than constant lights

is because a I'm focusing on still

photography but B they're generally just

much more portable

so for the most part these days I use a

series of the godox v863s now it's a 65

watt flash which is important outputs

enough power to get the types of images

that I want to in most situations I use

two of these together with the softbox

which I think yeah I think I have a

slide of here talking about the soft

boxes

and this gives me the freedom and

flexibility for off camera purely

Wireless flash which I'll talk about a

wireless commander in a second to really

control and direct light and this is the

biggest thing when it comes to macro

Wildlife photography is that your

settings don't change a whole lot which

we'll talk about your composition and

your lighting really make or break these

images and those happen in a couple you

know handful of different ways which

again we'll discuss but regardless off

camera flash gives you that most

flexibility if you're working with small

subjects you can use a single flash unit

I prefer something prefer two especially

if I'm working with large larger

macro Wildlife situations such as some

of the snakes because then again you can

control backlighting you can truly

become your own little Director of

Photography

so the main different Wireless Commander

that I personally use is the godox X pro

s that's the TTL Wireless flash trigger

I usually use it on manual TTL as just a

way to communicate for the camera to

tell how much flash power you want it's

the same principle that I like to think

about when I'm mostly shooting Wildlife

photography I shoot in manual mode

because I like to control all the

different elements of the exposure TTL

makes it easy for you if you want the

camera to do it but where's the fun in

that so I usually shoot in manual mode

controlling the power of each of my

flash that either myself or I have other

people helping hold depending on the

type of subject that I'm trying to

photograph but I can control all the

power output from this device that sits

on the hot shoe of my camera making it

very easy

and then soft boxes are super super

helpful softboxes really help diffuse

that light so if you don't have a soft

box you get really harsh Shadows it's

hard light that's hitting your subject

um if you're not familiar with flash

these are super handy because they

essentially take the flash and the power

of The Flash and then spread out and

soften the light to be much more

visceral and appealing rather than that

hard light so you don't get the softer

Shadows you get a much more appealing

look and so that's what I use for

off-camera Flash if I'm working on a

system where or if I'm in a situation

where I find myself out there alone then

often times where I can't have other

people helping hold especially if I'm

trying to use two flashes because I only

have two hands and not three to hold the

camera then I will use something like

this this is a custom built diffuser

that sits on camera flash this is great

for smaller stuff if you're

photographing small insects in your

backyard or small frogs or things like

that but it's really great because the

light will hit the front diffuser bounce

off the bottom and the top and it really

does a good job of surround founding

your your image you can't get truly

creative with your shots but you can get

really nice well-lit shots of some

pretty amazing species that are out

there

so most of the time these are the

situations that I find myself in so this

is the same rhinoceros Viper that you

guys saw before sitting right there on

the tree just a couple inches away from

from myself I'm almost always working

with professionals out there in the

field which will have a whole section

talking about using naturalist guides in

certain situations but using the flash

you can see right here I'm holding one

flash setting things up I have someone

else holding the secondary flash

depending on the type of backlight I was

going for this particular image but this

is usually what's happening I'm out

there in the field I'm looking for these

amazing species and then I'm figuring

out how can I get creative with

composition subject placement how I'm

going to frame them and then certainly

how I can control the light which like I

said is quite big

so let's talk about camera settings

um this is a cute little baby chameleon

I usually gets everyone's attention to

start with the camera settings when it

comes to macro Wildlife photography

doesn't vary a whole lot it's not like

regular Wildlife photography where you

have very different sitting situations

or settings for a bird perch and then a

bird in flight and a cheetah running at

you and all this other stuff for the

most part most of my settings stay

relatively the same

so I'm generally shooting with ISO 100

or 200

I'm you my aperture is going to range

that that's going to be the one variable

it's going to range from anywhere

between f11 to F 22. now when you start

shooting at higher apertures you do end

up dealing with issues of diffraction

diffraction is essentially where you're

shooting at a too high of aperture which

is expounded or or exacerbated and more

accurately when you work in macro

Wildlife photography or macro use where

it softens your image a little bit but

the reality is that because you're using

a macro lens with such a shallow depth

of field you really need to have a high

aperture aperture in order to get a

wider plane of focus more of your image

and focus so in this particular case

it's not just the chameleon's eye it's

the back of their head it's halfway down

the body it's some of their arm if not

their full arm

and so I'm willing to sacrifice a little

diffraction a slight bit of softness

that I'm going to correct in

post-processing by shooting at F18 which

I normally might not do in other

situations whereas I could have a

slightly Sharper Image at f11 but then

I'd have more issues with depth of field

so in this case that f8 you know f11 to

F22 is generally my range and then I

usually stick right around 100th of a

second for those that don't know that

don't use flash with 99 of the cameras

that are out there 1 200th of a second

is your minimum or your maximum speed

for sync speed with flash with the Sony

A1 it's the only camera that can

actually do 1 400th of a second but you

don't need to do that because these

subjects aren't moving very fast at all

and you don't need to worry about all

sorts of other issues that you normally

would use that if you had a lot of light

and you're trying to use very shallow

apertures during daylight for portraits

and other things in different genres

so it's a poison dart frog in Costa Rica

this one as I've mentioned was when I

was using those LED lights

so you can see I had to put my ISO up to

a thousand I shot at F14 and it was at 1

30th of a second which is really way

way slow I had to take so many different

shots in this particular image to get

this frog not only because this was a

male that was trying to attract a female

so it was kind of puffing itself up so

it was moving slightly but it took a

handful of shots to get that tack sharp

result rather than if I use a speed

light through the flash on it and could

stick with general you know more of a

standard shutter speed and still have

everything in focus and she had a much

lower ISO for a cleaner image

and then this is the situation this is

an eyelash pit viper a beautiful

beautiful species again found in Central

and South America and it's called an

eyelash pit viper because it has little

eyelashes above its eyes

and this is one that I shot on a tripod

with a 100 to 400

at a distance so you get that really

nice compression this is more natural

light but you could see even then I

still had to shoot at ISO 1000 160th of

a second because it was really light in

the day it was something that I probably

in retrospect would have preferred to

have a Flash and Go with a different

type of look even though the natural

light look in the situation I feel does

look quite nice

so getting creative with lighting this

is where things like I mentioned you

have the most flexibility and I think

where most people get the most confused

as well the difference between macro

Wildlife photography and portrait studio

work is really not that different

it's about the power of light and the

direction of light and what you can do

when you learn what you're capable of

doing or how flashes work

really can open up some incredible

opportunities to capture species in ways

that either haven't been done before or

at least very rarely have been done this

is a palm leaf pit viper again in Costa

Rica and using just a single flash

shooting from underneath the palm leaf

which that's how they get their name

that's typically where they're found

being able to light it up front side

with a high enough power but instead of

going for two flashes and lighting up

the underside you're letting contrast

play its role it's a unique composition

it's uniquely lit it pulls all the

pieces together and I've yet to see

another image of these types of snakes

shot in this way even though it's the

most common place where you can find

them maybe too many people don't want to

be sitting underneath a palm leaf with a

poisonous you know venomous pit viper

sitting on top but if you're willing to

do so and you can do it safely you can

get some great results

same thing can be said for poison dart

frogs being able to find unique

compositions within them lighting things

up

using that light to control the effect

the feel the atmosphere the mood of the

image and what's really interesting is

that it also allows you to control the

the overall the the the feeling I guess

I would say of of how everything kind of

comes together the colors that are

presented when you use Flash properly

you don't over expose or blow out your

shot with too much light based on your

settings that you're using can really be

incredible pulling out iridescent colors

that you might not have seen otherwise

or highlighting colors and speed and

features that you again wouldn't be able

to see if you shot during with natural

light itself

and then you can have a lot of fun

playing around different species every

different species has different

personalities every different

um every different creature has its own

personality as well so sometimes when

I'm photographing something I usually

try to limit my time with them just to

make sure that I'm not infringing too

much on their own personal space which

we'll talk a little bit during ethics uh

part of this conversation but you can

have a lot of fun once you get to know

if someone's a little bit more Curious

you can find them in different places

and kind of follow along with them and

try to get shots like this where again

I'm purposely using just a single flash

unit in order to let contrast in the use

of negative space really speak for

itself allowing a subject to take Center

frame even if it's something that's

quite small and unique in this

particular shot

so flash can freeze action I think a lot

of people that understand flash know

this you don't need to shoot at high

shutter speeds in order to get something

Frozen in time because what happens is

when the flash unit hits your subject

you have just that that window where

your camera is working with your flash

unit can can capture and freeze that

moment in time for me this is most

prevalent in macro photography with

snakes

so with snakes being able to use still a

shutter speed that isn't overly High I

think this one was still one two

hundredth of a second but as the snake

was using its tongue which they commonly

do in order to sense what's happening

around around you they sense heat that

way they understand their prey and

predators what's happening with them is

that you can kind of get and freeze the

motion of that shot it's truly an

amazing opportunity to get these Unique

Images like this using flash to kind of

freeze motion

this one is one of my favorites these

are one of my favorite kinds of steaks

coincidentally are not venomous even

though most of my other ones are this is

a vine snake a green vine snake they're

pretty common in Central and South

America but what's interesting is that

they're not venomous they don't have

venom glands they have sharp little

teeth so if they bite it's not going to

be your favorite moment but it's not

going to be a trip to the hospital or

worse but they're very aggressive and so

you have to you have to make sure when

you come across them a that you're being

safe but also you have to find yourself

in a situation where you might have a

little bit more control in this

particular situation would happen as we

came across this green vine snake and I

was kind of wrapping itself and cooling

itself around a tree where we found out

it's long you can kind of see down there

and as it was it started kind of

aggressively going towards the camera

and just what we did as I was working

with some snake wranglers and some

naturalist guides is that as it was kind

of inching towards me is that they just

lightly use their finger and just kind

of put their hand on the back tail you

know just lightly so the snake couldn't

move for a few seconds so I was able to

get the shot safely but that's how most

of these types of shots happen is that

you're sitting there and you're doing a

light controlling of the in of the

situation as soon as you're done and we

took it about a minute getting the shots

that we wanted to we let it go back

right where it came from but that's how

you when you see shots like this that's

usually the situation you're not you

know the photographer's not out there

dancing around and jumping out of snake

bites to get the shot it's usually a

little bit more of a controlled

situation

but sometimes you can find unique spots

where you do work with venomous snakes

that that can be a little bit more

aggressive

um even if they're not necessarily super

big threats towards human beings in this

particular case this was a great lakes

Viper again I love vipers and this

particular one took an uh an issue not

with myself not with our our guides or

naturalists that was out there with

actually the softbox

the softbox it was not a huge fan of and

so anytime we brought the softbox a

little closer to kind of light up what I

was going for you would see its mouth

start to open so it really created for

these great opportunities to photograph

this particular snake what's interesting

about them about most snakes

is that their their jaws are not

um they're not connected and attached on

both sides so what happens is that the

gland comes out on one you can see the

Fang come out on one

and then so I have a couple shots of

just like one Fang up and then you see

the other one kind of come up once it

gets into to bite mode

um but this was shot on a macro lens as

well but because it was looking at the

at the at the softbox and not myself it

was on the side then there was no no

real danger of what was happening

um but like I said it just allows you to

freeze those moments right before stuff

happens which is pretty amazing

so find reflective services this is

something I always recommend doing

um I'll give you two examples here

the first one is where you're creating

your own reflective example what I mean

by that is that oftentimes especially

when I'm working with frogs and

amphibians is that when we go into the

jungle to find these creatures out there

in the wild we will often bring

sometimes a 12 inch by 12 inch sometimes

a little bit bigger glass plate

and then we set up like an art stand

um and hold it on both sides and then

when we find the species we we would

like to photograph again we're working

with naturalist guides that are trained

to be able to handle and hold these

creatures we'd be able to put it uh on

the glass prey that's close to the

ground so again they're not at risk of

getting hurt or anything and then you

can use your flash to create some really

unique shots and that's how you're

getting kind of these reflective shots

particularly this this particular

approach is done oftentimes with with

frogs especially glass frogs which can

have translucent skin essentially using

Flash from underneath to light the Frog

itself and you also photograph from

underneath the glass plate to see

through it and then what happens is that

certain species of them actually have

translucent skin so you can see all

their insides it's a very unique shot I

don't have anyone for this presentation

but that's what gave me the the idea to

start creating stuff like this with

certain types of glass frogs and poison

dart frogs and of course water can be a

great source as well this is actually a

macro lens with a baby Cayman taken in

Central America and Panama where it was

holding very crazily still I figured as

I got close to it it was going to take

off but it just held there we used a

flash took a couple quick shots and then

it eventually found its way you know out

of the scene but a great reflection

opportunities for a scene like this

perspective matters this is something

that I think is important in all genres

of Photography

especially in the macro award because

that world because obviously we are much

taller and bigger than the creatures

that were out there photographing so

being able to photograph many of these

species as you can at eye level is

really big and what it does is it allows

you to make much more connections with

the species I think creating much more

interesting images this is a Gabon Viper

also found in East Africa it's a very

large snake they can weigh upwards of

like 10 pounds they're quite large

coincidentally they're incredibly

venomous but they very rarely bite human

beings they're not very aggressive so

they're really easy to photograph I was

really lucky to find them on this last

trip to Uganda but the most interesting

composition that I found was kind of

that straight on shot and so doing it

safely again because you don't want to

put yourself in Peril you know using the

new mirrorless cameras having that flip

out

um articulating screen on the back

literally put it on the ground

articulated the screen out and then I I

felt comfortable enough to just use my

finger to take the shots but I could of

course jumped into my cell phone

wirelessly and been able to take the

shots from there but having that

perspective of being right there at eye

level right at the right at its face to

me made the most unique type of image

possible with this particular snake

and the same thing can be said about

frogs again I think you have to be

willing if you're interested in macro

Wildlife photography to get a little bit

dirty you know lay on the ground when

you need to bring a little camping chair

if you need like whatever it is that

allows you to kind of get down and be

able to photograph these species at

their space I think is awesome because

like I said it just gives you much

higher potential to kind of pull

everything together and have a little

bit more of a unique image where the

eyes can play more of a role into the

shots that you're doing which I think

most Wildlife photographers try to do

anyway

so let's talk about five quick trips or

tips for macro Wildlife photographers

that are out there so tip number one

this is the same one for those that want

listen to my talk earlier today there's

more about General wildlife and that's

the idea of customizing your camera so

the last thing you want to do is be in

the middle of the jungle in a place that

you don't know in the middle of the

night trying to worry about something

not biting you and you're fumbling with

your camera to kind of pull you know

pull things together how do you adjust

your flash speeds how do you adjust your

ISO on the Fly how do you change your

autofocus Zone every time I get a new

camera I dial in every different button

every different setting to fit the needs

I have as a photographer I mean I try to

sit there and proactively think about

the stuff that I photograph what

features functionality or settings do I

need to be one click away or less

if I can't access it while I'm looking

through the viewfinder then I want to

make sure that that's not a priority for

me to have access to so if you're moving

to a new system like someone coming into

the Sony space from Canon or Nikon or

Fuji or Olympus or whatnot and people

say oh the menus are different yes they

are

but if you take time to dial in your

camera I don't ever need to go into the

menus because I have everything dialed

in exactly as I need it just takes time

to do so but having this stuff dialed in

beforehand makes it so much easier to be

out there in the field especially in a

new environment so that you make sure

like I mentioned like I said you have

all this features and functionality as

close to you as possible

so be silent when possible this is again

super important again I talked about

this a little bit in my talk earlier

today that idea that mirrorless cameras

can now be truly silent to start off

with the A9 first A9 a92 A1 all the Sony

cameras now I think your mirrorless

cameras and Canon and Nikon also now

have the features which are great but

when you're out on Safari and you're

photographing uh you know lion cubs

once I've gotten used to silent mode I

feel the digital slrs are exponentially

louder than I remember them when I shot

them but it doesn't matter all that much

to most creatures out there because

they've gotten somewhat used to that

it's a little bit different in the macro

World a they're not used to it most

species you come across might not have

had other tons of human other human

contact but sitting with a a camera

super close to them and having your

shutter go off make super loud noise can

scare a lot of these creatures away so

shooting in silent mode makes a big

difference this is again why I shoot

with the A1 or now the A7 R5 with his

focus stacking features but either way

having something shoot in truly silent

mode really can make a big difference

and allows you to get much closer than

you might have otherwise

and like I said it can happen it helps

with all different types of species that

are out there

um you know from you know caddy dids to

you know poison dart frogs

um all sorts of fun stuff these

creatures the poison dart frogs this

thing looks huge because I shot it with

a macro lens and there's a very small

crop in there but these things are are

this big like they're super tiny so you

want to minimize the amount of times

that a you're stressing them out just

from an ethical standpoint but also so

you can get the photographs that you're

looking for as well you want to minimize

that amount of extra noise that you're

bringing to it

so working with local guides again this

is super super important you obviously

probably don't need to hire a local

guide to go check out your local park or

hang out in your backyard if you're

trying this but when you start traveling

around to find some very unique rare and

certainly some venomous species you

definitely want to make sure that you're

working with some of the best people

that are out there

I usually go with starting off with Word

of Mouth like who do I know that's been

to a location that can find someone that

I trust or can verify if I can't find

that I'm usually going to places like

TripAdvisor or specifically to macro

Wildlife photography there's the study

or the pursuit of understanding for

amphibians and frogs and reptiles things

like that's called herpology or herping

so there's lots of message forms about

that where you can go and find the local

guides in different locations having

people that you know that work with some

of these best people that know what

they're doing with a specific species so

that you stay safe the animal stays safe

everyone stays in a in good regards and

you can still also Come Away with the

images you want is incredible and this

is more important than ever of course

especially with snakes this is again the

same rhinoceros pit viper if you're

walking around in the jungles out there

you know most people are not going to be

paying attention exactly everywhere

you're stepping this is how easy they

camouflage

the Great Lakes pit viper sitting on the

green green moss you're not gonna hey

you're not gonna be able to see them and

find them I can tell you that from

personal experience but also just from a

safety standpoint you always want to

make sure that you're working with

people that know what they're doing

so the environment can play a role this

is where it's a little bit less of a

studio shoot where you really want to

bring in a little bit more of the

environment into the shot to get a sense

and feel for where they're at what is

their environment how does that play a

role into the images you're trying to

create this is a bullet ant for those

that don't know this is probably the

most

painful bite in all of the insect World

um it's not something I had they

recommend for anyone to ever experience

but they're amazing to photograph super

unique and again something that most

people kind of disregard but being able

to pull in a bit more of the leaf making

sure I intentionally lit up some more of

the stuff that was behind it to give a

more sense of environment really to me

helped make something that was more

unique seeing that leaf in the back

bottom part of the frame rather than

just focusing on the ant itself

this is a hognose Viper as well just

lighting up kind of the areas that it's

most known to begin in terms of the

leaflets making sure that you understand

that's parvy you can see how they kind

of blend into the background and what's

happening I didn't light up the rest of

the background but I still wanted to

give a little bit of that environment or

a feel for the shot

and the same thing this is a this is a

coordinated um

uh

boa constrictor and being able to use

this more as a fill Flash in this

particular case gave me that opportunity

to show exactly where we were at we were

out there in the jungle using the flash

to be able to balance the type of shots

that I was going for creating something

that was more neat rather than just the

studio look which plays a role and then

coming back to that same palm leaf pit

viper it had a we had a rainstorm so it

was raining on the snake when it was on

top of this Palm bit this palm leaf and

so then being able to find that unique

composition water dripping off of its

face using that light to get something

unique and then with 50 megapixels it's

great because I can actually crop in on

this like straight to its face and it's

just this really unique shot that you

get detailed uh the details are are

amazing but it's that idea of bringing

in that environment I think can play a

role rather than just the studio setup

or feel that you get when you overpower

all light that's out there

so maintaining ethical boundaries this

is again a big part of working with

these small creatures I think anytime

you find yourself in a space where

obviously the creatures that you're

trying to photograph are in threat of

getting hurt is that means that you're

doing something wrong it should never

affect them in a negative way you should

minimize the amount of time that you're

spending with a lot of these creatures

because they can get stressed out just

from too much human interaction you

shouldn't handle any of the species

unless you truly know what you're doing

because I think it can play a really big

role into accidentally how some of that

stuff can generally happen this is why I

always work with professional guides and

locals in all the different places I

work in around the world but you want to

make sure that you know people that are

like I said are going to find them

know how to find them know where they're

at and then know how to handle them know

their characteristics can teach you all

about them because there's so much stuff

out there that a lot of people don't

know and ultimately the idea is to Come

Away with these kind of unique

and engaging images images that are

different that you know

you wouldn't have had the opportunity

otherwise if you didn't work with local

guides if you didn't use a flash if you

didn't find yourself out like I said at

night in the middle of some of these

locations or even like I said in your

own backyard since I've gotten into

macro Wildlife photography outside of

the Exotic trips I do around the world

now focusing on random you know crazy

species of snake and frogs and insects

when I'm at home it's fun to sit there

my son comes running in and says hey we

found a new toad you know sitting in our

backyard I can run out and grab my flash

and show him how to do it have some fun

with it but it's really great because

like I said it's so accessible there's a

lot of great opportunities to learn

about how you can appreciate species

like I mentioned that are often more

vilified the snakes especially

I can't tell you how many times on my

macro Wildlife trips like I do in Costa

Rica coming up in January or have people

that say oh I'm interested in in kind of

what you're talking about I'm interested

in learning about Flash or taking

pictures of frogs but snakes freak me

out

or maybe it's spiders or whatnot and if

you think about it so much of our

misconceptions have stemmed from like

you know cultural aspects of you know

Disney picking the winners and losers in

the wildlife space like you know it's

always snakes that are evil it's always

the Sharks it's always hyenas like they

always pick these winners and losers and

oftentimes just through constant

bombardment we begin to you know think

that these creatures are innately bad or

good and that's just not the case

they're just beautiful creatures and so

I hope you guys have a little bit better

understanding of what it takes within

the macro space of understanding and

appreciation of the creatures that are

out there and I hope it's peaked a

little bit of your curiosity because

especially for those that are interested

in Wildlife there's just so many doors

this opens up both like I said in your

own backyard or certainly around the

world

so with that said

that's my talk for today

wow good wow

wow amazing thank you hi I'm ready yeah

if Google questions we could take a few

Q A's questions yeah first

I'll get to you in a second

keep it nice and close there

your image okay your image of the frogs

with the glass

where the Frog's actually on the glass

and how much help did you need to take

those photos yeah that's a great

question so how many um so the frogs

that were on the glass

um so the frogs are actually on the

glass so that's the reflective pieces

see if I can find this real quick

um all right

there you go

um so we placed the frogs on the glass

or again we're working with naturalist

guys that are helping us find these

creatures they're the ones that are

handling them generally with you know

with gloves and whatnot because some of

these are poison dart frogs so they can

leave rashes some are more poisonous

than others and then place them on the

on the glass they're generally uh very

docile creatures again we place them

towards the ground

um so that if they do jump they again

are not going to get hurt the idea is to

minimize the amount of effect you're

having on these creatures

um but then most of the time when I'm

out there doing my macro stuff I'm

usually always working with at least one

other person because I need that other

person to help me hold the flash so I

can concentrate on the shots that I'm

trying to get on my composition on

controlling the flash exposure and

things like that so for me if I'm using

a two camera flash setup then I'll

usually have at least one other person

sometimes I'll have two people that help

dictate and color the control the light

and I'll tell people or help move their

hands depending on the type of look that

I'm going for the type of exposure that

I want but they are sitting on the glass

like I said the glass plates can be 12

inches sometimes they're a little bit

bigger and then we just have them sit on

on clamps set up with art stands out

there in the field that we bring with us

yep

I was wondering when you travel how

airports and on airplanes sure how do

you carry all those 600 and 400

millimeter lenses and all this stuff

that you don't want to check yeah no 100

you don't want to check I don't want to

check any of my camera gear macro or the

big lenses or not so I have a a system

where I have

um I use camera bags that have removable

internal camera units so whether so

usually when I'm traveling like here

because I leave tomorrow for Alaska to

photograph bald eagles as I mentioned I

have a roller bag that can fit my 400

and my 600 and a body or two and but

that's an internal unit that fits inside

the bag and so like when I was flying

here I flew here from Newark to Denver a

regular flight and then it was the

regional United Express coming here

where that bag's just not going to fit

in the overhead so they said hey we need

to check your bag I say that's fine got

the green tag walked outside to gate

check it right by the plane put my bag

down unzipped it pulled out the internal

camera unit that is will fit anywhere

handed in the bag the guy looked at me

funny and then I carried my camera gear

onto the plane so that really helps when

you're out there in the field I'll

usually use another like I use shimoda

uh camera bags most of the time when I'm

out there

um they fit with those internal camera

units or sometimes I'll use like Guru

gear has a great bag the kabuku 3.0 or 3

3.5 the second generation that just came

out can also fit a 400 and a 600 400

attached with the body and a 600 without

attached if I need a bag that's actually

backpack carrying in the field for that

but usually it's like I'm either going

transit or once I get out in the field

then I'm usually switching to one of

those other two systems but usually it's

kind of a mixture approach depending on

the type of planes I'm going to find

myself in but I never check camera gear

outside of maybe a few exceptions in

real rural Africa where you have no

choice and you're on like a questionable

you know Russian Twin power plant I have

other issues to worry about at that

stage so

yes

um yep

hi I was just wondering how long does it

take for you to set up the shots as

opposed to taking the shots so you

obviously put a lot of thought into how

to do the lighting and all of that but

you're out in the field sure how do you

work all of that and how much time

that's a great question how much time

does it take to set up these shots so

because outside of maybe the the me you

know using the the glass and everything

with these particular kinds of frogs

that are a little bit more

contrived or thought through most of the

rest of the stuff is more organic like

the creatures and the species again all

have different personalities you have

small coffee snakes can be super

colorful and fun but they're super

docile and you can kind of you know I've

had them in my hands playing with them

and then you kind of figure out where

you want to place them compared to other

things that are more venomous or whatnot

so usually I'm at first looking to

figure out where's the good background

sometimes you find them right where you

want them sometimes you don't and so

again working with a naturalist guide

snake wrangler specifically with snakes

just didn't say oh we found you know the

rhinoceros you know fight paper okay

well can we move him to you know this

piece of wood and get in place there get

my shots but it's not like I'm setting

up a ton of stuff it's usually just like

we're setting up where is it going to go

how can I get the best shot possible

without sitting there and trying to

um micromanage a wild animal which is

just never going to work and so it is a

mixture of having the right gear and the

knowledge and being in the right place

at the right time and then working with

the creature as best you can to come up

with the best type of image possible

without infringing on you know freaking

it out so to speak that makes sense

you see a log where you think this will

be a great place for the snake to be and

the snakes over there you actually have

somebody that's where we would use the

Wranglers or the people the

professionals that know what they're

doing that are certified in the

countries that I find them in to be able

to sit there and be able to safely you

know using the the snakes the snake

stick and be able to carefully position

them where they're at to uh for their

the snake safety the person safety my

safety everything's safe and then once

we're done with it like I said we

usually try to minimize the amount of

exposure we're with them we then place

them right back where we found them so

that they're never outside of their own

environment which is a big No-No of

course for uh you know dynamic

ecosystems so there's a little plea

pre-planning in that you can there'll be

some depending on the type of shot that

I want environmental portraits or

certain natural light it's more so like

hey this background looks great but then

once I get there it's like what can I

get with how the snake's moving and

whatnot not like oh the snake's not

looking at me the right way it's like

okay I need a mocha on the other side

how do I get the good shot like that's

the type of thing because again you're

not you can't manhandle a creature to be

exactly what you want to you have to

take the best shot you possibly can

thank you thank you of course yeah

lighting condition when you take me

what's the ambient lighting condition

for the these ones

middle of the night

middle of the night so I'd say like half

the time I find myself in the jungles at

night because there's a lot of diurnal

animals that are only become active at

night a lot of snakes for example

sometimes you can't find them in the

tail ends or the beginnings of the day

but a lot of these creatures generally

become more active at night and a lot of

the depending on the creature it also

usually comes more so with rain so rainy

seasons are better for this so you think

about amphibians amphibians love water

what do reptiles love to eat amphibians

there's more you know frogs out there in

the jungles it's gonna be during the

rainy season which means there's going

to be more snakes which gives me a

higher probability to find the specific

species I'm after

but a lot of these situations it is you

know super it's pitch black and we're

controlling light we're putting light I

have a system on my soft boxes which I

didn't show where I have a very small

power bank very lightweight very low

wattage that connects to an LED light

inside the actual soft box and then I

turn those on in the night and that

gives me enough light in order to

autofocus and pitch dark and then the

flash always overpowers that light

anyway but that way I have a bit of

autofocus or yeah autofocus assist in

pitch dark settings because otherwise

you have to use flashlights or something

because otherwise there's just not

enough out there

any other questions

one more question back here

yeah so a lot of the creatures so

amphibians especially the question was

it looks like the glass is wet in some

situations it is wet a lot of these

creatures especially amphibians live

near the water and so having them

outside the water for our short periods

of photographing with them it can be

more advantageous and more safe for them

to make sure that they're wet so

sometimes that means there's going to be

a little bit of water based on the

reflections as well

it can absolutely again depends on the

type of scene you're looking for if

you're looking for proper Reflections or

if you're looking to shoot underneath as

I talked about with some of those glass

frogs then you generally want it more

clean but like I said you got it's more

of a timing standpoint where you want to

minimize the amount of time uh with the

creatures outside of their natural

environment

I think we're out of time if you guys

want to join me for anyone else there's

any other questions at the Sony Booth

I'll be over there I can answer your

questions directly so that whoever else

is talking next can get up here and do

their thing so thank you guys again

[Applause]

wow pretty cool okay so that was amazing

but now we're going to totally turn this

around a different way are you guys

familiar with the photographer Cindy

Sherman

okay maybe Arnold minkinen so these are

photographers that have turned their

cameras on themselves and have done

self-portraiture and a totally new vein

so I was introduced to Lizzy God a

couple of years ago and I absolutely

fell in love with her work I think her

work is completely unique completely

different and I really wanted to host

her and we had her scheduled for optic

West in 2020 which didn't happen and

then we had her on a on a virtual

program and I never got to meet her we

finally got her out here so ladies and

gentlemen I'm going to present to you uh

Lizzie Gad who is a uh is gonna it's

gonna blow you away it's gonna be a

little bit different than what Colby

just showed you so without further ado

I present to you Lizzy God Lizzy

Perfect all right you can all hear me

okay

yay

all right first of all I am so honored

and happy to be here and a little

overwhelmed this is the biggest stage

I've spoken from so this is exciting and

a little nerve-wracking but I am just so

happy to be here

and hello to everybody tuning in online

as well nice to have you tuning in

um so I am a self-portrait photographer

and uh

I don't even know how to properly

describe it so the best way I can do

that is by showing you in my talk today

we're going to go a little bit through

what I do and how I got started and how

I make these self-portraits all in vast

landscapes in nature

and then we're going to get into more of

the why I make these cell portraits and

we'll get deeper into the soul side of

it very much into like the creative side

so without further Ado for those of you

who don't know my work by way of

introduction

let's take a walk with me let's take a

walk through your imagination

often to the far off mountains let's say

you're maybe a six or seven hour hike

away from any ounce of civilization

you're up in the Peaks

and maybe you're alone and you're just

soaking in the Stillness as all the mist

and clouds weave in and out of the

mountain peaks

and everything's silent and Serene

and then when you think that you might

be alone up there and you're just

enjoying the solitude

suddenly you might see in the snow field

in the distance a strange little

scruffy dog

who might be tumbling around and rolling

down the snow and getting the Zoomies

and just rolling around and you're like

what is this little dog doing up here

where there should be mountain goats and

bears and all those creatures instead so

then you might wonder is there somebody

else up here in the middle of nowhere

so you might look around and then

through the Mist you might see a very

strange scene that appears to be a

person wearing a dress and barefoot in

about zero degrees Celsius that's 32

Fahrenheit

and she appears to be jumping back and

forth between some rocks kind of dancing

but mostly tripping slipping and sliding

and you might wonder who on Earth is

that

that person is me

and this is what I do for my living

[Laughter]

um it's also what I started doing for my

soul

I'll get more into that as we go on

but

when you see this scene and

you wonder what on Earth I'm doing what

I'm doing is I'm taking self-portraits

and somewhere on that mountain is a

camera that's photographing me

usually on time lapse mode

intervalometer

if I saw you

and realized you were watching me I

would probably run back to my camera I

would take it off the tripod and I would

pretend that I was actually just taking

photos of the Lichen on the rocks or

something and which in hindsight looks

totally weirder that I would be like in

a dress and barefoot no jackets or

anything in the mountain and I'm just

crouched down taking photos of the

little plants and like and so yeah

that's pretty weird but

when I do this what I'm hoping

to capture in all my little awkward

Glory time is

out of this I hope to capture

this

so this particular photo is titled

Dreamer and this is one of my most

meaningful photos to me that I took six

years ago now already

and this is on a local mountain to me

this mountain is I grew up every day in

my life looking at this mountain

my family and I lived near the base of

it and As I Grew Older and started to

explore around the base and then in my

teen years I started to hike further up

it and it takes about a five or six hour

hike to get to the peak of the mountain

and in my late teens I began going up

there with Trucking gear and camping

gear and I would spend a couple of

nights two or three nights at a time

just staying up there and losing myself

to all the fog coming in and out in the

very rainy foggy mountains this is in uh

just outside of Vancouver BC so I grew

up just outside of Vancouver on the

unseated traditional territories of the

cat seat in quantly indigenous people

in this particular mountain today it's

called Golden Ears Mountain which that

name is actually what we westerners

totally botched the original name that

the indigenous people called it is the

golden Iris not years and the golden

Iris translates to place where the

golden eagles nest

so growing up here I felt very connected

to Nature as I explored this mountain

and the forests and

all the Misty rain clouds around it and

I would see the golden eagles and the

Bald Eagles and the Bears and haven't

seen a cougar yet but I would like to

someday and all the other wildlife

and I would love to just spend all my

time out there

and photographing the wildlife in nature

and feeling that connection to Nature

and that eventually led me to capturing

that connection that I felt through

self-portraiture which I'll get into a

little more as we go along

so the first question that most people

ask me when they'd find out I'm a

photographer is oh what kind of

Photography do you do

and I never really know how to answer

that without

just saying I take selfies and

but then I'm like not not the kind of

selfies on the phone and how do I

describe it so I've been trying to

really figure out how to nail my

self-portrait description and I think

I've got it down to

it takes story so storytelling

self-portraits with an ethereal twist

all in real and raw natural landscapes

and the purpose is to portray the

feeling of peaceful Solitude found in

nature and the beauty of matching one's

heartbeat to the beat of nature

so that is my goal with these images

this photo here is titled mother nature

and was taken in Scotland three years

ago

this is an image from probably four four

or five years ago and this is in Golden

Ears or golden Iris Provincial Park

where I grew up and this particular Lake

Alouette Lake in the park I would visit

almost every day for

my whole growing up life from 16 years

old onward as I fell in love with

photography and every time I came to

this Lake the atmosphere was completely

different but I was always in search of

these still mornings where the lake

would just mirror the sky in the fog

and on this particular day the lake

level was a little lower and this rock

appeared and I decided to wait out is

about this Steep and I waded through the

water and sat on this rock waited maybe

four or five minutes until the water

went still again and ended up with this

photo called Stranded in a dream

so these are the images that I take now

but I'll walk you all through a little

bit of how I got started back to the

beginning I haven't always been at this

level of self-portraiture I started

uh in 2007 and I grew up

always painting drawing and loving any

kind of art form and my parents were

very supportive I feel very blessed for

the upbringing that I have

and when I was let's see 2007

that was 15 years ago I was 14 when I

stole my dad's little point and shoot

camera

and started taking photos of just the

little nature and Landscapes and

everything around me and I joined Flickr

at the time

and that's where everything took off my

first upload to Flickr was that photo of

a candle in the bottom corner of the

screen I thought it was

awesome

it's a candle

and then my second upload was a spider

the third upload was my cat named white

cat because I was very original with

naming my pets when I was young

and my love for photography just grew

from there I started taking more and

more photos particularly particularly

based around nature and Wildlife and

everything that was my first love

growing up being outdoors but I also

began to

realize that I could use photography as

a way to develop my art and come up with

new ideas and um ways I could figure out

how to set up images and and I started

experimenting more and I went through

the phase that we all go through where

we take cpf photos and then selective

color sepia photos and then I decided to

Brand myself as dizzy photography around

2008 because it rhymes with Lizzy and I

thought it was cool

and so that was this was me just

experimenting for the first uh three

years of picking up a camera

and then in about

2009-2010 I was uploading daily to

Flickr I was following a lot of people

there that really inspired me and I

started noticing this trend of

like-minded photographers I was becoming

friends with who were taking

self-portraits and they were doing this

project called the 365 project where

they would take one self-portrait every

day for a year

and that started to really inspire me

and I thought

wow maybe I should try this and I was

terrified at taking self-portraits or

any kind of human portrait and growing

up I was always quite shy and much

preferred to be by myself or with my

animals in the natural world so I never

thought about photographing other people

but then I thought looking at these

photos that my friends were taking and

posting to Flickr I began thinking maybe

I should push myself and challenge

myself and step out of my comfort zone

and start taking portraits obviously

self-portraits because I'm too shy to

ask other people

um so I decided that I would also take

on the 365 project one supporter every

day for the year of 2010.

so starting on January 1st I began and I

didn't miss a single day I took one

self-portrait every day that year

and

they were all over the place I had no

Niche I had no idea what I was doing it

was purely to push myself to test my

boundaries to grow and to experiment and

to have fun

and it was so much fun every day at the

end of the day when after I would take

my photo I would quickly edit it and

upload it and interact with all of my

other friends who were doing the same

project on Flickr and we became like a

tight-knit community community all

supporting each other

so

as the year went on

well you can see in most of my photos I

I had all kinds of weird ideas like

sitting in a wheelbarrow and holding a

shovel in my my old dog Sparky sitting

there with me and

a lot of the photos were

just kind of random and spontaneous and

then some nights I would go to bed and

then remember that I hadn't taken my

photo yet so I'd quickly run outside

just before midnight and snap some any

kind of creative photo just to make sure

that I tested my creativity that day and

didn't miss out on taking that image

and some of those images were very

strange images like I don't even know

what this is

I was sitting in the driveway after it

rained I was holding white cat and then

I thought I would get extra creative so

I asked my brother who loved laser

pointers I was like hey Joey can you

like Shine Your laser pointer all around

me while I do this

um

image and see like what kind of lines it

can create and he got all excited so he

did that and it resulted in

this really strange photo that where

like white cat and my crotch is like

very lit up which is kind of weird and I

don't know but it was the only photo I

got that day so I posted that online and

it was part of my my project and so be

it not everything is perfect we're all

experimenting and learning and sometimes

it's two steps forward and a step back

but as we or as I continued on

throughout the year

I started to notice this trend where I

was going outdoors more and more and it

was like I was without realizing it

starting to fall into my niche of

connecting with the piece that I find

out in nature

and I didn't even fully realize this

until the very last day on day 365.

it was December 31st

and I decided that I would go out with a

bang I would get up early and go to the

Golden Ears golden Iris or Provincial

Park

to this Lake here so I went there and it

was minus 10 degrees Celsius I don't

know what that is Fahrenheit but it was

cold the edges of the lake were all iced

over and those rocks were the lake had

been wavy the night before so the Rocks

were soaked but then Frozen so when I

was walking out on the Rocks I was

slipping everywhere and ended up

slipping in just over my knees with a

white dress but it was kind of funny

because as soon as I got out the dress

froze from the knees down so it was like

cardboard so I was just trying to pose

and Crouch with this Frozen dress but

what was interesting to me was that even

though it was so cold and I was

struggling with this dress

I was so in the moment I was in the zone

that I couldn't feel how cold I was I

was

out here the only person out here

on these rocks in this Lake early in the

morning as the sun was Rising there was

fresh snow on the trees everything was

still and it was silent

and up to this point I thought the end

of my 365 project would be the end of

taking self-portraits I knew I wanted to

be a photographer but I didn't know

exactly what I wanted to pursue in

photography yet I thought this was just

going to be another challenge for me to

grow with

but while I was taking this photo on

that last day and suddenly

something clicked in my head

where I realized this moment of

connection and Solitude and silence and

peace that I'm experiencing in nature

right now where I feel completely

present I don't even realize how cold I

am

and then being able to capture that

moment to remember it by and then to

share that moment with other people and

try to bring that feeling of peace and

the beauty that you can find in solitude

in nature being able to bring that to

other people and for myself that's what

I want to do

so it was very strange to me that on

that last day that's when I realized

that this was going to be my niche of

photography

so I ended up continuing oh thank you

[Applause]

I ended up continuing this style not

every single day that was a very hard

year but it was a year that I grew the

most in terms of learning how to edit my

photos and and how to take photos and

all of that so I do suggest if you

really want to push yourself to grow as

fast as possible in photography take

photos and edit every single day

but also don't overrun yourself because

after that year I took a a pretty good

break for a few months

but I I started continuing and this

photo is titled run home taken in the

mountains next to my house

and it just became something that I

loved doing going out into nature and

trying to capture these storytelling

scenes and feeling this connection with

nature

and these photos

became a therapeutic experience for me

it became a way to not only connect with

nature but to find connection with

myself as well by channeling my emotions

through and in front of the camera

so this was over 12 years ago now

and these photos taken throughout those

12 years since this is in the golden

Iris Forest

um 10 minutes from my house and I would

spend so much time just wandering

through these Mossy trees and in the

winter months from October to about

March

I'm always watching the weather because

after a rainfall if I know it's going to

clear up the next morning

I know that there will be fog that rises

up from the lake in that Park and

eventually when the sun comes over the

mountain and hits the fog on the lake it

will expand and the fog will start

rolling up in waves into this Forest

so I become a very nerdy weather person

where I'm always checking the weather

and trying to figure out like oh it

needs to be like five kilometer winds or

less and it has to be like this amount

of precipitation overnight and then it

has to start clearing by this time in

the morning like 2 A.M or something and

and I I feel like I've got it nailed to

a t now for where I live but every time

everything's lining up I run out to this

Forest early the next morning and I'll

sit there and I'll wait and sometimes I

always when I grew up there I would tell

my parents I was like I'm running out to

Golden Years I'll be back in a couple

hours and then it'll be at least six

hours later before I returned and

because you just lose all sense of time

when you're in this forest and the waves

of sunbeams are just rolling through

it's magical

and this image I believe this was about

seven years ago also in the mountains

near my home this is up near Squamish

and I hiked up here spent two nights up

here in the snow

and when I hiked up

it was everything was fogged in and it

was snowing a mix of rain and snow and

it got snow here the higher up into the

mountains I went I couldn't see any of

the surrounding scenery and I hadn't

been to this particular place before so

I had no idea what the views were like

surrounding me

but I was just enjoying the The Silence

of the snow and I love that

feeling of rest and peace that you get

in winter when the snow silences

everything and you can feel your own

Soul resting

and when I got to where I was going to

Camp I I figured I probably wouldn't be

taking a photo at all that weekend

because I couldn't see 10 feet in front

of me

but the next morning the snow stopped

and I got out

and I walked to the snow field and I

thought if the snow stopped and the fog

is here I feel like

if the sun is rising the fog will

probably start opening and I'm betting

there's going to be a view in that

direction so I just stood in this field

and I waited for about an hour and then

sure enough as soon as the sun crested

the mountains the fog just started

parting and it was revealing this Valley

full of fog and the trees and the

mountains in the distance so quickly I

was like oh I got to put on my dress and

set up and take this photo so I I took

this which I believe I titled arise

so before I get more into

the soul side of my photos I know from

past talks that I've done that everybody

in the audience is always itching to ask

how I take these photos and all the

other little nerdy questions and I'm

very much a creative brain I've never

been a very nerdy brain so I'm learning

how to figure out how to describe how I

actually take these photos so let's dip

into the nerdy side uh dip into the how

this is the gear that I use I've been

shooting with the Sony a7r III for the

past almost five years now a camera that

I absolutely love

and my go-to lenses as of right now are

the 50 millimeter 1.2 and the 35

millimeter 1.4 and I love these lenses

for the really dreamy bokeh the depth of

field that I can get with them and the

50 in particular I'd say is my favorite

but the 35 just to have that wider angle

when I'm shooting in the mountains that

might be my go-to now when I go on hikes

and I also love using my 85 millimeter

1.4 an extra dreamy lens but sometimes

it's a little too tight for the

Landscapes I'm in so I have to be

careful about when I choose to take that

on Hikes into the back country with me

but I do love that lens and then I also

have the 12 to 24 millimeter lens which

I use

especially at night when I want to take

photos of the wide Starry Skies or the

northern lights or if I'm in ice caves

and want to have that wider view within

the caves and then I use my trusty

Vanguard vo204ab tripod which I've had

for I don't know eight years nine years

maybe now and it's now it actually

consists of three or four tripods

because of the amount of times I've

dropped it off cliffs or all kinds of

things on my hikes and it's Fallen apart

it was very good but I put it through a

lot of brutal use and every time a piece

goes missing I find another piece from

another tripod and I somehow tape it

together or have my dad screw it

together or now it's a mess but it still

works so I'm still using it and then I

also use my platypod Max which is

another kind of tripod it's like a plate

that you put your camera on and then you

can put it like really low to the ground

and you'll notice throughout a lot of

these photos that I showed that it's a

lot of them are all taken at ground

level and I like that because it gives

you a different angle and also a

dreamier depth of field when you have

the the foreground more out of focus and

it kind of leads you up to the subject

me and then to the background after

so you'll notice that throughout some of

these slides and then of course I also

have chocolate in my backpack at all

times very important

and I don't know why I put that photo of

me in the the bottom corner there I

don't actually have that massive lens in

my camera bag and I don't normally carry

wine either but

but my partner Chris over there you

snapped this photo me in Africa last

year and I thought that was the coolest

moment of my life how I looked right

there so somehow that made it into this

slide

this photo

I took about a month ago it's called the

whims of Autumn this was taken in the

Rocky Mountains my partner and I just

moved to Banff uh two or three months

ago

so now I'm exploring my new backyard for

the time being

and I want to describe how I take these

self-portraits so this place we were

hiking in the back country

for four three nights four days

and

it took us about 50 kilometers to reach

this Lake

and I had some ideas in my mind that I

wanted to do there and create these

self-portraits

and when we got there we were kind of

exploring around and this particular

lake has actually become a very popular

spot for photographers from around the

world but they all photograph the same

scene at the one end of the lake so I've

always known like I would love to take a

photo here but I want to do something

different than everything that I see

online so my partner and I took a walk

around the back of the lake and found

all these beautiful red plants and just

before winter hit

and I thought oh I need to figure out

how to use these like I've never seen

anybody shoot with this here before

so we decided to think about it the

weather wasn't quite right I love to

shoot in like moodier weather or foggy

weather and that day it was just very

clear Deep Blue Sky everything was

contrasty and it was just it was still

stunning but for the kind of photos that

I want it was still a little

blah

so we went we set up our tent and we

went to sleep that night the next

morning we woke up and there was a

little bit of smokey haze from smoke or

forest fires in the mountains nearby and

as the sun was Rising it kind of created

this depth through the mountains you

could see the layers and everything went

gold as the sun rose through the haze

and I was like oh I gotta take this

photo let's go so we trekked around to

the other side of the lake again

and I started crawling around like on my

hands and knees and all this foliage and

trying to find like I said I love to

shoot at a low angle and

um because if you're shooting higher you

would barely see any of that foliage but

I'd love to have things in the

foreground that create depth and can

also create framing so I was able to

frame the camera next to that one bit of

leafy plant stuff

and I tried to find a set up the scene

in a way where all the lines from the

mountains and the trees would come down

and lead to me and then I would place

myself in the center I'm one of those

rule Breakers who doesn't abide by the

rule of thirds I usually always like to

put myself in the center I don't know

why but that's the way it works for me

and my brain

so I put myself in the center and in the

least busy part of the photo so that I

would stand out and then

after I found exactly where I wanted to

set up I put my camera on the tripod

got it all dialed in and how I focus is

I usually have my dog stand my dog comes

on all their hikes with us so I have my

dog stand where I'm going to stand and

then I focus the camera on him and then

I'll switch the lens to manual focus so

it stays locked where my dog is and if

my dog isn't there then I'll use my

partner and but before my partner is

around it it was always my dog and I

everywhere so it's what I'm used to

and so after that we swap places and no

my dog doesn't take the photo but I

would like to train him to do that one

day

um

so I'll go stand there but I used to use

a remote to take all my self-portraits

but then I was always trying to hide it

somewhere behind me or I actually kept

destroying them I would step on them I

would drop it in Lakes I would run over

it with my van and so holding remotes

just became too much of a hassle but

then

my Sony camera in nowadays they have

built-in intervalometers so when I found

out that was the thing I was able to

update my camera and find that in the

menu so now it's just a quick couple of

buttons that I press right in the camera

and I usually set my in-camera

intervalometer to take one photo every

two or three seconds

I believe this for this photo is every

two seconds so I set that and the focus

was already locked in all my lighting

and everything was where I wanted it I

usually always do in manual and then I

started the intervalometer and I ran out

in front of the camera and then I

thought what can I do to make this even

more interesting I know I'll use the

stick on the ground so I picked up a

stick and then I thought I would just

kind of shake my head back and forth to

make it look like there was some wind

blowing by and create more of an

adventurous scene and something

Whimsical and fun

so that's how I ended up with that photo

and I actually wrote

uh when I was editing that this little

poem came to me this photo is titled the

whims of autumn

where will this season's Venture take

you a Wandering one pick up your walking

stick and wander with me your

imagination

your feet connected to the grounding

Earth but your eyes lifted to the

heights of the mountains your courage

strong to face the ever-changing and

your curiosity and less in the vast and

beautiful unknown

where will the season's Venture take you

a Wandering one

let us follow the whims our of our

autumnal imagination and find out shall

we

thanks

so sometimes taking those photos is a

magical magical experience

and sometimes it looks more like this

where it's not always fun and peaceful

this is minus 15 degrees Celsius I don't

know what that is Fahrenheit

this is me

on the ground I was crawling around in

the dust and dirt in the middle of the

Prairies in Alberta and it it was so

cold

and to describe how we got here that

night my partner had the brilliant idea

that we were going to drive out into the

Prairies because there was a slight

potential of aurora borealis and we were

going to camp in the back of his truck

where you have the uh the truck canopy

thing over it but it's only like that

tall so it feels like you're in a coffin

and it was and it was so cold so we we

got in there and and I was like this

better be worth it and it was so dusty

in there and it's hard to breathe and

anyway at about three in the morning

um I was a little grumpy and I couldn't

sleep at all

and so my partner opened the the back of

the hatch and looked up and and he was

like oh just cloudy and then he closed

it and then he's like wait a minute was

that cloud so he opened it again and

he's like no that's Aurora and I was

like what no way but I looked and then I

realized it is kind of flickering a

little bit so it must be Aurora maybe

it'll build up more so we crawled out of

the truck and it wasn't anything crazy

yet but I decided if it was gonna blow

up over the sky I would want to be ready

to take a photo so I began crawling

around on my hands and knees trying to

find because we were in the Prairies

which isn't normally where I shoot

photos I like to be in mountains and I

like to have things to stand on I'm

usually standing on rocks or on a tree

stumper anything and there's nothing in

the praise

and so I wanted to take a photo where I

would be kind of at ground level but

with the whole sky above me but I

couldn't get the camera low enough to

get the angle that I wanted so I was

crawling around until I could find a

gopher hole and then I put my camera

it's kind of hard to see but I put the

platypod and my camera right down into

the Gopher hole and that was the only

angle that I could find that my camera

could angle up a little bit but still

captured the ground where I was gonna

stand

so I set up and I waited and waited and

then this guy started getting even

better so we thought oh I better put on

the dress it's gonna suck it's going to

be cold and the wind started picking up

and the wind is icy at that temperature

and then I also had the thought suddenly

that

I want to take this photo one step

further what could I do I know I could

light a candle and hold it in my sub

portrait which is a bad idea when it's

windy because it kept blowing out

non-stop but we decided to go for it and

the sky started lighting up more

so this is a phone photo that my partner

took

um my camera on the ground and me

standing at the edge there and holding

this camera or not my camera the candle

which kept blowing out every few seconds

so every time I blew out my partner

would run back kind of throw the jacket

around me and put the candle between us

so he could try to light it with no wind

coming through and then we'd throw the

jacket off he would run back and I would

try to keep the candle alive long enough

to capture a few more photos in this

whole process took maybe two hours

before it did finally result in this

image

thank you

[Applause]

so this was a year and a half ago I

think

yeah

um

so before we get more into as I continue

on into the more depth and soul side of

my photos I'll quickly also run through

what I do to edit my photos I try not to

do much as you know now none of my

images are composites

um everything is real and

what I like to do most or I edit all of

my photos in Lightroom

and I love playing with colors so

usually the first thing I'll do this is

the final image that I took a couple

years ago but originally it looked like

this so I usually for some reason always

end up under exposing my images

accidentally

but this is what it did look like and in

real life though there was so much more

blue in the ice and I shoot everything

in raw so it does look the originals are

very flat looking and

um so in Lightroom I'll work to bring

out the colors and I often like to use

the paint brush tools and Lightroom to

paint more Blues into where I want the

blues to show more and paint and

brightness to where I want brighter

parts of the photo and I'll play around

with the exposure and the curves and

color tones and I just love to

experiment and editing is almost half

the process for me of creating these

images and I think that partially comes

from what I used to draw and be a

painter it brings me back to being in

that zone of just playing around with

the colors and painting colors into my

work

so that's the first thing I do is I

bring the exposure and light to where I

want it I start playing with the colors

getting them to more how I want it and

how I originally saw it and then I'll

start to take out all the distractions

in the photos you can see I have my

black jacket in the corner of the photo

and there's ice floating in the water in

the bottom corner that I find draws the

eye to it when I want the eye to be more

drawn to the center where I am

and then there's lots of footprints back

and forth on the ice there from where I

was walking around and testing where to

stand

so once I take out as much of those

distractions as I can it just cleans the

photo up

and that's basically how I edit it can

take anywhere between half an hour to a

few hours depending on the photo and

sometimes or most often I do leave it

overnight or even a couple of days

because I like to kind of let it stew in

my head and when I come back I either

don't like how it's looking so I'll

start over or I know which direction to

take it in

so that's how I edit my work and now

we will get a little bit more into the

soul side of my work

I think

where I really started getting more into

depth with self-portrait photography was

nine years ago

I decided to start the red dress series

and this series began in Iceland this

particular photo is from Scotland though

but the red dress series began in

Iceland which was the first place I've

ever traveled to specifically for

photography so it was a big deal to me I

was super excited I never been to

Iceland before I had this whole new

series planned out in my head

and basically the red dress series

is a symbolization of my wish to live

wholeheartedly

it's a reminder to myself to not be

controlled by my fears and doubts to

embrace who I am

and to focus on a life lived boldly in

love with gratitude and absolute wonder

of the world and everything in it

so I decided to focus on this during

that year in 2014 and I began this

series

my two friends and I were driving around

in a little car for two weeks in Iceland

camping out of the car which is very

squishy but we were obsessed with

chasing the magical light and the

scenery and every time we came across a

place like this I would throw on the red

dress and

try to embrace and embody that feeling

of wholehearted living and being in love

with the world and excited to be in this

world

and this cave was like a shower standing

there it was I was soaked within seconds

so it's very handy even though I usually

shoot alone it's nice to have friends

from time to time who can tag along and

help especially when it comes to wiping

the lens every two seconds between a

photo because otherwise it was covered

in water

this is one of my favorite photos from

Iceland called rise up taken in the

highlands of Thor's Mark I believe it

was called

and this is at the black sand beach this

photo to me

felt like the epitome of freedom

this is one of my favorite glaciers that

I've since Revisited many times

and my red dress series

although I didn't really think of it at

the time

began to continue onward from that year

nine years ago and I'm still creating

these photos to this day I'm still

continuing this series so now the series

has taken me to Canada this is in the

Rockies

and Scotland

and I try to bring the red dress with me

everywhere and funny story actually my

dresses are not pretty up close they're

all either thrift store dresses or the

red dress in particular was half a

thrift store dress that got too torn up

and shrunk over time going through the

washing machine so my mom sewed our red

bed sheet to the bottom of it to make it

longer and now it's just this hybrid of

bed sheets and thrift store finds and

patches and it's not pretty up close but

it looks great on camera far away and

with a little bit of editing tweaking

we can make it better

and recently just last year I took this

series to Madeira Portugal which is a

magical place and for years I've dreamed

of visiting this Forest fatal Forest

which is known as the reserve of rest

and sanctuary

and

as soon as I heard that I thought oh

that sounds like something

that I love that resonates with me I

would love to go create some art there

and just be there and soak in the

presence of these trees these trees are

between five and eight hundred years old

which blows my mind and their incredible

like gnarled trees that have bent with

the wind and the weather over time and

it's a magical place and it's on top of

the mountains of Madeira where it's

often just sucked in the clouds there

and it's very

fantasy like it's

just pure Magic

so I created a little mini series of the

red dress series there

and most recently just a couple of

months ago I took my latest red dress

image in the Rockies

close to where we live now

that Saskatchewan Glacier in the

background draining into the lake there

and then down the river and my partner

and my dog and I hiked up this mountain

just as it was starting the clouds were

building up and it was starting to storm

and there was still a little bit of

smoky Haze so the combination of the

storm clouds and the smoke with the sun

rays just created this epic scene and it

was better than I imagined as soon as

the sun rays came out I was like oh my

gosh we need to shoot this now and my

partner is also a photographer wanted to

be shooting at the same time so I feel

kind of bad that I made him it was windy

so I was like you need to stay with my

tripod and hold my camera down while I

run up there but thankfully got a few of

his own photos too while he was also

holding mine so thank you Chris for

helping me get this

um yeah thank you thanks

um but my self-portrait work isn't

always

something like the red dress series that

embodies wholeheartedness and living

excitedly and embracing everything

sometimes

it's more about like regular life like

the lows of life it's it can't just be

about the highs and that's something

that I've really learned to channel

through my work is to learn that you

can't always create something epic

Sometimes the best form of creating is

creating what you're going through using

that as a way to channel what you're

going through

so expressing our souls through ART

let me go back one

who here

knows what it's like to fall into

creative ruts

yeah

yeah I am prone to falling into creative

ruts frequently and sometimes it lasts

months a year a year and a half where I

won't take any self-portraits and I'll

still create for for work and do client

sheets for other people or companies but

what really feeds my soul is being able

to express what I'm feeling through

self-portraits and yeah I'm very prone

to getting overwhelmed by life and

letting the anxieties to take control of

me and and then forgetting how important

it is to document the feeling to not

ignore how overwhelmed I can be but to

embrace it and then channel that through

my work

so

a couple years ago or a few years ago

now when I went through one of my

longest creative ruts I ended up trying

to figure out how to step back into that

space of

realizing that I could create

throughout what I was going through so I

wrote down this that I'll read for you

now

what is my reason to keep creating

the reason is me

my thoughts my emotions excitement

sadness peace anger love all of it it's

all part of the Beautiful Mess of life

that deserves to be to be honored yet

here I often am lying defeated in the

creative wondering why I can't summon

the energy to continually create epic

mind-blowing images

when all along I could be creating

something just as important and Powerful

by gently pouring my feelings into my

work

this work doesn't have to be amazing

it doesn't have to have thousands of

views and likes and comments it doesn't

even have to be shown to anyone else

art is a glimpse into our souls plain

and simple and extravagant as they are

what if we didn't treat art as a

comparison game or a popularity contest

or competition

art comes from what we feel and is an

expression of our deepest selves

and whether our art connects with a

hundred thousand people or ten people

should make no difference for why we

create if the goal of an artist is to

create something of meaning even if it

only means something to you

then it's already a masterpiece

[Applause]

thanks

so

what does this mean to me

whenever I'm going through a creative

rut I try to bring myself back to what I

wrote a few years ago and that's what I

love about journaling is whenever I'm

going through something now I try to

journal my thoughts and it helps me

process and then when I'm going through

something like that again I can go back

and

read what I wrote before and it brings

me back to that space and helps me

realize that I can keep creating and I

can create something that means

something to me

so here's a couple of images

the first one under the waterfall is

called surrender

and for me it just simply means

surrendering to what I'm feeling

and then the one on the right is called

go bravely on

and while that just simply means going

bravely on into the unknown and whatever

we're feeling

both of these photos were taken on

Vancouver Island a couple of years ago

and this doesn't even have to

be particularly self-portraiture for me

I've learned

that I can also Channel what I'm feeling

through capturing other

objects or my partner

um this is Chris and when we were on

Vancouver Island

and we were walking on this beach by the

ocean and all the fog was coming in off

the ocean and I immediately had this

idea in my head I was like Chris take

off your shirt and go Crouch over there

so he he ran over there and crouched

down and immediately in my head I was

like okay this is going to be a two-part

piece of or images and this first piece

is going to be titled grounded and it

will help me remember

when going through chaotic times

especially in the mind to find

that sense of peace and to ground

yourself and my partner who is into yoga

and tells me all the time that

when he's feeling overwhelmed he likes

to walk Barefoot or touch the ground and

just have that feeling of being grounded

and connected to the Earth

so I wanted to capture that so this is

grounded and then the second part after

feeling grounded is when you can take

flight so this is called take flight

this image here is another one that

actually might be my most personal

meaningful image I took this almost four

years ago during a darker period of my

life and

this isn't a tidal pool next to the

ocean and the water is reflecting the

sky at Sunset just as the storm was

brewing so there were all these crazy

clouds happening and the colors were

bursting

and I wanted to capture this scene

something that depicted what I was going

through

um something that could portray

Brokenness and kind of hiding the face

but also surrender and you can see that

in my lower hand how it's kind of faced

up and just the act of surrendering and

I've been learning over the years how to

develop my poses into ways that can

really portray what I'm feeling body

language is such an important tool and

as you learn to figure out how to move

your body it can express

an even deeper language than the

language itself can

so this image that I took I actually

here's my phone I wrote another poem for

it right after I took this these words

just came into my head to match with the

image and sometimes I think of words

first and then I take an image after and

then sometimes I take the image first

and words just come to me after

so this is titled Calm before the storm

in the air a heaviness yet not so heavy

as the weight of emptiness in the Clouds

of foreboding though not so ominous as

the hollow Unknowing

in the water only Reflections the deeper

she seeks the darker the deceptions a

breath drawn in disclosing defeat a

slower breath out a sigh in relief

a Stillness now a silent trade

loneliness for lonesomeness the

acceptance made

and thunder distant a parallel song a

temporary balance and a wish to prolong

for here within steady it grows a quiet

so fierce in the fervor she knows her

heart here now the beat ever slowing the

Calm before the storm a break in

overflowing

foreign

[Applause]

so right after I took this image which

felt this was like therapy for me being

able to process my feelings through

creating

and

therapy creating these images is freeing

for me as well and then it was funny

because right after this happened

this happened this guy's Unleashed and

the rain just started pouring down and

my soul suddenly felt lighter and I

thought I just want to dance in this

storm so I quickly moved the tripod up I

hopped out of the title pool and I ran

up to this rock on the ocean side and I

just danced under the rain

as long as I could until lightning

started coming down all around and then

I was like I better get out of here and

with my tripod gonna attract the

lightning I don't know I ran back to the

tripod and ran as fast as I could up the

beach to the cabin where I was staying

this is another one of my personal

favorite images from last year also in

Madeira in final Forest

this image is called to flow as one

and I'll read to you the description

that I wrote for this one before I

continue

from the moment I saw this tree I felt

drawn to join it in its Sway and dance

to contemplate the energy in its bent

form to feel the harsh wind rushing

through its leaves to embrace the heavy

mist and torrential raindrops pelting my

skin

and as the sun attempted again and again

to break through the heavy clouds the

tree groaned through its ancient

branches and reached reached towards me

as if inviting me to join it for a dance

during our dance I imagined how this

tree has grown and lived a tree that may

look bent broken and quite small for its

ancient age yet stand strong and

resilient a tree that has been bending

and dancing with the elements for

possibly hundreds of years yet only

grows more beautiful despite its

challenges

but the tree Whispers to me it sees not

challenges but life it knows the

elements are what shapes its character

and gives it growth it knows it only has

to join with the flow

and what an honor it was to flow with it

to feel completely present and connected

in that moment flowing as one with life

itself

[Applause]

so this got me thinking more and more

throughout the last year

about finding creative flow and how that

also feeds in with working through

creative ruts and figuring out how to

keep creating and

and I began to realize how important

finding creative flow is and how

essential it is it is for our own growth

and

um and for our mental health as well

so earlier this year I went through

another one of my creative ruts for

about nine months but in July I was

inspired after finally starting to meet

up and go to conferences in person again

and the first one that I went to in

person since before kovid my partner and

I went to Prince Edward Island on the

east coast of Canada

where we both had photography talks to

give and my partner actually gave one

that it inspired me about

like creating for the sake of creating

and saying yes to creating and so many

times I I keep falling into that trap of

thinking oh I'll create later or oh I

need to do this and that and I'm just

not feeling it and I always forget how

important it is to just say yes and

create for the sake of creating and

that's medicine for me so in July after

that conference I took a solo road trip

down the coast to Cape Breton Island and

I camped around in my rental car for a

couple of weeks and exploring the

national park there and I found these

beautiful Meadows on the ocean side and

I thought it's been nine months since I

took a cell portrait I better just say

yes and do it I have no idea what I'm

going to create here but I'll challenge

myself to just

throw on the dress go out for three

hours during sunset and see what I can

come up with

and as soon as I got out there I forgot

how

Blissful it is to as soon as I start

shooting and I start looking for the

angles that I want and I can feel the

wind just whipping through my hair in

the dress and

and the cold wind after it had just

stormed as well and it just makes me

feel so alive and present and I've

realized that I found the creative flow

again and then I started thinking like

how

can I figure out a hack to get into

creative flow whenever I want to instead

of

just saying oh I'll try to create more

later and later so I started doing some

researching the last few months

and

I was trying to figure out

what creative flow is

and I ended up finding out the

description for the actual description

for a flow state

flow is the mental state of being

completely present and fully immersed in

a task

it is perhaps the strongest contributor

to creativity when inflow the Creator

and the universe become one outside

distractions received from Consciousness

and one's mind is fully opened and

attuned to the act of creating

so then I started realizing how

important this was

and realizing that flow deepens us or it

expands us and deepens us and calms us

and it truly is medicine for the soul

and apart from say eating chocolate on a

couch float is the closest that I can

come to feeling Bliss

so I ended up reading a book by Johann

Harvey called stolen Focus have any of

you read it it's it's a very good book I

highly suggest it and there was one

chapter in it that really resonated with

me where he started talking about

creative flow and right away I was like

yes this is what I need to learn

and he had a

some really wonderful advice I thought

and kind of boiled it down to three

steps that you can take

to find creative flow so I wrote those

three steps down here and I've started

implementing them into whenever I want

to do a shoot or any kind of work where

I want to embrace the creative Flow

State and the steps are actually quite

simple and I found they work

so the recipe to find flow state is one

set aside other goals and distractions

put down the phone give yourself a few

hours of completely uninterrupted time

the second step is to do something that

means something to you something that

fascinates you

and then the third and final step is

simply to meet the edge of your comfort

zone

so what does that look like for me I

realized it might look

something like this

and let me describe to you how this

was my creative Flow State this image

was taken a couple of years ago

and this is I like to call this weird

log thing in the lake My Water Horse

and

usually it's buried by the water most of

the Year often for years at a time this

lake is damned and this particular

winter

or a few Winters ago the water was low

enough that I found this tree stump

thing and I instantly had this idea in

my head to create this image of me

sitting on top of this water horse log

thing in the lake but then the the water

rose again and I knew that I also wanted

to capture this with the fog and the

Still Water and I needed all the

elements to combine

so I had to wait for all these factors

to come together and for the water level

to come low enough which was only

happens in like a one month winter

window in the winter so it took a few

years before

the water is low enough to run out to

this place and just wait for the right

weather to happen

so a couple years ago everything lined

up I ran out and this is far away from

cell range so I didn't have the

distractions of anyone calling me or

checking Instagram or any of that I was

just out there in nature everything was

still it was peaceful it was calm it was

silent serene

and then I stepped into the next step of

finding my way into Flow State the next

step for the recipe

um which is to do something that means

something to you and this image idea

that was in my head for years that I've

been waiting for this image idea meant

something to me and I wanted to capture

it this tree fascinated me and this was

finally the time to do it and then the

third step to finding myself in Creative

flow was to meet the edge of my comfort

zone which let me tell you

that water is so cold and it was zero

degrees that morning 32 Fahrenheit again

and I had to wait up to almost my neck

to get to this log

and so I had to voiced up my dress

because I don't want the dress wet I

would wade through after setting up my

camera this log because it's under the

water for 12 or I was going to say 12

months out of the year but 11 and a half

months out of the year it is covered in

thick slimy algae it is almost

impossible to climb and I didn't realize

that until I was there trying to climb

it

and also all the the spikes the branches

have been worn to really sharp spikes on

all the ends and the back side of the

tree is all just spikes leading down

into the water so as I finally got up

and I was trying to balance without

sliding off the top there and I kept

thinking I don't want to fall backwards

and impale myself on this bike down

there

so it was a challenge I met the edge of

my comfort zone

but I was trying to create this idea

this image that I had in my head for

years and then also my dog who

accompanies me on all these streets and

can't bear to be parted for me kept

trying to swim out to me thus ruining

the perfect reflection in the lake so I

had to climb back down and bring my dog

back to the shore and then wade back out

climbed back up and then he swam out

again so I had to climb back down bring

him back I ended up tying his leash to

my camera bag and hoped that he wouldn't

drag that into the water that was a bad

idea looking back on it but he did stay

thankfully so I waited back out and this

whole process took at least two hours

and

the thing was though I was so immersed

in this idea that I wanted to create I

had no other distractions there it was

just the Hands-On challenge of trying to

capture this

and yeah it was at the edge of my

comfort zone

and I honestly it was like one of the

most Blissful mornings I've ever had I

was just totally present just taking it

step by step knowing what I needed to do

next and take my dog back to shore go

back out to the log and and in the end

after I got this and I came back and I

looked at the back of my camera and I

was like

finally nailed it and right after that I

realized how cold I was and I was like

oh I gotta get back to the car and warm

up and everything but after that I did

after those two hours went by I realized

that I had no idea it was two hours it

felt like five minutes I was so lost in

that state that I was completely unaware

of everything else except what was right

in front of me

so now I remind myself of this and I I

try to remind myself of these three

steps the recipe to finding creative

flow frequently

as I come near the end of my talk I

would love to share a few of my top tips

for how to grow as an artist and these

are some things that I've learned over

the years

and the first thing is to experiment

your way to finding your Niche and like

I said the first three years before I

started my 365 project I photographed

everything like a candle the first thing

I ever uploaded to Flickr my cat my

dog's nature Wildlife mountains

anything and I I knew I wanted to be a

photographer but I

had no anxiety about like finding my

Niche my style I just did it for the

love of it and that's what I really hope

everybody else can enjoy is instead of

feeling

like you need to find your style you

don't need to you just need to do what

you love experiment and just keep

photographing whatever you want to

photograph and eventually that might

naturally lead you over the years into

falling into a style that becomes yours

the second tip which I kind of touched

on before is to create for the sake of

creating creating is medicine for the

soul

and like I said it's

that recipe for finding your creative

flow state has been very helpful for me

and now

my goal for this next year coming up is

to try to create at least one New Image

every week might not be another 365

project I don't have time for that again

but to challenge myself to do at least

one New Image create one new thing every

week and try to find that flow state

do the things that scare the crap out of

you

for example this

you wouldn't have caught me up here for

the life of me 10 years ago or even five

years ago

I would spend all my time in nature by

myself because I wanted to avoid people

I was scared of people

and the first time I ever did a public

talk I couldn't eat for three days

before I was terrified I thought I would

actually die

and then I got up there and it was only

a 20-minute talk which isn't long at all

but I did it and then I thought wow I

didn't actually die I did it

and I was still terrified but after that

first time I thought I could do it again

I don't want to but I could but then

people kept asking me to do it again and

again and I thought like how do you grow

without doing the things that scare you

and now that's brought me this is the

biggest stage I've been on to this day

which I'm very grateful for and this is

the first time I can say that I'm more

excited than nervous that I've ever been

to do a public talk so do the things

that scare the crap out of you because

it leads you to some pretty amazing

places like being here with all of you

guys

Embrace failure this is where the

biggest growth occurs and yeah I've I've

failed at public talks before and I

basically pooped my pants right before

every time as well and and even like

with photographic failures as well and

so many times I've tried to take a photo

that I thought would be amazing and then

it everything would fail the weather

wouldn't line up I would

not have my memory card in the camera

but it's all in the end I started trying

to look at it as not being down on

myself or failing but being able to

laugh at myself and and know that

it's what's the big deal if you failed

it's nobody gets anywhere without

failing you don't grow without failing

so don't be afraid just keep reaching

out there and keep going for the things

that you want to do

and don't be afraid of it

one of the most important tips

is to find your people and I know I've

said how much I love to be alone I'm

introverted love to be by myself in the

mountains but from early on when I

started finding making those friends

online through Flickr when I first

started my 365 project and then the

people that I've met in person since

then they've become my community and

more than that they've become my family

and I wouldn't be on the stage today if

it wasn't for those people

and when you can find these people you

can collaborate with them you can shoot

with them you can travel with them but

most importantly if you can find the

people that support you and that you can

support and not

treat each other as

competition but as collaborators

it's so important to have that community

and you can rise higher than you've ever

risen before when you're surrounded by

that love and when you can be that

person for other people so if you can't

find those people the best tip that I

can be

for is for you to be that person for

other people if you want to find a

community that supports you

start by being supportive to other

people start reaching out to other

people and offering your help start just

patting somebody on the shoulder and

leaving comments on their photos and

be kind and just be nice and those

people like

is attracted to like those people will

come back to you and you'll find your

family your creative family

and eventually through finding my

creative family that led me to finding

my partner Chris who's helping me up

this ice cave wall and through meeting

Chris now we can travel further into the

back country together than I used to be

too afraid to do and go explore more

epic places and

so here I am climbing up this ice cave

and

got there to figure out how to get down

but I was able to take this photo

another red dress photo on top of this

Big Snowy ice Boulder thing in the

entrance of this cave

this was just last year and this I

thought was going to be my new favorite

epic photo until I posted it and

somebody mentioned that I look kind of

like a tiny profile of a little red

chicken and like my my arm looks like a

beak

and now I can't unsee it so I just

every time I see this photo night I'd

never post it anymore because I just see

a little chicken

but that brings me to

one of my final tips which is

don't take yourself too seriously

and I mean that whenever I'm out there

in the back country like so many people

who see my photos are always like you

can't take a bad photo You're So

Graceful out there that could not be

further from the truth I am clumsy I

trip all the time but I enjoy being out

there in nature and I enjoy

just embracing everything and I have no

idea what that poses and pose is in this

photo but you can see that I usually

always still wear my comfy pants or my

pajama pants underneath the dress and

and I like to have fun out there and and

if a magical photo comes out of that

then that's great and if not then I

still had fun and the same thing goes

with

trying to pursue this life as an artist

or a photographer you don't always have

to take yourself so seriously and yes

art is serious in that it is such a

powerful tool in learning how to express

ourselves and our souls through our art

and it's so it's serious in that it is

medicine for our souls but also remember

that you don't have to take it seriously

you can

treat it like let yourself have fun and

let yourself when you fail to laugh at

yourself and have stories to share and

and just have fun with it

the final tip that I want to leave with

you all is to be curious and stay

Enchanted and I've been finding over the

years that whenever I start to feel

myself becoming a little more jaded or

or just not as inspired anymore I try to

get back into that childlike mind and

sense of wonder where when I go out into

nature

I try to see everything with new eyes

and be curious and try to figure out

like how does this fog come in off the

ocean and can I climb this Driftwood

tree here and and it's so much fun when

you look at everything through eyes of

curiosity and when you're Enchanted by

everything and I found this quote a

couple of years ago which I'll end by

reading this and it really stuck with me

it's by Gabrielle Roth

and it says in many shamanic societies

if you came to a medicine person

complaining of being disheartened

dispirited or depressed they would ask

one of four questions

when did you stop dancing

when did you stop singing when did you

stop being Enchanted by stories when did

you stop finding comfort in the sweet

territory of Silence

where we have stopped dancing singing

being Enchanted by stories or finding

comfort in silence is where we have

experienced the loss of soul

dancing singing storytelling and silence

are the four Universal healing salves

so this brings me to the end of my talk

and if you would all like to stay up to

date on what I do and follow along you

can find my website

at elizabethgad.com and also as a thank

you to everybody for being here I

created a discount code for fine art

prints this is one of the main sources

of how I make my living is by selling

fine art prints I have a few limited

edition prints of each of my works and I

release some new work every year

so I created this 45 discount code valid

for one week if anybody wants to get

advantage of it then that's great and if

not that's great too but also if you

want to sign up to the newsletter and

follow along for future Adventures or

opportunities and uh editing tutorials

or future workshops that I have coming

up I would love to keep you up to date

or if you just want to send a friendly

note I'm always here and I I love to

talk and I am so glad that you all came

out here today so thank you seriously

thank you so much that's amazing let's

hear it again for Lizzy God right

awesome thank you so much thank you

waited a long time to get Lizzy on the

stage beautiful presentation thank you

Lizzie you'll be able uh she's at the

speaker beat and greet table if you have

questions for her uh you know beat her

there uh we're gonna turn this over now

and uh thank you again so much

okay

all right so

um

when I realized that we were bringing

optic West and decided it was going to

be in Monterey a little bit of research

and I realized that the Westins are

still going strong and I am extremely

honored to be able to bring

the

grandson and great-grandson of Edward

Westin who I don't know if you guys got

my emails uh the guy who wrote the day

books and photographed vegetables who's

a darling in photography and uh did a

little research and realized that the

the Westin line is still going strong

and uh had an amazing moment up at the

the Westin house they had in the

not-for-profit area we had a we have

them there and you can do tours of the

house they teach workshops and whatnot

but found this just amazing family so a

very warm welcome to Kim and Zach Weston

come on out guys

all right hey hey hey hey here they are

okay once again come on ladies and

gentlemen

[Applause]

yeah I'm kind of new at this

um you know especially the clicker and

all that

um but anyway it's wonderful to be here

it's wonderful to have my son here and

also b h with all their wonderful camera

stuff

uh all looks pretty modern to me but you

know I'm kind of old school

um so what we're going to do tonight is

go through basically

four generations and relatively quickly

because

we had a group over the other night to

our house we live in my grandfather's

house Wildcat Hill

and

Zach was there and and Jelena who put

this wonderful PowerPoint together for

us and so you know I showed him the

house I you know went through the whole

thing went to the dark room went to my

dark room went to my studio and all in

about 30 minutes and Zach goes

you have to talk for 50 minutes

so

I'm going to talk really slow

hopefully we can fill the time I mean

I really doesn't give Justice to to my

whole family you know to do four

generations in in 50 minutes so we'll

sort of go through

um

what we're going to do here

uh

and actually as you look on on the thing

here three of the the five are dead

so I can pretty much tell whatever I

want

they're not going to come well they

might come back from the grave but you

know

um the only one I have to really watch

out for is my son Zach

but anyway

so

how did I know my grandfather

he was he was very old when I met him in

fact last night we had a dinner with

friends at our house at the same table

that I first met my grandfather at so

our house is sort of like a museum it

has artifacts and has my grandfather's

desk but that's the first time I ever

met him I was five years old and

got to sit there all I saw was some old

man

shuffling around you know or a

five-year-old and he was in his 70s you

know anybody is old

and he served us

uh cottage cheese

avocado

and then in each plate he sat there and

poured green olive oil over it

and for a five-year-old it was the most

disgusting thing visually I'd ever seen

it was like oh my God and I have to eat

this

it's so funny because Zach and I that's

one of our favorite meals uh nowadays so

how I really got to know my grandfather

was actually working with my father

because when he died Edward died

the negatives are left to my dad

and with the rights to be able to print

them which dad did for many years and at

that time

um

I think the only stipulation that was in

the will that he could not sell them for

less than 35 dollars

and there wasn't really a great demand

for Edward Weston Prince at that time I

mean photography was still sort of on

the verge of you know is it art you know

it's done by a mechanical process

um and so

dad had the rights to print him

and that's how I kind of got to know my

grandfather because I assisted my dad in

the dark room and I was able to sit

there with my dad and and see these

images

being printed and this was you know I

was in my 20s so that was and we never

really talked about Edward Weston it

never really you know was he a famous

artist or whatever there was no real

sort of

this famous person

so

that was my introduction to my

grandfather and it's funny when my when

my dad died there were people came to me

and said you know I want you to lecture

about Edward and I said no I won't I

said what is more important to me is is

not I mean he's incredible photographer

but is

at that time there are three generations

of photographers and that story was the

important part in my life and so

[Music]

um

I decided

that you know I wasn't going to do what

my father did and so we're going to run

through a couple prints here of my

grandfather this one you're seeing up

here is Margaret Mather this is done in

the in the 20s and this is very sort of

similar of that period uh Edward the

pictorial sort of soft focus this is

Margaret Mather his lover also a great

photographer

um

and

I kind of like this this series of work

that they did because it was it was very

theatrical

you can see this is called Prelude uh to

a sad spring and they they titled them

that way they were kind of romantic

stuff you know

um

and then you know he went on to Mexico

and it's funny everyone considered that

his jump to Mexico is when he really

changed his vision really started to

sharpen his Focus got away from the

pictorial period And there are there are

images of news that he did with Margaret

before he went to Mexico that were

really sharp focused beautiful nudes so

I think it was a transition period when

he went to Mexico

um of course down there he met Diego

Rivera Orozco

um Charlo it was during the revolution

so there was a lot of

turmoil

and he went down there with his his

lover at that time Tina madorte I was

also a photographer but also Edward's

assistant

and he started to do really kind of

um

even though he was still retouching he

was he was an absolute wonderful

retoucher when he was in Hollywood

he was known for his retouching ability

so he could take and he made his living

off of doing portraits he did you know

James Cagney he did a bunch of Hollywood

stars and so he would retouch their

negatives and they were shot of course

on four by five

and so we'd actually go in there and he

could remove all the lines of your face

and I have that retouching desk in our

dark room at Wildcat and we have

students over there

I tell them this is the first Photoshop

you just did it by hand you know but he

was a master at that but he he was also

a absolute recorder of

reality

he was a real stickler and if you know

the history of the f-64 group it was all

about

creating images with the camera that

just represented the camera you know

what it saw

and this is a good example of

something he didn't like some friends

had loaned him some high-speed film

so back then

the speeds of film were in the 20s so

this is probably ASA 100 which nowadays

is not a fast film but for him it was

and this is the only session he ever

used that film with with this dancer

it's a beautiful series of her legs and

her dancing and

and he never used that film again

but you can see what Disturbed him being

a realist and being someone that wanted

to things to look real that is not

looking real

so if you were standing there and you

saw him photographing this

when he printed it it didn't it didn't

look what you saw so it distracted the

visual

components of the image and that

Disturbed him he never used that film

again

I look at it

I think Ah that's way cool you know the

access lighting the fast film the the

the Blackness around the feet that to me

is would be something to go for you know

to to experiment with but

he never used that film again because it

it changed reality

so I get the right way

so where where do you get influence from

where do you think Edward came up with

doing that incredible series of work

that he did uh starting off with the

shells

going to the peppers going to all the

the vegetable matter that he

photographed which is a huge body of his

work right

where do you get that influence

he was down in La this is the one house

is done in 1927.

visiting his his friend an artist

Henrietta Shore

and she was actually painting these

shells

in her Studio

and so he saw that you know and and

there again

we're all influenced by things and that

started his his journey on and she was

painting a sim a single shell like that

that started his journey on some of his

most famous images

and

you know it went from there to

this is 14 asks and I was saying I was

looking at the slideshow the other day

and thanks to Jelena for putting it

together because I could never do it

um

this is 14 asks so he did a 1s a 2s a 3s

a 4S a 5S

he actually really worked on the concept

of making those shapes work for him

and of course it all led up

to eventually

famous One pepper 30. so that's the 30th

pepper he did

there again what I love about it is is a

fact that he wasn't satisfied with this

one pepper

he really explored and expanded the the

the sort of challenge of finding the

perfect pepper

um

this is

another pepper he did

and you can see the difference and why

did why did

why did pepper 30 become famous

you know why not

this pepper

what is this 14.

or why not

35.

that's all up to to us as as people that

consume art which is greatest images he

did eventually did 37 peppers in in this

series

and then he he was done with it

um

what I love about that is is taking an

idea and pushing it to the Limit

not just taking one photograph of one

thing

but it's it's exploring that whole range

of possibilities

uh of course it

excuse me

his

love

of many places to photograph but one was

of course Point Lopez

and this is

back in the old days in North Shore

Point Lobos where you could you know

there were no Trails or anything you

could go anywhere and um an interesting

story about this one is that

my dad and Edward were out photographing

and my dad had set up the camera

set to try eight by ten

and Edward was over photographing

something else

and he he asked Edward he said dad can

you come over and look at this I see

something here but it's not quite right

and dad had it as a horizontal

so Edward went under the dark cloth and

sat there for a few seconds and

turn the horizontal to a vertical ask

for a film holder put it in and took

this photograph

and I thought dad you know it should be

50 50. you and your father because he

didn't move the camera he didn't touch

anything all he did was change it for

into a vertical and you can see what it

did it brought in of course the tree was

always dad's sort of focus but also

brought in the rock down below and

really cemented the vision

uh quite love us of course was his

favorite place to photograph not far

from our house

and um

so Edward never drove

he never wanted to drive and so he

always had people drive him

um you know either his his sons or his

lovers because he always what he loved

to do was

when you're driving you know it's funny

I was driving in with Gina today

and I was the passenger

and was driving by Point Lobos

and she'd always talked about this tree

that had fallen over of course I'm

driving you know but today I wasn't

driving and I saw the tree you know huge

freaking tree that had fallen down and

that's why Everett didn't like to drive

because he'd lose so much of your visual

because you concentrated on the road

at least most of us are as old people

now concentrate on the road

um you know but so yeah he he he liked

that but during

during the War years

Point Lobos was closed

they had it closed down so what he did

is he he spent a lot of time working at

our house

doing sort of satirical things all his

sons were in military service this is

civilian defense

which I always kind of allowed it was

kind of fun uh

and so he photographed around the

property and it really interesting

because

a lot of the

people on the East Coast who was

following my grandfather started seeing

work like this

which is a great sense of humor you know

and they thought Something's Happened to

Edward Westin you know

he's out in California maybe he's taking

too many drugs or whatever but this is

not an ended Western you know Edward

wessons and peppers and shells and you

know and it just shows his variation and

when I look at my grandfather's work

I see it as a as a not a pepper 30. I

see it as a whole commitment to his art

and his creation of of his vision this

is another one he did

this is actually at our house and that's

Karis it's

called Spring

and um

this is actually the only photographs

that's allowed to be printed I own it

you want me to spill that on the

computer

okay

um

like like I was saying that you know all

the negatives went to my dad but uh

eventually dad sold the collection they

all went to the Center of Creative

Photography in Tucson

except for this negative

which dad gave me

um so it's the only one that's allowed

to be printed all the negatives at the

center are

um they're there for visual inspection I

think they digitized a bunch of them and

students are allowed to use those

digital ones

um in but there then have to destroy the

the images

um

this is so classic of my grandfather and

it's there again if you were standing

next to him when you looked at this

when you saw the finished print it

wouldn't be any different it would have

that same look to it there's no changing

of contrast there's no it's exactly what

it's supposed to look like and he was an

absolute master in my mind

of composition

how the photograph is put together

um which is to me the building box of

making a good photograph

there again this is MGM Studios

um just sort of

fun thing that he was allowed to go down

there

and

and it was a it's a place that I would

have just gone nuts in because they had

dis huge sets everywhere they hadn't

they had Roman

you know stuff they had moats they had

all this incredible stuff

but um he did he did quite a bit of work

there

um

this is a really good example it was one

of his famous nudes

and when Karis who is the model was

alive

she would come down it was always great

to have her at the house because

she lived there with Edward

um and she talked about this photograph

and she said you know the thing that

bugged me was the

hairpins in the hair

and I thought I hadn't even looked at

that before you know but that's classic

Model you know

analyzing everything that's that's in

the thing

and what Edward didn't like

was a shadow

and you can see why after I was telling

you he was such a stickler for reality

making things look real and what the

Shadow does

is shrink the body and lengthen it and

actually abstracts it

and that was his his comment about this

and I remember when we print it

with my dad you hold back the shadow as

much as you possibly can so it's not as

prominent but that sort of classic of of

my grandfather he

was an absolute purist in looking at

things and photographing just as just as

they as they were and not changing them

my uncle brat

was different

they love that hair you wish we could

have I wish I had that hair

I worked uh with brat for 15 years up

until he died

um

and he was probably the most dedicated

artist I ever met he was every single

day he did something in photography I

don't care if he was out photographing

he wasn't photographing he was printing

he was developing

and

there wasn't

any moment then he wasn't involved in

the photographic process

and

it's interesting how how houses

sort of reveal the personality you know

my grandfather's house is 30 by 20. the

table is as minimal his desk you know

all that is still there and we live in

that house

my uncle when I was first dating Gina

I took her out to meet my uncle because

I was working with him

and so we went out there we don't we'd

go out at he called it snake bite time

which is

the time when the snakes were coming up

and you need refreshment of some sort

mainly alcoholic you know and you say

you know the snakes are coming you know

you got to have your drinks and he

always sort of struggled with with he

wasn't an alcoholic at all but he'd

always go to the doctor and the doctor

would say hey

Brett you have to quit drinking bourbon

okay so I'd go out there to work with

him snake bite time he said

and he had this wonderful voice

he called me Bob Bob

um

stop drinking the hard booze and

doctor said I had to and it had this

wonderful soft tone to it

and he says

I'm drinking Sherry now

and he had this

excuse me huge friggin tumbler you know

filled with the cheapest Sherry you know

Gallo Sherry and that was his drink for

the night you know it was just this

cheap stuff

and then I remember also he smoked a

pipe and

you'd say I got there Bob you know my

doctor said I have to stop smoking the

pipe

okay so he would go out and throw all

the pipes

out into the field

and I'd come back like four months later

you know and I'd see them out there he's

scrounging around there what are you

doing actually I'm looking for my pipes

so I was just sort of constant you know

off the wagon but you know semi off the

wagon and and he loves smoking uh

delicatos cigarettes because he had

buddies that would go down to Mexico and

they'd bring back all whole cartons of

delicatos

and just an absolutely

wonderful person to to be around and and

I'm very very lucky you know and he

loves Zach Zach was a little kid of

course he said what are you bringing

your boy out you know and

um

very very very very very sensitive

loving loving person

um

and so

going back to Bringing Gina out there

I was like okay snake bite time have our

cocktails he loved women I mean

he was enamored I think he was married

five times but

just couldn't get it right I guess but

[Music]

um

Gina's gorgeous and so he's so polite

and so wonderful we have our drinks and

everything he shows us around the house

and then we leave

and Gina goes did he just move in and I

said what do you mean he says there's

nothing there there's nothing

it's like it's it's a Barren house and

what it was is he had no knickknacks he

had nothing the only things he had was

his Eames Sheriff the sofa in his work

up on the wall that was it there was no

nothing I had a sculpture

but it when you walked in you go into

his closet they were like

excuse me

six black shirts

six black pants and a couple of sex

boots he had these um he called him sex

boots but they were sort of like cowboy

boots you know and he would wear those

and then a couple leather jackets but so

minimalistic of

clutter around the house

that was his his way I mean he just

didn't clutter his life up

I could go on for hours on him but I'm

not going to I'm just going to go

through a couple of his photographs what

he really loved

was abstracts and

so I'm just going to basically cover

that

even though he was known for his famous

Holland Canal

which is his biggest seller and he

always said well it was a pretty picture

of a canal you know and

and that was like okay but this type of

work is what he loves it's just getting

in there and

and finding the detail and finding stuff

that interests him

um

these are these are all done with 11 by

14 camera

so those are pine needles in the snow

you can imagine

him with the camera looking down with

that extension on it to get that close

eventually he you know stopped using

large format and went down to you know

the older he got the smaller his cameras

got

um

but you know this type of stuff was

something that he really really enjoyed

doing

um and I think he got the best his best

gratitude out of it

you know his best

feeling

uh when it came to abstracts like I said

he was really good at landscapes

but

you know taking little nuances of things

made him really excited but then even

with with the larger

Landscapes look what he's done

he's actually

abstracted the landscape taking away all

the Shadows

and this is another great example

um you know if you were standing next to

him

it didn't look like that

through

you know exposure uh developing and

printing made it look like that so he

was actually using the camera as a tool

of expression instead of just recording

um which I thought was pretty

fascinating and

um

also

that's his photograph and that's his

carving

so he did both disciplines

and would usually carve

something out of his photograph

you know

um and I the reason why he did that

um

was it got him out of the dark room got

it out of the preciousness of the no

dust on your prince the no scratches you

know photography is a precious thing you

know everything has to be clean

everything has to be in order it's you

know it has boundaries you know

chemistry

carving totally different

it's it's a dirty Dusty physical thing

and

and you'll see later I I use that same

aspect in my painting

and here's a guy

my dad

um

I started photography when I was six

in his dark room at our place down in

garapatta

and I was an extremely shy kid and last

thing I ever wanted to do is get up in

front of a bunch of people and speak

you know but

my Dad loved it

he absolutely loved it he was trained in

the theater

he he worked at the forest theater he

directed plays there

I was actually in one of his plays

um you know talk about doing things that

frighten you most

you know I did not want to be in the

play and I played the same part

in Winterset which was the name of the

play that he played when he was a young

man

and

you know it's like you do things to

frighten you most I gotta do this you

know and then I thought wow

you know I don't want to skydive there's

no way I would Skydive and they said my

brother who's done it goes well you do

it with another person and I go

that's going to make me feel better both

of us dine together

you know come on

but I would sit with my dad in the dark

room six years old he had a chair that

he set me up on and I would run because

he was doing even though he ran a trout

farm he was doing portraiture at that

time and so

we

I would sit there and run his 4x5

negatives through the fixer

um

incredible man

[Music]

he started out in black and white and

it's funny I was looking at the date of

this I was one years old when that was

taken

and this Dad would tell me the story

about it that he was out with his friend

Rick Mastin who's uh poet and and

troubadour

and dad said he saw this tree and he

goes my God

I can only find a nude to go in the tree

and Rick said I'll do it and he took off

his clothes climbed up the tree and dad

took the photograph

but

he not he he had this problem

with being compared to his father

and so what he did Edward was shipped

out a lot of Color Film toward the end

of his life and Edward actually did

color work

um and it's interesting to see it

because a lot of times he would go back

and photograph

the same things he did in black and

white in color

and there there's there's work out there

of Edward's work in black and white and

same in color but he was stricken with

Parkinson's at that time and this is

sort of a period where he couldn't

photograph

and so all this color film was laying

around

and the Kodak had sent out and so my dad

trying to

distance himself from this great

photographer his father uh picked up

color and started shooting color so he's

one of the earliest

color photographers a real Pioneer in in

color photography

and it fit my dad's personality if you

ever met him it was like he was

exuberant he was Lively he was

loved being in front of the crowd

so I think it fit his personality this

photography took

when he was taking us to school

our school is off to the left there this

is Paula Colorado canyon is right there

and I remember you know it's funny

things you remember right he was driving

off three of us kids at that time

to school

and

this you know I saw as a little kid

these huge waves coming in and he goes

oh my God I gotta go back so he drops us

off at school

and goes back and takes his photograph

um and it's interesting this is another

one of his photographs and I was

actually there with him this is I'm sure

if you're local you'll recognize where

it is as Stevie Fish Ranch

and I actually have a photograph of him

taking this photograph

but yeah color really suited his

personality

um

he did a lot of traveling and what he

ended up doing which is really kind of

interesting is

as much as he tried to get his self away

from his Father's Footsteps he ended up

creating a lecture called the man not

the myth which was all about his father

so it's sort of a dichotomy there

because as much as he pushed him tried

to push himself away he ended up

spending most of his life

lecturing on his father

you do not do this

and what it did I mean he was a great

photographer but what it did is it

separated him from his art to a certain

extent and

sort of limited him but it gave him a

stage I mean he's gone all over the

world lecturing on his father and if you

think about it

that's a really satisfying thing that

his father gave him because dad ended up

on stage

how are we doing on time

oh it's almost yeah eating up the time

who's this old guy

speed it up a bit okay here here's Kim

Weston his first photographs were black

and white and he did photographs in

Point Lobos he did western things

yeah you know they told me to go slow

and now I have to speed it up

so

anyway

Weston starting out I did western stuff

trees rocks and I loved it it was it was

fun it was it's what I enjoyed

um going out with my dad going out with

Michael Brett

going to Point Lobos

and I did that

from six years old up into my 20s and

then I had this idea that this wasn't

exactly what I wanted to do you know

there was

something missing from the work and so I

started to gravitate into the studio and

do nothing but figure work

so everything in the photographs now was

my control I I made this set I painted

it and it gave me an opportunity to work

24 7.

in photography is limited to the light

spectrum or whatever

um

and I wanted to be able to create stuff

all day long and so I spent most of the

days building the sets painting the sets

and in the very beginning I used nothing

but France so I it was more like

building a set and placing the model in

the set

you know this is Gina built this big set

um Edward Hopper there again my

influences come from painters this is

directly off one of his paintings

um

and so that's how I evolved for 30 years

in

in the studio

and also when I was photographing Gina

was my model

these calla lilies I planted

and it took me two years to grow them

so it wasn't I was more concerned about

the process of getting there

than the actual final print so the final

print was a idea of the process

so it took two years to grow those

plants

and when they were ready I made the

photograph

it's another one

and

as I said painters were important to me

Degas I loved I loved his vision I it's

actually a very photographic Vision if

you know his work

and it's also not nudes you know so it

was like okay

because people have a hard time

collecting nudes

and I always tried to to make the

difference that you're not collecting a

nude you're collecting an artist you're

collecting Edward Wesson you're

collecting a Kim Weston or Zach Weston

[Music]

um

after the studio I came out Gina stopped

modeling

I had to find professional models and

that took a long time

I didn't photograph for two years it was

a little whiny baby you know I didn't I

want my mama back you know and finally

through workshops that we do and I was

meeting different women models and

struck up relationships with them and

ended up photographing them I still

they're still like family you know

they're not just happenstance uh people

that I photograph

and then we do a lot of workshops

this is with our friend George Holtz in

in New York

and so during the workshops I have some

time to photograph

and all these butterfly wings were up in

his

um his barn

and they're all over the place and so I

thought wow this is so cool so I went

and tried to pick them up

and carry him down because I was going

to shoot him and a little bit of Breeze

and they just went flying everywhere it

was like what I had to go down to the

house get a bag because they were so

light and

made this photograph

but a lot of times I work in SATs and

Ceres and themes this is one we did at

our Workshop in in Wyoming

um so there's I'm very story driven

um so there would be a SAT of

photographs and this is sort of the

final one of that set

and

um

Andrew wise Christina's story is is a

vision I have on my head whenever I

photograph

so

and then we do European workshops this

is in Germany

um

this is uh in the Dali Museum in Spain

and there again I'm shoot films so I'm

trapped by light and this really pissed

me off because the the dolly Museum was

dark super dark and all my buddies there

in the workshop they they were all

digital so they could shoot anywhere

because of the capture of light was much

faster but I'm stuck to a window

and that you know

it's not limiting to me because I can I

can get away with it

this I did two weeks ago

see I'm not going to have time to do

this

um

as Rhett as Brett did carving

um I do painting on my photographs

because it's it's a total

different thing from from photography

it's all paint driven so these are just

a series I'm going to go through them

relatively quickly silver gelatin prints

that I've painted

it's a physical action so like carving

is

um and what intrigues me the most about

it is when do you stop putting paint on

photography is done when you've taken

the picture

and the next person probably the most

important one is my son here Zach and

I'm just going to say one little

Accolade about him

he didn't start until he was later

oh there he is

um

I think it was like 22 he came to me and

he goes dad I want a camera and I said

great and I said and he had always been

around cameras you know at our place at

workshops

everything you know the

nude models running around and I said

yeah Sana I'm gonna start you out in

film you can go to digital later but I

want you to have a film base because it

it sets up everything that comes later

and so I showed him my gamma rb67 should

not allowed it and showed him how to use

a meter and set them off

and

he comes back and goes and I got these

rolls of film dad and as well okay I'll

show you how to develop them and

you know it's a simple process

and the thing is we look at the first

role that he has and there's freaking

winners on it I mean there's like

how do you do that you're not down for

the struggle I mean I I worked my ass

off for years trying to get one decent

damn print and they're one decent down

negative let alone a print and he's got

great stuff

you know

here he is

yeah I was really thankful as a kid I

was never forced into photography At All

by my parents I think it

was really helpful that I sort of came

to it naturally you know going to

Galleries and openings throughout my

life people always questioned if I was

you know gonna do photography if I'd

taken it up and I think

maybe that sort of pushed me away from

it for a while and when I was 22 in

college I picked it up actually wanted a

Mother's Day gift for my mom so I asked

my dad to teach me how to

how to use the film camera and ever

since then I was hooked and you know

I've been around photography my whole

life so even though I picked it up at a

later age I was you know surrounded by

it my whole life you know

parents all my parents friends are

artists you know they would be coming

over showing work and you know just been

in that life for that long so I think

once I was able to pick up the camera I

was you know a little farther ahead than

if I had just picked it up as a child so

yeah I photograph a lot of various

things

these ones are just like my first

you know intro into the studio you know

sort of dealing with the human form you

know I grew up watching my dad

photograph in his studio and also being

a model for him as a child so I

initially wanted to work in the studio

and try to figure out that process for

myself

um yeah and just learning how to use the

camera and those you know first couple

years

um

the last couple years we have been

collaborating on the print of the month

which is something my dad has been doing

since 2001 where you can sign up to be a

print of the month member and you get a

discounted print every month and

it's been really fun the last three

years being able to collaborate with him

on it so he does a print one month I do

a print the other month this photograph

is from our current series which is a

baltha series we went over it pretty

quickly but

um you know my dad's painted stuff he is

heavily influenced by painters most of

his work comes from that influence so it

was fun to be able to you know have like

a project in mind you know I never took

Photography in high school or college or

anything so I never had any like

assignments to sort of take part in so

it's really you know a super fun time to

have this connection it's also you know

my dad is my inspiration so being able

to work with him and we have a very fun

competitive uh Behavior between us you

know who has a better photograph and and

all that stuff so it's it's just it's

just a really you know

fun experience to be you know working

with him on that and

um

yeah you know I I think a lot of my

figure work you can there's influence of

you know from his work you know as a

child

I remember getting up early and sitting

in front of the heater in the dark room

when he would print so you know the

chemistry sort of soaked in over the

years I think

but I really love abstracts my you know

my great uncle Brett

um very influenced by his photography

his abstracts that really rich black and

white texture and you know

really pulling out the interesting

things and the everyday objects and

making somebody really look at you know

look at the photograph for a you know a

long period of time instead of just sort

of glancing at it and going on to the

next thing and really you know

thinking about it and like stirring up

some emotions

it's pretty funny in the previous you

know in my dad's section he had that

photograph of a tide pool

in the 80s and it's I didn't I never saw

that photograph until we put this

presentation together and it's very

similar to these ones that we took at

Western Beach during covid which was a

super special time to be able to go to

Western Beach

2020 with just my dad and my mom when

everything was shut down for the most

part nobody was there and it was just

really cool to be there and photograph

and

um we have a cool little video on

YouTube about it but like my dad

mentioned workshops this is in Spain

Dolly's house I've been fortunate enough

to be able to accompany them

a lot of amazing locations to photograph

and I think you know

it's just been really fun to tag along

and

be able to help out with their workshops

and you know we have some exciting ones

coming up next year but

you know I really like finding things

close to home

there's so many things in this area that

are just amazing and I like to find

those things and highlight them and

you know

really bring out the beauty in everyday

objects

but now we'll transition to the Westin

Collective so it's a the Western

Collective is a non-profit started by my

parents back in 2004 they saw a need to

sort of reignite the love for

photography in this area and schools

were getting cut with funding you know

dark rooms were getting slashed art

departments were the first to get cut so

they established a portfolio competition

for high school and college students to

submit a portfolio of 10 images and the

students had a chance to win cash

scholarships up to a thousand dollars as

well as have their image hung in a show

and since 2004 we've awarded over 120

000 to local high school and college

students

[Applause]

and it used to be just Monterey County

but the last this last year we've

Incorporated Santa Cruz County into it

as well we've also incorp allowed

digital photographs into it as well it

used to be just film but

um you know realistically

dark rooms are harder and harder to come

by and at the Westin Collective we're

just trying to expand our reach and try

to get as many students as we can

into the competition you know we started

in 2004 with three entries I think and

this last year we had 90 and these are

you know tangible portfolios of 10

images in a portfolio box that we have

local judges local photographers come

and pick through them so it's it's just

really inspiring I mean my like my dad

always says

these kids might not actually do

anything with photography after this but

they can look back and look at this

portfolio and you know have a sense of

accomplish accomplishment because

putting a portfolio of 10 printed

mounted images is a task in itself let

alone in a public high school where you

have 25 other students working together

we have had the show at the Monterey

museum of art for the past few years

which has been really

really amazing a lot of the kids

having their work hung up in a museum in

a show is more rewarding than the cash

scholarship that they get you know and

and some of them is the first time

they've ever been recognized for

anything so it's like a pretty special

thing we have an award ceremony out in

the courtyard we have all the parents

and the teachers come and we read off

the awards and it's just you know it's

amazing to see the the students faces

light up when they hear their name being

called

um in 2018 we established headquarters

at Martin Luther King School of the Arts

we're lucky enough to partner with them

we have a studio space that has all the

processes for photography it had a side

room a side storage room that my me and

my dad built into a dark room so we have

a fully functioned dark room that can be

rented to the community it's 15 bucks an

hour chemistry included we also built a

developing room and we serve the

students at Martin Luther King School of

the Arts as well as our community

members so it's just like a for many

years you know we never had a

headquarters to put all this stuff in so

my parents have been accepting donations

of equipment for many many years and

we're still accepting donations

but to able to have a place to put it

and actually you know a location is has

been really special

so we we teach an after school program

to fifth and sixth graders at Martin

Luther King School of the Arts

and it's been a very rewarding

experience to be working with them we

recently put in a digital photography

lab as well so we're working with the

kids with digital first sort of getting

them hands on the camera figuring out

exposure and then transitioning to the

dark room so it's it's really cool

though because as the kids were like

begging to go in the dark room you know

like I thought maybe they would like

digital more because of that instant you

know feedback but they were just biting

to get into the dark room it was just

like really cool to see that interest

with these kids because I don't like I

don't think these kids have photo albums

when there were kids if that makes any

sense like it's a weird transition you

know generation transition so it's it's

cool to be able to get them in the dark

room and be you know using their hands

as a with a tactile process

um

we also offer a community darkroom

course two days a week from six to nine

so we have a group of seven

photographers that come in and use the

dark room and you know keeping film

photography live which is amazing

and you know we also offer workshops we

have dark room workshops alternative

processes you know we even have digital

printing it's the whole gamut of stuff

um yeah so back to the after school

program

we are working with the kids and local

businesses in a project called facing

Seaside this is our second uh rendition

of the program we actually have an

exhibition this upcoming Thursday at our

studio if anybody is still in town for

it

we had local businesses come up to the

studio and the students took portraits

of the business owners and so we'll be

featuring those prints as well as some

of mine and some of our education intern

Nadia Gutierrez so if you guys are

around you should come up and check it

out

um yeah we've support for the collective

over the years has been amazing we do an

annual fundraising dinner new new

Bohemian nights where we have guests

come to our house have dinner you know

and just sort of are in that creative

atmosphere at Edward's house and

um yeah it's been amazing you know we

have tons of sponsors we've we got a lot

of recent amazing grants from the

Chapman Foundation the California Arts

Council

and yeah it's been it's been amazing so

it's I'm glad to have taken my parents

dream and built upon it

and yeah more to come on that

I want to talk about the book

just just really quickly

um

this is our new book I've never had a

book before it's going to be about 350

pages

Mike

it's here

it hasn't gone away

um actually if you want to hear the

whole story about the stories I just

briefly went on you're going to have to

buy the book

uh

um because yeah I go into detail about

it's four generations of photographers

so

um yeah

real brief

um we also run fine art photography

workshops at our home in Carmel

Highlands and all over the world we do

group workshops we do private workshops

we do fine art nudes we do Landscapes we

do Platinum workshops

you can be very creative you know we do

all sorts of cool stuff I mean

we do two workshops a year at least at

our home at Edward Wesson's house in the

highlands and um

yeah so it's a great place just full of

creativity and it's amazing to be able

to create and to continue that Tradition

at his at his uh you know residence I

think he would be you know proud that

we're doing that

um you know we also do destination

workshops all over the world like we

talked about you know

Spain Germany Wyoming New York

you know Palm Springs

um yeah we do it all

let's see and yeah

next year 2023 we're excited to announce

that we're going to Europe

so we're doing like a two-part Workshop

first week we're going to be in a state

in Lisbon outside of port in Portugal

and then we're going to be in a Tuscany

in Villa

a villa in Tuscany

so yeah

thank you guys for being here and yeah

[Applause]

okay ladies and gentlemen thank you uh

this concludes the programming for today

uh The Westerns will be outside at the

Western Collective table uh answering

any questions you may have we also have

three open bars and welcome to now the

cocktail reception part of of optic at

six o'clock we will be doing on the

Explorer stage a trivia sponsored by

SanDisk and at 6 30 we'll be announcing

the winners of the optic challenge day

one which was pretty easy for the

winners because there weren't so many

entries today on day one so tomorrow I

expect you guys to get lots of shots of

the whale watching the sunrise shoot and

also shooting at our macro tables let's

hear once again for the westons

okay thanks everyone have a drink on us

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