FRAMES Photography Podcast
FRAMES Photography Podcast
Richard Bernabe
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In today's episode, W. Scott Olsen speaks with Richard Bernabe, an American nature, wildlife, and travel photographer, author, educator, and host of the Beyond The Lens podcast.
You can visit Richard's Instagram profile here.
Find out more and join FRAMES here.
Anyone who does photography knows that photos doesn't have to make you happy, but I think the good ones make you feel something. And it could be sadness, it could be melancholy, it could be any number of, you know, it could be dark and and uh frightening. But if they make you feel something and it makes your viewers feel something, and they connect in that way, they're more likely to be successful than, okay, well, this is this is just an interesting thing, and I just shoot it because it's interesting. They have to connect with the viewers on an emotional level, but in order to do that, you have to feel something yourself. It's hard to manufacture that, it's hard to make that up.
SPEAKER_01This photography podcast is brought to you by Frames, a quarterly printed photography magazine. Here is today's host, W. Scott Olson, with another fascinating conversation.
SPEAKER_02Well, hello, everyone, and welcome to another podcast from Frames Magazine. My name is Scott Olson. And folks, today we are gonna have so much fun. I am so excited about today's project because we're going outside. We're going wildlife, we're going landscape, we're going out into remote areas as well as close to home. And we're gonna be talking with one of the very best, very best landscape wildlife photographers out there. I'm gonna say it wrong here. I always want to say Burnaby, but it's Burnaby. That's correct. Richard Burnaby. Good job. Good job, Scott. Thank you, sir. Um, I mean, man, we're we're talking 1.4 million followers on social media. He's got at least 135 followers on Instagram. He's got another 100 plus uh on Facebook. I think I just got that backwards. It's a hundred plus on Instagram, 135 on Facebook. And he's got workshops. He's got at least 10 books from what I've been able to count. His work has been in National Geographic, Audubon, Sierra Club, National Parks, Outdoor Photography, photographer, and popular photography. He received the National Conservation Award by Trout Unlimited. His client, New York Times, Time, Audubon, it just goes on and on. Patagonia, canon. This is a guy whose work is special. You mean you look at a lot of wildlife stuff, you look at a landscape, a lot of landscape stuff, and a lot of it can be competent, but also, frankly, mundane. It's the same picture we've seen a thousand times. You get to somebody who has a voice, you get to somebody who's got a vision, and there's something about the image itself that strikes you as, for reasons that are difficult to put into words, strikes you as somehow more present, more in tune with the connection between photographer and subject and us, the viewer. Richard has got all sorts of workshops out there if you're interested in joining his work. But I gotta tell you, gang, if you want to go to Patagonia, it's sold out. You want to go to Botswana, sold out. Want to go up to see the polar bears just north of me, up in Churchill, Manitoba, it's sold out. Um, these this man's workshops are really, really popular. There are a couple that are still open. You can go check that out. We'll have a link at the end. But this is the kind of work that when I do it, I realize I've got a lot of learning still to do. So I am looking forward to today's conversation. Richard, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?
SPEAKER_00I'm doing great, Scott. Well, I just want to know what do I owe you for that incredibly kind introduction.
SPEAKER_02Well, what you owe me is a fly fishing lesson. How about that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm I've I've not done that in a while. I don't have the time, but I would love, you know, a good spot, and you have the time. Um I would take you up on that in a minute.
SPEAKER_02You got, you know, I I am one of these days going to start a a uh a series of photographers who are also fly fishers. Because believe it or not, like Chris Nichols up at Petopixel, he's got all of his videos about camera gear. You do a little bit of research, he's got just as many videos about fly fishing gear. I've probably interviewed 10 photographers all over the world, you know, and in conversation, you guys know that they also do fly fishing. And I do think there's a connection.
SPEAKER_00That was my gateway was fly fishing photography. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay, let's start with the origin story. You talk about being an outdoor kid when you were growing up and you'd go out fishing, and you just had a camera along with you. And then somehow the camera became more attractive, interesting, problematic, whatever. So just tell me how fishing got you into photography.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, okay. So um my story isn't quite as linear as that, but yeah. Um I I grew up loving nature and loving wildlife and uh and fishing too, as a kid. And then you reach a certain age when you're in your teens and your twenties and your your um interests go off in different directions. You know, that's not as cool anymore, right? So um at some point in my late 20s, early 30s, I was reacquainted with my first loves again. And um I it was, you know, was it whether it's backpacking or or hiking and fly fishing was a couple of things. And fly fishing uh was something I was immediately attracted to. And it's so visually stimulating. It's just a beautiful, beautiful sport, everything about it, from the places you go to to do fly fishing. There's not many places that are ugly where you know, for example, trout live.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00Um, and then just the cast. Uh it's just a beautiful, like parabolic cast. Um, the the flies, the fish themselves are just, you know, the spots and beautiful colors and everything about it is just screams. Um, you know, take a picture of this, take a picture of this, take a picture of this. So it was just sort of my way to document, you know, where I was going, what I was doing, showing my friends and family, all the crazy stuff I was was uh into. And then um, yeah, I just decided I figured out that, you know, I thought, not knowing much about photography, he's like, why isn't the camera doing what it's supposed to do? Why is it not, you know, why why when I got my 24 prints from the drugstore, why is it like, well, this one didn't come out, this one didn't come out, this one this maybe one in 24 would actually look like what I saw, what I felt at the time, but I wasn't doing anything different from that one than it was the other 23 that weren't. And so just being a curious person, I kind of look into, well, how does the how does the camera and film see visual information opposed to how the human visual system does and the eye and the brain and all that? And it was a wonder that anything came out looking like what I saw. And so I just started taking it more seriously and got more more into it. And soon I found myself going out uh for the purpose of taking photographs, and the the other stuff was secondary.
SPEAKER_02Right. This is not a response to your fishing skill, right?
SPEAKER_00Well, yeah, the fishing was it was easy to say, hey, okay, um maybe uh uh I could be a better photographer than fishermen, but I I didn't love it any less. I didn't love it any less.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and and we should know you you have an infinite number of publications about fishing. You you are a very good fisher. But I'm curious when you said you know, you'd take the camera with you, but the photos didn't turn out, composition uh you know, or the technical stuff, you know, the light and shadow, that kind of stuff. What what is it about the early ones that didn't work that prompted the curiosity that then led you to figure out how to make them work?
SPEAKER_00Well, I'm sure composition was part of it, but the main thing, and I didn't know it at the time, was just dynamic range. I didn't I didn't understand dynamic range. So I was taking photos of people in streams or rivers with dark shadows and bright highlights, middle of the day. And it looked fine, you know, to uh my human visual system. What I saw and what I experienced looked perfectly fine, but the camera just particularly the narrow dynamic range of film, you know, back in the late, you know, mid-90s. So um or they're overexposed, or I'm shooting into the sun and it's all clear. I didn't understand. I just thought that the camera's job was to document what I saw, and very few of them were coming out like what I saw. So I better I bought a better camera and I just made more expensive mistakes. And it wasn't until I really began to examine and say, okay, well, the here's some things that the camera uh can do and what the camera can't do. As opposed to I have binocular vision, the camera only has one lens, so you know, capturing depth is difficult, or the dynamic range of the film, shooting Velvia and Provia film, where the dynamic range was, I think for Velvia was three and a half stops and pro via was five stops. Um I can see 16 stops of light between the shadow and darkness. So um those sort of things. And and I just found it fascinating. I just embraced it, and I started getting people asking about, you know, do you have photos for this article I wrote in this magazine? I'm like, well, yeah, I've sent them some slides and uh all of a sudden these magazines are sending me checks. And I was like, well, okay, this could be something, right? Maybe, maybe.
SPEAKER_02Do you remember when you first started thinking of yourself as a photographer versus somebody who takes pictures?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that that's a that's a a really gray area. I don't remember there there being a specific moment. It just kind of gradually happened over time when I started thinking about, I think it was when when I started thinking about more about composition. And you know, it was very rudimentary at the time, but I began to realize that there is certain aesthetics that what I saw, and I mainly got that by looking at other photographs. I'm like, why does what do these photographs appeal to me and these don't? And so I would start making mental notes of like, okay, well, this one has you know this balance between where my subject is and where the bright area is over here or this tree over here, and they create shapes if you if you if you connect them. And um then I started drifting away from the people in the photos and started looking at landscapes and and um going deeper that way.
SPEAKER_02Okay, I was I was gonna ask when you when you got away from the trout stream. Did you go more into landscape or wildlife first?
SPEAKER_00It was it was landscape first. And um because I was in some really beautiful places, even though I saw wildlife from time to time at that time, and this is um I made the break into um into full time, which is around 2003, um, landscape was much more difficult to make money from than you could with with shots with people in it, was much easier commercially. Yeah, um, but I couldn't afford the big wildlife lenses. I knew that if I wouldn't want to do wildlife, which I always loved, I couldn't afford, you know, $7,000, $8,000, $10,000 for a lens at that time. So it was a um a matter of I still love being in nature. I love capturing the beautiful light at sunrise and sunset. And but I really couldn't afford the the equipment to do wildlife at that time.
SPEAKER_02In in one of your Kelby One videos, you say wildlife photography isn't about gear and it isn't really about the animal either. It's about connection. Right. Well, okay, unpack that one for me. But but you know, just like there's the exposure triangle, we've got this other triangle here of gear, animal, viewer. Talk to me about that connection.
SPEAKER_00What does it really mean for you? Okay, so to go back to um what I said earlier about not being able to afford a gear, I didn't know at the time that the gear was nearly as potent as I thought it was. Okay. So now you do need, you know, obviously some kind of gear. And just for the sake of compressing, if you're doing wildlife, you you know, a lot of the shots you do want to compress that distance and have the background out of focus, and you need to keep a respectful distance from animals, whether it's for their sake or for your sake. So you do have to have you know certain tools to be good at wildlife. But in the end, like you said in the introduction, that you know, anyone can document wildlife as a as a as a for a field guide, for example, like this is what a polar bear looks like. Um most people have the competency to get it in focus and have enough negative space around it and uh have pretty good light. But when I talk about connection, that is um you know, getting low, getting that eye-to-eye connection with the animal, showing, showing some environment, showing um some empathy, you know, particularly now when so many of our fellow animals are are facing you know environmental problems and dangers and their numbers are plummeting. Um, how do you create an image that endears uh them to other people so that we'll care that they even exist? And so that's that's what I'm talking about, the connection. And a lot of it has to do with um your your physical uh space, like getting down low so that you're not shooting down on the animal where you have that condescending um downward angle where it's like a dominance where you're you're making eye contact, you're down low on their level so it shows like mutual respect and um like we're on equal equal terms. But I I'm trying to like when I when I see an animal, I think most wildlife photographers, their first their initial impulse is to grab the longest lens on the bag and just and zoom in as close as possible and fill the frame and so they can count the eyelashes and that sort of thing. My first look is um I'm I want to show us you know the storytelling part of the animal, the the environment in which it lives, maybe the prey that it's you know, I was just in the Serengeti a few months ago, and these great images of the cheetahs walking by with all the wildebeests in the background. Um and also by going beyond the connection part, but by going wider and showing more of the environment, you bring more visual elements into the frame and you make it more complex and you and you create uh a more dynamic image, more layers and and um more connections where you can visually connect uh, you know, elements and create diagonals. And, you know. So my first look is always the wider look first. And then if nothing else works and it's just a distracting background or an ugly, you know, dirt bank or something that doesn't really work, then my my second look is always going uh uh tighter.
SPEAKER_02Okay. There's like 500 questions from here that I've got to do that. No, no, I want to pack. So let's let's let's begin with with probably one of the more difficult ones. Um, you know, you say you you want to bring empathy into uh the images. Um, you know, you don't see that listed on gear specs an awful lot. Um, you know, how is it a photographer? I mean, and you've talked about you know shooting from above or shooting you know, you know, from below, you know, eye level, that kind of stuff. But if one of your goals is empathy, how does that affect the way you approach everything from composition to when you're gonna shoot and how intrusive you're gonna be?
SPEAKER_00Okay. Uh I'm gonna give you a couple examples. I have an image from the north shore of Alaska. I'm shooting polar bears. And they're um the ice is just starting to settle in. This is not the polar ice, this is like called fast ice, so it's kind of temporary. And they're playing, they're going in the water, they're coming up on the ice, and I have a picture of a polar bear basically its head kind of sticking up out of the ice. And instead of zooming in tight with a 500 millimeter lens, I went wider. I took my 24 205 and it shot about 50 millimeters. I've got the polar bear coming out from the ice, and then I have all this extra negative space around it. People are like, why did you compose it this way? The reason is because all that negative space creates a it's it's got an emotional trigger. It should it um expresses loneliness, it expresses fragility, desperation, even, which kind of falls into the the narrative of the polar rare being a critically endangered animal and being under attack because of climate change. So a tighter shot would show more power, for example. A wider shot with all that negative space around it shows a feeling of isolation and loneliness and fragility that the tighter image couldn't show. And then some other examples are like um, you know, we as humans, we understand the like the mother-child bond. So interaction between animals, you know, the mother and the cub, just stick some we're talking about polar bears, so it's to go with polar bears. The interaction between the two, we can relate because we can relate as humans. That's endearing as well. That that expresses empathy.
SPEAKER_02Well, no, I'm I'm looking at your Instagram or your Facebook page here. Um, you've got the cheetah and the Serengeti just sort of stretching, but again, a lot of environmental context there. You've got an elephant, sort of way off in the distance uh in Tanzania, but we got the clouds and the grasslands and stuff. So the this portrait, this environmental portrait, that this portrait in setting um is is a part of the style that you're bringing to your work.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I think any what, like I said, I could think it it's it's more complex. It has different layers in the photograph that a tight image taken with a 600 millimeter lens wouldn't show you. And so that those layers show can express movement and shows environment and tells a story. Um, I just find that to be much more interesting than, like I said, the initial impulse of a lot of wildlife photographers is to pull out. I mean, you spend you spend $12,000 for a lens, by God, you're gonna use it, right? You're not gonna let it sit in the bag. But and I think that's what the the initial impulse of most are. And my first look is I'm looking for the wider scene. I'm gonna tell a story, I'm gonna make it more dynamic compositionally. Um I'm I'm I'm looking for motion-based type images.
SPEAKER_02Um how much, go back to gear for a second, how much of gear, I forget the technical side, how much of a gear is the vehicle for voice, the vehicle for what you want to say? Because I'm thinking you you've got two shots that struck me. One is is a tortoise of some sort, um, and you're down below wide angle lens, what I, you know, I don't know what it was, but it it's it's a really um present dynamic picture. But then I was also looking at a short video of yours of an elephant pulling some branch uh off a tree to eat it. And clearly this this is not a wild elephant. It's got a collar on there's some other guy in the shot. But looking at it, it dawned on me you were using a wide angle lens in a you know portrait orientation um on that one. Do you look at gear as as voice?
SPEAKER_00It can be. Um so I like to go against convention, and you don't get many opportunities to shoot wildlife with a wide-angle lens, uh, for their for their sake and for your safety. So a giant tortoise in a Galapagos, it's very they don't move very fast. There are limitations that the park places upon you as to how close you can get. But I get as close as I can legally, and I get down and is and uh actually I'm using the flipping out the L C D of the screen and get the camera on the ground, I'm pointing it upward to get that that image. Um, and then an elephant, that one I think that you saw was from Manipools in Zimbabwe. And that is actually a wild elephant, but um they are very um accustomed to humans, and so you can get out and walk and on that that particular elephant actually able to reach out and grab its tusk, but it's 100% wild. It's just that um it's it's it's it's been conditioned to be around here now. It's almost like a tame elephant, but it is completely wild. But that was just a um a fun iPhone uh video. Oh, really? Yeah, it's a fun iPhone video that I took of of that one. But elephants, depending on the situation, you know, we had Craig in in uh in uh Kenya in Embasselli that was like 54, 56, he's recently passed away. Um, that I could get down low and allow him to get very close and feel safe. And and he he was obviously safe and felt comfortable with me. Um, I would be up against the vehicle down low with a 24 millimeter lens, and he would walk right up to me and I'm shooting upwards. But those those opportunities are rare. Those are rare. You don't get many opportunities where now there are situations where I can still use a wide angle lens, like you mentioned, there's a on my Instagram page, the elephant with the really stormy looking skies, and I've got I've got the elephant down in the corner. Um almost that that tension of having it near the edge. But that's wide angle, too. That's wide angle, but I didn't have to get close there. But what I was still able to use a wide angle lens and bring in all those elements of that stormy twilight to really create that mood that that's the it was the mood, the moment that I was trying to express and photograph. I just happened to have a well, lucky to have an elephant in there too. Yeah, we we should all be so lucky. But I mean the lenses are tools, they're just tools, they're tools, and when you expand how just like just like any tool, like a carpenter knows what each tool does, what their capabilities are, when not to use them, when to use them, and each lens is a tool, and you use those for to kind of match what your vision is at the time.
SPEAKER_02Well, walk me through a picture you posted just recently called The Prophets, the the three giraffes. Um, because I gotta tell you, when I was scrolling past that one, my heart just turned over. That's that's a magnificent photograph.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um so um this was taken a few years ago, and I had it for some reason I had it as a panel, and I recently just cropped the sides off and made it two by three. But this is this is an embecelle in Kenya, also. And just adjacent to Embassy of the Park, there's a dry lake bed, and it's just barren, and um Sometimes you get elephants coming through there. And that morning that was there, there happened to be these giraffes. And I'm down low again. I'm down on the ground. I'm shooting kind of upward. There wasn't that interesting a sky, but there was some kind of low clouds hanging. And I'm just waiting. I'm I'm taking some I'm taking photos as they're moving around, but I'm waiting for a composition. I'm waiting for some kind of arrangement that works aesthetically. And the one that you're referencing has that the three, which the rule, there's what is called the rule of odds, which I kind of debunk in a lot of our talks, but um, but where the ones in the middle is looking right at me, I think, and the other two are kind of almost mirroring each other on the sides. Um, but it's it's the barrenness, it's the simplicity really of the image that makes it.
SPEAKER_02This is it's in black and white, and you say you that you recropped it. You've also said, I mean, you've complained that people think about post-processing as a separate activity. Um and I've always thought of it as a separate but equal but co-equal um exploration. You know, you you come home with an image, um, and now I'm going to rediscover it as a as a as an image, not as an experience. With this image, but just in general, what is your philosophy of post-production after you're you're home?
SPEAKER_00Okay, so you you've done some homework. You've done some homework. A little bit. Because um I I did a class with Kilby One and it and it and it because they do a lot of post, they're big in the a lot of classes on post-processing and library and Photoshop and all that. So I did a class where I tried to convey the message that you tried, do you think of creating an image um using both of those at the same time, so that when you're in the field, when I'm when I'm some sometimes your strategy will depend on how I'm going to process it later. And so you could think of this this happens more with landscape than wildlife, but even the simplest, like I know that the dynamic range of the scene is going to be you know too great to capture in one exposure. So I'm gonna bracket, for example, and then I'm going to blend them later. So I'm thinking in the field about the post-processing later. And then you could think of um focus stacking as another one. And there's several different ways of part of the strategy as to how I capture in the field involves how I'm going to process it later. So that if I don't think about how I'm going to capture it, I can't do certain things later in post-processing. So I tried to, I was trying to get people to integrate the two into one holistic strategy rather than, okay, I've taken all my shots. Now I'm going to go post to process these. That you need to be thinking about the post what kind of strategy strategies you can use in post-processing while you're in the field and make it one seamless process rather than two separate ones, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_02No, it does because I think what happens is, you know, we learn post-processing, so we know what's possible. And with enough practice, then that possibility becomes part of our imagination when we're looking through the viewfinder and saying, okay, you know, I know I will be able to do this, or I know I have this challenge to overcome. Um, you know, something as simple as don't blow out your highlights. So, okay, so I'm going to underexpose a little bit. What I'm looking at, if I've got an EVF, you know, is not what my eye sees, but it's what my imagination knows is going to be coming down the line.
SPEAKER_00Right. So knowing what you can do later will affect how you capture in the moment, in the field. So it's one seamless process, not two separate ones.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Okay. That that's um to me, you know, and and I I agree a thousand percent. Um what tickles me though is I get home and I call up something in Lightroom, and there's suddenly something in the image I didn't see when I was out there. Of course. Um, you know, and and it could be as simple as cropping left or right, but it could be, you know, actually something in the image. And there's this brand new sense of creation and creativity and and discovery sitting at my computer, not not as uh visceral as it is out in the field, but still pretty damn interesting. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Let's take just a quick break. We hope very much that you're enjoying today's episode. The very fact that you are listening to this podcast suggests that photography means a lot to you. And if that's the case, you might want to have a look at Frames Quarterly Printed Photography Magazine. We truly believe that excellent photography belongs on paper. Visit readframes.com to find out more about our publication and use the coupon code podcast to receive a recurring 10% discount on your new Frames magazine subscription. And now back to today's conversation.
SPEAKER_02In your classes, um, I was really um intrigued because you know you're promoting it and you're saying, we're gonna talk about gear, we're gonna talk about light, and the next thing out of you said, and we're gonna talk about ethics. Ethics. I loved it. Okay. Um how complex these days is wild, ethically complex is wildlife photography?
SPEAKER_00Well, um, I think social media has done a disservice here because there is such pressure, I think a lot of photographers have, to produce. If they're they're saying, I'm I'm going out to the Tetons, and I'm gonna get you all these great images and stay tuned and you know, you know, follow me on Instagram. You gotta see. And I think what that has creates so much pressure for them to produce, to create. And there's competition and all this, and that that invites uh opportunities to cross ethical lines. I think the the pressure and the competition, um to approach animals too closely, um, to bait animals. I mean, we have um there were some some highly publicized, one of them was in a Teton's where they were baiting fox to come really, really close to the camera so they could do wide-angle lens of the fox, you know, coming into like a 20 millimeter lens. Um a very common uh practice in Canada with the snowy owls, where they bait them with a live mouse and have the snowy owl fly in, and you have a group of photographers all shooting as the as the snowy owl flies in low to the ground and get gets the those are all unethical ways to do photography. And um it's almost a cliche, but it's absolutely true that no no photo is worth the you know endangering your your subject.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay. Yeah, absolutely. Um what about just notions of exploitation? What about just notions of of exposing uh it it can you be exploitative if you're doing wildlife photography?
SPEAKER_00I don't I don't think so. No, you don't you don't have to be exploitative. Um if you're not you're you're you're not putting the the the life of the animal in danger in any way. You're you're you're uh a fly on the wall, you're not I mean there there's different degrees. There's there's some people will contend that if the animal makes eye contact with you, you've already um altered their behavior. Right. So and some people don't like wildlife photography where you're making eye contact. I I love eye contact with with animals, and I love photos that make eye contact because you're fully engaged. You're you know, now as a photographer, you're part of the image when you think about it, right? Where the purist might say, well, the the the wildlife photograph should be um not making eye tact. You're you're like the fly on the wall perspective, and you're just a passive observer, and that's that's the purest way to do wildlife photography. I'm not quite so sure of that. And it depends on the situation. If you're on, you know, you're on safari and the animals are, you know, they expect they've grown up with these safari vehicles going constantly through their territory. It's only part of the furniture. And having eye, you know, a lion make eye contact is not putting the that animal in danger. Um what I don't like is the overcrowding in like say Masay Mara, where I don't even go anymore because it's so crowded that you can't the animals are are surrounded by you know a phalanx of of safari vehicles and they're just like trapped and they don't think about leaving them a an exit. Like this when you surround them, that they're gonna get nervous and they're gonna feel stressed. Um, you know, create a semicircle. If you can have if you're gonna have five or six vehicles, at least make a semicircle, leave them an exit, you know, exit where I have to get off and get away if they want. It's there's so many different degrees of that, but you can do wildlife photography ethically, obviously.
SPEAKER_02I don't Okay. It it it's it's funny you bring up the eye contact stuff because that same argument goes on with street photographers. You know, you you should be completely invisible, or no, you should engage with your subjects. I mean, it's it's unresolvable, it's just a matter of style and and taste, finally. But um, it it's odd that urban street photography and wildlife photography are having the the same uh ethical question here. Um you brought up something that I find really compelling as a question. Um, and and I want to hear what you have to say, because you've done a fair amount of Antarctic work uh as well. And and just for full disclosure, I'm jealous as hell. I've not been there. Um I want to go and in in the worst way, and I'll get there someday. But I saw a picture, I forget where, a few years ago, and it was one of these expedition ships going down there. And the picture was taken from an upper deck looking down, and at the rail, there had to be 15 photographers, all standing shoulder to shoulder, you know, their lenses all pointed at the same iceberg or whatever. Um, and my first thought was how horrible this was, because you know, you know, these people have all spent a boatload of money, and they're absolutely gonna be undistinguishable from each other. And then somebody tapped me on the head and said, No, Scott, actually, look at that. There's 15 different lenses, 15 different talents, 15 different voices. And yes, they're all standing next to each other, but you're gonna wind up with 15 original, substantially different from each other images. And I'm not so sure I buy that, but it was it was a way of looking at it I hadn't thought of before. When you go to these places and there's a boatload of photographers, do you, I mean, do you turn around and walk away because your works can be derivative, or do you simply say, no, you guys haven't done it my way?
SPEAKER_00I think both can be true. Uh uh, you know, what your friend said about um, you know, having 10 photographers shoulder to shoulder photographing the same subject can come away with 10 different iterations of that subject. I I believe that to a point. Um the eight, right? There may be two or three that are almost exactly the same. And that's we tend to see things similarly, right? We as photographers particularly, we we we we learn and we we train ourselves to see things very similarly. So there are gonna be some some uh three of the same thing. But at the same time, um it, you know, if you're in a in you're in a boat and you combine this beautiful blue iceberg, and there's there's uh you know six or seven penguins on it, and you're you know, you're you're not gonna go shoot that. I mean, so everybody's gonna go want to go shoot it. So you you have the option of not shooting it. You just go go to the other side of the boat, it'll be the no one will be there, and you can photograph something else. Or, you know, there's gonna be the FOMO thing where you you want to get the the iceberg. Of course, now the boat is moving. So as the boat is moving, you're you're constantly getting an not only a good look, a different look at the iceberg with the penguins on it, but the background's constantly changing. It's it's because of the movement. So it's it's it's hard to get the same sh exactly the same shot and every you know every subject that goes by, unless the you know boat is is stationary, even you know, hardly ever does that happen.
SPEAKER_02Um, what about Antarctica appealed to you and and and made you want to go there?
SPEAKER_00Well, yeah, I've been I guess eight or nine times now.
SPEAKER_02Thanks.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for that, um that was that was for you. So yeah, I've been very lucky. It is um, first of all, it there's there's no other place like it. So I I I tell people when they're first going, I said, you know, there's a lot of places where you could say um, like Death Valley. If you haven't been to Death Valley, there's another place like it. You can go to you know the Arabian Peninsula or the Sahara or you can go this place or that place. There's no other place like there's no substitute for the Antarctica. Either you go to Antarctica or you just don't. So it's it's completely unique and it's much, much grander, bigger than you imagined. So it's one of the few places where, you know, before I went, and this is true for a lot of places that you go for the first time, is that you build up this idolized version of what it is in your mind. And then when you go, you're always be a little disappointed because it's hard to live up to those lofty expectations you made. Antarctica is one of the few places where it always outs, it's it's bigger and grander than you imagined. It's just are we talking about physical size or light or both or what? Well, you have to go down there a certain time of year. So you go in during the summer, and you've so you always have this low-angled light. You either have stormy, uh these you know, stormy clouds, or you have this fantastic light almost, you know, 20 hours a day. And so that that helps. But you know, just the combination of ice and these mountains are much, much bigger than you think. When people think of Antarctica, they think of like this flat disk down there of ice. But that particularly the part that most people go to, which is the uh peninsula, that's really an extension of the Andes. It's reaching out up to South America the way Andes are it, and they're they're they're sharp-edged, you know, granite mountains. Some, you know, they're tall, they're unnamed. Nobody's even set foot on these things. And with just hanging glaciers on them and snow, and then you have the water, and you've got penguins and and uh whales coming up and breaching and uh orcas and big seals, leopard seals, and um and it's and it's every place you go, it's different. And the light is just always fantastic, or it's either stormy looking, and it or it's just this beautiful golden light that you get like 20 hours a day.
SPEAKER_02And it is it from a photographic point of view, is it intimidating?
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, it's a timidating place. It's definitely intimidating, but I think after you you've been a few times, or you actually spent a at least a few days, it begins to you you feel more comfortable with it, and you start shooting um more selectively because once you get there, you get to the peninsula and you're like, you're photographing everything. I mean, every iceberg you see, every everything you see, every mountain, and then it's like anything that that's it's new and exotic, and you're excited and you're just photographing whatever comes along, and then you start to settle in. Okay, this is not it's it's beginning to feel a little familiar. So now I'm more selective of what I'm shooting. Um, but the place is intimidating. I mean, it's just uh you're just looking at this place, and we're and we're only seeing a tiny, tiny little piece of it on that peninsula. And this is a huge continent of ice and um you know the I mean I like the icebergs of the color, the blue, the it's everything about it is it's really fantastic.
SPEAKER_02You know, the the light on icebergs is is something that intimidates me, it just is an idea because I know my learning curve, I would have to take my 10,000 bad pictures to get to my first good one, and I wouldn't have that much time, you know, just just to be able to understand, not intellectually, but in my fingers and in my eyes, how to capture that light. Um is it especially challenging there, more so than it would be in, you know, so North Dakota?
SPEAKER_00Not really. I guess there's two things um that would say would be downsides. First of all, just getting there is hard. So you've got to travel all the way down the tip of South America, and then unless you're gonna fly over, um, and most people don't do that, you get on a ship and you've got two days to cross the Drake Passage, which can be hairy, just to get to the the South Shetland Islands, and then that's your the gateway into Antarctica, Antarctic waters. So getting there is a lot. The second thing is you don't have uh unlike going to a national park here in the US or some other places, you know, public lands, where you have freedom to move around when you want, where you want, you are restricted to where the boat goes, you're restricted to where the zodiac boats go, and then when you hit land and you do a uh a landing, you have to stay within a certain perimeter that's kind of like marked off for your safety. You know, you don't want to fall in a in a crevasse or go someplace that's uh so as someone who's always had that freedom to go and do what I wanted, where I wanted, and stay as long as I wanted, you have time limits as to how long you can stay in a place. You're going basically where the ship is going or where the zodiacs are taking you or where you're landing. So that feels somewhat restrictive to someone like me. Other people might they like that. It's already kind of everything's set up for me, and I don't have to think. I rather have that freedom to like if I see a scene, I like it, I'd rather sit on it and maybe wait a couple hours to wait, see what the light does, or maybe I want to go explore this, explore that, go. So that that to me, as a um just a photographer, has always been able to do what I wanted to for the most part. That's uh feels a little restrictive, and then just getting there is hard, but it's a fantastic place. It's it's hard to describe, it it defies words sometimes.
SPEAKER_02Tell me a little bit, okay. You you have said in an in another setting, uh somebody asked you what your favorite uh parks were, and you said, you know, up in Alaska for animal, for wildlife shots, uh, the grand teetons for landscape. On either side, how do you know when a photograph is satisfying you? I mean, how do you define your own work when when you think it's good?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's that's a tough question. I I don't know when I answered that. I wouldn't put the I I don't think I would say the Tetons anymore for landscape, but I would say um what I'm what I'm trying to do, and I I explained this recently uh to someone, it's like when I go out to take a photo, I'm I'm I'm really looking for some sort of experience. I'm looking for an apex experience to have an experience. Um I happen to have my camera with me. So um once I have an experience of some kind that that initiates the the desire to take a photo, I try to slow down and I'm like, what here is is drawing me to this scene or the subject, and trying to like find what the what that emotional core is or how to conceptualize this so that it it um it's gonna appeal to other people. But I try to always tag it to some kind of emotion. So if it's um, you know, walk up on this uh mountain lake at sunrise or at pre-dawn, and um I feel desire to take a picture of this. I say, well, what what is this that I'm feeling? What this experience, what am I trying to to express? And I'm like, well, okay, well, um, it's a feeling of peacefulness or tranquility, or is it uh, you know, if something else could be power, it could be melancholy, it could be, and then I try to break it down. Well, what elements here are are uh expressing that that tranquility? Okay, it's just it's the uh it's a flat water with the reflection of the mountains and this in the mist rising off it. It's the sensual curve of the shoreline. And so then I'm breaking it down so that I can conceptualize that picture so that it it's it says tranquility or peacefulness. And that's when I know that an image is successful or not. And I just have to go out and have an experience of some kind. If I have an experience, then I can use that as an impetus to create a photo.
SPEAKER_02What if the emotion, I mean, because we've you know been out camping when we've been cold and wet and tired and hungry and just generally pissed off and angry at the universe. Um, does that not cause the camera to come to your eye as well?
SPEAKER_00It can, but I think that the images will show that you're miserable. But okay, but I think that's a good thing. That's a good thing, though. Could that be a good picture? Yes, yes, it doesn't have to be everything be pleasant. I mean, as anyone who does photography knows that photos doesn't have to make you happy, but I think the good ones make you feel something. And it could be sadness, it could be melancholy, it could be any number of things, you know, it could be dark and and uh frightening, but if they make you feel something and it makes your viewers feel something and they connect in that way, they're more likely to be successful than, okay, well, this is this is just an interesting thing, and I just shoot it because it's interesting. I think I think they have to make they have to connect with the viewers on an emotional level. But in order to do that, you have to feel something yourself. It's hard to manufacture that, it's hard to make that up. So I have to feel something, I have to, I have to be receptive to feeling something first, and then I can conceptualize that. But so yeah, I can I can look at photos six, seven, ten years ago that I haven't seen in years. Um I'm just kind of going through my Lightroom catalog. I'm like, oh, I was having a bad day. I was having a bad trip. I can I could feel it through the photos. Um I can I can I can sense it. I can sense that.
SPEAKER_02Was it Michael Fay who had the transit of Africa a few years ago? And you could tell a lot of the images were beautiful, a lot of the images were also frustrated. Um, you know, this this was a difficult walking trip. Talk to me about the role of research. How much research do you do before you go out in the field?
SPEAKER_00Enough to uh, you know, if if I'm going someplace by myself, I want enough so that I uh don't get lost and I know you know places to go. But I I think in many ways you can over research. So I purposely try not to um look at other photos from those locations. I know enough about, I've seen enough photos just through osmosis that that that I want to go there for a particular reason because I've I've seen some. But I don't want to be influenced by what uh what other people are doing. I think You know, going back to what I just said about that emotional connection and that emotional trigger, um, I want to be surprised. I want to when I come up to a place for the first time and I see it myself, I don't want to be like, it just feels just like that photograph that so-and-so made. I want that initial reaction that when I first see something, and I want to use that as my emotional core around which I'm gonna build an image. And if if that's dulled, or if you only get that one time, you only get that one that shot to feel that for the first time is uh like how does this place make me feel? And so I purposely try to avoid doing too much research on photos. I I know enough about the place and you know where to stay, where to park, where to drive to, um, you know, how long this this trek is to get to this spot or whatever.
SPEAKER_02Do you do you do you ever make the wildlife do you ever make the wildlife the center of the mission? So like you're doing hours of research on elephant biology.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So I've made some many, many trips. And sometimes they're a bus, sometimes they're they're not because wildlife doesn't always um um cooperate. But uh a couple of years ago I went down to uh Borneo on my own to photograph orangutans because I just found them fascinating. And I always wonder, like, all these people looking for Bigfoot, they're looking for Bigfoot, and and like there you have an animal that looks like a Bigfoot right there, and and and we're pushing to the edge of extinction. So why why you why are you looking for this mythical animal when you have a bigfoot right here? A orangutan is bigfoot. Anyway, um I digress, but so I went down not really not knowing much, and um, so I I gave myself like 10 days and I had an out of outfitter kind of a guide in a boat, and it took me and I found it will be one of the most difficult places uh that I've ever photographed my life because you're in a rainforest, which are it's difficult anyway, because you don't have a lot of light. And when you do have light, you're shooting upward into the trees where the rantans are, you're shooting into this bright sky, and it's it's really bad light. And it took me about four days to figure things out. And um then once I got the rhythm of it, I knew where the animals were going to be when, I knew how I wanted to shoot them, and um, I just figured it out. The last, I think, five or six days, I was like common of just knocking pictures off, having the best time. But but the three the first three or four days, um I just struggled. I struggled and uh I didn't like any pictures I took for the about the first three or four days. And then slowly, just through repetition and going over the same places over and over again, I began to figure out how things worked and ended up being a successful trip.
SPEAKER_02Talk to me about shooting. And and and what I mean is you you've got a lovely shot of some ice on a beach in Iceland. And I was reading the backstory on it. Um, and you say, you know, for the image that we see, you probably took between 150 to 200 images to find the one that actually spoke to you. I know other photographers, and and I don't agree with this, but you know, they're they're the no, if I have to press the the shutter release more than once, I have somehow failed in my own mind. Are are you a you know, I'm only gonna be here for a limited number of time, you know, burst photography left and right?
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, uh for landscape and wildlife it's gonna be different, but for that particular where you're talking about icebergs on the beach in Iceland, yeah, you have it's it's a very dynamic scene. The waves are coming in, they're they're going out and trying to capture the motion of the foam as it's going around the ice. You have to experiment. You can't, you anyone who says they're gonna go there and take one shot, I mean, that's that's silly. But yeah, I I find I find the iceberg that I like, I find the you know the composition of the several different icebergs, and then of course every wave comes up, the iceberg, some gets get they move and they some get and so I'm experimenting with different shutter speeds, and every time the waves come up, and uh what I try to do is I'm standing behind the iceberg, and as the waves start to recede, the my tripod legs and my feet create these foam trails kind of that create this these converging lines back out to the back to the water, and so you're constantly trying different things and experimenting, experimenting, experimenting, and I kind of know like when I get it or not. I could just you know, just yeah, and so but I'm still shooting anyway. Um why wouldn't I? What's the point of shooting one? People who have not shot wildlife have gone with me out on safari and places like that, and that they've maybe done landscapes or done street photography or macro flowers, whatever it may be, and they're astonished at how many photographs they take. Because um, first of all, it's all new to most of them, and so they're just the first the first zebra they say you want to take 50 shots of the zebra just a zebra standing there, but also because you are you're experimenting and you're you're trying to capture that that moment, that certain gesture, or um you know, and you you never know when it's gonna happen. So you you know, you're photographing a lion, for example, and you're waiting for a a snarl or a a uh look looking up in the air or a gesture of some kind, or um, and you're shooting the whole nearly the whole time, you want to wait for that moment, but sometimes um that moment happens before we even realize it happened. Yeah, so you have to you have to you have to shoot a lot. And I think I was just having a conversation with with David Duschman from my my podcast, and we're talking about my shot rate success rate is going down. Like you would think there's more experience you get that you would have a higher percentage of keepers. No, it's actually getting worse because I'm constantly experimenting, I'm trying new things, I'm um, and I'm fine with that. It doesn't cost anything to shoot digital.
SPEAKER_02Nope. Um, and I'm going back to that picture. I I think it's uh cheetah, um stretching on the planes, um, you know, which two seconds before that it was just standing there. Right. Um, but you know, you had the foresight to be ready.
SPEAKER_00It was laying, it was laying down. And uh okay. It was laying down, and so I'm I've um I've I'll take a couple you know pictures of that, and like now I'm just waiting. And it gets up, and everybody's like, oh, he got up. And then it does that stretch. And um I I want to I want you have those beautiful clouds and that wide expanse of the of the savannah. And um what what's going through your mind? Okay, he's stretching, is he getting ready to hunt? He's looking out in a particular direction. I want to create some mystery. I want people to get engaged with a photo. If you just crop in and do a tighter shot, there's really nothing left to figure out. Everything's right there for you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you know, I um I probably shouldn't do this because you know, your competition, um, but you have your own podcast. I do. I do. And and and no, and no, and and you do a lot of teaching. You you've got your uh Kelby One stuff, you've got word, you've you have on your website the most wonderful set of tutorials, and everybody, you gotta go look at them. Um this is really insightful education. Um, tell tell me about you know your outreach, your workshops, your podcast. Um there's a kind of shared enthusiasm here that I really admire.
SPEAKER_00Well, thank you very much. Well, first, I'm gonna uh say about my workshops that I do all of my workshops with Munch workshops. Okay. So um the coolest places on earth, really, and I'm I'm uh it's a fantastic company to work with. They're a first rate company. Um, they take care of everything from the moment you sign up. We just we we lead you through the process. So there's there's nothing to be you have to figure out. Um, but yeah, I I do all my workshops with Minch Workshops, and I'm proud to be working with them. Um the other parts of things that I do, like with my Substack newsletter and um and my podcasts, is I'm sharing things that that interest me. And I love the creative process. I I love all that stuff. That's that's really what gets my juices flowing. And I love investigating what makes people creative and why they feel a need to create and how can um create meaning in a photograph. And I that's that's the the soft skills that really kind of interests me. And that's don't always get to do that on workshops because it's so fast-paced, and you're out in out in the field and you're just trying to get people to make sure they have the right shooter speed and help them composition and put them in the right places and get the right shots. And there's very little time to really talk about some of those other issues. And so the podcast, in many ways, is a vehicle that I can talk to people that I know share that enthusiasm for creativity and and uh some of the those software. And of course, the Substack was where I get to just kind of write whatever the hell I want, you know. And um, if nobody likes it, they don't have to read it. It's okay. Um But I like sharing. When I f when I find something like, wow, that's that was uh that was pretty profound. And um I can benefit from that, but then I like to share that with other people. It actually feels good to share that with other people.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it does. Um and I was chuckling because you you are you you have a wide dynamic range in terms of your um things that you want to share with other people, everything from the you know, panning technique where you get the blur the blurred background behind somebody, but your most recent podcast is a book um talk. Um, it but which actually led me to how much do you think you know what once you've mastered the gear, once you've got the hardware, you know, or I shouldn't say mastered, you're competent. You you understand the machine in your hand. How important is something like Sarkovski and and the philosophy of photography in terms of your own practice?
SPEAKER_00Well, I didn't even know about this book, and I didn't know it existed until relatively recently. And I read it, and it for me it was a revelation. It's so common sense, yet um forgotten in many ways. I haven't heard many people even talk about many of the principles that he taught in this book. And he wasn't really much of a photographer. He was he was the director of photography for MoMA. So he every day he sat and looked at image after image after photograph, photograph, photograph, thousands and thousands and thousands. And um what is he looking for? What is it that he's that he's deems worthy to put on the walls at the you know, Museum of Modern Art? And um so I I guess at some point he felt like he saw patterns, certain patterns as to what worked and what didn't work, what kept people engaged with a photo, why do people keep returning to certain photos? And he felt the need to write this down. And I I say that it's I think what maybe one of the most influential photography books ever written. If not the most, maybe one of the most. And because it's written back in 1966, I don't think that a lot of photographers that just recently started out, maybe since the the digital age, even know about it. And I wanted to introduce it to my listeners and my followers that you know this these are timeless principles, these are timeless ideas. And um But but it's not a how-to book. It is not a how-to how-to book. It's really a book about observation in many ways. But um, I just found it to be profound. And so I felt an instant need to share it with other people. And that's what I did with the podcast in with some some of the parts I wrote in on my substack newsletter.
SPEAKER_02Well, the the podcast pains me to say it, but a podcast is damn good.
SPEAKER_00Um, I do I I don't have the voice you have because you have that radio voice. I mean, come on, you know you do.
SPEAKER_02We have interviewed a number of the same people, so I was enjoying going through listening what they said on your side. Um, couple questions, and then we'll sort of start wrapping this up a little bit. First of all, I'm looking at your Instagram page, and the picture of the elephants all in a line has 21 and a half thousand likes. The picture next to it has 5,000 likes, and you know, of little ways. You know, there's there's a lot of them in the thousands, but then there's you know, a couple that have got 400, something like that. Um, does that matter to you at all?
SPEAKER_00No. No. I well, I think I know why that one has more. I mean, because it's it's a it's a good photo. It's a good photo. It's an okay photo, but it's you know how on Instagram you you pin certain ones up at the top. So if somebody comes to my um my Instagram profile, it's the first one they see, and they may hit like that. But I really don't pay attention to how many likes, and um I think in many ways that we would be better artists and better photographers if we didn't. Because if we start chasing what your followers want from you, then you're not um you're just a f you're just a follower. You're following them, right? They're they're chasing their algorithm, yeah. Yeah, they're unconsciously, you're they're shaping your photographic vision, whether you even know it's happening or not, because we're human and we like that validation. We like the light, we do like the likes, and it's it's like a it's like a drug. So um if I start allowing, like, okay, they like this, oh, they like this, this, this, and then I'm going to, whether I consciously or not, I'm gonna start taking photos that you know adapt themselves to what the whims of my my followers like. So it really doesn't. And um I just I uh I I don't know if you've in interviewed Shaw Tucker before. No, but so he said, like, if I start seeing that I have an image that's getting a lot of likes, he he's like, I get suspicious. I start have to start questioning myself. Am I am I following the trend? Do I need to start questioning whether I'm doing the right thing? And and and uh am I you know David Bowie crow uh quote about his his greatest regret is you know um playing to the crowd. Um so you know, he's he goes on to take to an extreme. It's like if I start getting images that get a lot of likes, I get suspicious of maybe I'm playing to the crowd and maybe I should go in a different direction. But it's always nice to have your work you know recognized and people like it. That's it's always nice, but I don't want to, I don't take too seriously if it gets a lot of likes, and I don't get taken too seriously if it doesn't get a lot of likes.
SPEAKER_02Tell me a story of an image anywhere in your career where just you know, God and the sun and this universe smiled on you, and it should not have been this easy to become this good.
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, I can I can go to the one you just mentioned about the elephants and the line. Um because, you know, just compositionally, you know, there's got a lot of diagonal lines, that the lines of the elephant is very diagonal, it's moving right through the frame. But then those clouds that morning, uh this is also in Embasselli in Kenya, were just like pushing downward, like ominously on the scene. And what a shame it would have been if I had just grabbed the long lens and I just took the photos of the of the the elements kind of elephants coming toward me and did some close-up shots. And um, no, the the clouds, the clouds make it. They those clouds are almost otherworldly, so I'm like, they don't belong there. But just like everything kind of came together. My guide had put me in the exact right spot. Um, I was I was alone that day with just me and my and a guide in a safari vehicle. I told them where to go. And um the elephants came right down the path. They're they're creatures of habit. They stay right on the path that they make, so I could I could kind of position myself where I knew they were going to be. And then those clouds and everything just kind of came together at that one moment. And uh that's that decisive moment that you know Cardi Son talks about. In a moment, like after I took that shot, two seconds later, it was over, it was gone. That whole that whole scene just dissolved. It wasn't wasn't there anymore.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Now now tell me the counter story where no matter how hard you tried, this image was just gonna go to hell.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, this is just so painful. This is like 99.5% of them are those exact situations.
SPEAKER_02We only get to pick one. Tell me a story.
SPEAKER_00Oh, um I I I I've ruined equipment. I I've I've I was photographing bears in Alaska where I just I I uh um the bear was coming down the beach. I've got some successful ones where this happened, and this one was coming down the beach, and um I laid my camera down on the on the beach so that I can get this low angle, and he's walking toward me, walking toward me. Finally, I realized I have to get out of the way, and I walked down by the water and he took a turn like coming toward me, and all of a sudden I'm I'm you know almost waist deep in the water, and he's still coming coming at me, and now I'm wet, my camera's wet. And uh and I start and now I sort of I go in toward his direction, so I think let him by, but I don't know why he took this detour toward me and why he he almost like cornered me in the water, and I got all my gear wet because I was thinking about my own safety at the moment, not my flavor gear. And um, you know, good thing I had backups for everything, but that was uh an unusual situation to be sure.
SPEAKER_02That's when the bear's walking away and you swear that the bear's going hee hee hee hee.
SPEAKER_00It was uh as if he was always playing with me because he didn't never never seem threatening, but he was why was why would he kind of follow me into the water like that when he's just walking down the beach? Anyway, um I I try not to dwell on those situations too much. Um you said somewhere that gates of the Arctic is on your bucket list. Have you been there yet? Uh, gates of the Arctic? I have not. I had not still on your bucket list? Yes, it is. I had a I had a trip planned and it was it was uh canceled by COVID. Uh I was gonna go with everybody where we were gonna do a a rafting trip down through a certain area and have an outfitter pick us up through giz grizzly areas and hopefully catch a caribou migration and um and never never materialized and since then things got busy and we just never replanned it.
SPEAKER_02Have you ever been on the Dempster Highway up in the Yukon and none of it?
SPEAKER_00I have been to the Yukon and I haven't been on that specific highway. I took the highway that goes over to Haynes, Alaska.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay. Uh the Dempster goes from Dawson City up to Tuktoyaktuk, uh, Ananuvic, and it crosses it's it's a beautiful, beautiful road, but it crosses through the caribou migration route. Um so if you can time it right, logistically it becomes much, much easier.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um anyway, Richard, this has been fantastic. I am a great fan of your work. Like I said, you know, I'm envious and jealous and admiring all at the same time. And I like I said, your podcast, your outreach is first rate. Thank you very much. I have enjoyed every moment of this.
SPEAKER_00Scott, it's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me on. And uh yeah, uh I love doing this kind of conversations. This is exactly what I uh why I do what I do. Just get to share my stories and my travels. Yeah, thank you.
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