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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 2: is Robert Lamb, and we have a special episode here

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Speaker 2: for you today. It's my interview with iconic award winning

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Speaker 2: photographer Joel Sartori about the Photo Arc. I'm going to

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Speaker 2: hold the book up here for folks who can see it.

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Speaker 2: This is a tremendous amount of fun. This man is

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Speaker 2: so full of stories. I only had him for an hour,

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Speaker 2: so only had had so many questions I could ask him.

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Speaker 2: But I think most of you are familiar with his work.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I'm talking about probably the most well known

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Speaker 2: living nature photographer. You have seen his work, whether you

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Speaker 2: realize it or not, and I think most of you

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Speaker 2: recognize the name. So I'm just gonna go ahead and

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Speaker 2: jump right into this. We're gonna mention book titles, We're

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Speaker 2: gonna mention websites you can go to, things you can

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Speaker 2: look up, and if you're watching this in video form,

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Speaker 2: we're gonna try and splash some of these images up

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Speaker 2: as well, and we're also going to try and include

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Speaker 2: these on social media. You can certainly just go to

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Speaker 2: the Photo Arc. You can look up Joe, So Torri.

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Speaker 2: You can also go to STB Podcast on Instagram and

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Speaker 2: we'll have some there for the episode as well. But

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Speaker 2: let's go ahead and jump right into the chat. Hi Joe,

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Speaker 2: Welcome to the show.

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Speaker 3: Thanks good to be here.

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Speaker 2: So the Photo Arc Animals of Earth, I'm going to

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Speaker 2: hold up the book here for folks who are joining

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Speaker 2: us on video is now out in its twentieth anniversary edition.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely gorgeous book full of your signature nature photography. I

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Speaker 2: think most of our listeners and viewers are going to

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Speaker 2: instantly recognize your work. They're familiar with your work, They're

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Speaker 2: familiar with these iconic images. So I'd just love to

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Speaker 2: start here with these images, with this book. Can you

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Speaker 2: take us back to the spark of inspiration that generated

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Speaker 2: the idea for the photo arc?

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Speaker 3: I can't you bet. First, I wanted to introduce the

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Speaker 3: space I'm in. I'm up at our family cabin in Minnesota.

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Speaker 3: I've been run off of the living room by my family,

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Speaker 3: who insisted I record this up in a bedroom so

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Speaker 3: that they can eat breakfast and talk like normal human beings.

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Speaker 3: So that's why I'm sitting here next to a bed. Anyway,

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Speaker 3: the photo Wark animals. Everth is basically a twentieth anniversary

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Speaker 3: edition of a book that we did long ago, at

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Speaker 3: least ten years ago, I think now, or if not more.

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Speaker 3: It just looks at biodiversity. We photographed reptiles and amphibians,

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Speaker 3: aquatic invertebrates like coral and anemones and sponges. We photograph insects.

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Speaker 3: We photograph reptiles, birds, mammals, six classes basically, and this

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Speaker 3: is a celebration of biodiversity we're trying to do through

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Speaker 3: these simple portraits. We're based trying to get people to

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Speaker 3: care about something other than with each other and screaming

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Speaker 3: over every ballgame that comes on to TV. Right like,

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Speaker 3: let's think about life on Earth. So that's the purpose.

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Speaker 3: August now, right now is our twentieth anniversary. We've crossed

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Speaker 3: the eighteen thousand species mark and we're on our way

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Speaker 3: towards nineteen thousand. Sounds like a lot, but considering there's

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Speaker 3: more than a million species described so far, got a

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Speaker 3: long way to go. I'm under no illusion that I

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Speaker 3: can do it. My son Cole goes on all the

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Speaker 3: foreign trips with me. He'll take over when I'm done.

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Speaker 3: We work at Zoos and aquariums, and we work at

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Speaker 3: wildlife rehab centers, private collections, university study labs, wherever we

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Speaker 3: can find animals. But we also work in the wild

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Speaker 3: and so to speak, if people are out doing a

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Speaker 3: scientific survey, if they're doing a bird banding, if they're

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Speaker 3: doing a bio blitz or a stream assessment somewhere, we

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Speaker 3: try to be there in as many cases as possible

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Speaker 3: to photograph these animals as they're passing through human hands.

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Speaker 3: They can go through our little aquarium with battery powered light,

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Speaker 3: they can go to these animals can go into our

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Speaker 3: little shooting tent and then they get released in just

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Speaker 3: a few minutes. So the name of the game is

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Speaker 3: to try to show what biodiversity look like at this

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Speaker 3: point in time and keep humanity from driving everything or

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Speaker 3: a lot of it to extinction. Is about the future

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Speaker 3: of life on Earth. And I don't really know if

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Speaker 3: that answered your question fully, but that's our mission. Man.

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Speaker 3: We use black and white backgrounds to eliminate all distractions.

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Speaker 3: Just look these animals in the eye, so people get

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Speaker 3: a feeling that there's great beauty and intelligence there and

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Speaker 3: they're so worthy of preserving. And also without any size

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Speaker 3: comparison on these plain backgrounds. You know, the tiger beetle

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Speaker 3: is the same size as a tiger. An ant is

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Speaker 3: the size of an elephant. And that is very intentional,

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Speaker 3: because most animals will fit in the palm of your hand.

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Speaker 3: They are not big. They are not gorillas, they're not rhinos.

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Speaker 3: They are toads and minnows and sparrows and earthworms and

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Speaker 3: anything that you can't really get a good look at

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Speaker 3: you can get a good look at on these black

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Speaker 3: my backgrounds you can. So we care about the little stuff.

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Speaker 3: We care about all of it big or small. We

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Speaker 3: love them all, as we say, But really the goal

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Speaker 3: is for me to use my life and then my

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Speaker 3: son to use his life to try to just get

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Speaker 3: people to care. I mean, the thing that most people

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Speaker 3: don't understand, rob is that without all these other species,

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Speaker 3: we are doomed. We want to pretend like we're king

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Speaker 3: of the forest all the time, and in a way,

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Speaker 3: we certainly are. We can certainly alter the earth, but

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Speaker 3: we have to have ants to survive. We have to

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Speaker 3: have insects survive. We have to have pollinating insects to

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Speaker 3: bring us fruits and vegetables. We just have to have

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Speaker 3: a stable ocean, a stable planet. We have to have

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Speaker 3: rainforests to regulate the rainfall that we get around the

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Speaker 3: globe and deliver it and timely amounts to the farms

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Speaker 3: where we know how to grow food to feed ourselves.

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Speaker 3: It just is folly to think that we can doom

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Speaker 3: one plant and animal species after another to extinction and

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Speaker 3: think that we'll be just fine. It won't work that way.

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Speaker 3: So we're we're in a non political campaigns to public

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Speaker 3: education campaign to showcase what life looks like now with

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Speaker 3: the hope that people will wake up in time and

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Speaker 3: see that there's great not only great value and beauty

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Speaker 3: and saving these things, but it's a threat to our

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Speaker 3: very existence to drive these things away. We won't make

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Speaker 3: it without them.

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Speaker 2: Well said, well said. Now these these images. If anyone

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Speaker 2: out there cannot picture these already, I recommend you know,

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Speaker 2: go online look up these photo arc images with these

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Speaker 2: the stark black and white backgrounds. Really, it's amazing the

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Speaker 2: character that you're able to capture in the in these

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Speaker 2: animals and in their their faces, and for the ones

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Speaker 2: that you definitely have faces. I was wondering. I was

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Speaker 2: chatting with my wife about these images. She's a photographer

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Speaker 2: and she's a big fan of yours, and she was

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Speaker 2: reminded of Richard Aviden's portraits of people against the stark

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Speaker 2: white background.

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Speaker 1: Ye.

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Speaker 2: Was he an inspiration on your work?

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Speaker 3: Totally? Yeah, I stand on the shoulder of others. They

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Speaker 3: are giants out there. Yeah. Avdon his portrait Divimo with

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Speaker 3: elephants from the late sixties in Paris Is was a

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Speaker 3: big inspiration to me. His American West series also was

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Speaker 3: a big inspiration to me that they did in the

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Speaker 3: latter part of his career. James Baylog came along and

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Speaker 3: just knocked it out of the park with his personal

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Speaker 3: vision of vanishing wildlife that ran in as a cover

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Speaker 3: story in the Geographic in the late eighties, animals on

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Speaker 3: black and white background, shot as only he can, very

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Speaker 3: artfully done and really just find art all the way,

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Speaker 3: but with a real message. And then Susan Middleton and

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Speaker 3: David Lichwager and their work just outstanding in terms of

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Speaker 3: especially honing in on features of plants to give plants

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Speaker 3: personalities and insects and the small things there, really small

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Speaker 3: things that make the world tick. They understood that and

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Speaker 3: they were at it long before I and they do

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Speaker 3: it a lot better than I do. But they're huge,

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Speaker 3: and you know, there's lots of people that do these

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Speaker 3: types of portraits, and power to them. I wish there

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Speaker 3: were a thousand people doing this type of thing or more.

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Speaker 3: The more people that can see these animals and see

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Speaker 3: how glorious they are and how important they are, the better.

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Speaker 3: There's no time to lose, really, in my opinion.

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Speaker 2: Do you remember what your first portrait was for the project?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a naked mole rat at the Lincoln

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Speaker 3: Children's Zoo about a mile from my house. I just

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Speaker 3: my wife was recovering from breast cancer. I'd taken a

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Speaker 3: year off to stay home with her and be a

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Speaker 3: dad finally to my three kids, and they were little,

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Speaker 3: and when they were in school, I just would go

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Speaker 3: down to that zoo and I just asked to photograph

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Speaker 3: something that wouldn't run off on me. And we used

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Speaker 3: a white zoo cutting board in the kitchen and the

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Speaker 3: zoo kitchen and just they put a naked mole rat

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Speaker 3: out there and they're kind of half blind and they

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Speaker 3: kind of stand there and look around and they're odd looking.

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Speaker 3: So I got pictures of that and a few frogs.

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Speaker 3: That day. Something like that. But yeah, that's how we

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Speaker 3: started and that was more than eighteen thousand species ago.

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Speaker 2: Wow. Now when you're you're shooting these these animals, are

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Speaker 2: you using like strobe lights or is it constant light?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? No, I'm using Ellen chrome flash heads, thousand watt

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Speaker 3: Ellen chrome flash heads. I've got a battery powered pack

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Speaker 3: so I can shoot bio blitzes in the field or

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Speaker 3: bird bandings in the field. I just need a portable

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Speaker 3: table to put my little shooting my cloth shooting tent

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Speaker 3: on where the animals go in, and then powered lights

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Speaker 3: as well. We just use white pvcboard from home remodel

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Speaker 3: places and we glue black velvet to one side. It's

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Speaker 3: white on the other. Pretty straightforward, and yeah, the shooting

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Speaker 3: process hasn't changed that much. We just we get our

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Speaker 3: shooting tents from BNH Photo and buy our black velvet

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Speaker 3: by the bolt and really try to work with with

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Speaker 3: rehabers and with biologists around the world, zoos aquariums, private collections.

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Speaker 3: We just really try to get to know people haven't

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Speaker 3: trust us. We've never harmed an animal yet, and we

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Speaker 3: share the pictures. We were grant funded by National Geographic

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Speaker 3: all the way, so we can share pictures with them,

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Speaker 3: they can do what they want pretty much with the pictures,

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Speaker 3: and then we try to also give lyft. We you know,

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Speaker 3: we have a lot of backing from Geographic and Disney

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Speaker 3: is part of Geographic, and so just the Disney, the

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Speaker 3: main Disney is to Graham feed is three hundred and

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Speaker 3: fifty million people, and I think their total social reaches

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Speaker 3: about five hundred million. So if somebody is doing good

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Speaker 3: in the world, we can celebrate that. You know, we

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Speaker 3: go to good zoos where there's an abundant attention and care.

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Speaker 3: We celebrate those. I mean, nobody likes a bad zoo,

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Speaker 3: and I will go anywhere I have to to shoot

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Speaker 3: if it's a matter of getting the species into the

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Speaker 3: photo work or never seeing it again. But we celebrate

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Speaker 3: good zoos and we can really give lyft to their

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Speaker 3: efforts that way. Our eighteen thousand species, for example, was

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Speaker 3: a red hand fish from Tasmania and the lady that

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Speaker 3: ran that breeding program there's more in this one room

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Speaker 3: where they breed them at two hundred and fifty specimens

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Speaker 3: than there is in the wild. I think they're in

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Speaker 3: the low double digits now in the wild. And she

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Speaker 3: was they just live in one Bay and off the

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Speaker 3: coast of Tasmania, and she wrote to me after that

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Speaker 3: was announced and she said, this came along at a

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Speaker 3: great time. We've heard from people all over the world.

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Speaker 3: Our grant fundings do to run out, and we've got

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Speaker 3: a lot of interest now and people wanting to help us.

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Speaker 3: Fish are small, just about like that, but they've evolved,

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Speaker 3: these front fins. They've turned them into kind of hands

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Speaker 3: that they used to walk on the ocean floor, and

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Speaker 3: they're very cute and charismatic expression. They seem to have

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Speaker 3: an expression on their face. And it's very satisfying when

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Speaker 3: I hear that. When we started the project twenty years ago,

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Speaker 3: social media just wasn't a thing, so all we could

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Speaker 3: do was offer pictures to people. And now we can

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Speaker 3: offer a lot more than that. We can introduce their efforts,

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Speaker 3: their stewardship, their animals, their efforts to save habitat to

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Speaker 3: a global audience, which is very satisfying, very satisfying.

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Speaker 2: Now some of these animals are huge. Which animals have

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Speaker 2: been the most logistically challenging the photograph.

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Speaker 3: Chimps are tough. Chimps are really tough. I mean, I'm

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Speaker 3: not working with trained chimps for the movie industry. You know,

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Speaker 3: we go to zoos that may have this one subspecies

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Speaker 3: of chimp that we don't have from North Africa, you know,

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Speaker 3: and they're really smart, fast, agile, all the things. I'm not.

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Speaker 2: I think I saw some footage on one of the documentaries,

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Speaker 2: or maybe it was a Ted X talk that you

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Speaker 2: gave or Ted talk. Yeah, but the chimp just immediately

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Speaker 2: tore down the background.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that was early on when I thought I'd use

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Speaker 3: white paper. That doesn't work with apes. Chimps are tough.

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Speaker 3: Big animals require a bit of prep by the zoo.

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Speaker 3: Like the Omaha Zoo painted an off exhibit space black

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Speaker 3: and white for their elephant and baby. They knew they

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Speaker 3: could park mom on a dime by giving her her

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Speaker 3: favorite treats. Then the baby just kind of moved through

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Speaker 3: its legs the whole time and as cute as can be.

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Speaker 3: And Indianapolis Suit did the same thing with they had

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Speaker 3: it on black though they had a new baby elephant.

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Speaker 3: So we did that on black. But the zoo had

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Speaker 3: to basically create a black space, either with paint on

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Speaker 3: the walls and floor or with sheets, supply wood or

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Speaker 3: other materials that turn the walls black. It was just

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Speaker 3: at the Minnesota Zoo in Minneapolis on the way up

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Speaker 3: here to the cabin, and scouted out their bull moose corral.

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Speaker 3: They have a bull moose that we've been watching for

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Speaker 3: a number of years. He's now big enough to be photographed,

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Speaker 3: but the windows. So we talked about how we were

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Speaker 3: going to black out this stall that he goes to,

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Speaker 3: how we're going to light him and we can lure

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Speaker 3: him in place with brows with his favorite greenery to eat.

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Speaker 3: But you know, there's a little bitty window between the

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Speaker 3: time when the velvet sheds off of his antlers and

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Speaker 3: makes him look very moose like and when rut stars arts,

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Speaker 3: which is in October. There's like a four week three

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Speaker 3: week window. Once rut starts, you don't want to be

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Speaker 3: around a bull moose. And so there's a little window

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Speaker 3: in September. So we'll come back and get that. And yeah,

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Speaker 3: it's always something, but for big animals, the zoo has

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Speaker 3: to prep some For small animals size of a duck

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Speaker 3: or smaller, we can just use my little shooting tents

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Speaker 3: that kind of thing.

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Speaker 2: There is there another animal on the list that you

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Speaker 2: really want to photograph, but it just hasn't come together yet.

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Speaker 3: Well, we don't really have We have a list of

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Speaker 3: the things we've shot, but there isn't really a list

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Speaker 3: of the things we haven't shot, unless it's a state

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Speaker 3: specific thing, like I have a list of all the

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Speaker 3: freshwater fish I still need from Nebraska and from Minnesota.

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Speaker 3: I have a list of the birds I need from America.

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Speaker 3: But other than that, it's pretty much wide open. Whatever

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Speaker 3: they get, and that we usually get an We approach

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Speaker 3: a zoo or an aquarium or rehab places and say

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Speaker 3: what do you have in care, and then we run

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Speaker 3: their inventory against our list and we quickly come up

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Speaker 3: with well, these are the ones we need. And they'll

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Speaker 3: say they'll say how many. I'll say, well, these fifteen,

285
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Speaker 3: and they'll say, well, we can do these ten. I'm like,

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Speaker 3: that's fine. Great Lakes Aquarium in Duluth. I'm going to

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Speaker 3: go there on Wednesday since I'm up here in Minnesota.

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Speaker 3: It's about ninety minute drive. And they had a list

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Speaker 3: of about forty species we need, mostly in vertebrates like

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Speaker 3: coral sponges, that kind of things, things that live in

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Speaker 3: the Great Lakes. And they had twelve fish we needed

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Speaker 3: and they say we think we can catch nine of

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Speaker 3: those fish. They're small, and we'll put them in my

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Speaker 3: little tank, my little Plexi tank, photograph them and put

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Speaker 3: them back and they think so we think we can

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Speaker 3: do about out of maybe say forty, We think we

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Speaker 3: can end up getting twenty five or so for the day,

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Speaker 3: and that's fine. You know, we'll visit again someday. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: it's kind of a process, but it's something I do

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Speaker 3: every day of the year. I'm always running inventories or

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Speaker 3: thinking about where to go next. But yeah, in terms

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Speaker 3: of a list, there's over a million species described, so

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Speaker 3: we don't want to burden anybody like that. We just

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Speaker 3: have our list of eighteen thousand and Caesier for us

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Speaker 3: to just go through it once we get their inventories.

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Speaker 3: Compare it.

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Speaker 2: Now, you've I'm based here in Atlanta, Georgia. You've shot

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Speaker 2: down down here in Atlanta I have.

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Speaker 3: There's a fabulous place down there. Well, the Atlanta Zoo

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Speaker 3: is great too. I worked at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens

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Speaker 3: for a number of years with a guy named Mark Mandica,

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Speaker 3: who was in charge of the frog pod. These frogs

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Speaker 3: they brought back from Panama when the Kittrid fungus was

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Speaker 3: spreading and he had the very last rabs fringed limb

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Speaker 3: tree frog and I photo got that animal a couple times.

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Speaker 3: A wonderful animal. They named Tuffy because he outlived all

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Speaker 3: life expectancy and he's gone now, so That'specius extinct sadly.

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Speaker 3: But we got him up on the side of the

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Speaker 3: Vatican with the Pope watching. We got him up on

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Speaker 3: the Empire State Building and on the un Building, so

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Speaker 3: that's cool. With his call, Mark recorded his call the

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Speaker 3: one time it was ever recorded. Mark has gone on

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Speaker 3: to found the Amphibian Foundation in the Atlanta area. Actually

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Speaker 3: they're based out of Decatur, and that is the only

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Speaker 3: center that's devoted to just to amphibians. It's a big

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Speaker 3: education center and that's really awesome. So he does great

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Speaker 3: work with breeding frosted flatwood salamanners and gopher frogs, things

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Speaker 3: that are very highly endangered and they that's a great

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Speaker 3: place that I've been several times, and they deserve our

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Speaker 3: support too. If anybody's curious. Amphibianfoundation dot org. It's a

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Speaker 3: great place to support. Love them.

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Speaker 2: And yeah, Mark is a friend of the show. We've

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Speaker 2: had him on before and I.

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Speaker 3: Really can't think any say anything more highly about the guy.

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Speaker 3: He's just he really really cares. He and his wife,

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Speaker 3: Crystal run it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a.

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Speaker 3: Great, great place, and they do day camps for kids

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Speaker 3: in the summer and try to get kids connected to nature.

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Speaker 3: This is the other thing too, I was wanting to mention.

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Speaker 3: You know, guys like me old enough. We grew up

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Speaker 3: in the woods and you know, having a marsh to

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Speaker 3: play in and learn about tadpoles, you know, along a

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Speaker 3: stream whatever. Most kids today are urban and they don't

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Speaker 3: have that. And so going to a place like the

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Speaker 3: Amphibian Foundation is a big deal. Hands on with a turtle,

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Speaker 3: hands on with a non venomous snake, or to see

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Speaker 3: how these frogs are bred, what the work they do,

349
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Speaker 3: Why it's so important to save reptiles and amphibians. That's

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Speaker 3: a big, big deal. We have to get future generations

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Speaker 3: to care more about animals than we did, not less,

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Speaker 3: because we didn't save them very well. This is a

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Speaker 3: big deal to Mark and his crew there.

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Speaker 2: Now you used to do all sorts of field work

355
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Speaker 2: outside of the arc, Yes, for GEO and for other

356
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Speaker 2: publications as well, right.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, Audubon and net Geo and Nature Conservancy. Yeah,

358
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Speaker 3: it was a globe trot and field photographer for about

359
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Speaker 3: seventeen years. For the geographic alone, it was more than

360
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Speaker 3: thirty stories all in the wild, not touching anything, all

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Speaker 3: in the wild. And then when my wife got sick,

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00:19:04,000 --> 00:19:08,000
Speaker 3: that that changed. I just figured that life short and

363
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Speaker 3: if I wanted to really highlight small species, I better

364
00:19:10,400 --> 00:19:13,399
Speaker 3: get on it. So I started doing these hybrid stories

365
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Speaker 3: where it was partially in the field and also to

366
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Speaker 3: show what these animals are up against or by all

367
00:19:19,920 --> 00:19:22,360
Speaker 3: just working with these animals to his story on wolves

368
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Speaker 3: and grizzly bears and the National Wildlife Refuge System and

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Speaker 3: the Endangered Species Act. And then once I started to

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Speaker 3: shift to photo arc, I did these hybrids where it

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Speaker 3: was it was some studio portraiture and some stuff in

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Speaker 3: the wild, and now it's just studio portraits. That's it.

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Speaker 3: Nothing else, that's it.

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Speaker 2: Do you do you do you miss the adventure of

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Speaker 2: like the pure field?

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Speaker 3: No, no, no way, no way. I did not. I

377
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Speaker 3: did time. You know, like people are like, don't you

378
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Speaker 3: want to go out on safari? Don't you want to

379
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Speaker 3: take a hike. It's beautiful at the top of the mountain, nope.

380
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Speaker 3: I actually wrote a memoir. We just finished it. It'll

381
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Speaker 3: be out this spring, also by National graffic book. It's

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Speaker 3: called Dream Job Confessions of a National Geographic Photographer. It

383
00:20:05,560 --> 00:20:08,040
Speaker 3: is not a dream job too often, but it is

384
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Speaker 3: a lot of work. It's not vacation, and it is

385
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Speaker 3: people will enjoy the stories in it, I think, but

386
00:20:14,640 --> 00:20:17,520
Speaker 3: it's it's just not what people think. In a way,

387
00:20:17,560 --> 00:20:19,399
Speaker 3: it is a dream job, obviously because you get to

388
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Speaker 3: do something that hopefully makes the world a better place.

389
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Speaker 3: But it is the best part of our day, to

390
00:20:26,080 --> 00:20:28,880
Speaker 3: be honor honest, is dinner, because it's meant we got

391
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Speaker 3: through the day and everything's cool and we started again.

392
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Speaker 3: But most of the time we don't see our We

393
00:20:35,359 --> 00:20:37,480
Speaker 3: never see our hotel in the light. It's always in

394
00:20:37,520 --> 00:20:38,879
Speaker 3: the dark. We leave in the dark, we come back

395
00:20:38,920 --> 00:20:41,120
Speaker 3: in the dark. We work it straight through. We don't

396
00:20:41,160 --> 00:20:43,520
Speaker 3: take any days off. We're usually gone three weeks. My

397
00:20:43,680 --> 00:20:46,159
Speaker 3: son is a tank. He is bulletproof. He's going to

398
00:20:46,200 --> 00:20:48,479
Speaker 3: take over for me, my son Cole. He goes with

399
00:20:48,480 --> 00:20:50,480
Speaker 3: me on all the foreign trips. He'll take over for me.

400
00:20:51,119 --> 00:20:53,359
Speaker 3: I'm too old to do it anymore. Feel good now,

401
00:20:53,440 --> 00:20:56,720
Speaker 3: But he's there and he goes with me, and he'll

402
00:20:56,960 --> 00:20:59,359
Speaker 3: you know, but he doesn't complain. I might complain a

403
00:20:59,400 --> 00:21:03,280
Speaker 3: little bit. But if it's a choice between getting back

404
00:21:03,320 --> 00:21:07,800
Speaker 3: to the hotel early enough or skip and lunch, you know,

405
00:21:07,960 --> 00:21:10,000
Speaker 3: like we leave species on the table, that is a

406
00:21:10,040 --> 00:21:12,360
Speaker 3: miserable feeling. We've gone a long way, and we want

407
00:21:12,400 --> 00:21:15,080
Speaker 3: to tell their stories, no matter whether they're a little

408
00:21:15,119 --> 00:21:17,520
Speaker 3: stream fish or a graatfish or even a snail. We

409
00:21:17,560 --> 00:21:19,720
Speaker 3: want to tell their stories. That's why we've gone all

410
00:21:19,720 --> 00:21:23,320
Speaker 3: that way, and that's what we do. But in terms

411
00:21:23,320 --> 00:21:26,600
Speaker 3: of being in the field and missing those days, there's

412
00:21:26,600 --> 00:21:30,440
Speaker 3: a lot of pressure. Like I remember being given an

413
00:21:30,440 --> 00:21:34,720
Speaker 3: assignment to do the Gulf Coast of America, and this

414
00:21:34,880 --> 00:21:38,199
Speaker 3: was back in the early days. So they said, okay, great,

415
00:21:37,440 --> 00:21:41,080
Speaker 3: you got twenty seven weeks of assignment time, have it

416
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Speaker 3: done in one calendar year from now. Good luck, that's it.

417
00:21:47,000 --> 00:21:48,800
Speaker 3: And then they get it's like one of those courses

418
00:21:48,800 --> 00:21:51,679
Speaker 3: in college where your entire grade is based on a

419
00:21:51,800 --> 00:21:55,760
Speaker 3: final exam, no other grading material. So you give a

420
00:21:55,800 --> 00:21:59,160
Speaker 3: show to your editors at the magazine and you either

421
00:21:59,200 --> 00:22:03,320
Speaker 3: live or die. Either lives or dies, and so it's

422
00:22:03,320 --> 00:22:05,400
Speaker 3: the same with a story on grizzly bears. You got

423
00:22:05,440 --> 00:22:08,199
Speaker 3: eight weeks. Haven't done in one calendar year eight weeks?

424
00:22:08,680 --> 00:22:12,520
Speaker 3: Good luck? How would you go about making enough pictures

425
00:22:12,520 --> 00:22:16,280
Speaker 3: of grizzly bears that are interesting to warnt a story

426
00:22:16,280 --> 00:22:19,680
Speaker 3: in National Geographic Magazine? How would you? What would you even?

427
00:22:19,800 --> 00:22:22,120
Speaker 3: Where would you even start? Like? What would you do

428
00:22:22,160 --> 00:22:26,439
Speaker 3: grizzly bears in North America? Good luck? It's not what

429
00:22:26,480 --> 00:22:28,680
Speaker 3: people think, you like, rob, what would you what would

430
00:22:28,680 --> 00:22:31,280
Speaker 3: you do? What would you do to do grizzly bears

431
00:22:31,280 --> 00:22:31,879
Speaker 3: in North America?

432
00:22:32,400 --> 00:22:35,080
Speaker 2: I mean I'd be a little terrified even go looking

433
00:22:35,080 --> 00:22:35,440
Speaker 2: for them.

434
00:22:35,440 --> 00:22:39,359
Speaker 3: I think I was terrified. And by the way, you know,

435
00:22:39,560 --> 00:22:42,719
Speaker 3: just long lens pictures of bears in a field, that's

436
00:22:42,760 --> 00:22:44,600
Speaker 3: not going to cut it anymore that it will not

437
00:22:44,800 --> 00:22:48,920
Speaker 3: do it, or wolves or koala's. You know, I did

438
00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:52,159
Speaker 3: stories on all these things on on the you know,

439
00:22:52,560 --> 00:22:56,760
Speaker 3: National Wildlife Refuge System. Like you have to do pictures

440
00:22:56,760 --> 00:23:00,960
Speaker 3: that combine photojournalism and art. The pictures hold for a

441
00:23:00,960 --> 00:23:03,520
Speaker 3: few months. You have to do pictures that are new

442
00:23:03,520 --> 00:23:10,240
Speaker 3: and surprising and different. It's really super difficult. Like, it's

443
00:23:10,320 --> 00:23:13,560
Speaker 3: not what people think. Long ones pictures don't cut it.

444
00:23:13,720 --> 00:23:16,200
Speaker 3: If we have time, I'll just tell you a quick story.

445
00:23:16,240 --> 00:23:18,119
Speaker 3: A picture I'm proud of. I'm not very proud of

446
00:23:18,119 --> 00:23:20,280
Speaker 3: most of my pictures, you know, they all need work.

447
00:23:20,520 --> 00:23:23,560
Speaker 3: But there was one where I problem solved. It involved

448
00:23:23,600 --> 00:23:26,280
Speaker 3: not having anything in my ears playing. It involves having

449
00:23:26,280 --> 00:23:29,280
Speaker 3: my radio off of my car. And it evolved about

450
00:23:29,560 --> 00:23:34,320
Speaker 3: I don't know, an eight hour drive across Wyoming I

451
00:23:34,359 --> 00:23:37,119
Speaker 3: was thinking about. I was assigned to do cold bed

452
00:23:37,240 --> 00:23:39,840
Speaker 3: methane extraction in the Inner Mountain West and I had

453
00:23:39,880 --> 00:23:42,280
Speaker 3: eight weeks. That was an average amount of signent, so

454
00:23:42,840 --> 00:23:46,560
Speaker 3: drilling for natural gas in the American West, eight weeks go,

455
00:23:48,480 --> 00:23:50,600
Speaker 3: what do you do? What do you do? And I

456
00:23:50,600 --> 00:23:52,400
Speaker 3: got that job because I needed the work. I took

457
00:23:52,440 --> 00:23:54,920
Speaker 3: that job because I needed the paycheck at a family

458
00:23:55,760 --> 00:23:58,400
Speaker 3: And so I know, and I can see how you're

459
00:23:58,400 --> 00:24:00,320
Speaker 3: looking at me, like, I hope he doesn't ask me

460
00:24:00,359 --> 00:24:04,239
Speaker 3: what I do. Yeah, I didn't know, and so I

461
00:24:04,280 --> 00:24:08,720
Speaker 3: got into it. I flew out there and you know,

462
00:24:08,960 --> 00:24:11,360
Speaker 3: just looked at drilling and hung out with some well drillers,

463
00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:16,720
Speaker 3: and hung out with some environmental folks and photograph stage

464
00:24:16,760 --> 00:24:20,600
Speaker 3: grouse that are out there in drilling country. Anyway, I

465
00:24:20,640 --> 00:24:23,080
Speaker 3: thought about the fact that the gas is held in

466
00:24:23,119 --> 00:24:26,840
Speaker 3: the ground by groundwater. It's held in the gas is

467
00:24:26,960 --> 00:24:30,600
Speaker 3: kept trapped in ancient coal seams by groundwater. So to

468
00:24:30,600 --> 00:24:33,280
Speaker 3: free up the gas, the mining companies often will pump

469
00:24:33,359 --> 00:24:37,000
Speaker 3: that groundwater out and into a river. Sometimes it's clean,

470
00:24:38,080 --> 00:24:41,120
Speaker 3: sometimes it's filthy. It's filthy it kills all the fish.

471
00:24:41,760 --> 00:24:44,359
Speaker 3: So I thought, how do we illustrate the fish that

472
00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:49,479
Speaker 3: are at risk in Wyoming from drilling? And not all

473
00:24:49,560 --> 00:24:53,080
Speaker 3: drillers are, you know, like and I burned natural gas

474
00:24:53,119 --> 00:24:55,200
Speaker 3: in my home, so this is not anti natural gas.

475
00:24:55,200 --> 00:24:57,600
Speaker 3: I just wanted to show what these fish look like.

476
00:24:57,680 --> 00:24:59,560
Speaker 3: And they lived in the main river that goes through

477
00:24:59,640 --> 00:25:02,960
Speaker 3: drilling company in Wyoming was called the powder River because

478
00:25:03,160 --> 00:25:06,399
Speaker 3: it had from pioneer times, it had a lot of

479
00:25:06,440 --> 00:25:09,399
Speaker 3: dissolved soils in it. It looked like chocolate milk. You

480
00:25:09,400 --> 00:25:12,320
Speaker 3: can't see that far. How do you illustrate the fish

481
00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:14,840
Speaker 3: in the Powder River? So I shut off my radio.

482
00:25:15,480 --> 00:25:19,080
Speaker 3: I didn't have any podcasts going. I just drove. I

483
00:25:19,119 --> 00:25:21,760
Speaker 3: had to drive to Utah from Wyoming for something else,

484
00:25:22,480 --> 00:25:24,359
Speaker 3: and it was like an eight hour drive. And by

485
00:25:24,359 --> 00:25:25,760
Speaker 3: the time I got to the other end of that drive,

486
00:25:25,800 --> 00:25:31,240
Speaker 3: I had it figured out. I thought, Okay, first of all,

487
00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:33,240
Speaker 3: the fish need to be in clear water. How do

488
00:25:33,280 --> 00:25:36,000
Speaker 3: we get them in clear water so we can show them?

489
00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:40,040
Speaker 3: I bet the state of Wyoming has a natural history department.

490
00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:42,359
Speaker 3: Most states too. So I called the guy that was

491
00:25:42,359 --> 00:25:45,159
Speaker 3: in charge of non game fish, the fish that live

492
00:25:45,200 --> 00:25:47,840
Speaker 3: in the Powder River, these little minnows and days and shiners,

493
00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:50,919
Speaker 3: And I said, do you guys ever survey the Powder

494
00:25:51,040 --> 00:25:53,040
Speaker 3: River to see what's in there? He says, yeah, we're

495
00:25:53,080 --> 00:25:56,880
Speaker 3: doing a rapid biological assessment all next summer to see

496
00:25:56,880 --> 00:25:59,120
Speaker 3: what's in the Powder River to see because we've never

497
00:25:59,160 --> 00:26:02,960
Speaker 3: even done that, to collect fish for our museum. And

498
00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:07,200
Speaker 3: I'm like, great, And so I thought. I told him

499
00:26:07,240 --> 00:26:09,119
Speaker 3: what I planned to do, and he said, yeah, that

500
00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:11,240
Speaker 3: sounds great, that sounds great. Can we use the pictures?

501
00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:13,720
Speaker 3: I said sure? So I met with his crew. It

502
00:26:13,800 --> 00:26:15,720
Speaker 3: was like six months later. I met with his crew

503
00:26:15,800 --> 00:26:17,760
Speaker 3: on the Powder River and they were running a sane,

504
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:20,440
Speaker 3: these two ladies running a sane or a long wide

505
00:26:20,480 --> 00:26:22,440
Speaker 3: net and getting fish out of the Powder River that

506
00:26:22,480 --> 00:26:23,919
Speaker 3: they were going to put in their museum. They were

507
00:26:23,920 --> 00:26:26,639
Speaker 3: going to put them in jars of alcohol. And I

508
00:26:26,840 --> 00:26:32,240
Speaker 3: had had custom made kind of a couple of thermopane

509
00:26:32,280 --> 00:26:36,399
Speaker 3: windows that were about They were pretty big, like thirty

510
00:26:36,400 --> 00:26:39,720
Speaker 3: inches wide twenty four inches tall, but only about that

511
00:26:39,760 --> 00:26:42,800
Speaker 3: thick little, you know, half inch thick, big enough for

512
00:26:42,840 --> 00:26:44,639
Speaker 3: minnows to go in, but they couldn't turn around on me.

513
00:26:44,680 --> 00:26:46,800
Speaker 3: And I put air bowlers in there so they'd be comfortable,

514
00:26:47,080 --> 00:26:49,040
Speaker 3: and they kind of schooled and they swam in a circle,

515
00:26:49,680 --> 00:26:52,600
Speaker 3: and so I could see them clearly, here's the minnows

516
00:26:52,680 --> 00:26:54,520
Speaker 3: of the Powder River. And I put them on a

517
00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:58,200
Speaker 3: couple saw horses that i'd modified with brackets or holders.

518
00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:01,359
Speaker 3: So I sat that window full of fish on the

519
00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:05,719
Speaker 3: saw horses on a bluff overlooking the Powder River. And

520
00:27:05,800 --> 00:27:07,960
Speaker 3: there were white, puffy clouds in a blue sky, and

521
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:10,560
Speaker 3: so it looked like these fish were flying through the

522
00:27:10,600 --> 00:27:14,240
Speaker 3: sky and through the landscape and swimming across the vast, beautiful,

523
00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:18,520
Speaker 3: untouched landscape of Wyoming with the powdered river winding through it.

524
00:27:19,119 --> 00:27:21,000
Speaker 3: And it looked good. And then in the caption we

525
00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:24,520
Speaker 3: explain what we're doing. But it's not a photoshop thing.

526
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:27,800
Speaker 3: There was no photoshop back then. It's just this picture

527
00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:32,160
Speaker 3: that took a while to solve. But that is typical

528
00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:34,479
Speaker 3: for a national geographic photograph. In the field, you have

529
00:27:34,520 --> 00:27:36,920
Speaker 3: to problem solve. You have to figure out a way

530
00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:39,320
Speaker 3: to make new and interesting and surprising pictures that tell

531
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:42,919
Speaker 3: a story that engage people in a very noisy world.

532
00:27:43,200 --> 00:27:45,520
Speaker 3: How do you engage people to stop and read a magazine.

533
00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:49,320
Speaker 3: That's our job. Well, the same applies today for the photowark.

534
00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:53,399
Speaker 3: We have this task of getting somebody to care about

535
00:27:53,480 --> 00:27:56,359
Speaker 3: a snail, to care about a minnow, to care about

536
00:27:56,359 --> 00:27:58,439
Speaker 3: a sparrow, or a toad or something that lives in

537
00:27:58,720 --> 00:28:02,080
Speaker 3: murky water or even in the in soil. That is

538
00:28:02,119 --> 00:28:04,960
Speaker 3: our job. And so what I figured starting out, eye

539
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:08,560
Speaker 3: contact is really important. If an animal has eyes, let's

540
00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:10,240
Speaker 3: look them in the eye, and let's have them fill

541
00:28:10,280 --> 00:28:12,399
Speaker 3: the frame so they're all the same size. You know,

542
00:28:12,480 --> 00:28:16,200
Speaker 3: that worm that came out of the mud, he will

543
00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:19,119
Speaker 3: do with something that's an artful shape, and we'll compare

544
00:28:19,200 --> 00:28:21,199
Speaker 3: him in a book someday with a snake and the

545
00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:25,479
Speaker 3: same shape or the same color. So we think that

546
00:28:25,520 --> 00:28:29,080
Speaker 3: the more pictures, the more species the ARC has in it,

547
00:28:29,400 --> 00:28:31,840
Speaker 3: the more possibilities there are to highlight some of the

548
00:28:31,880 --> 00:28:36,320
Speaker 3: species that are very overlooked yet so important, like freshwater mussels.

549
00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:39,960
Speaker 3: They're living aquatic canaries in a coal mine. They are

550
00:28:40,080 --> 00:28:42,240
Speaker 3: telling us their water is so filthy they can't live

551
00:28:42,280 --> 00:28:46,120
Speaker 3: in it anymore. We all drink water. We should care.

552
00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:48,479
Speaker 3: The more we get into the photo arc, the bigger

553
00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:51,160
Speaker 3: it can become in terms of being able to tell

554
00:28:51,160 --> 00:28:52,560
Speaker 3: the stories about life on Earth.

555
00:28:53,720 --> 00:28:57,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, just the one book here, the photo Arc, Animals

556
00:28:57,360 --> 00:28:59,360
Speaker 2: of Earth. I love how you open it up and

557
00:28:59,400 --> 00:29:02,840
Speaker 2: you'll have on opposing pages like two, you know, very

558
00:29:02,840 --> 00:29:06,440
Speaker 2: different animals. You know, you'll have a mammal on one

559
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:08,760
Speaker 2: side and maybe you know, you know, a fish or

560
00:29:10,520 --> 00:29:12,520
Speaker 2: or an insect on the other end. But there'll be

561
00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:15,400
Speaker 2: something about the two that lines up, be it like

562
00:29:15,440 --> 00:29:18,400
Speaker 2: the form or the shape or something about the shots.

563
00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:21,680
Speaker 3: And there were two designers worked on the book. Melissa

564
00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:24,440
Speaker 3: Ferris did the original and then Lisa Gibson at the

565
00:29:24,480 --> 00:29:26,720
Speaker 3: Geographic did the other one. And we added a new

566
00:29:26,760 --> 00:29:29,640
Speaker 3: signature or a new section of the book, like sixty

567
00:29:29,680 --> 00:29:33,080
Speaker 3: four more pages something like that. And what's interesting is

568
00:29:33,120 --> 00:29:35,680
Speaker 3: there's a there. There's one picture that Elisa and I

569
00:29:35,840 --> 00:29:38,440
Speaker 3: both really liked when we were designing the new book,

570
00:29:38,560 --> 00:29:41,600
Speaker 3: the new version of this book. And it's not something

571
00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:44,280
Speaker 3: you think. It's a ball of red blood worms that

572
00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:49,160
Speaker 3: were being used to feed fish at some nature center

573
00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:52,200
Speaker 3: I went to. They were just in this ball and

574
00:29:52,280 --> 00:29:55,360
Speaker 3: so I shot it at a diagonal with with worms

575
00:29:55,360 --> 00:29:57,320
Speaker 3: coming off the back end. They're tiny little things, but

576
00:29:57,480 --> 00:30:00,720
Speaker 3: they formed this ball and so the way and I

577
00:30:00,760 --> 00:30:02,720
Speaker 3: shot at a diagonal, so it looked like a comet

578
00:30:02,880 --> 00:30:05,400
Speaker 3: streaking across the time. We were both really into that,

579
00:30:05,480 --> 00:30:07,520
Speaker 3: you know, like, and it's two pages in the book.

580
00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:11,000
Speaker 3: So it's great that they have in their books division.

581
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:13,960
Speaker 3: They have very creative team that is into the odd

582
00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:19,040
Speaker 3: and loves to showcase the underdogs. We're really about the underdogs.

583
00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:22,040
Speaker 3: We'll shoot, we photograph tigers, we photographed bears and lions,

584
00:30:22,520 --> 00:30:25,120
Speaker 3: but we're really into the underdogs, the things that people

585
00:30:25,120 --> 00:30:28,000
Speaker 3: will never see without us. And that is the case.

586
00:30:28,080 --> 00:30:31,040
Speaker 3: I'm afraid for at least eighty percent of the things

587
00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:32,920
Speaker 3: in this in these books that we do and in

588
00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:37,200
Speaker 3: these exhibits and in my talks, easy eighty percent, probably

589
00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:39,480
Speaker 3: more than that. Ninety percent of these animals people will

590
00:30:39,520 --> 00:30:43,400
Speaker 3: have never heard of without the photog arc telling their stories.

591
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:45,800
Speaker 3: And so it's a great honor and a great responsibility,

592
00:30:46,600 --> 00:30:48,360
Speaker 3: and it's how I'll spend the rest of my life,

593
00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:51,560
Speaker 3: you know, as in my son will too. But we

594
00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:55,200
Speaker 3: think it's worth it, and it's it's like, there's this

595
00:30:55,240 --> 00:30:57,480
Speaker 3: great ts Eliot quote that I think about all the

596
00:30:57,560 --> 00:31:01,200
Speaker 3: time all the time. What good is it? What good

597
00:31:01,240 --> 00:31:03,720
Speaker 3: is it? Right? He said, for us, there is only

598
00:31:03,760 --> 00:31:07,600
Speaker 3: the trying. The rest is not our business. And so

599
00:31:08,440 --> 00:31:11,080
Speaker 3: I think that's true. My little interpretation of that is

600
00:31:11,360 --> 00:31:16,960
Speaker 3: I'm trying till the day I die. I'm trying. My

601
00:31:17,040 --> 00:31:21,560
Speaker 3: son will too. So if that is, if people pay

602
00:31:21,600 --> 00:31:23,720
Speaker 3: attention to it or not, will be long gone. We

603
00:31:23,800 --> 00:31:27,800
Speaker 3: don't know. We hope they do, because it's really folly

604
00:31:27,800 --> 00:31:30,240
Speaker 3: to think we can do them one species to extinction

605
00:31:30,320 --> 00:31:32,720
Speaker 3: after another, not just animals, with plants too. I think

606
00:31:32,760 --> 00:31:35,720
Speaker 3: that will be just fine. It won't work that way.

607
00:31:36,680 --> 00:31:38,920
Speaker 3: Food doesn't just come from the grocery store. It comes

608
00:31:38,920 --> 00:31:43,280
Speaker 3: from a stable planet, and same for water. So we

609
00:31:43,600 --> 00:31:46,280
Speaker 3: just are hopeful that this does some good and that

610
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:48,880
Speaker 3: is a great way to live. You know, you know

611
00:31:49,480 --> 00:31:53,200
Speaker 3: name of that memoir dream job. It's a little bit sarcastic,

612
00:31:53,320 --> 00:31:55,959
Speaker 3: but really, to me, it is a dream job if

613
00:31:56,000 --> 00:31:58,320
Speaker 3: you love what you do and you think that you're

614
00:31:58,360 --> 00:32:01,160
Speaker 3: making the world better, and we do so it's good.

615
00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:03,120
Speaker 3: It's good. No regrets.

616
00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:07,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love how like your images and the images

617
00:32:07,080 --> 00:32:08,600
Speaker 2: in this book in particular, it's like, I mean, they're

618
00:32:08,600 --> 00:32:11,400
Speaker 2: just so arresting. They capture your attention. They maybe make

619
00:32:11,480 --> 00:32:14,560
Speaker 2: you give an animal a second or third glance that

620
00:32:14,640 --> 00:32:17,560
Speaker 2: you again, you know, maybe you're just completely dismissive of

621
00:32:17,880 --> 00:32:18,720
Speaker 2: or otherwise.

622
00:32:19,120 --> 00:32:22,600
Speaker 3: We hope, We hope, man. That is our big driving thing.

623
00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:27,440
Speaker 3: People do not understand the train wreck that is coming.

624
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:32,239
Speaker 3: They're starting to see it now. Violent storms, hotter every year,

625
00:32:32,320 --> 00:32:36,760
Speaker 3: is hotter than the last, more fighting, sea levels come up.

626
00:32:36,800 --> 00:32:39,000
Speaker 3: Eighty percent of the human population around the world lives

627
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:42,360
Speaker 3: within one hundred miles of the coast or so, massive

628
00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:45,920
Speaker 3: human migration, displacement of people, people not able to make

629
00:32:45,960 --> 00:32:49,400
Speaker 3: a living, getting desperate, like these environmental problems are going

630
00:32:49,440 --> 00:32:52,040
Speaker 3: to result in real human suffering and real problems for

631
00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:54,680
Speaker 3: us and drive our economies into the ground. Some of

632
00:32:54,760 --> 00:32:59,040
Speaker 3: us and we don't really get into that, but we do.

633
00:32:59,280 --> 00:33:01,320
Speaker 3: We do. Just really want people to appreciate the fact

634
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:04,080
Speaker 3: that without bees and butterflies and ants, we can't have

635
00:33:04,160 --> 00:33:09,000
Speaker 3: pollinating insects. We're not gonna have food, so you know,

636
00:33:09,040 --> 00:33:13,280
Speaker 3: at least fruits and vegetables. So we, in our little

637
00:33:13,360 --> 00:33:15,440
Speaker 3: quiet way, are trying to get people to fall in

638
00:33:15,520 --> 00:33:18,400
Speaker 3: love with nature as we have. That's it. That's it,

639
00:33:19,080 --> 00:33:21,280
Speaker 3: and there's not much more to it than that. We

640
00:33:21,320 --> 00:33:26,320
Speaker 3: are a long term education campaign financed by National Geographic

641
00:33:26,400 --> 00:33:30,160
Speaker 3: We have the best shot of anybody because of their

642
00:33:30,720 --> 00:33:34,240
Speaker 3: because they're funding it, because of the microphone, the megaphone

643
00:33:34,240 --> 00:33:36,960
Speaker 3: that we have through NG and Disney to try to

644
00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:41,680
Speaker 3: get people to wake up and care about saving habitat.

645
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:47,040
Speaker 3: That's where it's all at for us, tundra, prairies, oceans.

646
00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:50,120
Speaker 3: Try to get them to care. It's a big deal.

647
00:33:50,840 --> 00:33:53,400
Speaker 3: But you know, in the end, if we're just monkeys

648
00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:57,520
Speaker 3: looking at ourselves in the mirror all day long, halla

649
00:33:59,560 --> 00:34:03,000
Speaker 3: stories over, we hope not and we go about our

650
00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:05,640
Speaker 3: business and we don't get down about it. We are

651
00:34:05,680 --> 00:34:08,719
Speaker 3: positive every day and every way we can be. We

652
00:34:08,760 --> 00:34:10,880
Speaker 3: do all we can right now with what we got,

653
00:34:11,080 --> 00:34:13,839
Speaker 3: and we got a lot. We got a lot, and

654
00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:17,440
Speaker 3: most of the world's biodiversity is still here, it's still intact.

655
00:34:18,160 --> 00:34:19,919
Speaker 3: But we have to take the pressure off of it.

656
00:34:20,719 --> 00:34:23,320
Speaker 3: We must take the pressure off of it in various ways.

657
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:25,960
Speaker 3: And so that's just kind of what we do. We

658
00:34:26,000 --> 00:34:29,440
Speaker 3: don't browbeat people. We hope that they We hope that

659
00:34:29,480 --> 00:34:32,000
Speaker 3: they love birds, We hope they love butterflies, we hope

660
00:34:32,040 --> 00:34:35,200
Speaker 3: they love seeing deer, whatever it is that people like.

661
00:34:35,280 --> 00:34:38,120
Speaker 3: We hope they like to fish, whatever. We just want

662
00:34:38,120 --> 00:34:39,759
Speaker 3: to connect with people in ways that we think that

663
00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:43,360
Speaker 3: it's healthy, good for us, lowers our blood pressure, and

664
00:34:43,520 --> 00:34:45,880
Speaker 3: isn't it nice knowing that these animals are out there still,

665
00:34:46,360 --> 00:34:50,239
Speaker 3: that they're forced to hike in and the world's a

666
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:53,320
Speaker 3: good place, you know, just like we think positive about

667
00:34:53,360 --> 00:34:56,360
Speaker 3: things and that it can be going into the future.

668
00:34:56,640 --> 00:34:59,280
Speaker 3: We just think the world's a good place now. Not everywhere,

669
00:34:59,360 --> 00:35:04,000
Speaker 3: of course, but we believe in people wanting to help.

670
00:35:04,120 --> 00:35:06,839
Speaker 3: And since I'm on my high horse here, I tell

671
00:35:06,880 --> 00:35:09,360
Speaker 3: you I think that there's great capacity in human beings

672
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:11,440
Speaker 3: to want to help. We really do. As part of

673
00:35:11,440 --> 00:35:14,160
Speaker 3: our species, you know, we want to fight, we're warlike,

674
00:35:14,560 --> 00:35:18,240
Speaker 3: we're tribal as hell, but we really if you see

675
00:35:18,360 --> 00:35:23,000
Speaker 3: what happens when there's a catastrophe somewhere, you know, a

676
00:35:23,239 --> 00:35:27,719
Speaker 3: terrible cyclone hits Bangladesh, Supplies come in from all over

677
00:35:27,760 --> 00:35:30,000
Speaker 3: the world. Help comes in from all over the world.

678
00:35:30,200 --> 00:35:32,160
Speaker 3: Like we really do want to help, but we don't

679
00:35:32,160 --> 00:35:35,200
Speaker 3: know what to do. What do we do? How can

680
00:35:35,239 --> 00:35:37,080
Speaker 3: we do any Well, there's tons of stuff we can do.

681
00:35:37,719 --> 00:35:41,279
Speaker 3: Just for example, if you have a lawn, think about

682
00:35:41,320 --> 00:35:46,120
Speaker 3: planting native plants to help pollinating insects. Quit porn poison

683
00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:49,840
Speaker 3: all over the ground, porn insecticide on the ground, killing bugs.

684
00:35:50,239 --> 00:35:54,480
Speaker 3: If you love birds, birds feed their young insects. They

685
00:35:54,480 --> 00:35:57,960
Speaker 3: don't feed their young seeds, they feed their babies insects,

686
00:35:58,680 --> 00:36:02,200
Speaker 3: And so if you're wanting insecticide on your lawn to

687
00:36:02,280 --> 00:36:04,799
Speaker 3: keep it looking a certain way, you're killing off the

688
00:36:04,840 --> 00:36:09,279
Speaker 3: bird's abilities to bring off young. Quit pouring herbicide on

689
00:36:09,320 --> 00:36:11,560
Speaker 3: your lawn. You need some diversity in your lawn. You

690
00:36:11,600 --> 00:36:14,879
Speaker 3: need flowering plants, you know, to allow insects to thrive

691
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:17,040
Speaker 3: as well. There's just lots of things people can do,

692
00:36:17,080 --> 00:36:19,680
Speaker 3: and that people don't think about the fact that they

693
00:36:19,719 --> 00:36:22,880
Speaker 3: can do a ton in their hometown. You know, if

694
00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:25,320
Speaker 3: they have a little campaign they can get going to

695
00:36:25,560 --> 00:36:28,120
Speaker 3: get their state highway department or county roads department or

696
00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:30,880
Speaker 3: city parks to plant more native plants and then not

697
00:36:31,080 --> 00:36:33,200
Speaker 3: mow when the ground nesting birds are trying to pull

698
00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:35,960
Speaker 3: off young in the spring. Just don't mow all the time,

699
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:37,719
Speaker 3: then they have to looks like a golf course all

700
00:36:37,760 --> 00:36:41,319
Speaker 3: the time. That's a big deal. That helps insects, that

701
00:36:41,440 --> 00:36:44,399
Speaker 3: helps birds. Like a lot of common sense things people

702
00:36:44,440 --> 00:36:46,760
Speaker 3: can do if they think about it, but most people

703
00:36:46,760 --> 00:36:49,440
Speaker 3: don't know what they can do. Well, there's tons if

704
00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:51,839
Speaker 3: people want to go to my website, which is Joelsartory

705
00:36:51,880 --> 00:36:56,680
Speaker 3: dot com, there's a frequently asked questions page and right

706
00:36:56,719 --> 00:36:58,640
Speaker 3: there are lots of good things people can do from

707
00:36:58,640 --> 00:37:01,680
Speaker 3: their own hometowns to make the world. And they can

708
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:04,520
Speaker 3: also get a sign book through our store. That's the

709
00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:06,480
Speaker 3: some place you can get sign books as through our store.

710
00:37:06,920 --> 00:37:09,759
Speaker 3: But you know, come to it just to learn about

711
00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:11,440
Speaker 3: what you can do in your own town make the

712
00:37:11,520 --> 00:37:12,000
Speaker 3: world better.

713
00:37:12,800 --> 00:37:15,320
Speaker 2: So a lot of the like the reasons for hope

714
00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:17,400
Speaker 2: that you're you're outlining here, they seem they seem to

715
00:37:17,400 --> 00:37:20,680
Speaker 2: be based in sort of like rekindling, like a natural

716
00:37:20,840 --> 00:37:24,960
Speaker 2: inborn association with nature and animals that we're all going

717
00:37:25,040 --> 00:37:29,239
Speaker 2: to have, right, which it reminds me a lot of

718
00:37:28,760 --> 00:37:30,880
Speaker 2: of what EO. Wilson had to So I know you

719
00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:32,399
Speaker 2: were you're a bigger admirer of.

720
00:37:32,400 --> 00:37:36,920
Speaker 3: As well, very much. So yeah, yeah, yeah, he and

721
00:37:37,000 --> 00:37:40,120
Speaker 3: I got to He was in at Gorenghosa National Park

722
00:37:40,160 --> 00:37:42,160
Speaker 3: in Mozambique, and my son Cole and I were there

723
00:37:42,200 --> 00:37:45,400
Speaker 3: with him for a couple of weeks. We just basically

724
00:37:45,480 --> 00:37:48,000
Speaker 3: sat at his feet every day when he wasn't writing

725
00:37:48,280 --> 00:37:50,240
Speaker 3: and soaked it up, you know, when he was writing.

726
00:37:50,320 --> 00:37:52,360
Speaker 3: I mean that's like to go up and talk. We

727
00:37:52,480 --> 00:37:54,920
Speaker 3: never made small talk, went up and just chit chatted

728
00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:56,800
Speaker 3: with him, unless it was at a meal at dinner,

729
00:37:57,320 --> 00:37:59,840
Speaker 3: because it'd be like interrupting Lincoln when he was writing

730
00:37:59,880 --> 00:38:04,160
Speaker 3: the Gettysburg address. You know, very smart guy and he

731
00:38:04,239 --> 00:38:07,400
Speaker 3: taught He taught us both we can't live without ants.

732
00:38:07,680 --> 00:38:09,640
Speaker 3: Ants are such a big deal in terms they clean

733
00:38:09,719 --> 00:38:12,840
Speaker 3: up the environment, They aerate the soil, They provide food

734
00:38:12,880 --> 00:38:15,240
Speaker 3: for all sorts of other life forms. If ants went away,

735
00:38:15,280 --> 00:38:18,040
Speaker 3: so would humans, without a doubt. He said. He also

736
00:38:18,160 --> 00:38:19,680
Speaker 3: was the one that taught me about the value of

737
00:38:20,560 --> 00:38:24,280
Speaker 3: converting the ornamental lawn or just people having green grass

738
00:38:24,400 --> 00:38:30,200
Speaker 3: back to native native plants, nectar bearing plants from monarch, butterflies, milkweed.

739
00:38:30,400 --> 00:38:33,360
Speaker 3: He taught us about that. It's a really good teacher

740
00:38:33,440 --> 00:38:35,640
Speaker 3: and a very kind person who insisted that we call

741
00:38:35,719 --> 00:38:41,520
Speaker 3: him ed, not doctor Wilson, just a great guy. Yeah,

742
00:38:42,080 --> 00:38:45,200
Speaker 3: an honor to hang out with that guy. I walked

743
00:38:45,200 --> 00:38:47,640
Speaker 3: past his room. It was after dark, he'd already eaten.

744
00:38:48,239 --> 00:38:50,640
Speaker 3: His curtains were open in his room at this lodge

745
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:53,600
Speaker 3: we stayed at in Goring Gosa, and I could see

746
00:38:53,640 --> 00:38:57,120
Speaker 3: him he sniffing grasshoppers that he'd collected earlier that day

747
00:38:57,160 --> 00:38:59,359
Speaker 3: on part of a bio blitz. And I went back

748
00:38:59,400 --> 00:39:01,560
Speaker 3: to I was my way to the dining hall and

749
00:39:01,560 --> 00:39:03,879
Speaker 3: I went and sat down with some people who had

750
00:39:03,880 --> 00:39:05,600
Speaker 3: become friends, and I told him what I saw, and

751
00:39:05,680 --> 00:39:08,600
Speaker 3: I said I should go over there and take his picture.

752
00:39:08,600 --> 00:39:10,480
Speaker 3: And they're like, you know what, it's after dark. Leave

753
00:39:10,560 --> 00:39:12,680
Speaker 3: him alone, man, leave him alone. I said, I bet

754
00:39:12,719 --> 00:39:14,320
Speaker 3: you I can get over there and make a picture

755
00:39:14,360 --> 00:39:16,760
Speaker 3: that gets into the magazine based on what I just saw.

756
00:39:17,040 --> 00:39:19,680
Speaker 3: Because he had a big pile of bags of grasshoppers.

757
00:39:20,040 --> 00:39:21,400
Speaker 3: I bet you get in and out of there, and

758
00:39:21,440 --> 00:39:23,280
Speaker 3: the time it takes to play a song on the radio.

759
00:39:24,040 --> 00:39:25,880
Speaker 3: Bet you I could because I had my gear with me.

760
00:39:26,239 --> 00:39:28,480
Speaker 3: I was just getting in from the field. They said, okay,

761
00:39:28,520 --> 00:39:31,160
Speaker 3: we'll time you. So I went in there, knocked on

762
00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:32,960
Speaker 3: the door. He said, yeah, Joel, come on in. I said,

763
00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:35,440
Speaker 3: what are you doing? Why are you smelling grasshoppers? He said, well,

764
00:39:35,600 --> 00:39:38,640
Speaker 3: there's a genus of grasshoppers called foam grasshoppers that when

765
00:39:38,640 --> 00:39:43,640
Speaker 3: they're irritated, they emit this really acidic smelling foam, and

766
00:39:43,680 --> 00:39:47,279
Speaker 3: so I'm picking them up that irritates them, smelling them,

767
00:39:47,280 --> 00:39:49,799
Speaker 3: and then I'm sorting them into that genus. A lot

768
00:39:49,800 --> 00:39:51,360
Speaker 3: of these are new to me. I was like, do

769
00:39:51,440 --> 00:39:52,840
Speaker 3: you care if I get a picture? He says no, no,

770
00:39:52,880 --> 00:39:54,759
Speaker 3: I said, just go on, go on with what you're doing.

771
00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:56,840
Speaker 3: So click, click click got him sniffing a couple of

772
00:39:56,840 --> 00:39:59,280
Speaker 3: grasshoppers in the light of a sconce in his room.

773
00:39:59,560 --> 00:40:02,600
Speaker 3: Next week, desk I was back at that table on

774
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:04,760
Speaker 3: they time it was like three minutes twenty seven seconds.

775
00:40:04,760 --> 00:40:08,400
Speaker 3: I'm like, great, there you go, and it made the magazine.

776
00:40:08,400 --> 00:40:11,040
Speaker 3: But he was just a very gracious, great man, you know,

777
00:40:11,800 --> 00:40:13,880
Speaker 3: won the Pulitzer Prize a time or two, and just

778
00:40:13,920 --> 00:40:15,879
Speaker 3: a fantastic human being.

779
00:40:26,480 --> 00:40:28,239
Speaker 2: They send me a couple of a couple of your

780
00:40:28,239 --> 00:40:31,400
Speaker 2: books here to look at for this interview. This is

781
00:40:31,400 --> 00:40:33,520
Speaker 2: one of them. It's a it's a board book National

782
00:40:33,520 --> 00:40:37,800
Speaker 2: Geographic Photo Arc Bodies QUERPOS I'm going to pass this

783
00:40:37,880 --> 00:40:39,759
Speaker 2: one on to my nephew when I'm done with it,

784
00:40:39,800 --> 00:40:43,600
Speaker 2: because he's a toddler. So kids obviously have such that

785
00:40:43,840 --> 00:40:47,640
Speaker 2: a natural connection with animals. Do you see like these

786
00:40:47,719 --> 00:40:50,000
Speaker 2: these kids books being like a like a vital part

787
00:40:50,160 --> 00:40:51,560
Speaker 2: of the photo arc.

788
00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:54,359
Speaker 3: Oh. Absolutely. One of the reasons that I'm excited about

789
00:40:54,400 --> 00:40:56,759
Speaker 3: him is kid's books that my parents gave me led

790
00:40:56,800 --> 00:40:59,560
Speaker 3: to a lifelong fascination with animals, and I believe it

791
00:40:59,640 --> 00:41:01,799
Speaker 3: or not of any extinction. When I was about eight

792
00:41:01,840 --> 00:41:03,600
Speaker 3: years old, they gave me a time Life book on

793
00:41:03,640 --> 00:41:06,560
Speaker 3: the birds, and in the back was a section on

794
00:41:06,640 --> 00:41:09,760
Speaker 3: extinct US birds. There was a big, full page picture

795
00:41:09,760 --> 00:41:13,200
Speaker 3: of Martha, the very last passenger pigeon, with a little

796
00:41:13,200 --> 00:41:15,000
Speaker 3: sign next to it as she was on display in

797
00:41:15,040 --> 00:41:17,320
Speaker 3: the Smithsonian. You know, last of her kind died in

798
00:41:17,400 --> 00:41:21,719
Speaker 3: nineteen fourteen Cincinnati Zoo. And you know, back then I thought, well,

799
00:41:21,719 --> 00:41:23,600
Speaker 3: people just didn't know what they were doing. But now

800
00:41:24,320 --> 00:41:26,239
Speaker 3: they knew full well. We had the telegraph to tell

801
00:41:26,239 --> 00:41:28,120
Speaker 3: each other where the last great flocks were, and they

802
00:41:28,120 --> 00:41:30,560
Speaker 3: got market hunted down to nothing on purpose because they

803
00:41:30,560 --> 00:41:32,560
Speaker 3: were worth a little bit of money, not much, a

804
00:41:32,560 --> 00:41:38,120
Speaker 3: couple pennies apiece. So, you know, kids, introducing children to

805
00:41:38,239 --> 00:41:41,239
Speaker 3: nature right off the bat when they're toddlers is a

806
00:41:41,280 --> 00:41:44,279
Speaker 3: great idea. And we have a little granddaughter back at

807
00:41:44,280 --> 00:41:47,880
Speaker 3: home who's like nineteen months twenty months. She loves those books.

808
00:41:47,880 --> 00:41:51,120
Speaker 3: They're waterproof, you know, spill anything on them or drool

809
00:41:51,160 --> 00:41:53,200
Speaker 3: on them or whatever. She goes through them again and

810
00:41:53,200 --> 00:41:55,040
Speaker 3: again first thing she runs to in the house. Or

811
00:41:55,120 --> 00:41:57,960
Speaker 3: these are these kids board books that geographics done. So

812
00:41:58,000 --> 00:42:02,360
Speaker 3: this one's on body shapes and it's also since Spanish.

813
00:42:02,400 --> 00:42:04,719
Speaker 3: All these books are in English and Spanish, and so

814
00:42:05,480 --> 00:42:08,160
Speaker 3: we really feel like if we can get them into

815
00:42:08,200 --> 00:42:11,680
Speaker 3: the tent of conservation young there's nothing wrong with that.

816
00:42:11,840 --> 00:42:14,680
Speaker 3: It's okay to care about nature. It's good, it's good,

817
00:42:15,320 --> 00:42:19,120
Speaker 3: it's refreshing. You know. We feel we've got them for

818
00:42:19,200 --> 00:42:21,600
Speaker 3: life if they if they care, you know, and they

819
00:42:21,600 --> 00:42:24,440
Speaker 3: won't care if they've never even met these things. So

820
00:42:24,440 --> 00:42:28,120
Speaker 3: it's very important to allow them to meet these animals

821
00:42:28,239 --> 00:42:30,040
Speaker 3: at a very young age and come back to them

822
00:42:30,040 --> 00:42:32,680
Speaker 3: again and again. I've looked at that the time Life

823
00:42:32,680 --> 00:42:35,520
Speaker 3: book on the birds that had that extinct that extinction section.

824
00:42:35,640 --> 00:42:39,040
Speaker 3: I've looked at that book a thousand times in my life,

825
00:42:39,560 --> 00:42:42,839
Speaker 3: but that the other day, and it's just really it's

826
00:42:42,880 --> 00:42:45,640
Speaker 3: an important reminder of what we stand to lose and

827
00:42:45,680 --> 00:42:48,040
Speaker 3: what we should celebrate, why we should care, you know,

828
00:42:48,560 --> 00:42:50,319
Speaker 3: it's the big thing. I get a question, you know,

829
00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:52,520
Speaker 3: I get a question all the time, you know, what

830
00:42:52,600 --> 00:42:55,360
Speaker 3: good is it? I hear that all the time, you know,

831
00:42:56,120 --> 00:42:58,960
Speaker 3: not all the time, but sometimes what good is it?

832
00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:01,880
Speaker 3: Tough crowd ask me that? But I say, I don't know?

833
00:43:01,920 --> 00:43:04,160
Speaker 3: What good am I? I don't say what good? Are

834
00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:07,840
Speaker 3: you asking a question like that? But I say I

835
00:43:07,880 --> 00:43:10,120
Speaker 3: don't know? I mean, what good am I? I don't know.

836
00:43:10,360 --> 00:43:13,000
Speaker 3: I think that all of them have an important role

837
00:43:13,040 --> 00:43:17,680
Speaker 3: to place, to play over time in our survival. And

838
00:43:18,960 --> 00:43:20,840
Speaker 3: you know, like if fish can't live in the streams,

839
00:43:20,840 --> 00:43:22,719
Speaker 3: why would we think the water is any good to drink?

840
00:43:22,760 --> 00:43:24,719
Speaker 3: And we have to have water, right, we have to

841
00:43:24,760 --> 00:43:27,520
Speaker 3: have bees and butterflies to bring us fruits and vegetables.

842
00:43:27,560 --> 00:43:31,319
Speaker 3: All the stories, you know, but the reality of it

843
00:43:31,360 --> 00:43:34,240
Speaker 3: to me, wouldn't the world be a greatly impoverished place

844
00:43:34,719 --> 00:43:37,960
Speaker 3: if we allow these creatures to vanish? Wouldn't it be

845
00:43:38,040 --> 00:43:40,440
Speaker 3: a poorer world? I mean, we stand guard over works

846
00:43:40,480 --> 00:43:43,080
Speaker 3: of art twenty four hours a day, And when some

847
00:43:43,160 --> 00:43:46,279
Speaker 3: painting gets stolen out of an art museum in Amsterdam,

848
00:43:46,880 --> 00:43:49,320
Speaker 3: we hear about it for months. Where is it, Who's

849
00:43:49,360 --> 00:43:52,160
Speaker 3: got it? Are they going to catch them? And yet

850
00:43:52,160 --> 00:43:55,600
Speaker 3: we'd let these amazing works of art, like some beautiful

851
00:43:55,640 --> 00:44:00,640
Speaker 3: bird go to extinction. That's just not acceptable and I

852
00:44:00,640 --> 00:44:04,120
Speaker 3: don't understand it and I don't accept it. So these kids' books,

853
00:44:04,120 --> 00:44:06,399
Speaker 3: back to your original question, these kids books are super

854
00:44:06,440 --> 00:44:10,680
Speaker 3: important in terms of getting people on board and getting

855
00:44:10,719 --> 00:44:13,520
Speaker 3: them to care for the rest of their lives. That's

856
00:44:13,560 --> 00:44:15,759
Speaker 3: what kids books do. It's not just for the kid

857
00:44:15,800 --> 00:44:19,800
Speaker 3: of today, but it really really gets a strong sense

858
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:22,520
Speaker 3: that I love these things and I want these things

859
00:44:22,760 --> 00:44:26,839
Speaker 3: into our hearts, you know. And it's a great thing

860
00:44:26,880 --> 00:44:29,120
Speaker 3: because these kids will be landowners, or they will own

861
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:31,759
Speaker 3: corporations that have the choice of whether or not to

862
00:44:31,800 --> 00:44:35,360
Speaker 3: bulldoze that last place or whether simpler, easier choice, and

863
00:44:35,440 --> 00:44:38,760
Speaker 3: a very reasonable one, is should we plant the yard

864
00:44:39,080 --> 00:44:43,720
Speaker 3: or the lawns at our corporate headquarters to native prairie? Yes,

865
00:44:44,520 --> 00:44:47,520
Speaker 3: Yes you should, Yes you should. It's an easy thing

866
00:44:47,560 --> 00:44:50,120
Speaker 3: to do, and people out on their breaks from work

867
00:44:50,160 --> 00:44:51,719
Speaker 3: are going to love it. They're going to walk around,

868
00:44:51,760 --> 00:44:53,359
Speaker 3: they're going to tell their buddies that they saw them

869
00:44:53,360 --> 00:44:57,200
Speaker 3: on our butterfly out there today. And you know, it's

870
00:44:57,239 --> 00:45:00,279
Speaker 3: a really good thing and so much more interesting just

871
00:45:00,320 --> 00:45:03,520
Speaker 3: green grass. It really has golf courses, could do a

872
00:45:03,640 --> 00:45:08,600
Speaker 3: world of good city parks. There's lots we can do. Now.

873
00:45:08,600 --> 00:45:10,480
Speaker 2: I want to be respectful if you're your time here,

874
00:45:10,480 --> 00:45:13,560
Speaker 2: But there's so many, so many questions I could ask

875
00:45:13,600 --> 00:45:16,480
Speaker 2: you based on past talks that I've seen, So I'm

876
00:45:16,480 --> 00:45:18,840
Speaker 2: just gonna ask a couple of quick ones here. First

877
00:45:18,840 --> 00:45:23,799
Speaker 2: of all, tell us about spitting cobras, your encounters with them.

878
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:25,920
Speaker 3: Will you see the sixty minutes piece is that the

879
00:45:25,960 --> 00:45:32,560
Speaker 3: thing spitting cobras. They're interesting and then they developed venom.

880
00:45:32,600 --> 00:45:34,640
Speaker 3: They can deliver it through their fangs, but they can

881
00:45:34,680 --> 00:45:37,680
Speaker 3: also spit it, and it's good for a couple of things.

882
00:45:38,200 --> 00:45:41,000
Speaker 3: One is if you spit venom in the predator's eyes

883
00:45:41,080 --> 00:45:45,160
Speaker 3: that they're trying to get you and blind them, they

884
00:45:45,200 --> 00:45:48,600
Speaker 3: can't really find you to eat you. That's handy. And

885
00:45:48,640 --> 00:45:52,319
Speaker 3: they also can venomate prey that way, Like if they say,

886
00:45:52,600 --> 00:45:55,920
Speaker 3: see a desert kangaroo rat, they spit their venom in

887
00:45:55,960 --> 00:45:58,880
Speaker 3: their face and then that rat can't see anything and

888
00:45:59,360 --> 00:46:03,440
Speaker 3: get it pretty easily. So but that's not something that

889
00:46:03,480 --> 00:46:05,120
Speaker 3: I want to happen to me. But I have to

890
00:46:05,120 --> 00:46:08,240
Speaker 3: photograph them, so I wear goggles or a face shield

891
00:46:08,320 --> 00:46:12,719
Speaker 3: with glasses, and then I just I'm good. You know,

892
00:46:12,800 --> 00:46:14,520
Speaker 3: I don't want to be invenomated, but I work at

893
00:46:14,520 --> 00:46:17,719
Speaker 3: a respectful distance. I ask the keepers, what can I do?

894
00:46:18,480 --> 00:46:20,640
Speaker 3: Where can I be? Don't let me get too close.

895
00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:22,080
Speaker 3: I kind of lose the sense of where I am

896
00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:25,239
Speaker 3: with this camera box in front of my face. And

897
00:46:25,440 --> 00:46:28,719
Speaker 3: uh yeah, so far, no problem. But that spitting cobra

898
00:46:28,800 --> 00:46:30,920
Speaker 3: venom is really hard to get off a lenses, So

899
00:46:30,960 --> 00:46:34,520
Speaker 3: I use a filter, a glass screw and filter whenever

900
00:46:34,520 --> 00:46:37,200
Speaker 3: i'm working with those to keep the If I do

901
00:46:37,320 --> 00:46:40,080
Speaker 3: get it invenomated and I can't wipe it off right away,

902
00:46:40,560 --> 00:46:42,400
Speaker 3: you really want to watch it. You don't want any cuts.

903
00:46:42,680 --> 00:46:43,920
Speaker 3: You don't want to get it in your mouth. You

904
00:46:43,960 --> 00:46:45,839
Speaker 3: get a little cut in your mouth, you don't want

905
00:46:45,880 --> 00:46:47,920
Speaker 3: to get that stuff in your bloodstream at all. So

906
00:46:47,960 --> 00:46:51,640
Speaker 3: you just have to be kind of careful. And yeah, yeah,

907
00:46:51,680 --> 00:46:53,400
Speaker 3: I'll be glad when I'm done with the cobras and

908
00:46:53,440 --> 00:46:55,439
Speaker 3: the mambas. We're getting there.

909
00:46:56,239 --> 00:46:59,200
Speaker 2: You've had stowaways before, right in your photo gear.

910
00:46:59,280 --> 00:47:03,040
Speaker 3: I have, you've on your homework. Yeah. I remember going

911
00:47:03,080 --> 00:47:08,040
Speaker 3: to the International Rattlesnake Museum in downtown Albuquerque and we

912
00:47:08,280 --> 00:47:10,440
Speaker 3: and we had a snake, a rattlesnake get into the

913
00:47:10,440 --> 00:47:12,280
Speaker 3: bottom of my camera bag and we had to somehow

914
00:47:12,320 --> 00:47:16,000
Speaker 3: get the lenses and cameras out to get to the snake.

915
00:47:16,080 --> 00:47:20,480
Speaker 3: You know. I also had mamas are really good at climbing.

916
00:47:20,719 --> 00:47:23,120
Speaker 3: A lot of vipers are good at climbing, but mamas

917
00:47:23,120 --> 00:47:27,080
Speaker 3: are really fast and smart. And had something like that,

918
00:47:27,160 --> 00:47:30,120
Speaker 3: I think it was a cobra get inside my climbed,

919
00:47:30,760 --> 00:47:32,920
Speaker 3: wrapped its body around my light stand and went right

920
00:47:33,000 --> 00:47:35,319
Speaker 3: up and into this big soft box I had with

921
00:47:35,400 --> 00:47:37,120
Speaker 3: this kind of waffle grid on the front of it

922
00:47:37,160 --> 00:47:40,560
Speaker 3: to modify the light going straight. It was really hard

923
00:47:40,560 --> 00:47:42,680
Speaker 3: to extract that snake out of there, and I was

924
00:47:42,719 --> 00:47:45,799
Speaker 3: also worried that he was going to bust the flashead

925
00:47:45,840 --> 00:47:49,480
Speaker 3: inside because there's exposed glass there. Oh we got him out, okay,

926
00:47:49,640 --> 00:47:54,000
Speaker 3: But yeah, those aren't Those aren't fun. We're not looking

927
00:47:54,040 --> 00:47:56,960
Speaker 3: for drama. Were just looking to get the pictures quickly

928
00:47:57,000 --> 00:48:00,239
Speaker 3: and get out, and we're just not looking for anything

929
00:48:00,520 --> 00:48:04,160
Speaker 3: out of the out of the ordinary. We just want

930
00:48:04,200 --> 00:48:06,760
Speaker 3: it to be drama free, get done, go ab dinner,

931
00:48:06,760 --> 00:48:08,040
Speaker 3: and start again the next day.

932
00:48:08,560 --> 00:48:10,440
Speaker 2: I have to ask you about another photograph. This is

933
00:48:10,480 --> 00:48:13,239
Speaker 2: one that I believe it's on your website. And my

934
00:48:13,640 --> 00:48:15,920
Speaker 2: wife showed this one to May years ago, and you know,

935
00:48:16,120 --> 00:48:18,400
Speaker 2: really wanted to tell me the story behind it. So

936
00:48:18,400 --> 00:48:21,719
Speaker 2: I have to ask about the mosquito feet photograph.

937
00:48:21,880 --> 00:48:23,600
Speaker 3: I figured you were going to ask about that one.

938
00:48:23,920 --> 00:48:26,799
Speaker 3: So I had a boss who was You know, when

939
00:48:26,840 --> 00:48:29,080
Speaker 3: you work with an editor at the geographic they're kind

940
00:48:29,080 --> 00:48:30,640
Speaker 3: of right with you. They don't go in the field

941
00:48:30,719 --> 00:48:33,279
Speaker 3: with you much, but there every day we talk what

942
00:48:33,320 --> 00:48:34,640
Speaker 3: do you get? What do you get? What you get?

943
00:48:35,239 --> 00:48:37,239
Speaker 3: And it was a story on Alaska's North Slope, and

944
00:48:37,280 --> 00:48:39,239
Speaker 3: I had a discussion with her. I hadn't made a

945
00:48:39,239 --> 00:48:42,319
Speaker 3: good picture in about three days. You can't have too

946
00:48:42,320 --> 00:48:45,920
Speaker 3: many days without making good pictures and still work for them.

947
00:48:46,360 --> 00:48:48,480
Speaker 3: The lines a mile long. People wanted to work for them.

948
00:48:48,520 --> 00:48:50,560
Speaker 3: So I hadn't made a picture in about three days.

949
00:48:50,560 --> 00:48:52,520
Speaker 3: But I remembered this place I was at. It was

950
00:48:52,560 --> 00:48:55,719
Speaker 3: the most mosquito filled spot I'd been to on Alaska's

951
00:48:55,760 --> 00:48:58,360
Speaker 3: North Slope, and I've been all over the slope. It

952
00:48:58,480 --> 00:49:01,040
Speaker 3: was a place called Tulik Research Station. It had It

953
00:49:01,080 --> 00:49:03,760
Speaker 3: was up on a series of bluffs or rolling sand

954
00:49:03,960 --> 00:49:08,320
Speaker 3: sandy kind of hills, and I just remember the bugs

955
00:49:08,320 --> 00:49:10,279
Speaker 3: were so thick. We couldn't even talk. We couldn't open

956
00:49:10,320 --> 00:49:12,960
Speaker 3: our mouths. We had to wear head netting and then

957
00:49:12,960 --> 00:49:15,880
Speaker 3: we could kind of talk, but it was like just buzzing.

958
00:49:16,080 --> 00:49:18,000
Speaker 3: Sounded like you were by a highway. There were so

959
00:49:18,160 --> 00:49:23,040
Speaker 3: many mosquitoes buzz just clouds of them, and so even

960
00:49:23,040 --> 00:49:25,280
Speaker 3: when it was windy and cold, they were right there.

961
00:49:25,840 --> 00:49:28,359
Speaker 3: And so I thought, you know, if I ever get

962
00:49:28,360 --> 00:49:30,360
Speaker 3: in a jam or I'm not making good pictures of

963
00:49:30,400 --> 00:49:32,480
Speaker 3: anything going on up here, I'm going to drive to

964
00:49:32,560 --> 00:49:35,080
Speaker 3: Tulk to that hill that was so bad, and I'm

965
00:49:35,120 --> 00:49:37,560
Speaker 3: going to sit there and I'm going to take off

966
00:49:37,560 --> 00:49:39,640
Speaker 3: my shoes and socks and just let them eat up

967
00:49:39,640 --> 00:49:41,640
Speaker 3: my feet. Because I'd had my feet in the magazine

968
00:49:41,680 --> 00:49:45,040
Speaker 3: two times before, and I thought, third times a charm,

969
00:49:45,120 --> 00:49:46,640
Speaker 3: Let me get my let me get my feet in

970
00:49:46,640 --> 00:49:48,920
Speaker 3: the magazine again. So I took off my shoes and socks.

971
00:49:48,960 --> 00:49:52,560
Speaker 3: I duct taped my jeans inside my jeans so they

972
00:49:52,560 --> 00:49:55,000
Speaker 3: couldn't get up my pant legs and I just put

973
00:49:55,040 --> 00:49:59,000
Speaker 3: my two big, white, ugly paddle feet out there with

974
00:49:59,040 --> 00:50:01,920
Speaker 3: this beautiful mountain engine soft light and just photographed my

975
00:50:01,960 --> 00:50:06,440
Speaker 3: feet for about thirty minutes. And it was horrible. It

976
00:50:06,480 --> 00:50:11,759
Speaker 3: was horrible, awful, you know, like they were crackling. There's

977
00:50:11,760 --> 00:50:14,080
Speaker 3: so many laid on top of your crackling. But tell

978
00:50:14,120 --> 00:50:16,360
Speaker 3: your wife. On my left foot was a bare spot

979
00:50:16,400 --> 00:50:19,359
Speaker 3: of white flesh, but it didn't have a blood flow,

980
00:50:19,400 --> 00:50:22,160
Speaker 3: and the mosquito, since that didn't have any blood flow,

981
00:50:22,280 --> 00:50:24,759
Speaker 3: so none. I was waiting for mosquito to land in

982
00:50:24,760 --> 00:50:27,759
Speaker 3: that spot to kind of complete the composition. But after

983
00:50:27,800 --> 00:50:32,000
Speaker 3: about thirty minutes, I was like being driven insane. It

984
00:50:32,120 --> 00:50:37,600
Speaker 3: was just horrible, and I I got up. I bracketed

985
00:50:37,640 --> 00:50:40,239
Speaker 3: it was slide film, so I bracketed my exposures enough

986
00:50:40,280 --> 00:50:42,640
Speaker 3: to know I had it. And then I got in

987
00:50:42,680 --> 00:50:44,160
Speaker 3: the truck and drove back. And it was a three

988
00:50:44,200 --> 00:50:46,560
Speaker 3: and a half hour drive back to dead Horse, where

989
00:50:46,200 --> 00:50:50,520
Speaker 3: I'd rented a mining company pickup truck. I took off

990
00:50:50,520 --> 00:50:54,560
Speaker 3: my shoes and socks, I scratched my feet and I've

991
00:50:54,560 --> 00:50:56,400
Speaker 3: never felt anything that good in my life. I spept

992
00:50:56,840 --> 00:50:59,720
Speaker 3: the entire way back and felt so good. I forgot

993
00:50:59,760 --> 00:51:05,080
Speaker 3: to wallow. I was ruling on myself, scratching my feet,

994
00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:08,799
Speaker 3: alternating which foot i'd scratch. I just want to keep

995
00:51:08,800 --> 00:51:10,200
Speaker 3: one foot on the guess at all times. So tell

996
00:51:10,239 --> 00:51:13,120
Speaker 3: your wife. It just turned me into an animal, and

997
00:51:13,160 --> 00:51:15,200
Speaker 3: it was. But it's one of the most popular pictures

998
00:51:15,200 --> 00:51:16,680
Speaker 3: I ever shot, by.

999
00:51:16,520 --> 00:51:19,000
Speaker 2: Far, and I think you can buy a print on

1000
00:51:19,320 --> 00:51:19,920
Speaker 2: your website.

1001
00:51:20,040 --> 00:51:22,080
Speaker 3: I'm sure you can buy a print of anything I shot.

1002
00:51:22,120 --> 00:51:23,360
Speaker 3: I on the rights to all of it. But the

1003
00:51:24,160 --> 00:51:28,120
Speaker 3: thing is with that, it's like that illustrates to me

1004
00:51:28,320 --> 00:51:31,799
Speaker 3: how far you've got to go in terms of discomfort

1005
00:51:31,800 --> 00:51:34,319
Speaker 3: to make a picture that's surprising. We want people to

1006
00:51:34,320 --> 00:51:38,880
Speaker 3: be surprised and entertained and you know, move them somehow.

1007
00:51:40,040 --> 00:51:42,680
Speaker 3: That's what a good journalist does, is get people involved

1008
00:51:42,760 --> 00:51:46,640
Speaker 3: and take the reader with you into that place, show

1009
00:51:46,640 --> 00:51:49,279
Speaker 3: them what it's like. And because mosquitoes are such an

1010
00:51:49,320 --> 00:51:52,960
Speaker 3: important part of the ecosystem up there most of the continents,

1011
00:51:53,480 --> 00:51:57,480
Speaker 3: ducks and geese and shore birds go up there. Swans too,

1012
00:51:57,920 --> 00:52:00,520
Speaker 3: they go up there to breed, and there's such a

1013
00:52:00,520 --> 00:52:04,520
Speaker 3: a rich food chain there. It starts with mosquitos, and

1014
00:52:04,640 --> 00:52:07,400
Speaker 3: I wanted to illustrate the mosquitoes there, but I couldn't

1015
00:52:07,400 --> 00:52:09,640
Speaker 3: really figure out a way to do it in a

1016
00:52:09,680 --> 00:52:12,919
Speaker 3: way that would attract people or they'd notice because they're

1017
00:52:12,920 --> 00:52:15,880
Speaker 3: so small. They're usually small, and they're up against the sky,

1018
00:52:15,960 --> 00:52:19,920
Speaker 3: and how do you show that? But yeah, I figured

1019
00:52:19,920 --> 00:52:21,680
Speaker 3: that would work excellent.

1020
00:52:21,760 --> 00:52:24,319
Speaker 2: Well, Joel, I really appreciate you coming on the show

1021
00:52:24,360 --> 00:52:27,759
Speaker 2: and chatting with me again. It's honored to talk with you.

1022
00:52:28,000 --> 00:52:31,200
Speaker 2: A huge fan of your work. The book again, I'm

1023
00:52:31,200 --> 00:52:33,560
Speaker 2: going to hold it up here for folks. This is

1024
00:52:33,760 --> 00:52:37,960
Speaker 2: the photo Arc Animals of Earth. Tremendous book. Recommend everybody

1025
00:52:37,960 --> 00:52:39,560
Speaker 2: pick up a copy and if you see the copy

1026
00:52:39,560 --> 00:52:41,800
Speaker 2: out in the world, pick it up and start looking through.

1027
00:52:41,600 --> 00:52:44,799
Speaker 3: It and go to joelsartry dot com if you want

1028
00:52:44,800 --> 00:52:48,319
Speaker 3: to signed copy. Excellent profits we get go right back

1029
00:52:48,320 --> 00:52:50,359
Speaker 3: into the photo arcs. So you're helping build the arc too.

1030
00:52:51,120 --> 00:52:51,600
Speaker 2: Awesome.

1031
00:52:52,080 --> 00:52:53,880
Speaker 3: Thank you very much, such a pleasure.

1032
00:52:54,120 --> 00:53:00,959
Speaker 2: Thank you all right, Thanks again to Joey for taking

1033
00:53:01,000 --> 00:53:03,480
Speaker 2: time out of his day to chat with me. Thanks

1034
00:53:03,520 --> 00:53:05,520
Speaker 2: to my wife Bonnie for helping me out with the

1035
00:53:05,600 --> 00:53:08,600
Speaker 2: questions on this one. Like I say, she's a photographer.

1036
00:53:08,719 --> 00:53:11,160
Speaker 2: She's been a big fan of Joel's work for years

1037
00:53:11,160 --> 00:53:15,279
Speaker 2: and years. I think I first learned about Joel's work

1038
00:53:15,640 --> 00:53:18,080
Speaker 2: through my wife, so she was excited that I was

1039
00:53:18,080 --> 00:53:19,400
Speaker 2: going to get to chat with him, and we were

1040
00:53:19,400 --> 00:53:22,719
Speaker 2: working together on these questions. So definitely I have to

1041
00:53:22,719 --> 00:53:24,760
Speaker 2: get her props here, and I know that she's listening

1042
00:53:24,760 --> 00:53:28,600
Speaker 2: as well. So thanks, sweetie, I appreciate it, and of

1043
00:53:28,600 --> 00:53:32,719
Speaker 2: course thanks to JJ Posway, the excellent JJ Posway who

1044
00:53:33,360 --> 00:53:37,120
Speaker 2: edits our show and stitched all of this together. Let's see.

1045
00:53:37,160 --> 00:53:39,160
Speaker 2: On top of that, I'll just remind everyone out there

1046
00:53:39,160 --> 00:53:41,360
Speaker 2: that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science

1047
00:53:41,400 --> 00:53:44,319
Speaker 2: and culture podcast. We have our core episodes. That's our

1048
00:53:44,360 --> 00:53:48,160
Speaker 2: core science and culture episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We

1049
00:53:48,200 --> 00:53:50,640
Speaker 2: do a little short form action on Wednesdays, and then

1050
00:53:50,680 --> 00:53:53,120
Speaker 2: on Fridays we set all that aside. We just do

1051
00:53:53,200 --> 00:53:56,200
Speaker 2: a weird movie for Weird House Cinema, So go ahead

1052
00:53:56,200 --> 00:53:59,000
Speaker 2: and check that out. You'll find this wherever you get

1053
00:53:59,040 --> 00:54:01,200
Speaker 2: your audio podcast, and if you want the video version,

1054
00:54:01,400 --> 00:54:04,239
Speaker 2: head on over to Netflix. And wherever you get the show,

1055
00:54:04,280 --> 00:54:07,200
Speaker 2: we just asked you rate, review, subscribe if you're on Netflix,

1056
00:54:07,320 --> 00:54:09,600
Speaker 2: give us a couple of thumbs up, and ask to

1057
00:54:09,600 --> 00:54:12,560
Speaker 2: be reminded about new episodes and if you would like

1058
00:54:12,600 --> 00:54:16,520
Speaker 2: to reach out to us, ask us questions, requests, topics

1059
00:54:16,520 --> 00:54:19,560
Speaker 2: for the future, you can email us at contact at

1060
00:54:19,560 --> 00:54:28,959
Speaker 2: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

1061
00:54:29,080 --> 00:54:32,040
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1062
00:54:32,120 --> 00:54:34,879
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1063
00:54:35,040 --> 00:54:53,000
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.