A conversation with Murray Livingston (EP219)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Sa. [00:00:26] Speaker B: Well, g' day everybody and welcome back to the Camera Life podcast. It is Thursday the 24th of September, and you know, being a Thursday morning, of course, we are joined by an incredible guest joining us today live from. Where did you say you were earlier? You're on an island. Isle of White or the Isle of Man? [00:00:43] Speaker C: Isle of sky. [00:00:46] Speaker B: Yeah, even, even, even colder, of course. We are joined by UK sl, Cape Town based nature photographer Murray Livingston. How are you, Mari? [00:00:56] Speaker C: Yeah, very well. Thanks for having me on, guys. Looking forward. [00:01:00] Speaker B: Thanks for, thanks for joining us. It's almost midnight where you are, isn't it? Give or take. [00:01:05] Speaker D: Is it? [00:01:06] Speaker C: Yeah, it's just gone midnight. [00:01:08] Speaker B: Yeah. What we, we certainly appreciate, appreciate you staying up for us and we'll try to, we'll try to make this as painless as possible. We promise. [00:01:19] Speaker A: Four hour podcast. [00:01:20] Speaker C: A four hour podcast. [00:01:21] Speaker B: Yeah. But, you know, you're more than just a photographer. You run workshops, you do webinar series work. There's a lot going on and we're going to unpack all of that. But Justin's got a, a question that he's itching to ask, so. I do. [00:01:35] Speaker D: Well, we were talking before the show about workshops and photography workshops and I was, I was fortunate enough this year [00:01:41] Speaker A: I had an amazing opportunity to go [00:01:43] Speaker D: on a, a workshop in South Africa [00:01:47] Speaker A: with Matt Crummons, a wildlife workshop. [00:01:49] Speaker D: And I got to go and because [00:01:52] Speaker A: I was going to do some work for him, some video work, I didn't have to pay the full fee to go on the workshop, which, you know, [00:01:59] Speaker D: those kind of workshops can be pretty expensive. And we're talking about. [00:02:02] Speaker A: It was an amazing experience and an experience I would recommend to anybody. [00:02:07] Speaker D: But sometimes, you know, not all of us can afford. [00:02:11] Speaker A: I know I wouldn't have been able to afford to go in that workshop had I just want to book it myself at the moment. [00:02:17] Speaker D: And not all of us can afford [00:02:19] Speaker A: these kind of, you know, extremely. [00:02:23] Speaker D: What would you call them, once in [00:02:24] Speaker A: a lifetime bucket list experiences, and especially not many of them if we can afford one. [00:02:29] Speaker D: And I wanted to find out off you, you run workshops, but are there ways that us as photographers can reinvigorate [00:02:38] Speaker A: our work, push our work forward, or just, you know, enjoy photography without going on, you know, the $10,000 workshop. [00:02:49] Speaker C: Yeah, it's, I think it's a tricky one for sure. It seems like more and more these days people are pushing towards this, like, luxury market and leaving that sort of accessible workshop. Out of the question, really. And I think there are a few places where you can still get that experience. I know certainly I'm involved with something called the Nature of Photography Collective. And that's part of what we do is like try to provide more accessible price points. And so there are people out there that are doing it. But I think also as you mentioned, like the online experience is growing more and more. You know, it used to just be that you could go and buy courses, editing courses, say from somebody. Now more and more we see mentoring courses and boot camps and all sorts of different things coming to the fore. So I think, you know, there's availability depending on how much you are willing to spend and invest into your own learning. At the end of the day, you know, you mentioned it's an amazing experience. If you're gonna shell out some cash, chances are you probably are gonna have an amazing experience and it's worth it. Yeah, yeah, I would hope so. Certainly. [00:04:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:08] Speaker C: Africa in particular is tricky in. [00:04:12] Speaker D: So why, why would you say that Africa being tricky? [00:04:15] Speaker A: Because of the cost and how remote it is to, to get to those sort of those bucket list experiences that people are looking for. [00:04:24] Speaker C: I think because it tends to be further away from where a lot of certainly Western travelers are coming from or from Australia for instance. People want to maximize the time that they spend there. And so they're not going to just fly out for like a three, four day workshop. Yeah, they're going to want to go and spend two weeks or something. And then now all of a sudden, you know, you're, you're looking at a much more extensive workshop or you know, maybe you only do a short workshop and then you do the rest as a self drive or something that you take on, on yourself. So I think there are ways to achieve it and you just got to be, you know, a little bit smart about. [00:05:08] Speaker B: Yeah. And just from that. Sorry, I cut you off. So. Sorry. [00:05:13] Speaker C: No, go ahead. [00:05:14] Speaker B: You never take a pause around here. [00:05:16] Speaker D: Never take a. Greg will jump right in. I will. [00:05:19] Speaker B: Burning with a question. You know, we were chatting briefly before we went live and sorry for folks that missed that live chat, but you know, we were talking about accessibility of workshops and the growth in online education, you know, and people have been running online, like you mentioned, portions of education online for, you know, basically since YouTube started up and the Internet kicked in. But we see more and more of it and you know, we, we don't always have a means to validate someone's actual skill set before we, you know, before we sit down to watch a piece of content because it is such a flooded market and we get these People. Yeah, I hate the term influencer because, you know, that's exactly what we are. But that's not what we're trying to do. You know, we're not trying to influence people, we're just trying to provide an entertaining way to talk about photography. Anyway, enough about that. But, you know, this push into, you know, influencers creating content and marketing it and promoting it as though they're, you know, absolute professionals at what they're doing, but they may have never run a physical workshop in their life, nor maybe run a photography business. Do you think there's a risk there of photography skills being dumbed down through those experiences, or do you think that there's still a valid place for online education? [00:06:34] Speaker C: I think that's a really good point, Greg. And I mean it's the, the world that we live in is like more is, it's become more accessible and it's become more free. Certainly, you know, everyone's sort of chasing that of social media and things that you, you might find in that world. And it is really tricky to validate like, does this person actually know what they're talking about? If you don't know what you're talking about? If you come to it from like a beginner's point of view, you know, I don't know where you would start because there's just so much out there and then maybe that's where. Yeah, exactly. You go through the trial and error process and I think we all sort of probably went through that starting out with this thing, this photography thing. You go and test a few things out with your camera. Do you like the results or not? Okay. No. [00:07:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:34] Speaker C: You know, that video I watched by Greg was really terrible. He doesn't know what he's talking about. I'll go try Justin's video and it'll be worse. [00:07:43] Speaker B: You think mine's bad? [00:07:46] Speaker D: Yeah, it's, it's tricky and I guess, I mean the good thing is, is the risk is low with online education, [00:07:53] Speaker A: you know, especially with the amount of free content that's out there. The worst thing that you can really do is maybe waste a little bit of your time and, and have to, you know, find the right answers down the track. But [00:08:04] Speaker D: what I don't know I'm interested in know. Do you have any ideas on what the future of, of like, photography education is like? Because we saw. Were you familiar with the website Creative Live? [00:08:17] Speaker C: I don't think so. Yeah, tell me about it. [00:08:19] Speaker D: It was super popular. It actually got like it. It had people invested in it, so it had all the huge names in [00:08:28] Speaker A: photography doing online, like masterclass courses, kind [00:08:33] Speaker D: of like almost like recorded in front of a live audience, maybe like a [00:08:37] Speaker A: live workshop, but high production value and you had to basically pay for each course. And some of them were, you know, hundreds of dollars or whatever. And then as it evolved, it became a membership where you could just have access to everything for like four or five hundred dollars a year, I think it was. [00:08:54] Speaker D: And at that point it had a [00:08:56] Speaker A: lot of stuff on it, but it ended up getting bought by another company and then kind of shelved and now it's getting re brought back to life. But I wonder whether that the time has come and gone. Like there's so much content on YouTube now available for free and these, these weren't very interactive. These were like, it was sort of like a curated course that you would watch and they might have some worksheets and stuff like that and you could maybe I think get some feedback from an instructor or something after the fact. But there was certainly no back and forth while you watched this thing. [00:09:37] Speaker D: And they were great. But I just wonder with how much [00:09:40] Speaker A: stuff is available now for free in every genre, from every photographer all over the world on YouTube, is that style of online learning maybe kind of over people looking for more interaction, something more personal? [00:09:57] Speaker C: I think the live thing definitely still has a place. You know, what you guys do here is a version of that for sure. And the live webinar space seems to still be alive and kicking. Well, I think that what you can't get away from in photography is the value of in person. So like online's got its place and I think it gets you to a certain level. But ultimately I think it all comes back to in person because what we're doing is physical. You know, we're experiencing the real world, right. Trying to translate that into a photograph. So there's only so much you can communicate through a screen, even with high production value. So for me there's some world where it's a combination of both, where, you know, you get something a little bit more personal online and you get a little bit of interaction, whether that's through a live chat on a, on a webinar or something more like a mastermind mentorship program in a group. You know, I think that's really, really valuable. And hopefully, you know, you get some one on one time with your instructor and then possibly that leads you onto a workshop with whoever you've been, whoever you've signed up with. I think some kind of like structured learning program is actually really beneficial. And a lot of people are sort of going up the. How do I learn photography? Very haphazard. I don't know. For me it's, it's, I see it more of like there's an opportunity to, to bring some actual sort of teaching practices to the field. [00:11:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's a great point. You know, there's a lot we can learn online. There's a lot we can just learn just using YouTube. But it's so different to having someone stand with you and reassure you that you're doing the right thing or, you know, you get stuck with something or you get frustrated to have a personable instructor come up, say, hey, it's okay, let's just take five, let's just sit and look at the scenery, grab your camera, let's talk about settings. You know, like it, you don't get that from a, from a one directional, you know, non live YouTube experience. And even with live, you know, you run the risk of people not wanting to speak up because they're shy. And if it's in a group thing, you know, that often holds people back. But yeah, it's an interesting, it's an interesting playing field that you guys work in. [00:12:33] Speaker C: So much of it is the mental game, right? It's, it's about being a photographer, being a creative. Like those things are challenging and too, too often I see sort of like creative doubts creep in or a photographer is like holding themselves back from being the best version of a creative that they can be. And yeah, that's really tricky to pick up online. Like face to face zoom, you know, you can pick up so much over a screen, but body language and all these things in person is totally different. [00:13:09] Speaker D: Yeah, tell me more about that. I mean, you just mentioned like people [00:13:17] Speaker A: getting in their own way, the mindset of a photographer. [00:13:21] Speaker D: Yeah, tell me more about how you [00:13:24] Speaker A: unpack that with people. Like, I hadn't even really given that much thought and then when he said [00:13:28] Speaker D: it, then I was like, oh, I [00:13:29] Speaker A: want to diagnose my mindset. [00:13:32] Speaker D: What's wrong with me? Like, yeah, hang on. Do you find that photographers are blocked in their creativity or what is it that you, that you find when you [00:13:45] Speaker A: work with people in that sort of aspect? [00:13:48] Speaker C: I think there can be lots of things. I think there can be like technical block where there's a challenge or a particular skill that someone's trying to learn and they're struggling to gain competency in it. And it's something that maybe is just one step too far for the stage that they're at. So I try to think of trying to align somebody's a challenge with their skill set. Having an appropriate challenge that's achievable and that could be technical. It could be learning a new skill like ICM or whatever it is, focus stacking, but it could also be creative. You know, let's go and try and create a series of high key images. And if you've never done that before, it can be really mentally challenging to try and get into the mindset of I'm in the landscape, how do I actually visualize images that I'm trying to make. And if you've, you know, you've got a doubt of do I have the capability to do that? Then you've got to start to tease, peel back layers of. Okay, let's build some confidence here. Can I instruct somebody, give them a demonstration of how I might do it or give them gentle guidance point by point so that they get steered in the right direction. And I think that the instructor's got a really key role in building people's confidence. For me, it's all about, that's what it's all about is like you're, if you can only go on one workshop a year, like you said, Justin, then the rest of the time you're going to be on your own or with mates. [00:15:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:35] Speaker C: So you've got to have the confidence and the mindset, be able to get into that creative mindset to be able to do it on your own. [00:15:44] Speaker D: Do you ever, have you ever come across someone you've taught or this problem of people being, I don't know if overconfident is the right word, but kind of the other end where it's like [00:15:57] Speaker A: I, or I already know that or I, you know, is, is that ever [00:16:01] Speaker D: an issue with photographers, do you find? [00:16:05] Speaker C: I think I've encountered more like I know what I know and I like what I know and I'm okay, I'm comfortable to be in this little bubble, [00:16:15] Speaker A: stay in here and not leave. Yeah, yeah, okay. [00:16:19] Speaker C: I, I think that's the, the client that I tend to attract more than like the overconfident type. Yeah, yeah. And it's challenging to try and break somebody out from that shell. But, but ultimately you've got to remind them like, hey, you've signed on to this thing and that's my job is to try and get you out of your shell, try and get you to try something new. Most people go along with it. I haven't had anyone yet. I don't think who's been like, no, I'm not doing that. [00:16:56] Speaker D: Is part of that maybe sometimes the. The fear of failing at something new, you know, like, they've seen a little [00:17:02] Speaker A: bit of success in creating great images in a certain way, and it's like, if I deviate from that, my. My photos might not look as. As good as people. They expect a certain level from me now or something. Is it. Is it that? Or is there something else at play? [00:17:20] Speaker C: I think it could be. It certainly could be. And I think there's maybe sometimes it's the internal validation that you're referring to of, like the fear of failure, but sometimes it's also the external validation. You know, they've made work and it's been well received by social media or their peers or whoever, and so they're seeking more of that. And maybe you get known for a certain genre or a certain style of imagery, and so you get comfortable in that. And it's really difficult. I think maybe if you allude to, like, the band, a band that releases an amazing first album, like, how do you follow up with the second album? Or how do you justify changing your style when you. You've been known for one thing? It's really difficult. [00:18:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:18:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:17] Speaker B: I wonder if part of that is also, you know, the demographic of people that traditionally either have the time and money to do workshops. You know, it's an older demographic. You know, I'm in my 50s, and I'm becoming more and more stubborn and set in my ways. You know, is there an element of that, that there's a. I've done it this way for 20, 30, 40 years, you know. You know, and break, like you call it, breaking that shell. To get them out and try something different must prove very challenging. You're dealing with people like me, [00:18:51] Speaker C: Stubborn clients. I don't there. I mean, I've had amazing clients, so maybe I'm not the right person to talk to about. [00:18:59] Speaker B: Well said. Well said, I say. [00:19:03] Speaker C: Got to be very diplomatic, though, right? [00:19:05] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, absolutely. People are watching and it's on. It'll be on the Internet forever. [00:19:10] Speaker D: Greg, I might. We might quickly check in with the live chat and just see what's happening and. And I don't know, do a. [00:19:16] Speaker A: Do a sponsor a sponsored ad read. That will be short and sweet. [00:19:20] Speaker D: But when we. When we come back from that, Murray, I want to ask you about, like, I don't know. [00:19:27] Speaker A: It was on the. [00:19:28] Speaker D: Was right in my brain and now it's gone. I had it. I had the most beautiful question. [00:19:32] Speaker B: Oh, you're having Senior moments like me. [00:19:35] Speaker D: All right, well, we'll go to the chat. [00:19:36] Speaker A: It'll come back to me. [00:19:37] Speaker D: Philip Johnson. Good morning all. [00:19:39] Speaker A: Happy Thursday or good. [00:19:40] Speaker D: Good midnight for Murray. Lucinda Goodwin is here. Good to see you, Lucinda. Good morning. Listening while getting my editing sorted. [00:19:47] Speaker A: That's the way to do it. [00:19:49] Speaker D: Felicity Johnson. Hello, everyone. Looking forward to listening to this interview. Fifteen days until beef up. Yes, it is. Hope your ankle's good. And I think it. Was it your birthday, Felicity, this week? [00:19:58] Speaker B: Yesterday, I think. [00:19:59] Speaker D: Yesterday. [00:20:00] Speaker B: Yesterday. Happy birthday. [00:20:01] Speaker D: Happy birthday. Robert Varner. How are you? Lisa Leach. Ah, good morning, guys. Hey, Murray. But Lisa, Lisa was on a workshop with you just recently. [00:20:13] Speaker C: Yeah, last week in Scotland. [00:20:15] Speaker D: Crazy. [00:20:17] Speaker A: Small world. [00:20:17] Speaker D: What timing. Rodney Nicholson. Good morning, Paul. Good morning. And Lucinda says Greg's an Instagram influencer. Yep, totally trying to be. And Paul's a card per member of. [00:20:31] Speaker A: Of the cranky collective of Greg's. [00:20:34] Speaker D: Yeah, he does have a wonderful beard. All right, I think it was coming back to me. [00:20:39] Speaker A: What were we talking about? [00:20:40] Speaker D: We're talking about. [00:20:42] Speaker B: We're talking about what gets in the way of people doing workshops. [00:20:46] Speaker D: That's right. I just want to know if you. So for anyone listening, do you have any go to strategies? Obviously it's going to be different because [00:20:55] Speaker A: you're on a workshop with people, you're in a different location and every person is different. [00:20:58] Speaker D: But are there any strategies you can [00:21:00] Speaker A: talk about of how people can break out of their box? Even if it's just very specific to say, landscape photography or something like that? It's like, hey, I always roll up to a location at sunrise or sunset. I set my tripod up, I put my same lens on every time and I put my same filter on every time and then I point it towards the usual angle that I go for and then I take the shot. Is there like, is. [00:21:23] Speaker D: Do you have any structured methods that [00:21:28] Speaker A: people could use at home to break out their little box? [00:21:32] Speaker C: Absolutely. I mean, to that point, I think going through this process of trying to break out your box, you have to first and foremost try to detach yourself from expectations of making, you know, portfolio worthy images straight away. Because there's going to be some teething when you go through this process, but the results are often worth it in the end. So bear that in mind. But there's a whole bunch of really fun exercises that you can go and do. For example, I mean, off the top of my head, you can restrict yourself to a single lens, throw on a 50 mil, go for a walk in your local woodland, or a lens that you might not usually use. Um, for me, I think constraints really breed creativity. When you've got all the options available to you, then it becomes really tricky and you get sort of paralyzed with, what do I do? What do I do? If you've only got one option, then you. You sort of force yourself to see the. The world in a different way. [00:22:41] Speaker D: And would you say. And that option should be not your usual go to lens. [00:22:46] Speaker A: Like, say, if you're a landscape photographer and you always put the 15 to 35 on or something like that, and you're saying, grab something different. [00:22:51] Speaker C: Put the telephoto on. [00:22:52] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And leave the 15 to 35 in the bag for this whole shoot and just go and see what you get. [00:22:59] Speaker C: Leave it at home. Don't even bring it with you. [00:23:01] Speaker A: I like that even better. Yeah. [00:23:03] Speaker D: Burn the boat. [00:23:04] Speaker B: Sell it. [00:23:05] Speaker D: Sell it on Marketplace. [00:23:06] Speaker C: And just. I think the. The commitment's really a big part of it. You know, if we're talking about the mental game, then you got to commit to the bit and really, really go for it. Yeah. One of the ones that I've done with a recent mentoring group is practicing something called mixing, which is sort of. It's called contemplative photography, basically. And the basic premise is you go out into the world and you try to have, like, a moment where the world gives you this flash. We've all had this. It's like something grabs your attention, something you notice out the corner of your eye, whether it's a moment of light or a pop of color or something like that. And the idea is to go and have your walk in nature until that moment happens. So you're not allowed to get your camera out until something physically grabs your attention. You think, okay, I have to get my camera out now and make this photo and be really present with what is drawing your attention. So if you're noticing color on a particular day, then continue noticing color. [00:24:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:22] Speaker C: So, you know, it might be the reds. If, you know you've got autumn coming up here in the uk, you might get some nice autumn color and you go out for a walk and you're noticing that. So then follow the oranges or the reds or whatever it is and keep trying to make consecutive images of that particular thing. Photo sprints is another really fun one. Give yourself five minutes and you need to come up with as many compositions as possible of a particular subject. You know, it could be a favorite tree, something like that. And you gotta. Basically, because you've got a time constraint, you just have to fire on all cylinders. And it sort of forces you to say, like, this could be a throwaway. But I've only got five minutes. I'm just gonna give it a go, you know. [00:25:13] Speaker A: Okay. [00:25:13] Speaker D: So it doesn't have to be in [00:25:15] Speaker A: the world's greatest composition. It's just volume. How many different ways can I shoot this tree? That's fun. [00:25:22] Speaker D: Have you ever done that with people [00:25:24] Speaker A: and they've stumbled across a really great photo that they wouldn't have otherwise? [00:25:29] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Because it's. I think that's one of the things with composition. You mentioned going through your habits. You might put the same lens on, or you might always put your tripod up to full height or whatever it is. Right. I think we have creative habits and compositional habits as well, where you sort of set your scene up the same way with the big foreground or whatever you like. So trying to force yourself to make different compositions away from what you normally do can be a really, really good one. And it might go the other way around as well, though. Like, some people fly through their compositions. They take one frame of something and then they want to go off to the next thing and they actually need to learn to slow down. So the. The inverse exercise would be find one a subject. I always go back to, like a favorite tree or something like that. Stand in one place and you're not allowed to move your feet. And then you have to come up with five or 10 different compositions or ways of photographing that subject from your little 1 meter square box around you. One. Yeah. 1 square meter box. [00:26:41] Speaker B: Yeah. I love that. Yeah, that's very cool. [00:26:44] Speaker A: I think that one would be. I think that's one that would come easy to me, that one. Whereas the other one sounded like really fun moving around a tree or something like that. Particularly. I was a. I was a wedding photographer for a while, and there was for a long time actually a professional wedding photographer. And there was. There's quite a few times where you had very limited [00:27:04] Speaker D: spots where you could shoot the. [00:27:06] Speaker A: The ceremony and not get in the way of what was happening and not, you know, not block people's view and things like that. So you got very good at being like, how can I create an image set without while standing here, you know, and all the different sort of crops and different, you know, things that you could do so that it was. It would be a layout in an album or something. But you stood in one place, they all didn't look the same. So, yeah, that one. That one would come naturally to me, I think. But the Other one. I really like that idea, especially with a subject that doesn't move like a tree, not, not a person or whatever, but just, yeah, just really attack it like crazy for five minutes and see if you come up with something that you just never would think of. [00:27:45] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a great little exercise and I like these, I run them in my workshops, these exercises that teach us how to see the world differently. You know, like whether it be looking for a pop of color, like choose a color and go search for it and then within 15 minutes all you can see is that color everywhere around you, especially in a street scene, you know, graffiti and street art and all that sort of stuff. And yeah, I think it's just a good way to get people to turn on their photographer's eye as well, that everyone is seeing what you're seeing. But when you turn on your photographer's eye, you see things differently. You start to see light and shadow, you see tonal values, you see shapes and geometry and know it all starts to come in once you've got your eye turned on to what it is that you're looking for. So I think that's a really great, a great example of how to just push yourself a little bit harder. You know, I have a, I have [00:28:37] Speaker A: a self serving question. [00:28:38] Speaker D: What was the technique that you talked [00:28:40] Speaker A: about where you, where you walk and you don't shoot until something sort of grabs you? What was that called? [00:28:46] Speaker C: I mean it's, that's the basis of Mix Mixang M I K S A N G and that's kind of like the, the level one, if you like of like the introduction to the translation is contemplative photography and it's sort of like a whole school of photography around a particular style. But there's some really interesting things to pull out of it into nature photography or. [00:29:14] Speaker D: Yeah, I had a question and like [00:29:17] Speaker A: I said, self serving. Anyone that listens to the podcast regularly will know the struggles that I have. [00:29:22] Speaker D: So I often have trouble feeling creative [00:29:27] Speaker A: in regular places, particularly my hometown. I feel like there's nothing to shoot here that interests me. [00:29:37] Speaker D: What happens if you go on one [00:29:38] Speaker A: of these walks and you don't like nothing grabs you. Is there a point where you should force yourself to take a photo or something? Or if you go for a three hour walk and nothing grabs you? That's just, that's just what happened that day. [00:29:54] Speaker C: Yeah, that's tough because you could really, you could fall into sort of like a negative spiral. [00:30:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:01] Speaker C: If you think, oh, I, I wasn't good enough that day or you know, that the negative thoughts start to creep in. And I think it's. Yeah, if not, if nothing's grabbing. You always say, if it's not a hell yes, then it's a no. [00:30:18] Speaker A: Yeah. And see that, that's the problem is if it was, if it was that for me, if I went for a walk around my hometown for, yeah, for an hour, it would be a no. Unless something crazy happened that I wasn't expecting. Yeah, yeah, it would be. [00:30:30] Speaker D: And that's what I really struggle with. [00:30:32] Speaker A: Whereas when I travel, I go overseas or something like that, my brain lights up like crazy and I'll be shooting all the time. And it's. It's really weird. Yeah. [00:30:40] Speaker C: I'm sure there are pockets within your local where you'll find little inspirations. You know, I would say it's rare that I can think of anywhere where, you know, we're not going to be able to find something that inspires us. And it's just a case of that three hour walk is actually quite a valuable learning experience. You've learned. Okay, well, maybe this isn't the right spot for me and I need to go try somewhere else. I think there's always a lesson to take out of that. Even if you don't come away with images and you've just spent three hours walking around in nature, hopefully that's only going to do good for the soul, right? [00:31:27] Speaker D: Yeah. And that's why I was wondering whether there was a point where you need [00:31:31] Speaker A: to take a photo or if the [00:31:33] Speaker D: walk ends up just being a walk. [00:31:34] Speaker A: And that day there was nothing that. Is that still, you know, is that still part of this process? And it just, it just didn't happen that day. [00:31:42] Speaker C: I mean, I've. I've taken plenty of three hour walks in really inspiring locations and not made any images, so. [00:31:50] Speaker D: Really? [00:31:51] Speaker C: Yeah, it happens. You know, you're just not in the right mind frame or the conditions aren't playing ball or whatever it is. [00:31:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:59] Speaker C: Sometimes you just don't get the camera out. [00:32:01] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. [00:32:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:03] Speaker B: It was one of our recent guests. I can't, I can't remember who it was who said that. You know, if you're feeling when you go out with your camera, you're going to take photos, you know that what you're experiencing plays a huge part not only in how you see the world, but also how creative you choose to be. You know, and if you're just not feeling it, but you still push yourself into taking shots. Granted, no shot is a wasted shot, but that Concept of if your soul and your heart's not in it, it's going to show up in your work, you know. [00:32:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:33] Speaker B: Just leading on from that. How, how do you personally deal with, you know, those times where you feel like you're in a rut or maybe you're demotivated or flat about your craft or your business? What, what's, how do you self identify those things and, and how do you then work to overcome them? [00:32:50] Speaker C: My tactics so far has been I have a way of working which is in like very long term projects. So I, I sort of spend two, three years on a single project, but I've never just got one going on at the same time. I usually have multiple, and they're usually in different subject matters or different locations. And so I find if my inspiration's waning on one, then it's sort of starting to peak in, in a different project and I'm able to sort of bounce back and forth between them. I can give you an example. In 2024, in May, I was up in Scotland working on my project about the Caledonian pine forest here. And I had been to all of these, like really remote remnants of the forest in deep glens. You know, you got to go walk for a full day just to get out there and then it's pouring with rain and you don't make any images. And I had been to, you know, six or seven of these in a row with literally, I think I made like one image and I was feeling really down on myself, like, oh, this is going terribly. And I just said, you know what, I'm gonna hang that up to dry for the moment. Go and do something else, like go for a mountain walk. Go. Just try to shift your mindset, put yourself in a different environment. I went up a mountain for a summit camp and ended up making like six images that are in my portfolio off the back of that experience. And it was just like you put yourself in a different environment and things change. [00:34:40] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's very true and gels with what Justin was saying. And I'm sure that we all feel from time to time that, you know, photographing around your hometown, sometimes you just can't, you can't see it because you're so used to everything that's there. But when we travel, you know, Justin with his Africa trip recently, you know, he also worked on some street photography, sort of more documentarian style images. And they were fantastic. They were amazing. I'd never seen him do that sort of that caliber of street work before, but it's because he was in a different place. It was a different culture, different environment. Everything was different. You know, he, he locked into a different way of seeing the world that he can't. Claims he can't do when he's at home in Bendigo. You know, although I have seen him take some good photos around Bendigo, I must stand up for him there. [00:35:27] Speaker D: Yeah, but I had to. So that's, that's what was in. So I, it was like the opposite style of challenge. [00:35:32] Speaker A: I, the only way that I got a few, few okay shots around video was I. To force myself to shoot. I did a, I did a YouTube challenge, Murray, for myself, right. Because I wanted to make YouTube videos and I always procrastinate. So I made a video a day for 30 days and the videos had to be shot, edited and posted that day. So there was no like, no procrastinating. It just had to be whatever it was. And so they were just videos, POV videos of me sort of walking around and taking photos. JPEG only unedited shots and, and that kind of thing. [00:36:06] Speaker D: And so I got a few, a [00:36:07] Speaker A: couple of decent shots out of that. But that was like, that was hard, was hard work. Like I had to force myself to go and take photos when I didn't want to and wasn't inspired because I had this video that I had to get out each day. Yeah, it doesn't, doesn't come to me like it does when you travel and you're just seeing cool stuff and you're like, wow, that's amazing. And I don't know, inspiration strikes. [00:36:29] Speaker C: I think there's a certain, there's a certain like intimacy though of getting to know somewhere really well. And usually that comes with your local, your local haunts or places at least that you're able to revisit time and time again. And you, you start to see images that, you know, somebody who's visiting somewhere once would never see those images. Right. So there is like a, it's sort of a double edged sword of like, yes, you want inspiration, but you also want to really understand a place at its like most deepest level. [00:37:06] Speaker D: I think that's why I think about it so much because yeah, you so [00:37:10] Speaker A: much great work is produced by people that like, you say that they live there, they know it, they walk the streets every day or whatever it is that they're, they're photographing. And it's like I'm searching for that. [00:37:22] Speaker D: I'm also searching for something that speaks [00:37:25] Speaker A: to me that I can practice regularly and easily. You Know, not have to go on a big trip to do this thing. It's like, oh, it's just. I can just go and do this anytime, any week. You may or may not get a great photo, but at least you can just go and do it. It's nearby. I sort of think about it like, I'm into both snowboarding and mountain biking. Mountain biking. There's trails 10 minutes from my house or 30 minutes from my house or whatever, and I can do that, do it anytime. And it's great fun. Snowboarding is like a few times a year. It's expensive, it's. It's tough. It's worth it. But if I didn't have mountain biking to sort of fill in the every week kind of thing that I need, and I'm looking for that with photography. Like, what's the. Yeah, what's the thing that I can do regularly without having to go on a big trip or whatever, but still get some sort of progression and satisfaction. [00:38:19] Speaker D: Anyway, this is supposed to be an interview about you. [00:38:22] Speaker A: I'm turning it into like a therapy session. [00:38:26] Speaker C: Not at all. Interesting conversation. [00:38:29] Speaker D: Well, it is. It's interesting because it's. This sort of stuff's on my mind a lot when. [00:38:34] Speaker A: And I hope that other people listening maybe think about these sorts of things too. [00:38:38] Speaker D: Particularly when I think the same sort [00:38:41] Speaker A: of search for, like a project or something like that, you know, something that you can pursue. [00:38:46] Speaker D: For years, you've done quite a few projects. [00:38:49] Speaker A: Make up a large part of the work that you do. [00:38:52] Speaker C: How. [00:38:53] Speaker D: How do you think about projects and how do. [00:38:55] Speaker A: How do they. How do you find them or how do they find you? [00:39:01] Speaker C: That's a good. Good question. Good way to phrase it as well, because that's. In many ways, you know, I find projects when I'm out working. Like, they don't just fall into your lap when you're sitting on the couch watching TV or something. It's when you're out there practicing, exploring, experimenting with the camera. And then something weird happens that you've never seen before, or strange conditions, or you visit a new location and it's like, okay, there was a moment, a spark of inspiration there. I mentioned the Caledonian pine forest project earlier, and that was very much how that started. Was a particular day spent in a favorite glen here in Scotland. And actually was meeting up with a local friend of mine, Kenny Muir, and we had planned a day to go photograph like four months in advance. Showed up and it was minus 12 with freezing fog, horror frost on all the trees, like photographer's paradise. And we had this incredible day photographing from sunrise to sunset, and it sparked, like, a love for the Caledonian forest that was already there, but it sparked the. The start of a project because it was like, okay, special things happen here. Let's investigate this further. So there. There's moments like that, and then there's moments where, you know, maybe you're listening to a podcast and you learn something about a place that you didn't know before. Scotland, for instance, has got a lot of folklore. And so sometimes I'll go and listen to, like, history podcasts or folklore podcasts about Scotland, partly to become a better guide here, because people are interested in that when they come from abroad, but then it leads you down, you know, avenues of exploration that become the basis of other projects. [00:41:16] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's really interesting. As we like to do here, we tend to roll back the clock and see where those earliest moments of creativity and inspiration, where they sparked from. And so, you know, how did you get into photography? Was it. Did you have mentors in school? Were your parents particularly creative people? Were you encouraged to explore the natural world as a child? What sort of led into you being the person you are today? [00:41:50] Speaker C: Well, all of the above. I very much. My. My mom's a hugely creative person. She's a designer, and she's done a few. Built a few houses and all sorts. And she was actually very into photography many years ago. And I. I pretty much think I've had a camera in my hand since I was maybe seven or eight. So there isn't really a time in my memory where I haven't had a camera. In some ways, it's hard for me to say, like, what was the definitive start. But certainly it's always been about getting out into nature. Growing up South African and growing up in South Africa, that was always a connection that we had, was going on safari every year, spending a lot of time outdoors in the garden. Like, every waking minute that you could be outdoors, you were outdoors. And so it's changed now. Like, the camera is like my vehicle to get out into the world. Maybe that's how it always was. But I think initially I learned in school. I actually studied, what, darkroom photography in high school. So I did a. Two years of learning film, photography, developing, printing, the dark room, all sorts, which for somebody who's 31, is maybe slightly unusual. Most of my contemporaries all learned on digital. It's kind of unusual in some respects. Justin, I see you. [00:43:34] Speaker D: I. I learn on digital. I did. [00:43:36] Speaker A: I did pick up photography late. But, yeah, like, I Learned on digital and then went like circled back to explore film only once I knew already how to use a camera. Yeah, it's, it's cool. [00:43:46] Speaker D: So yeah, you actually learn on film. [00:43:49] Speaker A: It's going to be pretty rare at [00:43:51] Speaker C: your age I think so. And it was a, all black and white film to boot. So that's really where. Yeah, the, the love for black and white started from, from that for sure. And a lot of inspirations early on. Sebastio Salgado probably most notably for me and I think that's where like the long term project thing comes in. You know these multi decade projects in his case and yeah, some inspiring teachers for sure and just exposing me to like all different sorts of photography. Street, architectural, portraiture, etc. I think there's so much to learn from drawing from different sources and wells of inspiration. Doesn't just have to be like your niche. I think you can, you can go outside of that and I, I take that beyond photography, you know, go and look at paintings, read poetry. It, it's all worthwhile. [00:44:57] Speaker B: Yep. [00:44:58] Speaker C: Yep. [00:45:02] Speaker A: Oh, go. [00:45:03] Speaker B: Sorry, you go first. [00:45:04] Speaker A: It's going to be a full derail. [00:45:08] Speaker D: I want to know what it was like to grow up in South Africa. [00:45:12] Speaker C: Well, technically I only spent three years there. [00:45:14] Speaker D: Okay. [00:45:15] Speaker C: So. But I go back every single year and have done for most of my life. So both my parents are South African and so I feel like that's, you know, that's home for me. [00:45:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:45:29] Speaker C: When it, when it's all said and done. But growing up there was, you know, you're connected to nature in a way that I don't think I would have been if I'd grown up in the UK or wherever else. So it's, I don't know, it's, it's hard to put into words. It's like a cultural mindset. [00:45:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:53] Speaker B: Well, there's always safety. You always consider home to be a safe space. You know there's, there's that prevailing thought that that's my, that's my safe place. That's, that's where it'll began and that's where I go to if, if I need to step away from the world kind of thing. Yeah. [00:46:09] Speaker D: Yeah, there definitely seemed to be a big. [00:46:12] Speaker A: So we did, we, we went to Kruger when we did our safari on, on the workshop with, with Matt Crummons and obviously we were in a safari vehicle with a guide and with Matt and it was amazing. But the culture, the self drive safari culture of local South African people had seemed to have a really fun vibe. Like, you pack. You just bundle the family into whatever vehicle you've got and just, you know, and kids are just being the back, just like while they drive, you know, and the parents are stopping to ask our guide, like if they've seen thing and things like that. And. Yeah, and the kids are just. Or, you know, there was utes with canopies and the kids are in the back of a ute with a canopy on. Just a big mattress. Just like three kids just having the best time ever. That. [00:47:03] Speaker D: Yeah, it. [00:47:04] Speaker A: You can definitely see that. It is. It is a culture. It's a thing and a lifestyle. [00:47:10] Speaker C: We just make it happen. It's like there's no obstacle. There's nothing that you can't sort of figure a plan out for. You know, you just. You just did it. [00:47:23] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:47:25] Speaker C: Where in. Where in Kruger did you go? Out of interest. [00:47:29] Speaker D: So we were at. Hang on, let me just get to. Come back to me. [00:47:33] Speaker A: I'm so bad. [00:47:33] Speaker C: It's one of my favorite places. That's why I ask. [00:47:36] Speaker D: It's all the names are so lost on me already. [00:47:44] Speaker A: What. [00:47:45] Speaker D: Let's south. Like, what's the. [00:47:47] Speaker A: Is it like the river? What's the name of the river? [00:47:51] Speaker C: Savvy Sands. Sabi. Yeah, yeah. [00:47:55] Speaker D: We stayed in a park. Gosh, it's all. [00:47:59] Speaker A: How does this stuff disappear so quick? It was a whirlwind of a week. Like, I was in and out within eight days or whatever. And it was. Yeah. So we flew. We flew into Johannesburg, went up to a town starting with M. Airport in [00:48:16] Speaker D: a town, I think starting with M. Near lower. [00:48:20] Speaker C: This happens when. When you go on trips and you're the one being guided and you haven't set your own itinerary. The name, the place names just go out the window, don't they? [00:48:31] Speaker A: 100%. And I found. So I found out about this trip two weeks before. Less than two weeks before, I was leaving too. So it was just like, okay, I'll [00:48:42] Speaker D: meet you at the airport. [00:48:43] Speaker A: You know, like, it was Ye. So I've. It's all gone. [00:48:47] Speaker D: Yeah. We stayed in a game reserve that was right up against the Kruger fence. [00:48:53] Speaker A: And then we would drive in, drive in each day, and we entered through two different entrances. It was so interesting learning about the. Yeah. Just the way the parks work, how much effort they put into. You know, every morning you have to go through. Go through the gate. They check everything. And even, like, it was much easier for us because we're with a guide, an amazing guide. [00:49:18] Speaker C: Half an hour. [00:49:19] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like you were lining up, like we would leave our lodge at. [00:49:25] Speaker A: Even though I've forgotten all the times [00:49:26] Speaker D: now, I'm pretty sure it was 5:15am [00:49:29] Speaker A: every day, and we wouldn't get back until like 6pm usually every day, depending on which entrance we went to and what time we decided to call it and stuff like that. But, yeah, Kruger is. There is something special about that. [00:49:45] Speaker D: And I. [00:49:45] Speaker A: It's the only place I've ever experienced in South Africa, so I've got nothing to compare it to, but. [00:49:50] Speaker C: No, it is special. It is something else. And just the vastness and the scale of it, you know, it's. It's basically the size of some European countries. Right? [00:50:01] Speaker B: It's just. [00:50:02] Speaker C: Yeah, it's immense. [00:50:03] Speaker D: Yeah, that's the thing that I was struggling to get my head around because you go. The only time I've ever seen animals [00:50:11] Speaker A: like that is at a zoo. [00:50:13] Speaker D: And this has the zoo feeling because you go through a gate and a fence and you're like, okay, so the animals are in here like a zoo, [00:50:23] Speaker A: but it's not at all like a zoo in there. It's like where, where the zoo. People in there, like, the animals are [00:50:30] Speaker D: living their lives and we're the ones [00:50:31] Speaker A: stuck in cars when we're not allowed to get out. And yeah, it's like, it's. [00:50:36] Speaker D: But it takes a little minute for your head to understand that. You're like, even though we went through a fence, these animals aren't in captivity. You know, they're not. [00:50:48] Speaker B: It's. [00:50:49] Speaker D: They're just. [00:50:49] Speaker A: They're just living life on this huge. [00:50:52] Speaker D: In this huge park. [00:50:53] Speaker A: It's. I don't know. [00:50:55] Speaker C: I'm glad that. I'm glad that's your takeaway because, I mean, there's lots of obviously, like, political issues and things that surround Kruger and all sorts. It's. It's not gray or black or white. There's lots of gray area. So I'm glad you had a good experience of it. There was some negative press recently about an unfortunate. A couple got basically like, got taken out all the way up north and people were a little bit afraid to come to Kruger for a little. For a while. But it's. It's an amazing place and I think. [00:51:38] Speaker D: I think I heard about that. That was a. Was that a poaching thing? Was that. Or am I thinking of a different. [00:51:44] Speaker C: A different issue, maybe A different issue? There is. Obviously poaching is also an issue, but yeah, there was a. Somebody got shot, basically. [00:51:56] Speaker A: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought that. That was. Maybe it was shot by poachers or something like that or. [00:52:03] Speaker D: Yeah, but I don't know, it's. [00:52:07] Speaker A: When you're there that stuff all kind of melts away. Especially if you're. [00:52:10] Speaker C: It does, yeah. [00:52:11] Speaker A: Yeah. On a. On a photography tour or whatever and you're just there for. Yeah. I don't know. [00:52:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:52:17] Speaker A: The. You just get so focused in on. [00:52:21] Speaker D: They talk about like the abundance of animals, but it was. It was just an abundance of life [00:52:28] Speaker A: like experiences happening every day. [00:52:30] Speaker D: It was all these things that you [00:52:32] Speaker A: see in a nature documentary and it. And it's like, oh, that's happening right over there. Oh, now that's happening right over there. And it's. Yeah. Vultures feeding on an elephant carcass and a. What do you call that? A hyena cub, A pup, whatever. [00:52:50] Speaker C: Pup. [00:52:51] Speaker A: What's a hyena cub? [00:52:53] Speaker B: Dunno, it's a pup. [00:52:55] Speaker D: A little hyena. Baby hyena. [00:52:57] Speaker A: Yeah, one of those. [00:53:00] Speaker C: They're not a dog or a cat because they're their own family, so. [00:53:04] Speaker D: Yeah, exactly. I didn't realize that because Matt kept talking about. That was the only thing we didn't [00:53:08] Speaker A: see for the week, I think was wild dogs. [00:53:10] Speaker D: And I was like, wild dog, That's. [00:53:13] Speaker A: I see heaps of those, you know, like go to. Go to Southeast Asia, you'll see tons of them. [00:53:18] Speaker D: But yeah, I didn't realize that hyenas [00:53:20] Speaker A: were different than cats or dogs or. And they were just their own weird, weird looking little creature. Anyway. [00:53:28] Speaker D: Do you run tours in Kruger? [00:53:32] Speaker C: So I have been. I've held back for a number of years. It was. You were talking earlier, Justin, about like, what. What is photography for you and finding that little like safe haven space that you do that's outside of maybe the professional side of things. And for me that was wildlife photography for a number of years. I just had so many requests coming in of people who are interested and obviously Africa is like a big part of my life and who I am. And so I eventually reached a point where I was actually ready to share that rather than keep it for myself. And so I do. Now I don't. In Kruger, I don't offer like scheduled trips, but I offer private trips. [00:54:23] Speaker B: Okay. [00:54:23] Speaker C: So I mean, I've got some clients flying in next year and we're going. We've got a private camp that we booked out in Timbavati which is sort of halfway up Kruger on the western side. And it's an amazing part. Really, really epic lion sightings. I mean, I'd be Very surprised if we didn't have some awesome photo ops with lions there. And so it's like finding unique spots where you can have the kind of experience that I would want to bring people for. That's really important to me. Like I don't, I have no interest in bringing people over and doing the bog standard trip into Kruger because you can do that with a whole bunch of other people. So yeah, I'm trying to offer something unique is like really important. [00:55:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:55:21] Speaker C: And that, that's why it's, I think, also taken a long time for me to offer. This is like building relationships with local providers, meeting people, finding out, you know, who is the right person to try to run this sort of thing through. The photographic industry is really interesting there. And the, I guess logistics around access and like what you can and can't do in certain parts of the park, like where you're allowed to drive on road, off road, where you have access to photo hides, etc. All really impacts the experience you can have from a photographic standpoint. [00:56:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:56:07] Speaker D: So is it, would you say that industry is kind of, is there much gatekeeping? Are people fearful that there's not enough [00:56:18] Speaker A: for everybody so they try and stop new photographers setting up for workshops and things? Obviously like you can do whatever you like, but in terms of this, when it comes to access and, and things like that going, going beyond sort of a standard tour, are people secretive and things like that to try and protect what they've, their, you know, business and, and not let other people kind of jump in and I guess in their mind steal their business. [00:56:49] Speaker C: It's interesting because, you know, the camps are sort of a secondary provider. Right. So it's often like a photographer who's coming in to a camp and then renting out the camp for their group. So the camps obviously want as many people to come through as possible. So they're not gatekeeping anything. Yeah, but within other photographers. Well then that, that sort of person to person, you know, I've got lots of good mates and they're all very open and collaborative and supportive and that's the kind of person that I like to surround myself with and I try to be the same way as well, you know, if I know how somebody acts and how they are with nature and with animals and I've seen them be respectful and behave in the right way, then by all means I'll like, you know, share some information with them if they need some tips and things. But there is probably to some extent, yeah, people are protective. Wildlife photography is. Yeah, it's a whole industry that I'm new to, so I'm not 100 plugged into all the hot gossip necessarily. [00:58:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I did. [00:58:07] Speaker D: I just wondered whether you, yeah. [00:58:08] Speaker A: Whether you felt any kind of, you know, when you were sort of going, okay, I'm gonna actually do this now. Whether you felt that as like a. People don't really want another person coming to do this or is it just not really relevant you can do your own thing and, and it just doesn't, doesn't even, it's not even on your radar, that kind of stuff. [00:58:27] Speaker C: I think because I've been really put like building relationships first before even asking like, hey, you know, would this private camp be open to some commercial activity that I think has put me in good stead because it's like your motivations are in the right place. You're not just trying to use people. Yeah. So there's a right and a wrong way to go about doing it because the, the first and foremost thing is like nature has to take precedence and the well being of the animals has to come first. So that's got to be set in stone before people with big lenses and cameras start coming in. [00:59:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:59:15] Speaker D: Oh, before we, I'm sure there's a [00:59:17] Speaker A: million things we can go on to talk about before we move on too much. [00:59:20] Speaker D: What's. [00:59:20] Speaker A: You got any crazy things you've seen in Kruger? You know, like just. I don't know. Not. No, not, not like cool stuff. I mean like silly stuff. Like this person got out of their car to view some elephants while standing near the river where there were crocodiles. I saw that. That was crazy. [00:59:40] Speaker D: So. And our guide, when I drove up to them and said, hey mate, like there was two, two people out of their car and mate, you need, you need to get back in your car. [00:59:47] Speaker A: Like you're not allowed to be out of your car. [00:59:48] Speaker D: And you know what he said? [00:59:50] Speaker A: I can't do a South African accent. So this is going to be terrible. [00:59:53] Speaker B: Yeah, don't do that. [00:59:54] Speaker A: I'm going to. [00:59:55] Speaker D: He goes, it's okay. I grew up in the bush. [01:00:00] Speaker B: That's what he said. [01:00:02] Speaker D: Yeah, it was crazy. [01:00:05] Speaker C: People do silly things all the time. I think the most, the thing that you see in Kruger a lot is, yeah, people getting out where they shouldn't. And then you drive around the corner and there's a pride of lions there and it's like, yeah, there's a guy standing like 20 meters down the road. [01:00:20] Speaker B: You're hungry. [01:00:20] Speaker D: Doesn't even breakfast. [01:00:24] Speaker C: Yeah, no, the first thing that Came to mind was a cool sighting, which happened earlier this year. And driving along a really remote S road, which is one of the dirt tracks, which is like how you get away from the crowds. It's like everyone's on the. The tar roads down by the river. So we're like, okay, we're gonna avoid everyone. Let's go down this random road. And then that's how you stumble on these random sightings. We found a huge rock python stretched out in the middle of the road, and it was actually dead. And we were like, oh, what's going on here? Like, how. How has this rock python just died in the middle of the road? So we stop and sit there and wait for five minutes, and out of the grass, a honey badger starts coming up the road and actually proceeds to then take the rock python and take it off into the bush and have it for lunch. [01:01:26] Speaker D: Wow. Wow. So that. That video that I've seen where a honey badger, like, fights a snake on [01:01:33] Speaker A: YouTube, it's got, like, a zillion views, so that's real. [01:01:36] Speaker D: That's what they do. [01:01:38] Speaker A: Oh, my God, that's awesome. [01:01:42] Speaker C: So all sorts of crazy stuff happened in the bush. [01:01:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And I don't even know what a honey badger looks like. How big are they? [01:01:49] Speaker A: I'll bring one up. Let's go. [01:01:51] Speaker D: They're not big. [01:01:53] Speaker C: They're. They're dense. Yeah. [01:01:56] Speaker D: They're like an angry wombat that fights snakes. [01:01:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:02:00] Speaker D: With a really cool haircut, hairstyle, and, [01:02:03] Speaker C: like, massive claws and. Yeah. [01:02:07] Speaker B: If you've. [01:02:07] Speaker D: I'll find the video. [01:02:08] Speaker A: Greg. [01:02:08] Speaker D: If you've never seen the video, it's got the best. [01:02:12] Speaker A: You call, like, the. The narrator talking through, like, what happens with this. This honey badger gets bitten by a snake, then it comes back to life, and then it climbs up the tree, kills a snake and eats it. It's the best, like, comeback story ever. [01:02:27] Speaker B: Yep. [01:02:27] Speaker C: They are incredible. And they're. They're super dangerous. Like, if you see a honey badger, you keep your distance. It's the. One of the most aggressive things in the bush is that really. [01:02:39] Speaker D: Look at it eating the. Oh, honey badger. [01:02:42] Speaker A: That makes sense. [01:02:43] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:02:44] Speaker A: Okay. [01:02:45] Speaker D: I was like, look at it eating this beehive. And then I realized, okay, nice work. [01:02:52] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:02:52] Speaker A: Look, hang on. [01:02:53] Speaker D: I'm stuck on a whole different page. [01:02:55] Speaker C: But, yeah, I've just seen Felicity is off to Manuel. Yeah. I hope you have a really good time, Felicity. That's a really exciting part of the park. [01:03:10] Speaker D: So where is it? I just. I'm gonna. Let's. [01:03:13] Speaker A: Since we're we're fully Kruger'd up. [01:03:14] Speaker B: Let's. [01:03:15] Speaker A: I'm gonna bring it up. [01:03:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:03:16] Speaker D: So is it up north or where she's heading? [01:03:20] Speaker C: The Manueleti is between Sabi Sands and Timbavati so it's probably about a third of the way up the park. The park runs like north, south for what's it, a few hundred kilometers. [01:03:38] Speaker D: Just need to find myself a decent map. [01:03:42] Speaker C: Yeah. The maps online for Kruger are desperately poor. They, they purposely, I think don't publish them online so that you have to buy the physical map on location. But wow. [01:03:57] Speaker D: Gosh. This isn't even. Yeah, I can't even quite read it. [01:04:01] Speaker A: I'm going to bring it up anyway and see if I can. So this is south. [01:04:06] Speaker D: So we were entering through. [01:04:07] Speaker A: Oh yeah, Crocodile Bridge and Lower Sabi is where we entered through. So it's right down south. The. Basically the bottom and we were staying at I guess somewhere. Somewhere around here along the river. Basically the river was in between us and Kruger. [01:04:26] Speaker C: Did you say that you. It was started with an M. I [01:04:29] Speaker D: thought so but I could be so wrong. [01:04:32] Speaker C: Was it Imjajan? [01:04:35] Speaker D: No. So okay, hang on. No it wasn't. We flew. So we flew into. [01:04:38] Speaker A: Now I'm getting it now. We flew into Nelsprit Airport and we're staying in. [01:04:45] Speaker D: It's not up on this map but [01:04:46] Speaker C: it was Magnoletti though is. Is right in the middle of this map. Basically Telemati Camp there and Felicity says canvas tents, no power, Internet, no fences, campsite camping. [01:05:04] Speaker A: Wow. [01:05:04] Speaker C: That's. That's the real way to do the bush. [01:05:06] Speaker A: Yeah, that sounds awesome. [01:05:10] Speaker C: And I mean like beyond the photography, the, the beauty of going to do this sort of thing is that off grid experience and like disconnecting from you know, emails and everyday life and yeah, all of these things that sort of hover over us in 2026. Yeah, there's a lot this, it's, it's a complete retreat from that and just beautiful. [01:05:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:05:41] Speaker D: Greg, just to give you an idea, can I zoom in on this? [01:05:44] Speaker A: Yeah. You can't really see very well but [01:05:46] Speaker D: so we were entering down here or here. And the thing is you, if you're [01:05:52] Speaker A: staying outside the park, you have to basically enter at sunrise and exit before sunset and they'll have the exact times posted but you've got to be out like that's. And obviously the guides take that very seriously because it's their job. They can't, they can't. They'll get in so much trouble. [01:06:10] Speaker C: So. [01:06:11] Speaker D: So to maximize the, the areas that [01:06:14] Speaker A: we can view and explore. You got to get in early. And we often skipped, or not skipped lunch, but like, we wouldn't, we would want to drive as. As far and cover as much mileage as possible, depending on what was happening that day. [01:06:28] Speaker D: And we, I think. [01:06:31] Speaker A: Where is it? Skukuza. [01:06:34] Speaker D: Is that like a Skukuzu, Like a [01:06:36] Speaker A: fancy kind of camp? [01:06:39] Speaker C: It's not fancy, but it's the biggest one in the south. And if you were coming in Crocodile Bridge, you could get to Skukuza and out in a day. That's about as far as you can drive. [01:06:50] Speaker A: Yeah, we. I was going to say, Greg. Yeah, we, we never made it to Skukuza. [01:06:55] Speaker B: Right. [01:06:56] Speaker A: Even though it was one thing, we were going to do it one day. [01:06:58] Speaker D: But we, we explored so much, it [01:07:00] Speaker A: always became a thing that they were [01:07:02] Speaker D: like, if we go there for lunch, [01:07:05] Speaker A: we're gonna, we're not going to be able to do this stuff in the afternoon or in the morning or whatever because we have to spend all our time driving there and driving back and stuff. And so that. So, so this area here, we didn't even get to this one. This was kind of. [01:07:20] Speaker D: And we drove all day. [01:07:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:07:23] Speaker C: Wow. This is a sense of the scale. [01:07:26] Speaker D: Yeah, this is what we explored. [01:07:27] Speaker A: And then this is the rest of the park. [01:07:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:07:30] Speaker C: Wow. [01:07:31] Speaker B: It's crazy. [01:07:33] Speaker A: It's. Yeah, it was. It's so big to believe. It's massive. [01:07:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Just a little change. Attacked perhaps. You know, just looking at the workshops that you have on offer for what's remaining of this year and coming up into the next year, 2027, obviously, you know, Africa and the UK areas like where you are right now in Scotland, you know, they're not the only locations you run workshops and you run workshops in the us I see you've got one coming up in Japan. Where, where else does your workshop operation take you? And perhaps what's. What's been the most amazing or interesting place you've. You've run a workshop in? [01:08:15] Speaker C: Oh, that's a good question. Most interesting or amazing? If I think back over this year, going to Death Valley in the States was probably one of the most interesting this year and it aligned with the big super bloom that they had. So there was like lots of confluence around amazing things going on and going back next year again. So to, to run another workshop there. So that. That's probably really high up on the list of. It's like just mind blowing. It's like being on another planet. Yeah. And prior to that I went out to, to scout for a workshop coming up in White Sands in New Mexico. And that is again like just magic. It's. I don't. It's so strange to be in this like sand desert landscape, but as far as you can see, it's just white. [01:09:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:09:16] Speaker C: And it's a little bit like, you know, if you really like going and photographing in wintery snowy conditions, but you just have access to that no matter what happens, you don't have to rely on having heavy snow. That's cool. So it's. Yeah, it's something else. And there's a couple workshops that I'm doing back to back. There's one that's a print workshop which I think is going to be really fun, where we basically go into the park, come out and we do some post processing and actually print the photographs that we've made on the workshop. So I think that's a really beautiful way to just tie everything full circle. [01:09:57] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:09:57] Speaker B: While you're there. That's great. [01:09:59] Speaker C: Yeah. And then a more like traditional workshop after that. For those who are looking for, you know, just maximum amount of time in the park with cameras in the U.S. i'd say those are probably the two. Yeah. That really, really stood out. Japan coming up is obviously going to be incredible. Going to Hokkaido in February. That trip's currently sold out, but I'm sure what I'll do again because. Yeah. [01:10:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:10:32] Speaker D: Have you been before? Have you spent time. [01:10:35] Speaker C: So I, I actually haven't, but I'm co. Running it with Mark Davis and he's been loads. So made sure to bring somebody into the fold who like knows it like the back of his hand. [01:10:47] Speaker A: You're gonna love it like that in that at that time. Like that's the exact week that I would go. I would plan a snowboard trip. Like that's peak you're like going at. It's gonna. Yeah. It's gonna be crazy. [01:10:59] Speaker B: It's gonna be white. [01:11:00] Speaker C: So. Provided. Yeah. Provided El Nino doesn't throw a wrench in the works. But. [01:11:08] Speaker D: Wow. Yeah. Won't get into that. But there's. It. It can go either way. [01:11:12] Speaker A: I mean it's so hard to predict they. What's gonna happen. It could be a bumper year. [01:11:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:11:19] Speaker A: So it, it, it could actually end up making it just more insane. [01:11:24] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:11:24] Speaker D: Even in Japan I've been there when it's been its worst, probably in the [01:11:28] Speaker A: last 20 years, the worst season. And it was pretty bad. But you know, there's still, it's still so much snow. Even when it's Pretty bad. [01:11:37] Speaker C: Exactly. [01:11:38] Speaker A: Yeah. And the photo opportunities are still amazing. But. Yeah, if you get. If you get one of those nights when it's absolutely puking snow, but you're in a city and there's the neon lights and the snowflakes are like. Like this big. They're like the biggest snowflakes. [01:11:54] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:11:54] Speaker B: That's just black mist filter territory. [01:11:58] Speaker D: Oh, yeah. [01:11:58] Speaker B: It's got all those lights blooming. Yeah. [01:12:00] Speaker A: Yeah. And then you see a. You see a vending machine just sitting there, just covered in snow, and you can't not take a photo of it. It's impossible to not take that photo. It's trying to resist, that is. [01:12:11] Speaker C: I think we're also overlapping with the. The ice festival in Sapporo. So that's going to be. [01:12:16] Speaker B: Yeah, that's every year. Yeah. [01:12:17] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:12:18] Speaker B: That's huge. [01:12:18] Speaker A: What they do. [01:12:19] Speaker B: Absolutely massive. And following on from that, about the places you've been to. Yeah. Workshop photographers, sorry, Photographers often look to workshops to fulfill a bucket list item. You know, whether it be, I want to go to Africa and I want to photograph the big game, or I want to go to Hokkaido and photograph winter or whatever it may be. You know, what's on your bucket list? What. What do you hope to someday achieve? A couple of locations that you're really keen to get into. [01:12:51] Speaker C: That's a really good question. Do I divulge my secret spots that I've got on my list? [01:12:59] Speaker B: You can be very vague. You can be vague. [01:13:01] Speaker C: That's fine. I'm at the moment, I'm transitioning out of this big Scotland project and sort of wrapping it up at the moment. So I've got my eye set on a new project in Africa, basically. And basically it's going to be in. In all the arid spaces that I can find. So think North Africa, you know, the Sahara. But I want to go a little bit further afield than maybe most people would. Would normally venture. So maybe Angola, Algeria, those sorts of places. I think that that's probably top of my list at the moment. [01:13:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:13:46] Speaker C: And otherwise I just. I. I really love finding the places that speak to me and then revisiting. So, like, my list is not actually super long. It's more like I've got a really deep list. When I find somewhere I love, then I want to, like, find little spots within that place. [01:14:07] Speaker B: Yeah. And just for your information, you failed that question because you didn't say Australia. I'm sorry, that wasn't on the list. [01:14:16] Speaker D: I didn't hear softball. It was a softball and straight past it. [01:14:20] Speaker C: Was so no, Tasmania is on there as well, don't worry. [01:14:24] Speaker A: Oh, nice. [01:14:25] Speaker D: You. So you've got an, an arid project [01:14:29] Speaker A: section on your website. What is, would this, is this a continuation of this, like an, like an expansion on this kind of subject matter? [01:14:37] Speaker C: So this is basically like me or trying to give myself accountability as an artist, put something out into the world that says this is the direction that I'm going to explore. And very much I treat some of my project pages on my website as an evolving thing. So it's not like I publish it and the project's finished. They often have like multiple lives, whether they end up in a exhibition or a book or, you know, all these different forms that a project can take. So this is certainly the start. You know, I mentioned that like moment of inspiration for the, the Caledonian forest. I think that that moment of inspiration for me was actually in Namibia and I haven't put those images in this particular gallery, but this is like the continuation. [01:15:49] Speaker D: Why is it important for artists to, [01:15:53] Speaker A: or why do you think it's important for yourself as an artist to have accountability for something like this? [01:16:03] Speaker C: I think, you know, often we work self directed and if you don't, which I don't think many people these days have like, you know, rich benefactors or are being commissioned by wealthy people to do big projects, you have to take it on yourself. And so as somebody who, you know, works for myself, runs my own business, if I want to express myself creatively, this is my version of that. You know, working in these projects, I need that accountability to, to keep on top of things and keep going. Otherwise, you know, you can spend a year doing work that isn't meaningful. It's okay. It gives me focus. [01:17:05] Speaker D: And why, why is it important for [01:17:07] Speaker A: you for this work to, to, to materialize into the world like this, this work, particularly this project, why is that important for you? [01:17:17] Speaker C: So my, my philosophy on projects is I try to share stories or speak for landscapes that don't necessarily have a voice for themselves or, you know, a story that's being untold. So if I, if I go back to the, the Caledonian pine forest, for instance, Scotland used to be covered in 70% of this native forest after the last ice age retreated. And only about 1% of that native forest remains. And there hasn't been up to this date, you know, a big project, photographic or otherwise. There's NGOs and environmental organizations and that sort of thing that are obviously very interested in this rewilding organizations. But you know, the artist representation hasn't really been There. And so finding those kinds of projects and giving a voice to, or giving agency to a landscape that needs its story told, that's like. That's the. The main inspiration and goal for sharing. [01:18:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:18:36] Speaker C: You know, people need to see this. People need to see these places, otherwise they're not going to know about them, they're not going to care about them, not going to save them or protect them. [01:18:50] Speaker B: Yeah. I think it's interesting hearing you say that. It's something that I parrot quite often about that. We, you know, we are photographers and we photograph what is before it becomes what was. And just, you know, talking about that forest with 99% of it having disappeared, you know, in a way, we have an obligation as image makers to document these places because future generations may not have even the small percentage that we got to enjoy. [01:19:19] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. [01:19:21] Speaker B: You know, what we do forms part of public record and like you said, hopefully creates public discourse about why we're letting these places of beauty and nature disappear. And if no one is telling that area's story, which I think I've never heard anyone say that about landscapes, that landscape deserves to have its story told. I really love that. That concept. It marries with that, you know, that this. This thing's disappearing and it need. Its voice needs to be heard. People need to know that it's disappearing, you know, before it's gone. Yeah, I think that's really powerful. [01:19:55] Speaker C: I mean, it's really up to us to notice, isn't it? You know, we've got to be out there and care about these places in the first place. [01:20:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:20:03] Speaker C: To notice that they need their stories told. That's the photographer's job. [01:20:08] Speaker B: It is, but. But also does that. Does that make you feel like you're playing a role in conservation and public awareness? You know, it's almost like a higher calling than just. Yeah, not that it's just taking photos, but creating art from landscapes and nature. You know, we're documenting for hopefully not, but for future people to understand what was there, you know. [01:20:32] Speaker C: Yeah, I definitely hope that that is. I mean, that was a concerted effort with this project, and that's why it's predominantly photographed in color, is to make it more grounded in reality. Yeah. And actually it was used last year for the Trees for Life Rewilding charity used it for their calendar last year. So the images have already been, you know, a small contribution towards hopefully having a positive impact on the world. And, yeah, it's. It's something that I'm really passionate about, but I also always encourage photographers. They need to find their own version of that. You might be, you know, you might love conservation and that might be a calling for you as well, but if your heart's not in it, then you might be better served doing something else. It might be more about, you know, your local community or whatever, Social justice or something. [01:21:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's important. But it's an interesting way to look at it. Thank you. That, that's kind of opened my eyes a little bit to how to look at the art we make in a meaningful way. You know, just another, another way of expl, of expressing that, you know, this place deserves to have its story told. I love that. It's great. Really great. Before we move forward, Jay, did you want to do a very quick ad read for today's sponsor of the Camera Life podcast? [01:22:04] Speaker D: I should. [01:22:05] Speaker A: Otherwise they're going to drop us and not sponsor us anymore. [01:22:09] Speaker D: This podcast is brought to you by Lucky Straps. You can go to Luckystraps.com and browse the full range of beautiful Australian made leather camera straps. They're not just beautiful, they are functional because we're photographers, so we design them [01:22:21] Speaker A: from the ground up to actually work. When you're out in the field, they're not just something that looks pretty on the shelf or in the camera store. [01:22:26] Speaker D: You put them on, you connect them to your camera with our quick release system. [01:22:30] Speaker A: That leaves no dingly dangly dongles on [01:22:32] Speaker D: your camera and you engage the safety [01:22:35] Speaker A: lock and then it's stuck on there. [01:22:37] Speaker D: It's not going anywhere until you want [01:22:38] Speaker A: to take it off. [01:22:39] Speaker D: It's also got anti theft cut resistant dyneema webbing on the ends. So even if someone tries to slice [01:22:47] Speaker A: your camera off you, they're not going to be able to and it's going [01:22:49] Speaker D: to be super strong. So go there. Luckystraps.com Check them out. [01:22:53] Speaker A: If you like them, amazing. [01:22:55] Speaker D: If you don't, that's cool too. And if you do really like them, use Code Greg to get a discount [01:22:59] Speaker A: when you buy it. [01:23:00] Speaker D: And if we, if enough people use [01:23:02] Speaker A: Code Greg, we're going to send them to Japan. [01:23:04] Speaker D: It's been a few space and we still haven't, we still haven't sold enough [01:23:08] Speaker A: straps to send into Japan yet. [01:23:09] Speaker D: But we're working on it, so do that. Yeah, and my only way of getting [01:23:13] Speaker B: back there, Murray, I can't afford it. I can't afford to go to Japan anymore. So I just, I need to borrow it big and crowdfunding is the next thing. Really. Send me to Tokyo. [01:23:24] Speaker C: Whatever works right Absolutely. [01:23:26] Speaker D: Absolutely. [01:23:27] Speaker B: I haven't been back to Japan since 2019 and, and to be fair, that last trip was a bit of a mess because I used to drink a lot back then. I don't drink anymore and much of that trip I don't remember. So I want to, I want to do right by that. I want to tell the story of Tokyo in another way. But while we've got everyone's attention, just to remind everybody who's watching or listening along that we are the Camera Life podcast. We, we, we only do live stream podcasting, which means that you guys can get involved, you can join in the chat, you can ask questions, you can make comments and be involved in what it is that we do here. So every Monday evening at 7.30pm Australian Eastern Standard Time, we have our random photography show where we talk about industry news events, what we've been up to with our craft. But also we look at viewers images. That's right, you can send in your images and we'll bring them up on a Monday evening and we'll talk to them and provide feedback and have a chat around whatever it is that you're trying to achieve. And then of course, every Thursday morning, 9am Australian Eastern Standard Time, we have the random photography show live interview with an amazing photographer from home or abroad. So please give this episode a like helps us out a lot and consider subscribing doesn't cost you a dime and all you have to do is tickle the bell icon and you'll get notified in your time zone the next time we're about to go live. Let's get on with the interview. [01:24:46] Speaker D: If this is your first time here, you can go throughout. So this is episode 219. I think you can go through our back catalog of interviews and just binge watch. We've got, if you're into landscape photography, [01:24:56] Speaker A: we've got tons of great landscape photography, [01:25:00] Speaker D: photographers of two hour podcasts of just gold. So dig in and find something to [01:25:06] Speaker A: listen to and enjoy yourself. [01:25:09] Speaker D: I have a quick question so I want to talk about before this podcast [01:25:12] Speaker A: is over, before you have to go to sleep. Murray. [01:25:15] Speaker D: I want to talk about, I want to talk about gear just because it's fun. I want to have a bit of a look through some other images of yours. [01:25:23] Speaker A: I'd love for you to show us through a few images that are really meaningful to you or you have some stories about or something on your website or Instagram or whatever. So I might get you to point me in the right, right direction of those. [01:25:34] Speaker D: But first I Actually had a note [01:25:36] Speaker A: down here from earlier. [01:25:37] Speaker D: You said something about if, if an image isn't a hell yes, it's a no. Particularly in that when you're talking about [01:25:47] Speaker A: taking those long walks. But that might be something that you do regularly. [01:25:51] Speaker D: And I want to know, where did you get that from? Was that from a Derek Sivers book by any chance? And if so, like, do you read books and things like that? Because it's, it's something that I instantly recognized that there's a guy called Derek S. Are you familiar? [01:26:05] Speaker C: I think it does come from him, but I don't think I've read his book. It may have been a podcast interview. [01:26:13] Speaker D: Okay. [01:26:14] Speaker C: Yeah, but it's maybe it's also one of those things that like, it's catchy and you don't know exactly where you remember it from and it just sort of sticks, you know, just good advice. [01:26:24] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:26:26] Speaker D: He, he, I. [01:26:27] Speaker A: His book was very influential on me. His first book, it was, I think it was in 2011. It's called [01:26:35] Speaker D: anything you want. [01:26:37] Speaker A: And it was just about him building a business called CD baby, which is like back in the day of like a. Yeah, like a very stuff. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Old school business. But he has very, very good advice it for just life and business in general and how to just do the right thing by customers. That's how you build a great business and by employees and things like that. And I was just interested to know whether, you know, books or podcasts and things like that, are they something that [01:27:05] Speaker D: you listen to beyond just the creative side of things, you know, for when [01:27:09] Speaker A: it comes to like you run your [01:27:12] Speaker D: own business, like you're, you're trying to [01:27:15] Speaker A: provide great experiences for people and make a living at the same time. [01:27:20] Speaker C: I, I self admit that I don't read enough. I love when I do read, but I'm also really fussy and picky about which books I choose. But I have, I probably have like two or three desert island books that I, you know, you talk about a book that really influenced you along the way, along your journey. One of them is In Praise of Shadows, which is a book about Japanese aesthetics and somewhat about architecture, which is actually what I studied. That's from the background in Praise of Shadows. Junichiro Tanazaki, I think. [01:28:02] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:28:02] Speaker C: And yeah, incredible. Really short read. I think it's like 100 pages or something like that. It's more of an essay almost and just beautiful ideas about life and aesthetics. Another one we talked about, Kruger, is the lion tracker's guide to life. Which is a book by a gentleman called Boyd Varty, who. Who runs a game reserve, Londy in the Sabi Sands. And that is if you're ever feeling like you're not sure where your life's going, what the next, or you're at a fork in the road and you're trying to figure out, you know, what the future looks like. That, I think, is a book that, for me, has been a constant guide. There's an amazing quote which is, if I remember it correctly, I don't know where I'm going, but I know how to get there. Just sort of just like, I think speaks to the artist and the creative in me in so many different ways. [01:29:16] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I know. [01:29:18] Speaker D: I know that guy. I don't think I've listened to that [01:29:21] Speaker A: book or I listen to a lot of books rather than reading them because I'm. That's just how I can't read. I can't read. [01:29:29] Speaker D: I'm sure that I've come across him [01:29:34] Speaker A: on a podcast or something. [01:29:35] Speaker C: Yeah, he's been on quite a few recently. Yeah. [01:29:38] Speaker D: Is he. [01:29:39] Speaker A: Oh, has it. [01:29:40] Speaker D: Yeah, this might have been a few years ago, maybe. But is he a really great storyteller? Like, talking? [01:29:45] Speaker C: Absolutely. [01:29:46] Speaker A: Yeah, I've definitely listened to him talking. Yeah. For sure. I'm gonna have to listen to that book. That's awesome. [01:29:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:29:53] Speaker C: And then I'll give you my third desert island book, which is the Living Mountain by Nan Shepard. So she's a South Africa, or not South African, sorry. She's a Scottish writer, and it's all about her experience living life and growing up near the Cairngor Mountains in the Highlands of Scotland. And just beautifully written, poetic, just like, gorgeous descriptions. And it's one of those books that, like, if you've spent time in a place and then you read, puts into words all the feelings that you've had about somewhere that you couldn't put into words yourself. [01:30:34] Speaker B: Yep. [01:30:34] Speaker C: So, yeah, a little smattering of, like, influence across the world. I think it sort of represents, like, all of my interests. South Africa, the UK, Asia, etc. Yeah, I love that. [01:30:49] Speaker B: And what about, you know, photographers that you find inspirational or that you, you know, when you're feeling maybe a little lost or you're looking for a bit of a spark in a particular area, Someone who you might kind of check out their work? And who are those people for you? Who are your heroes? [01:31:06] Speaker C: I have. I mentioned one already, which is Salgado, who passed. Was it earlier this year, which was devastating. I have. I don't know how many Sebastio Salgado books? Probably four or five at this point. [01:31:21] Speaker D: Before you go, before you go any [01:31:23] Speaker A: further, I'm slowly building my book collection now. [01:31:26] Speaker D: What would do you have a recommendation [01:31:28] Speaker A: if I, if I could only afford one of his books at the moment? Because that's probably all I can afford at the moment. [01:31:33] Speaker D: Is there one to start with? [01:31:34] Speaker A: Like a good jumping off point? [01:31:37] Speaker C: I would say Genesis, which is like his Opus Magnum to his love letter to the world, as he puts it. And it's probably, what's it, 400 pages long or something. [01:31:50] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [01:31:51] Speaker C: They are mammoth books. So really good value for money. [01:31:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:31:57] Speaker C: But yeah, incredible, incredible. And then my, my other. If I have like a book that I return to or a set of books that I return to time and time again, it's by Shinzo Maeda, who's a Japanese landscape photographer. M A E D A. You can find his work online. There's a few articles in On Landscape magazine. Actually I wrote one about him many years ago. Probably don't read that one. Terrible writing. [01:32:34] Speaker B: Let's bring it up now. [01:32:36] Speaker C: Yeah, but for me, viewing his work in book form is like the peak experience. And his colors are just like so Salgado obviously a black and white photographer. Maeda, a color photographer and like yeah, just unbelievable the way he framed the intimate landscape. For somebody who was working in like the 70s in Japan working on large format and medium format film, just super inspirational. [01:33:11] Speaker B: Yeah, interesting. All right, give them some names to research. There might be a podcast in, in the, in the trips around Bright getting to and from Bright. Joe. [01:33:24] Speaker D: Yeah, maybe in a couple of weeks. [01:33:27] Speaker B: Because you're a house conversationist. [01:33:29] Speaker D: I'm okay. [01:33:31] Speaker B: All it is is dogs this and babies that and fitness this. It's all I hear from you. [01:33:38] Speaker D: And then, and then which 50 mil [01:33:40] Speaker A: lens am I going to buy and will I actually get a Leica SL3? [01:33:43] Speaker D: Probably not, but you know. [01:33:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, we have those conversations about it. [01:33:46] Speaker C: It's amazing you guys have put up with each other for 220 episodes. [01:33:52] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, you're right. [01:33:54] Speaker D: Gosh, that is a long time. Actually. That's a great. [01:33:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:33:59] Speaker D: Still going strong. [01:34:00] Speaker B: Well, it seems to work. You know, I don't think we've ever had an argument or a fight. [01:34:05] Speaker A: No, no, maybe we'll do that. That can be our next thing. [01:34:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [01:34:10] Speaker D: Speaking of, speaking of gear, Barry, what do you. What's your, what's your kit look like? What's your sort of go to photography kit? [01:34:18] Speaker C: I have a Canon R5. [01:34:22] Speaker A: Nice. [01:34:23] Speaker C: So that's my, yeah, my primary. [01:34:25] Speaker B: We all make mistakes, Murray. We all make mistakes. [01:34:28] Speaker D: It's fine. [01:34:28] Speaker C: I know it's a terrible choice. I, I previously was Nikon, so I'm fairly brand agnostic. I think you can pretty much go any direction these days and be happy. But yeah, the primary thing for me is like go for instance to the bright photography festival or photo festival, get cameras in your hands. Like the ergonomics of a camera is probably the most important thing to choosing something these days. So yeah, in R5, just the mark one, I didn't see much benefit going upgrading for mostly landscape work. [01:35:11] Speaker A: No, it's almost identical. If not, the R5 might be slightly better, to be honest. Like I actually wrote the R5 2 now and went from R5 to R5. 2. And yeah, for landscape purely. If anything I think they, they, you know, it's not, it's not perceptible on my images. But they said that testing wise the dynamic range was slightly better on the older slower sensor than the newer, faster stacked sense or partially stacked or whatever it is. So yeah, I don't think it would be worth an upgrade. [01:35:42] Speaker C: Lens wise. I basically have three. I've got the 14 to 35, 24 to 105, 100 to 500. Wow. So all three Canon. And most of the time I'm using the 24, 105 or the 100 to 500. Relatively new to the wide angle, basically. Up until two years ago, I didn't own anything wider than 24. [01:36:15] Speaker A: Really. [01:36:16] Speaker C: Yeah, it was. [01:36:19] Speaker D: Is that rare? As a landscape photographer? Like did you have people, you know, like was it. You have people coming on workshops and stuff and, and I think I. [01:36:30] Speaker C: Professional at that point. Well, yeah, getting into things at that point. But I made a decided like it was a definite choice to not do it because it was, that was everything online Instagram was like everyone wanted, you know, if, if they could shoot 4 mil, they would shoot 4 mil. Like it wasn't wide enough. Yeah, so, yeah, well, yeah, and we have seen a direction, we have seen [01:36:57] Speaker B: a boost in those sorts of. Especially from like Venus optics, Lauer lenses and a lot of the other sort of third party manufacturers, they're making these really extreme wide lenses. You know Laura, a friend of mine works with Lauer and he sent me the 4.5 to 10 for crop, but that's still crop, but it's still 15 [01:37:18] Speaker A: to 8 or 9 or something. [01:37:20] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's 9 to 15 pretty much. But still, you know, super wide. And I see a lot more of that happening where, you know, people are going ultra, like, outside of the traditional kit, you know, to get those unique looks because everyone's using the same lenses, you know. [01:37:40] Speaker C: Yeah. I'm seeing people use probe lenses. I'm seeing people use, like, the ultra telephoto. You know, these are like 200 to 800 for landscapes. [01:37:51] Speaker B: So the teleconverter as well. [01:37:53] Speaker D: Yeah. So. [01:37:56] Speaker A: So if you were. If you just had to pick just one thing, you just throw the 24 to 105 on there and. And you could make great work if you were just like, all right, I'm just going to go out with one lens, Stay super light would be that. [01:38:08] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, definitely. That's like the. The bread and butter, I think, growing or starting out with a 50 mil, that's where I honed my eye compositionally, so that's what I see first. Is that like normal. Normal lens? [01:38:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:38:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:38:28] Speaker B: It is a good starting point. Justin's got seven 50 mil lenses for his RF. [01:38:34] Speaker A: It's true. It's true. [01:38:35] Speaker C: Do you take them all out with you? [01:38:36] Speaker A: No. No. [01:38:37] Speaker B: Every day? [01:38:39] Speaker A: No, definitely not. And. And some of them are on the chopping block. [01:38:43] Speaker B: You've been saying that since Christmas. [01:38:45] Speaker A: I know, I know. I just haven't done it yet. But, yes, it's. I definitely don't. I. People often say that. [01:38:51] Speaker D: They're like, you've got too much stuff. [01:38:52] Speaker A: But I. If I. I'll put a kit together for a shoot and it's not. I might overlap some focal lengths. So I've got redundancy or whatever, especially if I'm shooting photo and video. But I don't. I don't just bring everything for fun, you know, it's like, yeah, no, it's not. I would only ever take 150mil on a shoot, that's for sure. I'm not gonna be like, oh, I like the character of this one better than this one. And it's just. It just kind of happened. [01:39:19] Speaker D: I've got some for my film EF, [01:39:21] Speaker A: you know, the EF 1.2, which is an amazing lens. And then I've got the RF 1.2 as well. But that's got to go. Even though it's an amazing lens, but it's just too heavy. Now. [01:39:33] Speaker D: You were talking about ergonomics. I don't know if you watch camera news. [01:39:37] Speaker A: Canon just released the R8 Mark II. Did you see anything about that? [01:39:41] Speaker C: I did. I haven't looked too much into it, [01:39:44] Speaker D: but it's a Completely different shape. Yes, you see, you see the difference there. You were talking about ergonomics and how important it is in your hands. [01:39:55] Speaker A: And I think Canon have great ergonomics. [01:39:59] Speaker D: Do you think that if the, is [01:40:02] Speaker A: it a bad move if they took the whole line in this design direction away from what they've currently got? [01:40:10] Speaker C: So I mean, obviously not having held one, but to speculate, the thing that made Canon and Nikon feel comfortable in my hands was the slightly more rounded, maybe like bulky feel. Yeah, I'm, I'm, I've got relatively large hands compared to, you know, some maybe a five foot for women, you know. So the, the bulky Canon sort of roundness fit nicely for me. Yeah. When I went and tried like a Sony or a Fujifilm and it was much more like fine, sharper edges, that to me felt like slightly holding a brick. Not that the cameras aren't really good cameras, but it just didn't fit my hands well. [01:41:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:41:09] Speaker C: So if Canon goes in that direction, then yeah, possibly it'll be less ergonomic. [01:41:15] Speaker A: That's what I'm worried about. But like you, I haven't had my hands on it and maybe it feels great but just based on looks and [01:41:22] Speaker D: I don't mind the look of it, the look of it's kind of cool. [01:41:25] Speaker A: I'm just worried that they're, they're maybe following, they're chasing a trend that isn't, is, is only based on the looks of the camera rather than the, the performance of the body. We're talking about this on the, on the last show on Monday and I was like, how, like this, if anything is like a step backwards in terms of, if you, if you looked at both these cameras and say it was in 50 years, if you ask someone which one of these do you think is older and which one do you think is newer? You would think the one that's retro. Yeah, yeah. And which one's sort of sleeker and looks like it's taken. It was harder to design, like more purposefully designed in terms of the shape of the body. This one looks like the body is molded to have no wasted space internally, if that makes sense. Whereas this one looks like it's like, I don't know, boxy. I still don't know if I prefer one or the other looks wise. I think if anything I prefer the boxy one just purely on esthetically looks. But I think for ergonomics, I don't know. [01:42:33] Speaker C: I think it's, it's an interesting point that, you know, are they chasing a particular look because they've done it with the R8, right. With that sort of like entry level full frame. So it's clearly targeting a particular market sector. Yeah, we'll see. I mean that's, that's what the Fujifilm guys love, right, is the, the dials and the retro thing and. [01:43:00] Speaker B: Yes, we do. Yeah. [01:43:02] Speaker C: And. [01:43:03] Speaker D: And I think that the reason Fujifilm is, is they, they've lent all the way into it. [01:43:08] Speaker A: It is there. [01:43:09] Speaker D: Whereas this isn't that either. [01:43:11] Speaker A: It's not, you know, it's not all [01:43:13] Speaker B: the half step almost. [01:43:14] Speaker D: It's, it's, it's closer to a Sony or something. [01:43:17] Speaker A: If anything, if it. Yeah, yeah, than, than sort of towards Fuji. [01:43:21] Speaker D: I don't know. [01:43:22] Speaker A: Anyway, but I. [01:43:25] Speaker B: Looking at them together now and thinking about what you were saying earlier Murray, about, you know, cameras are all pretty much, you know, on par with each other. They all take great pictures, you know, they all have quirks and they all have features and benefits and all that sort of stuff, but the first thing to do is to actually go and pick it up in your hand. Which, you know, when, when we moved into Covid, we had pretty serious lockdowns here in Australia, especially in Victoria. We had the worst, like the longest lockdowns accumulated in the world for that, for that, those couple of years. And at the time I was writing content for retail outlets in Australia, like photography retailers, camera stores and they all struggled because they had no way of conveying how a camera felt for someone who was just going to buy it online. You know, they had no way to really effectively. Whereas traditional camera stores, brick and mortar stores, it was all about walking in someone putting a camera in your hand. You're falling in love. Love with it, you know. Yeah, because it just felt good and it's high tech and all that sort of stuff. It's just. I keep thinking about that comment you made and I think it's a really valid and important one for people to realize that put, put the brand aside, put the, you know, the megapixels, whatever it is aside and just. Does it feel good? Because if it feels good in your hand, you're going to enjoy going out and taking photos with it. [01:44:43] Speaker C: Exactly. [01:44:43] Speaker B: You know, like when we both picked up that we got it, we got sent a from om system, the om3 for justin and I to test and play around with and you know, gorgeous camera, very, very boxy and retro, obviously leaning into that, that OM kind of DNA. But some of the placements of some of the buttons and there was a dial on the front, that was to change your color profiles. And it was, it was hard plastic and it was knurled so you could grip it and twist it, but it stuck out really far. And when you held the camera, because it's a small camera, it just ate into your little finger. And you're constantly kind of moving your little finger, not knowing where to put it. And that's such a fundamental thing of ergonomic design that, you know, you don't want to have pain points when you're using a product. And you know, people that buy those online have no way of realizing that until they get it out of the box. You know, it's just. Yeah, it's an interesting, interesting dilemma in our privileged world. [01:45:42] Speaker A: Yeah, but it's, it's a, it is a great point that, that was the first your sort of go to. And I think that it makes sense too because it's like at the end of the day when you're out on location and you do everything to create the photo you want, no one's going to know if a different brand and the Sensor had an extra 0.3 of a stop of dynamic range or whatever. Like that stuff all melts away at the end of the process. So they're all good to a point [01:46:09] Speaker C: now with sensor technology. Right, where they're all really on par for the most part. [01:46:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, what did we say the other night? Was it 50% are made by Sony now? Was it 50 or 60 something? [01:46:21] Speaker C: Right. [01:46:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:46:22] Speaker B: They're all coming out of the same factory. [01:46:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:46:25] Speaker C: And like, what are you doing with those images as well? Are you posting them on Instagram where they're being viewed in the little one inch square? Yeah. You're not going to see your 102 megapixel Hasselblad image. No, no. And even printing really big, it's like, [01:46:45] Speaker D: do you ever get tempted by things like Hasselblads and, and Fujifilm GFXs or anything like that? Or do you. [01:46:51] Speaker A: What do you see out of your camera? The files. You're, you're stoked with what you get. [01:46:55] Speaker C: I'm stoked. And also the, the medium format stuff just doesn't work for wildlife. Like. Yeah, there's too many drawbacks. So. So I've got to have one system and a suite of lenses that does everything for me. So I don't really want to be jumping back and forth between, you know, different systems for different things. [01:47:17] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And you know, we often see other, like Matt Crummonds, for example, because he, you know, he used to be an OM Systems ambassador. He shoots mostly Sony for his commercial stuff, Jay. [01:47:29] Speaker D: But I think he. Yeah, for some Sony and gfx, so. [01:47:33] Speaker A: And he does switch between both. But, yeah, on this trip that we did to Kruger, he was using his Sony again, whereas the. I think the year before he used his gfx and he said he does love getting those amazing images, but there were limitations and he had this, like, Sigma. [01:47:51] Speaker D: What was it, 200 to 656. A new lens that come out. Yeah, yeah, A new big one. [01:48:00] Speaker A: And he was just. He was just loving it. Like, just so. Yeah, it's like, yeah, he's got GFX stuff, but for, for wildlife, he. He acknowledged that there was significant compromises. [01:48:12] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:48:13] Speaker A: Compared to, you know, a Sony or Canon or Nikon or whatever. [01:48:16] Speaker B: Why. [01:48:16] Speaker D: Why did you switch from Nikon to Canon? I. I also. [01:48:20] Speaker A: I went Canon Nikon back to Canon again. Why? Why did you. [01:48:23] Speaker C: So at the time when I made the switch, Nikon had only had. I think they only had the 100 to 400 lens out. [01:48:35] Speaker A: Ah. [01:48:37] Speaker C: And they hadn't released any Wildlife dedicated lenses. And so I went to the Canon side because the 100 to 500 sort of fulfilled both roles for me in one lens. Now, obviously, Nikon, Sony, etcetera, they've all got amazing options across the board, so basically wouldn't be able to pick between many of them in terms of lens options. But that was the primary motivation was like, just get the 100 to 500 and then. [01:49:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:49:13] Speaker C: If you want to rent a 600 F4 for a particular purpose, then sure. [01:49:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:49:20] Speaker A: Did you. Was. [01:49:20] Speaker D: Was the switch when you went from [01:49:22] Speaker A: DSLR to mirrorless, or were you. Or. Yeah, so it made sense. That's. That's exactly. That's when I switched back to Canon was going from dslr, Nikon to mirrorless. And yeah, my switch, because Canon were. Were wonderful and supported our camera straps. They. The R5 launch. They worked with us to create custom camera straps for the R5 launch in Australia, New Zealand, and then again for the R5 Mark II. And I said to him in a. In a meeting, I was like, if you guys, you know, if you guys go through with this, I'm switching my kit from Nikon back to Canada again. [01:49:57] Speaker D: They were like, we'll hold you to that. I was like, all right, [01:50:01] Speaker C: if you. If they provide a free R5. Right. [01:50:06] Speaker D: Unfortunately, that is not on the cards. [01:50:08] Speaker A: That would have been wonderful, but they're awesome to deal with. [01:50:13] Speaker B: All right, I do have another question. If we could Just quickly, Jay, if that's all right. [01:50:17] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. [01:50:18] Speaker B: Just curious because, you know, obviously cameras and lenses are critical. We don't do what we do without them. But, you know, for you in your work, obviously traveling a lot and, you know, heading into places where you have to take everything with you. You know, what you go to camera bag and what you go to tripod for the work that you do. [01:50:37] Speaker C: Absolutely, yeah. I use a hiking backpack as my camera bag. So I've got an ultralight bag from a company called Durston Gear who are a Canadian manufacturer. And it's essentially. What is it called? It's like sailcloth, sort of similar to Dyneema that you mentioned in the Lucky straps. But yeah, the whole backpack's made out of it, so it weighs less than a kilo and it's sort of like a proper hiking backpack. I can do an, like an eight day trip with it, but because it's so light, it's just my everything bag, like it's. It doesn't. I don't need to. To take a smaller bag out for other things. The other thing that I have really gotten into in the last couple years is using a chest pouch for my main camera and whatever lens I've got on. And that's sort of the compromise. Obviously, if you've got a hiking backpack as opposed to like a Shimoda or an F stop or something with the cubes, you don't have as much access. So I use a chest strap. Yeah, exactly Right. So I've got the 55 on the right hand side. [01:51:59] Speaker A: It looks. Yeah, it does. It looks super light, like. Yeah, it wasn't what I was picturing with a traditional, you know, hiking look backpack. [01:52:07] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. The. The funny thing that I found with the chest pouch is I make so many more images than I would with a normal backpack. Because you have access to your camera without having to take the backpack off. Yeah, you take so many more test images when something just catches your eye than you otherwise would do because it's a pain to get the backpack off and then have to unzip and, you know, go through all that faff. So that. That's been a bit of a novelty. [01:52:39] Speaker D: What. What brand of those are you using? [01:52:41] Speaker A: What model? [01:52:44] Speaker C: I am going back and forth between two at the moment. I haven't F Stop. I can't remember what they call the actual product. They all have funny names for these things. [01:52:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:52:56] Speaker C: Yes, the. The F Stop chest pouch. And then I have one from a company called Wandered, which is W A n drd. [01:53:04] Speaker B: Yep. [01:53:06] Speaker C: And they've both been really good. I would recommend people to get the large version as they all do, like the small one. But unless you're shooting a really small camera with a basic kit lens, it's not going to fit much else. So like the, the F stop one, I can fit my. Yeah, that's the one. I can actually get my Canon R5 with the 100 to 500 on. [01:53:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:53:37] Speaker C: In the. Wow. In the pouch, which is pretty cool. So. [01:53:41] Speaker B: And you just connect that to your shoulder straps at the front. [01:53:45] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:53:48] Speaker A: I use, I do a fair bit of mountain bike photography and videography and also some commercial stuff as well. And it wouldn't work for hiking for you because it wouldn't have enough storage, I would imagine. But I use a mind shift rotation backpack. Have you seen those? And almost no one has them. [01:54:07] Speaker D: Like, I don't. I think I've seen one in the [01:54:10] Speaker A: wild once and people laugh at me. It gets called. I was at a, I was shooting a, a mountain bike event in Tassie and people kept calling it a kangaroo pouch and stuff. But I can like, I, I can get my camera out in zero seconds. Like it. Maybe that's a lie. Two seconds, it just spins around and I've got. Yeah. Body mounted with a lens and then two other lens lenses in this little pouch right in front of me. [01:54:36] Speaker D: Super quick. [01:54:37] Speaker A: And like you say, you never hesitate to do, to do a test shot, to have a little play around, like try location because it's so easy. Whereas if I had to lay a backpack on the ground and get it out of there or whatever you do, [01:54:49] Speaker D: you sort of think, ah, nah, it's [01:54:52] Speaker A: probably not worth it. [01:54:52] Speaker C: You know, gear in my mind should be like, everything should be working to be less of an obstacle. Like if something's getting in the way of you being creative, then it needs to either be gotten rid of or changed to something else. So Greg, you were asking also about like tripod. Yeah, I think having a really steady, sturdy tripod, especially for like in Scotland, if you're going to go and photograph in 50 mile an hour winds on the Isle of Harris, you need a decent tripod. Or in those conditions you might be going handheld. But I use an FLM CP30 L4 and I'm a. I'm actually an FLM photographer. [01:55:39] Speaker D: How do you spell that? I don't know if I even know that brand. [01:55:41] Speaker A: If. [01:55:42] Speaker C: F, L, L, M. F, L, M. Right. [01:55:46] Speaker A: I thought you were saying efilm, like E, F, E, L, I, M. And [01:55:49] Speaker D: I was like, oh, I haven't heard of this brand. [01:55:52] Speaker C: I think actually Ben Mays use. Uses one as well. He's got the big brother of my one. [01:56:00] Speaker D: He might have told us about this, I think. Yeah. I'm trying to think of who sells them in Australia, but I'll bring up the. [01:56:08] Speaker C: So you can actually order them directly from FLM Canada and they'll, they'll ship them to you. [01:56:16] Speaker D: Okay, so let's go tripods. Let's just quickly find the one that you've got. [01:56:25] Speaker A: Not a tabletop one. [01:56:26] Speaker D: What was that number again? [01:56:27] Speaker C: CP30. And then it's the L4 on the right hand side. [01:56:33] Speaker D: Okay. [01:56:34] Speaker A: L4 tripod. So why did you choose this particular one? [01:56:40] Speaker C: So this basically is super tall. So it goes up to, I'm six foot one and when I've got my ball head and the camera on top, it's like taller than me, basically. [01:56:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:56:56] Speaker C: And then really, really sturdy. So there is a website, what is it called? The center column, which does like tripod stiffness testings. [01:57:09] Speaker D: There's a website that does tripod stiffness. I love the Internet stuff so much. That's so great. [01:57:16] Speaker C: And this guy does like, it's like really intense, like scientific, you know, rigidity tests and vibration tests and all sorts. [01:57:23] Speaker A: Wow. [01:57:24] Speaker C: And this is like sort of class leading for tall tripod. Really, really rigid, but still lightweight. [01:57:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:57:36] Speaker A: Wow. [01:57:36] Speaker C: So I think. What is it? It's like 1.2 kilos. So it's for the height and everything. It's ridiculous. [01:57:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:57:44] Speaker D: And then do you use their ball heads as well? [01:57:47] Speaker C: I actually don't. I have a. What is it called? Oh, always forget the name of it. It's a relatively cheap ball head, but it's really, really strong. I can't remember that off the top of my head, to be honest. They'll be on my website somewhere. [01:58:05] Speaker B: That's okay. Now, I, I am conscious of time. Let's, let's. Let's work towards finishing this up. But you mentioned Ben Mays. Now, it was Ben Mays who recommended we get you on the podcast and we're grateful that he did. Is there a photographer out there, regardless of genre, that you think would be an amazing guest for the Camera Life podcast, whose story is, you know, worth sharing? [01:58:35] Speaker C: Yeah, my. I've got a good friend, Brad Carr. He's got an amazing story and he's an awesome photographer. He's based in Wales, so he'll. But he, he would be very up for getting up at midnight as well and jumping in to chat with you guys. Yeah, yeah, he, he's a, A super deep thinker. He does amazing writing and. Yeah, just a solid guy and a great photographer. [01:59:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:59:07] Speaker C: Cool. [01:59:08] Speaker B: Nice recommendation. Thank you. [01:59:09] Speaker D: Thank you. Yeah, I know you probably want to [01:59:12] Speaker A: get back to bed. I did want to quickly look at [01:59:14] Speaker D: some of your images, but even if there was, even if there was one image you could, you could tell us a little something about or I'm happy [01:59:21] Speaker C: to stick around for a few more minutes where. [01:59:24] Speaker B: Thank you. [01:59:25] Speaker D: That'd be. Yeah, I just, I don't know, it'd be a shame not to have a little bit of a look through some [01:59:30] Speaker A: of the work that you've done. [01:59:32] Speaker D: Point me in the direction of something [01:59:34] Speaker A: that you'd love to talk about, whether it's a project or a single image [01:59:37] Speaker C: or I think jump into the, the Caledonian forest images there on the right. The blue trees at the top. Right. This was the. I mean that this first image has got a funny story behind it. This isn't a spot on the west coast of Scotland. My autoplay. But yeah, it's down there. [02:00:02] Speaker D: Can I go this way? [02:00:03] Speaker C: No, if you, If you click on the image and it goes to the, the sales page and then you click on the. [02:00:16] Speaker A: And then I can make it big. Perfect. [02:00:21] Speaker C: So this is on the, on the west coast of Scotland, which is sort of notoriously wet and windy and it doesn't actually get snow very often. So I was up here last year in January and we had this like huge storm come through, which this is about. Yeah, sorry for the pop up. So I was like, oh my God, I've got to get out to this particular remnant while it's in snow because it's like super rare conditions. So I go out with a friend and It's a good 40 minute hike out there. We're like wading through waist deep snow and we eventually get out to this little remnant and making photographs, having a great time. And I look over and my friend is like shivering in his gumboots, or wellies as we would call them. And it turns out that his, his gumboot had like split down the side and he had just like ice and snow in his boot and he was like practically going hypothermic. And so we were like, okay, now we gotta cut the photograph, the, the shoot short and just head back. [02:01:32] Speaker D: Oh no. [02:01:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:01:34] Speaker D: Did he lose it? [02:01:35] Speaker C: He didn't. Thankfully. Got him in the van and cranked the heater up. But the things we do for images. Right? [02:01:44] Speaker D: Exactly. [02:01:45] Speaker B: Yeah. But that, that forms part of the image in my Mind that experience that you had retelling that story and, you know, your friends experience, they've got their own version of that story. That's kind of the underlying power of. Of being a photographer, I think, is that you take a photo and you can associate an experience to it and link it to something that's, you know, changed you, influenced you, whatever it may be. I think it's really wonderful. [02:02:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:02:15] Speaker D: Let's. Let's check out a couple more of these. This. This collection. Look at the. The difference in this place. [02:02:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:02:24] Speaker A: That you've been able to capture through the project. [02:02:27] Speaker C: No, so it's a. And I mean, these are all sort of like dotted across the Highlands. So there's about 84 remaining fragments. So you sort of have to go and really explore. [02:02:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:02:42] Speaker C: To find them. And there's this gallery and this particular project page is woefully out of date, so I've got like two. Two years worth of work which is. Hasn't been published. Really. [02:02:55] Speaker D: Really. [02:02:57] Speaker C: But yeah. [02:02:59] Speaker D: So, yeah, so you. You create images, you're running workshops, you're [02:03:05] Speaker A: trying to run a business as well, [02:03:07] Speaker D: and then you publish them on here. Is there any. Is. Do you have any kind of ultimate goal for some of these in your mind, even. [02:03:14] Speaker A: Even in the back of your mind, like a book or an exhibition or things like that? [02:03:19] Speaker C: I find that each project sort of takes a form of its own. If you go to the homepage of the website and then scroll down, there is a project. If you keep going, there's a book project. The next one. Yeah, that one. So, for instance, this project is images from the Isle of Harris and that one in particular, for some reason I knew was going to turn into a book. And so I made the decision really early on that I wasn't going to share any of the images online. So probably about, I think 80% other than the ones I used to sort of market the book are only in the book. Wow. And I think there's little things like that that, you know, you get some sort of artistic inspiration somewhere and it informs the project. The one from the Kaladin Forest has taken on lots of different lives. It's been an exhibition, it's been a calendar. I'm just starting now the process of turning it into a book like this as well. Obviously it's. It's three years or so of work, so there's a lot of images to sort of present. [02:04:45] Speaker B: Yeah. But. But ultimately equally. A lot. A lot to C too. Yeah. [02:04:49] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [02:04:50] Speaker B: That's probably more tricky bit, isn't It. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [02:04:54] Speaker D: Do, do you have a, a planned method of [02:04:59] Speaker A: going through that process? Is it like, would you say print all the images out, lay them all out on a table and, and just sort of play around with which ones, work with other images and all that kind of stuff? [02:05:12] Speaker C: That is my favorite way to do it. Yeah. Get like 4x6 postcard prints done just down at like the local drugstore, like really cheap ones. And yeah, spread them out on the dining room table and just have a play around. That's step one probably for me. And you include just like, if you say you want a book that's got 35 images, you should probably start with at least 70 to and then whittle down to your 35. [02:05:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:05:46] Speaker A: Is that so that the 35 that go in. Absolutely. Each one of them is valuable and the best. It can be like you're not scrounging for. You're not like, oh, I need, I've got 35 images, but I need 50. So I'm just going to kind of like include some that weren't that great to try and bump the numbers up. [02:06:06] Speaker C: It's a. It's interesting. It actually ends up working out that you are trying to select images that pair well together and tell the story most effectively as opposed to the sync. The strongest images that are on their own. Especially, I think when it comes to like book layout, you're often working with like facing pages where you've got images that are viewed together. And so it's much more important that they work page to page or from one page when you flip the page and then look at the next image and you may actually end up including images that on their own are like quote unquote weaker, but as part of a whole it works better so that there's like really, there's a lot of nuance to curating a project and going through image selection that is totally different depending on the format. If you're choosing an exhibition, then you just might want the 12 best images that are going to work as single prints or, you know, a website page is a, a totally different thing. But printed for me is like the ultimate goal for some sort of physical medium. [02:07:25] Speaker D: How did you go about learning that, [02:07:27] Speaker A: that skill for say, curating a book? [02:07:32] Speaker C: I think that comes back to my architectural background. So I, I studied architecture for seven years. I did an undergrad and a postgrad and then worked for a year or two. And that is essentially what we do week in, week out is like design something, curate it into some sort of printed Presentation, present it, get critique, move on, iterate. And so there's been a lot of processes and like the creative process that I've learned from my time in architecture that apply to photography. You know, at the end of the year you present your project or whatever in either like a pin up or you, or you do all sorts of different things in architecture school. So I've brought some of those along with me. [02:08:33] Speaker D: Very nice. Well, if you're listening at home and [02:08:36] Speaker A: you want to get better at making photography books, just go do seven years of architecture school. [02:08:40] Speaker D: And you look rush also. [02:08:46] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. [02:08:47] Speaker D: I think too. [02:08:47] Speaker A: And that's why I'm trying to build my, my book collection. [02:08:50] Speaker D: I think you can also learn a [02:08:51] Speaker A: lot too if you just look at what other people like, like what great photographers put out into the world. I guess the difficult thing is you don't get to see the behind the scenes of how they, how they got from a body of work to that book. But at least you can see, you can start to teach your brain, like what looks great on, on a page layout, what works well together. [02:09:13] Speaker C: I can give one resource on that, which is a really amazing free resource, which is the Magnum photographer, Alex Soth. He has a YouTube channel which I don't think he's posted to in a very long time, but he posted loads of great videos going through, flicking through books and like dissecting them page by page, how this artist has told the story, etc. And he's put out I don't know how many books himself. So he's like, if there's ever a trusted resource on that particular topic, it would be him. [02:09:54] Speaker D: Yeah, okay. Yeah, I think I see it here. So you got. [02:09:58] Speaker A: Yeah, this is it for sure. He's got these really cool thumbnails that are like, it's almost like a colored texture and just type. [02:10:07] Speaker C: Typewriter. [02:10:08] Speaker B: Yeah, [02:10:10] Speaker A: yeah. He's not playing the YouTube game. [02:10:12] Speaker C: No. The Anti influencer. [02:10:14] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, awesome. I'm gonna subscribe to that for sure. Very cool. [02:10:22] Speaker D: All right, anything else before we let you get to sleep? What is it, 22 10am 2 10. [02:10:27] Speaker C: Yeah, no, all good guys. Just it was a great chat, love being here and thanks everyone who tuned in. [02:10:35] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you, Murray. Look, on behalf of us here and obviously on behalf of our community, some of whom joined us this morning, but the rest will watch down the track. Thank you so much for your time and your insight, but also your inspiration and just your ability to look at problems in different ways. I've learned a few things just having sat here for the last two hours chatting with you. It's been quite inspirational and I've been making notes, which I don't always do during podcasts, but there's some really great ideas that I want to flesh out a little bit more. But thank you so much for your time. We wish you all the best with the rest of this year and moving into 2027, you've got yet another bumpy year of workshops coming up. And so for folks who want to check out Murray's work, where's the best place to just go straight to your website. [02:11:21] Speaker C: Yeah. Murielivingston.com or check me out on Instagram. Livingston Murray, I think, is my handle. Those are the two main places I'm always reachable by email or dm. And then the other place is the Nature Photo Collective, which is a great group of us. We're all over the world and we do some. Some really fun, affordable or accessible webinars, online teachings, masterclasses, workshops, etc. [02:11:55] Speaker B: Yeah, great. Well, we'll make sure that those, those links are added if they're not already down there in the notes on the show. But thank you to everyone for watching and look, we wish you all the very best, Murray, and thank you so much once again. [02:12:09] Speaker C: Cheers, guys. [02:12:10] Speaker B: Should we say goodbye to some peeps, Jay? [02:12:12] Speaker D: I will. I'll roll some music that was made by AI. All right, if you're listening later on, if you weren't here with us live today, make sure drop a comment down below and tell us, did you grab something out of this episode from Murray? Tell us what it was. That'd be great. But who was here? Lucinda was here. Really great chat. Thanks, gang. Philip Johnson was here. Thanks, Justin, Greg and Murray. Many thanks. [02:12:32] Speaker A: Murray. You got extra thanks than us. [02:12:34] Speaker D: Jim said it was a reasonable reason to switch from Nick onto can. It was. [02:12:38] Speaker A: Jim still shoots Nikon. [02:12:40] Speaker D: You should come over, Jim. Come to the dark side. It's better. Lucinda's. Lucinda's a cannon shooter as well. Thanks everyone else that was here. Felicity Johnson, who else was here? Paul, Rodney Nicholson, Lisa Leach. Good to see you. Robert Varna and everyone that's going to be at bfop. It's great to great to have that coming up in what, two weeks? [02:13:01] Speaker B: Two weeks. 15 days. [02:13:05] Speaker D: Otherwise, thanks everyone. We'll catch you in the next one. [02:13:08] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll see you Monday night. Bye, guys.