0:00

Should I sit down and should I do

0:02

another blog? I'm doing maybe three blogs a

0:04

year, once a birthday. I do a top

0:06

100 black and white photos, a top 100

0:08

colored photos. And then those are the three,

0:10

right, that I'm kind of doing now. Like

0:12

I'm not doing a lot of travel blogs

0:14

on that side of it or some of

0:16

the other stuff. And I struggle with that

0:18

kind of, okay, but yeah, where's the time,

0:20

where's the energy, where's the balance, and

0:23

then how much have I satisfied myself

0:25

with that period? Well,

0:37

hey everyone. Welcome to episode

0:39

414 of F-stop, Collaborate, and

0:42

Listen. I'm your host, Matt

0:44

Payne, and I'm so excited

0:47

to bring you another inspiring

0:49

and entertaining conversation this week.

0:51

My guest today is Alex

0:54

Berger, a true creative force

0:56

who wears many hats, writer,

0:58

photographer, travel blogger, and creator

1:01

of the innovative tool. Miss

1:03

Defender. Alex has a fascinating

1:05

background, an unconventional upbringing, and

1:08

a knack for turning his

1:10

diverse experiences into meaningful stories

1:12

and images. In this episode,

1:14

we dive into Alex's journey

1:17

from starting his blog in

1:19

2007 to navigating the challenges

1:21

of being a travel blogger

1:23

and author. We also explore

1:26

his unique workflow for publishing

1:28

content, how he balances perfectionism

1:30

with productivity, and his thoughts

1:33

on social media's impact on

1:35

photography's sense of permanence. Plus,

1:37

we unpack the idea of memory

1:39

anchors and how it's shaped his

1:42

photography process. Oh. And don't miss

1:44

the story behind Miss Defender, an

1:46

exciting tool that Alex created to

1:48

help photographers just like you and

1:50

me. Whether you're a traveler, a

1:52

photographer, or just someone looking for

1:54

fresh inspiration, you're in for a

1:57

treat. So grab a coffee, get

1:59

comfortable. and join me as we

2:01

learn about Alex Berger's journey. All

2:03

right, Alex Berger, it's great to

2:05

have you on the podcast. Yeah,

2:08

thank you so much for the

2:10

invitation. It's definitely a very special

2:12

moment to be able to come

2:14

on after you've inspired me over

2:16

the years and actually led to

2:19

meeting some of my closest photography

2:21

contacts here in Denmark through the

2:23

podcast. Oh yeah, that's super cool. Who have

2:25

you connected through the podcast? Through Yepe.

2:28

Yeah, I heard an episode with them

2:30

here and then you reached out and

2:32

just said, hey, like, that was a

2:35

great conversation. It's really cool. And then

2:37

we started talking and now we've done

2:39

a couple road trips together and yeah,

2:42

a nice friendship has come out of

2:44

it. So that's fantastic. I love stuff

2:46

like that. Shout out to that guy,

2:49

he actually saved my life, literally. I

2:51

don't know if he told you that

2:53

story, but he came over here and

2:55

we went out for a weekend to

2:58

photograph in the winter. I guess this

3:00

was like two years ago now, in

3:02

Utah, and we were hiking into this

3:04

canyon. And I made the stupid mistake

3:06

of thinking that I was standing on

3:08

top of an ice sheet that was

3:11

on top of rock, and underneath me

3:13

was just like really dirty ice frozen

3:15

water. And I fell through the ice

3:17

with my camera and my tripod and

3:19

like up above my head in frozen

3:21

water and he had to like use

3:24

his peak design camera strap to

3:26

like pull me out of the

3:28

frozen water. It was an amazing

3:30

day for both of us. Oh

3:32

wow. Yeah, no, that's incredible. Wow,

3:34

wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway,

3:36

that was a, that was my

3:38

phone time with Yippa. Yeah, pays

3:40

to, yeah, pays to have a

3:42

travel buddy for that stuff. I

3:44

mean, one of the things being

3:47

up here in Denmark, we've talked

3:49

about a little bit of some

3:51

road trips and things like that,

3:53

especially in winter and that whole side

3:55

of it of like, yeah, when the

3:57

water is cold. It makes a lot

3:59

of. by myself. I mean, it's

4:01

just... I was so lucky.

4:03

But anyway, enough about

4:06

that. Let's learn about

4:08

Alex. So tell us about

4:10

Alex Berger. Yeah, so I am...

4:12

Based here in Copenhagen, Denmark, I've

4:14

been here 13 years, but as

4:17

the accent probably gives away, not

4:19

Danish, I relocated over here to

4:21

do a master's degree after working

4:24

a couple years after my undergrad,

4:26

and I'm from Arizona, but originally

4:28

actually from Colorado, Southwestern Colorado, born

4:31

and raised, I guess, born in

4:33

Cortez, and then... Yeah, so found

4:36

my way over to Denmark wanted

4:38

something different, which I used the

4:40

master's degree to kind of be

4:43

the gateway to, and then that opened

4:45

up the opportunity to come over here.

4:47

I was looking to some travel blogging

4:49

at the time and thought, again, that

4:51

would kind of be a great

4:53

way to spend two years here,

4:55

have different access to the different

4:57

continent and everything else along the

4:59

way. And yeah, I guess from

5:01

a photography standpoint, I'm very much

5:04

a... travel, outdoor, landscape, photography fan,

5:06

very much influenced when I was

5:08

younger by National Geographic, like, oh

5:10

so many others, and kind of

5:12

photojournalism in that side of it,

5:14

and have kind of stayed more

5:17

true to that, I guess, my

5:19

approach and my editing. So one

5:21

of the things that I kind of

5:23

used to shape and to find my

5:25

photography is very much... keeping it to

5:28

nothing added, nothing removed. So I'll do

5:30

my contrast sharpening all that side of

5:32

it, but I'm definitely much more kind

5:34

of cut and dry on that as

5:36

far as, yeah, not even a twig,

5:39

not even a piece of trash, whatever

5:41

it is. So that part gets more

5:43

frustrating, but I think that adds to

5:45

the challenge as well. So that kind

5:47

of defines it. I've also in my...

5:50

my spare time written book practical curiosity

5:52

as a fun exercise. I

5:54

guess former travel blogger-ish or

5:57

travel blogger in a hobby

5:59

only. now and have also created

6:01

the Miss Defender which was a

6:03

photo gadget to kind of scratch

6:06

my own itch that I've kind

6:08

of brought to market a little

6:10

bit more recently and then the

6:12

day job which I guess is

6:14

always a little bit relevant as

6:16

well as a product marketer in

6:19

the digital advertising ad-tech industry and

6:21

I've been doing that for 10

6:23

years here here in Copenhagen. So

6:25

you've got all of this marketing

6:27

experience and you've still haven't got

6:30

the confidence to push forward all of

6:32

these things that you love to do.

6:34

I think that's very telling. And we'll

6:37

talk more about that later, but I

6:39

think that's really fascinating because I find

6:41

that marketing is like one of the

6:44

most essential skill sets you have to

6:46

have as a full-time, basically a, you

6:48

know, a solopourner of any kind, really.

6:50

It's whether that's photography or... painting or

6:53

whatever your thing is like if you

6:55

can't market yourself you're going to not

6:57

do well. It's always that challenge too

7:00

a little bit right of you always

7:02

look at you know the marketing people

7:04

or the HR people with like the

7:06

HR talent acquisition side of it and

7:08

it's like nobody can ever write their

7:10

own resume right like that's always the

7:12

challenge so like crafting that skill to

7:14

yeah write your own resume kind of

7:16

eat your own dog food as the

7:18

old saying goes is it's always a

7:20

tricky one for sure but I do

7:22

also always think about it in the

7:24

context of where that old saying, that

7:27

old cliche, don't move to paradise,

7:29

you'll ruin it, is also in

7:31

play. And I think over the

7:33

years, that's one that I've definitely

7:35

struggled with, and kind of not struggled with,

7:37

I guess I've explored in applying it as

7:39

a lens to what I do, what I

7:41

say yes to, where I focus, and kind

7:44

of double down, and where I don't. Yeah,

7:46

well, we'll dive into that. much much

7:48

deeper later. I wanted to take

7:50

a quick deep dive into your

7:52

upbringing. I understand that it was

7:54

a bit unusual. You know, it's

7:57

not like you just grew up

7:59

in suburbia. went to school, you

8:01

know, had the typical upbringing. So

8:03

tell us a little about what

8:05

that was like for you. Yeah,

8:07

absolutely. So my folks are both

8:09

educators, or retired educators, I guess.

8:11

And dad had gone and spent

8:13

a year in 1970 traveling around

8:15

the world studying schools. And he

8:18

was a big believer in experiential education

8:20

and kind of that hands-on approach to

8:22

it. So I came along and then

8:24

by the time I was 10, I've

8:27

got a younger brother two years younger.

8:29

My folks looked at the two of

8:31

us and said, okay, we're going to

8:34

go to Europe for a year, we're

8:36

going to rent the house, what do

8:38

you want to go see and do?

8:41

And so they kind of sat down

8:43

beside us, instead of just pointing the

8:45

finger at us and being like, all

8:48

right, we're going to Europe, here's the

8:50

list, here's what's going to happen. 10-11.

8:52

We've made our way over to Europe.

8:55

We started in Amsterdam that area and

8:57

then just wound through Europe basically for

8:59

11 months. Three months of euro passes,

9:02

living, exploring. And that was also kind

9:04

of where I got my first taste,

9:06

not a photography, but of like very

9:09

lightweight videography. We had like a little

9:11

Sony, it was the size of a

9:13

coat can, like a large coat can,

9:16

and luckily still have that footage and

9:18

can go back and find the moment

9:20

where, you know, kind of dad hands

9:22

it to me very carefully and says,

9:25

okay, like, you know, like, do like.

9:27

take it and I narrate it my

9:29

squeaky little. You know, 11 year old

9:31

voice, but it was this incredible year

9:34

of experiential education and travel schooling and

9:36

learning and then we came back. Spend

9:38

a year in a local school that

9:40

they'd been involved with before. They didn't

9:43

like what had happened in the year

9:45

we were gone. So we rented the

9:47

house again and bought an old 32

9:50

foot fifth wheel trailer. It was a

9:52

Ford duly pickup or an old Chevy,

9:54

but took the border collie and hopped

9:56

in in the trailer and we set

9:59

off for... Another 11 months wandering

10:01

around the US and basically just

10:03

did a big loop and was

10:05

homeschooled during that period as well.

10:08

And you know that, I think

10:10

those combined experiences have always just

10:12

given me this deep curiosity about

10:14

the world, about the different ways

10:16

that we communicate, that we interact,

10:18

you know, food, landscapes, cultures, sitting

10:20

on the train, sitting in the

10:22

car, staring out the window, right,

10:24

day after day, and just seeing

10:26

all these landscapes. being exposed to

10:28

it, I think that sense of

10:30

wonder and then also the process

10:32

of kind of coming back and

10:34

trying to translate that to the

10:36

other students my age who were

10:38

very interested in totally different things, right?

10:40

Like I came back as this weird

10:42

kid who wanted to talk about Greek

10:45

mythology and you know like all that

10:47

side of it and learning how to

10:49

communicate that I think shaped my passion

10:51

for communication and incognition and that side

10:54

of it through time. And I suspect

10:56

having that type of experience as a

10:58

young person also kind of plants the

11:00

seeds of like what's possible out there

11:03

in terms of like seeing different cultures

11:05

seeing the way that other people live

11:07

their lives and that's one thing I regret

11:09

not regret like it's just the way it

11:11

worked out for me but like I spent

11:13

you know my first 30 years of life

11:15

living in the same city right so you

11:18

know like that's all I knew I never

11:20

traveled much outside of Colorado and That's just

11:22

how it was. And then the first time

11:24

I went overseas, I was just like, wow,

11:26

it's so different. Whereas you're, you know, you're

11:28

like, yeah, it's just other places are cool.

11:30

So talk a little bit about how that

11:33

kind of informs kind of your path and

11:35

your journey as a travel blogger and as

11:37

a photographer a little bit. Yeah, it

11:39

was an interesting one because I had

11:41

all of that travel and all of

11:43

that kind of the elements of the

11:45

confidence that comes with it as far

11:47

as the exposure to it. But because

11:49

I'd done it so young and then

11:51

I didn't do an exchange during high

11:53

school, I did do a six and

11:55

a half week exchange in the

11:58

summer of my freshman year. of underground,

12:00

but then I didn't do anything until

12:02

the end of college. And I was

12:04

actually really scared of it for some

12:07

reason. There was this fear of kind

12:09

of going out and doing the solo

12:11

travel leg of it and kind of

12:13

breaking out and doing that side of

12:15

it. And I think it's something that

12:17

we don't. talk about as men that

12:20

often. I think women are very good

12:22

about talking about it, right? The fear

12:24

of going out and doing it, but

12:26

all that pressure that's very much on

12:28

us to kind of hold back or

12:30

to focus on just family making money,

12:33

launching the career, like all that side

12:35

of it, and then that makes it

12:37

where the focus is either there or

12:39

the prioritization or whatever happens there. But

12:41

I had this big chunk of my

12:44

identity that was travel. from being a

12:46

kid and all that side of it.

12:48

And then I got to the end

12:50

of my undergrad and I graduated and

12:52

I said, now I have to do

12:54

it, right? So it was this like

12:57

moment of panic where I was like,

12:59

all right, three, four months, whatever it

13:01

is, I'm gonna go, I booked the

13:03

ticket, I got it locked in, and

13:05

then just started wondering and kind of

13:08

exploring. And in preparation for that trip,

13:10

I thought, well, I don't want to

13:12

like write an email home to. 30

13:14

different people every day, I'll just do

13:16

a block, right? Like I'll put it

13:18

up, I'll have to not censor it

13:21

a little bit, but I'll make it

13:23

for the general audiences, and then that

13:25

goes to grandma, that goes to mom,

13:27

that goes to, you know, the colleague,

13:29

ex-collegs, that side of it. And so

13:32

I did that, and then I just

13:34

loved that process of telling the story,

13:36

and I set out... to do the

13:38

blog at that point in time thinking

13:40

I needed to be like an Arthur

13:42

Fromer or that side of it writing

13:45

a travel guide, right? Like very neutral

13:47

or, you know, a little bit of

13:49

my story, but also that it should

13:51

be that over time that very much

13:53

evolved, I came back from the three

13:56

month trip, fell in love with that

13:58

process and then started doing solo trips

14:00

regularly. So I was working, but then

14:02

had restructured the job, prioritized the time

14:04

off, all of that. multi-year period where

14:06

it was getting you know two big

14:09

trips to three big trips in a

14:11

year and doing it and then blogging

14:13

throughout that and generating a lot of

14:15

content on it and really experimenting on

14:17

what the voice should be where it

14:20

should go and I think looking back

14:22

at it I kept it too sterile

14:24

it was too much trying to be

14:26

that authoritative voice or lonely planet or

14:28

whatever it would be and in retrospect

14:30

now I see it through the lens

14:33

almost like when you're reading a restaurant

14:35

review you don't want a generic restaurant

14:37

review review from somebody, right? What you

14:39

really want is you want to know,

14:41

is this street food person, right? Is

14:43

this somebody that loves the grungy little

14:46

hole in the wall and, you know,

14:48

a big portion and it could be

14:50

ugliest sin and, you know, like, you

14:52

know, like, you name it, right? Or

14:54

is this the person that likes the

14:57

white napkin and wants that, like, like,

14:59

really fancy experience, because they're going to

15:01

leave totally different reviews, right? And so

15:03

that authenticity of voice, I think, over

15:05

time, has become more and more important,

15:07

especially within the travel blogging space when

15:10

trip advisor and all these other things

15:12

have kind of aggregated it, right, and

15:14

kind of concentrate that. authoritative knowledge. Then

15:16

you want the specialized insights. And so

15:18

yeah, I ran with that for a

15:21

number of years. Continuing with the blogging

15:23

side of it, growing it, it eventually

15:25

led me in part to come over

15:27

and do the masters here in Copenhagen,

15:29

which was coincidence I landed on Copenhagen.

15:31

It could have been a lot of

15:34

different places. They made the best offer

15:36

and I figured, okay, I'll try that.

15:38

Scandinavian thing, whatever that is, knew very,

15:40

very little about the difference between different

15:42

countries. And then really ran with it

15:45

and started to think, maybe this is

15:47

a career. And there was still much

15:49

more focused on the writing, but that

15:51

was really where the photography started to

15:53

kick off, because I needed images for

15:55

the articles in the blog posts and

15:58

things like that when I was doing

16:00

it. And so started to do more

16:02

photography there, started to build it, started

16:04

to get quite successful with it. Comparatively,

16:06

that was an exciting period where... Blogging,

16:09

travel blogging was doing very very well,

16:11

about 2010, 2010. 2011, 2013, and then

16:13

got to the point where I was

16:15

moving beyond free trips into actually getting

16:17

paid, right, and getting per diems and

16:19

that side of it. And then I

16:22

needed to make a decision on, is

16:24

this something I stick with? Is this

16:26

the lifestyle I want? Do I now

16:28

like, I was graduating? Do I leave

16:30

Denmark? Do I just start traveling around

16:32

the world? Do I, you know, take

16:35

this full time? Does this become... my

16:37

new career and then I had to

16:39

kind of do a lot of deep

16:41

introspection at that moment and and see

16:43

okay like is this the direction I

16:46

want to go and that was when

16:48

I decided you know what I'm gonna

16:50

pivot back in and I actually turned

16:52

and re-entered corporate corporate whatever it is

16:54

and then basically kept the blog as

16:56

a kind of recreational pastime and then

16:59

over time that's very much probably right

17:01

around that same time the photography just

17:03

continued to grow more and more and

17:05

more as part of that story and

17:07

I did consider do I go full-time

17:10

with the photography side of it as

17:12

well but the conclusion I came to

17:14

at that point in time is I

17:16

wanted to stay in Denmark and so

17:18

I needed the the traditional job to

17:20

take care of the visa and that

17:23

I didn't see myself doing it long

17:25

term. So when I looked at my

17:27

peer group, who were also, who were

17:29

doing well, and most of them had

17:31

gone for a year, they finally started

17:34

to hit critical mass with the blog

17:36

after a year, year and a half

17:38

of building audiences and outside of it,

17:40

then they managed it for another two,

17:42

three, four, five years, thereabouts, and then

17:44

they started to burn out because at

17:47

the end of the day the travel

17:49

blogging was launching a digital e-magazine on

17:51

top of traveling and booking you know

17:53

all the new business and everything else

17:55

trying to make money in travel where

17:58

like the the affiliate side of it

18:00

and all that was very very difficult

18:02

the lag time is really bad the

18:04

the best travel blogs are location specific

18:06

or work right like you write about

18:08

Copenhagen because then you can sell the

18:11

Copenhagen hotels and Copenhagen restaurants but if

18:13

you want to go new every day,

18:15

right? Like then it's like, ah, okay,

18:17

like where's the audience? Where's everything? So

18:19

yeah, it was all these different pieces.

18:21

And at that point in time decided

18:24

to, yeah, separate from it a little

18:26

bit and then continue with it as

18:28

a hobby, but it was also my

18:30

personality. I realized I didn't at least

18:32

at this point in life, didn't have

18:35

that full entrepreneurial drive to go and

18:37

just do it. as my full-time profession

18:39

and take care of the booking and

18:41

the promotion and you know like finding

18:43

the next clients while still executing on

18:45

the current ones and it was really

18:48

hard to keep the creative part of

18:50

it true as well right because the

18:52

content started to change or you do

18:54

a great press trip that takes you

18:56

in and they've they've given you amazing

18:59

food a great hotel all of these

19:01

things that are fantastic but then you

19:03

need to write about all of them

19:05

and you need to figure out how

19:07

to write about it honestly. And I'm

19:09

a little bit of a grab my

19:12

backpack, rent a car, take the camera,

19:14

wander the back roads until I see

19:16

something I want, find that little street

19:18

food place, that little tavern. And I

19:20

just want the freedom of it, right?

19:23

So those two also started to become

19:25

in conflict with each other. And yeah,

19:27

it was an interesting process. Definitely an

19:29

interesting process. Yeah, I mean, the whole

19:31

time you're talking, I'm thinking about the

19:33

word authenticity just keeps coming back over

19:36

and over and over again. I think

19:38

you had mentioned that kind of this

19:40

decision flexion point for you was like

19:42

2015ish and I'm thinking back 2015 2016

19:44

like that's when Instagram was really taking

19:47

off and influencers were starting to become

19:49

a thing and I'm guessing that like

19:51

most of the people that have found

19:53

success in the travel blogging arena since

19:55

then have probably pivoted more towards like

19:57

that influencer style of content creation where

20:00

they're constantly on the road and they're

20:02

promoting other people's products and and it

20:04

seems to me like the more you

20:06

go in that particular direction the less

20:08

authenticity that affords you because you're you

20:11

kind of have these standards to constantly

20:13

upkeep and for me I don't know

20:15

about you but for me that would

20:17

be like in constant conflict with my

20:19

own personal ethics and belief systems and

20:21

so I'd be curious if you talk

20:24

a bit about kind of what that

20:26

conflict looked like and if there's any

20:28

regrets in terms of the decision you

20:30

make or may. I think from a

20:32

timing standpoint, I was really, really lucky,

20:34

right? Because I was really kind of

20:37

getting into it and really starting to

20:39

build around 2011. I started in 2007,

20:41

but then the part where I was

20:43

kind of looking at, hey, is this

20:45

a career, was very much that 2011

20:48

to 2015 period. And that was really

20:50

when a new crop of kind of

20:52

proto-influencers, I guess, were coming up, right?

20:54

So it was that early Instagram side

20:56

of it. It was the... you know,

20:58

going out working a lot with tourism

21:01

boards, early brands, that side, and then

21:03

I mean, it created these incredible opportunities.

21:05

I had won a Instagram competition through

21:07

one of the tour, like the blogging

21:09

conferences with the Canadian Tourism, where I

21:12

ended up in Canada for a three-day,

21:14

like all-expense paid trip doing a polar

21:16

bear safari, right? So that one experience.

21:18

made the years of blogging totally worth

21:20

it, right? Like it was just this

21:22

incredible thing. But yeah, it's very difficult

21:25

and watching the friends that have really

21:27

done well in that space and I

21:29

mean, I started towards having it be

21:31

maybe something that could be a career,

21:33

right? But they have all actually done

21:36

it, right? And it's interesting watching them.

21:38

navigate how do you have relationships if

21:40

you're traveling all the time, right? How

21:42

do you maintain that authenticity of a

21:44

voice, especially if you're working with brand

21:46

partnerships and you're doing outside of it?

21:49

How do you pick areas where you

21:51

want to go that are, you know,

21:53

exciting areas and that, you know, those

21:55

work together? And then how do you

21:57

keep kind of the joy? way and

22:00

the excitement of it when that that

22:02

pressures on and that's that kind of

22:04

goes back to my comment about that

22:06

old like don't move to paradise you'll

22:08

ruin it and I definitely think that's

22:10

that's not always the case and I

22:13

think it really depends a lot on

22:15

personality set up timing and also your

22:17

expectations for how long you're going to

22:19

do something or in what way and

22:21

how you're able to evolve it because

22:23

when I was starting the travel blogging

22:26

I was very much a hostile backpacker.

22:28

It was all about hostels, all about

22:30

that backpacking, right? And then by 30,

22:32

31, 32, right, like I'm starting to

22:34

be like, whoa, that's been a lot

22:37

of hostels. I'm not sure, you know,

22:39

like I'm not sure I really want

22:41

to do, you know, 16 people in

22:43

the dorm room, especially well, you know,

22:45

the camera gets a little bit more

22:47

expensive, nicer, that whole side of it,

22:50

right? And that really undermined a lot

22:52

of the authenticity side of it. You

22:54

have a lot of gamesmanship because you're

22:56

just driving fake KPIs for a lot.

22:58

So then there's a lot of distrust.

23:01

Then you have the traditional influencers, your

23:03

athletes, your people that have different other

23:05

platforms, kind of getting into the space,

23:07

a lot of pressure that way. Very

23:09

much, you know, you're always up against.

23:11

It's the same thing we talked about

23:14

with photography. I was listening to one

23:16

of the recent episodes you did, right.

23:18

I think it was with Matt's, you

23:20

know, about the people that are out

23:22

there doing AI. And if we're in

23:25

conflict with or competition with somebody that's

23:27

posting an AI photo that's over the

23:29

top and if the average person can't

23:31

tell and one is crazy explosive in

23:33

color and we have got muted colors

23:35

or whatever it is. You know, like,

23:38

and they've got a click farm behind

23:40

them and everything else. I mean, like,

23:42

we're always in that battle, right? So

23:44

I think that's a that's a super

23:46

challenging aspect of it. And then they

23:49

all got slaughtered in the pandemic, right?

23:51

I mean, tourism went down 92% I

23:53

think for a while there and took

23:55

over a year to recover. So also

23:57

for that. I was super grateful that

23:59

I had exited, right, and just moved

24:02

it back to just being this hobby

24:04

and this passion where I can kind

24:06

of tell stories and that side. But

24:08

it was also this great opportunity because

24:10

it allowed me to work on my

24:12

writing, to work on learning WordPress, work

24:15

on playing with YouTube, videos of different

24:17

styles, you know, all those different aspects.

24:19

And for me, every time I want

24:21

to learn something, I just kind of

24:23

start fiddling with it. And then that

24:26

becomes kind of part of... the process

24:28

of what I get to share, but

24:30

it's also just me kind of learning.

24:32

And then hopefully maybe passing that on

24:34

and educating a little bit, right? Right,

24:36

right. That makes sense. I mean, that's

24:39

a good segue to talk a little

24:41

bit about the writing side of what

24:43

you do, because you mentioned earlier that

24:45

you wrote a book, 2017. Tell us

24:47

about the book, like, what is it?

24:50

Why did you write it? And looking

24:52

back on it, was it worth the

24:54

effort? So for practical curiosity, since I

24:56

had the blog and I had that

24:58

platform for years, friends and everybody was

25:00

like, hey, you're going to write a

25:03

travel book, right? Like that's the next

25:05

step. And I kept going back and

25:07

forth. And I was like, but what

25:09

am I going to put in the

25:11

travel book? Right. Like what story do

25:14

I want to tell? How do I

25:16

want to come at it? And then.

25:18

I started an annual tradition where around

25:20

my birthday I do a long reflective

25:22

post and that was observations and kind

25:24

of advice to a younger self as

25:27

much as advice to friends and also

25:29

just processing the things that I've learned

25:31

in the last year and each one

25:33

of those is probably half a book

25:35

that's in and of itself. They're like

25:38

12,000 word rambling blah blah blah blah

25:40

blah blah blah right just kind of

25:42

what I don't limit it. And I

25:44

don't limit it. It's whatever direction I

25:46

want to go in. So something it's

25:48

etchings and photography and photography and. behavior

25:51

and all that side of it. And

25:53

I realized, you know what, that's a

25:55

foundation for the book that I want

25:57

to write. But I knew that I

25:59

typically have about a six to eight

26:02

month window of passion for a project,

26:04

where I'm really excited about it. I

26:06

died. into it. And that's my creative,

26:08

you know, like my max creative level.

26:10

And then after that, I'm still pretty

26:12

good at maintaining on that side of

26:15

it, but my closure ability and kind

26:17

of, you know, I want the next

26:19

kind of new fun thing to play

26:21

with or learn, right? So in that

26:23

way, I'm kind of, yeah, I love

26:25

that part of having had to navigate

26:28

that over the years. And so I

26:30

thought, all right, well, why don't I

26:32

write a book that's a tribute to...

26:34

that Renaissance man ideal, the generalist at

26:36

heart, and bridge these topics that I

26:39

care about. But how do I write

26:41

that book in six months, right? And

26:43

sit down and do it. And so

26:45

partially I already had the blog content

26:47

I could work off of, but I

26:49

thought, why not kind of take it

26:52

like a bathroom reader where each one

26:54

is a small section of, you know,

26:56

whatever it's going to be, and it's

26:58

something that is imposter syndrome or it's

27:00

about, you know, introspection about kind of...

27:03

racial bias that I didn't know I

27:05

had until I traveled and you know

27:07

that side of it and then some

27:09

thought exercises that come from the travels

27:11

as a kid and and things like

27:13

that right on kind of the framing

27:16

side of it and so it was

27:18

really how do I kind of turn

27:20

this into a book that I'm getting

27:22

that would be useful to my 19-year-old

27:24

self it'd be useful to my 30-year-old

27:27

self and then hopefully I look back

27:29

at it and think okay here is

27:31

something that I didn't have half the

27:33

world figured out, right? Because that's the

27:35

other part of it at 35 or

27:37

whatever I was when I wrote it.

27:40

You know, like, who am I to

27:42

say anything about life love and travel,

27:44

right? Like, but so what I did

27:46

is, I thought, yeah, but we rewrite

27:48

history and we rewrite our experience and

27:51

our story over time. So what I

27:53

wanted to do is capture that moment

27:55

and hopefully I think most of it's

27:57

aged okay so far, let's see in

27:59

another 10 years. resistance in a given

28:01

day on the different topics and those

28:04

became the chapters and led to the

28:06

book. It was one of the greatest

28:08

experiences of all my creative projects, but

28:10

the imposter syndrome when I got to

28:12

that last moment was enormous. When it

28:14

came time to press publish, the voice

28:17

was, you know, sitting there saying, yeah,

28:19

but you did it. You wrote the

28:21

book. You've proved that you can write

28:23

the book. It's edited. It looks good.

28:25

You don't really need to publish it.

28:28

Right, like don't put it out there.

28:30

Like, like, nobody's gonna read it anyway,

28:32

right? Like, like, it's, it's, it's just,

28:34

and they're gonna find a typo. And

28:36

what if they read it and they

28:38

just think that you're, you're an idiot,

28:41

right? And so it was very much

28:43

this exercise of, no, I need to,

28:45

not only do I need to publish

28:47

it, but I need to get out

28:49

there and I need to promote it

28:52

and I need to talk about it.

28:54

Then people did actually read it and

28:56

then it made a difference for for

28:58

some of them and I got these

29:00

incredible Emails and letters where I think

29:02

the book is hasn't reached Tens of

29:05

thousands of people, but it's reached you

29:07

know more than a thousand And that

29:09

it connected with some people was was

29:11

a phenomenal thing. So yeah, very very

29:13

happy. I wrote it and did it

29:16

and managed to do it fast enough

29:18

that I could get it out before

29:20

it turned into this multi-year slog. Right,

29:22

right. That's amazing. Yeah, I've had all

29:24

those feelings too. I mean, I haven't,

29:26

I was a co-author on a guidebook,

29:29

but which in and of itself was

29:31

a pretty huge project because we had

29:33

to like actually go out and like

29:35

reclime a bunch of mountains and rewrite

29:37

descriptions and you know, update things that

29:40

were incorrect and then I added like...

29:42

I want to say like over 150

29:44

mountains to the to the to the

29:46

guide list in the book so it

29:48

was like it was a pretty big

29:50

undertaking but that kind of stuff kind

29:53

of writes itself right because it's like

29:55

very formula like it's like okay you

29:57

know how do you get there what

29:59

you need to know when you get

30:01

there what's it like when you're there

30:03

you know it's like it's not a

30:06

lot of philosophy I guess is what

30:08

I'm trying to say right like it's

30:10

pretty cut and dry in terms of

30:12

what it is. I can imagine that

30:14

a book project where it's more philosophically

30:17

oriented takes a lot more head space

30:19

in order to get everything on paper

30:21

and get it into a format that

30:23

actually feels satisfying in the end where

30:25

you're not just like, oh, why didn't

30:27

I include that chapter? Why didn't I

30:30

include this chapter? So I can appreciate

30:32

how difficult that would have been. How

30:34

long so how long was that process

30:36

that you were kind of going through

30:38

because that's I mean that's so much

30:41

work and it's so detailed and you

30:43

have to be so consistent on each

30:45

part so like both how long but

30:47

also how did you how did you

30:49

keep yourself engaged as you were kind

30:51

of working through it? Yeah well I

30:54

mean we had deadlines so that helped

30:56

right so we had a publisher and

30:58

we had an editor so they were

31:00

constantly like okay we need to see

31:02

this part of the book by this

31:05

time and So having those deadlines helped

31:07

a ton in terms of staying on

31:09

track and making sure that things were

31:11

getting done. But it was about a

31:13

year and a half, two year period

31:15

of time. The good news is that

31:18

it was actually a revision of an

31:20

existing book that was much smaller. We

31:22

had to go in and make sure

31:24

everything that was already in there before

31:26

was accurate and need to be updated.

31:29

And then we doubled the size of

31:31

it. And it was cool because I

31:33

had a... co-author and he we kind

31:35

of you know divide and conquer kind

31:37

of a thing in terms of okay

31:39

you you go figure out these peaks

31:42

over here I'm gonna go to these

31:44

ones over here and we'll make sure

31:46

we include them in the book but

31:48

it was that was kind of cool

31:50

to because the We have our own

31:53

unique kind of writing style to you

31:55

so you could like sort of tell

31:57

which one of us wrote with different

31:59

sections of that was actually kind of

32:01

neat though, but yeah I enjoyed the

32:03

process but man I get like a

32:06

I think it's every quarterly or twice

32:08

a year I get a royalty check.

32:10

That's nice. And it's like $80, you

32:12

know. But that's still, I mean that's

32:14

more the most authors make like out

32:16

of the off of the book, right?

32:19

So I mean you're already like light

32:21

years ahead. Yeah, so I just think

32:23

it's funny because like I think about

32:25

how much work it was it's like

32:27

Man that was you know hundreds of

32:30

hours of work to make you know

32:32

nothing so a lot of times for

32:34

me at least and I think other

32:36

people thinking about a book It's not

32:38

always about the financial benefit like it's

32:40

also like a feather in the cap

32:43

kind of a thing very much proving

32:45

it to yourself. I think the introspection

32:47

on on kind of the what you're

32:49

writing, how you're telling the story, or

32:51

I mean, going out and climbing, literally

32:54

climbing multiple mountains for the project, right?

32:56

Like, yeah, yeah, the completion side of

32:58

it. Yeah, I mean, in the process

33:00

of doing those climbs and things like

33:02

that, I was able to photograph scenes

33:04

at high cell prints of now. So,

33:07

I mean, like, it's not all bad,

33:09

right? Like, it was, there's lots of

33:11

synergy in terms of like, I think

33:13

it's important for people to think about

33:15

that because I love what you said

33:18

about being a generalist, jack-of-all-trades kind of

33:20

thing, because I very much see myself

33:22

very similar. Like I'm really good at

33:24

a lot of different things, but I'm

33:26

not like the best at any of

33:28

them, you know? But I think that's

33:31

a kind of a great place to

33:33

be in terms of just living life

33:35

because you're constantly curious and you're constantly

33:37

learning new things and you're able to

33:39

kind of leverage all those different things

33:42

that you're learning into different aspects of

33:44

what you work on. I think it's

33:46

like a book project is a great

33:48

way to kind of lean into some

33:50

of that stuff. Yeah, and I suspect,

33:52

I'm curious if you feel that's the

33:55

case, but I mean with with everything

33:57

that you've done now selling prints and

33:59

launching the, you know, all the different

34:01

aspects of the podcast, all your photography

34:03

projects, how much of that do you

34:05

think the book and having that completion

34:08

and that process kind of sets you

34:10

up for or how much of it

34:12

was already in play? Well, it's a

34:14

good question, I mean. I would just

34:16

say there's like a Venn diagram, like

34:19

there's overlap in terms of the skills

34:21

I've been able to leverage from different...

34:23

aspects of what I do and each

34:25

the skills that you develop through working

34:27

on those different things you can start

34:29

to apply to the other things that

34:32

you're working on to make them slightly

34:34

better so I kind of see it

34:36

more like that in terms of a

34:38

synergistic skill set application lack of a

34:40

better way of putting it. And I

34:43

think that's the part of generalism that

34:45

I love the most. because for me

34:47

every single piece of that puzzle is

34:49

additive right like like they're bricks you

34:51

know like bricks in the bridge right

34:53

and so it's this thing where each

34:56

one yeah I want that 80 80

34:58

80 80 80 80% on each one

35:00

of those but even though they seem

35:02

totally unconnected sometimes it's this amazing asset

35:04

that kind of helps move me forward

35:07

and. all these other areas and builds

35:09

confidence or I take some lesson about

35:11

how to write or how the business

35:13

process works or how to work with

35:15

an editor or how to publish how

35:17

to distribute how to do the advertising

35:20

for it and each one of those

35:22

steps is invaluable and kind of moves

35:24

me forward and I think that's where

35:26

as journalists I always encourage people to

35:28

really think about ourselves as specialists in

35:31

kind of a multi aspect focus. instead

35:33

of just specialists on one specific subset.

35:35

And I think both of those are

35:37

great and it's just a question of

35:39

kind of from a personality standpoint where

35:41

we are, but not feeling shame and

35:44

building a sense of kind of comfort

35:46

with the ambiguity of being a generalist,

35:48

right? Because I think culturally, it is

35:50

a little bit harder to draw that

35:52

straight line from A to B. when

35:54

you are a generalist. And we have

35:57

that voice of, okay, are we not

35:59

completing things? Is this just, you know,

36:01

like, we're just, our focus isn't there,

36:03

or no, no, no, I'm completing things

36:05

to the degree that I want to

36:08

complete them, and I do complete, right?

36:10

We do publish, we do take it

36:12

to that level. But I'm a generalist.

36:14

I want multiple aspects and I want

36:16

them to be very different. Yeah. I'd

36:18

be curious to hear you talk a

36:21

little bit about how the travel blogging,

36:23

the videography work that you've had to

36:25

learn in terms of doing your YouTube

36:27

channel, the writing for the book, like

36:29

how have those skill sets contributed to

36:32

the way that you see photography or

36:34

practice it, you know? Yeah, very much

36:36

so. I think. I love seeing the

36:38

world through or beside the lens because

36:40

the camera for especially the type of

36:42

landscape and travel photography encourages and trains

36:45

me to pay attention to detail, right?

36:47

Like we've got to look for that,

36:49

especially because I'm not going to Photoshop

36:51

it out later, right? So I have

36:53

to notice the power line. I have

36:56

to notice the chip bag that's caught

36:58

in the tree. I need to notice

37:00

all that. And then I need to

37:02

tell or reflect on kind of what

37:04

story I want to tell, how I

37:06

want to tell it. So from video,

37:09

I think learning a little bit of

37:11

the video editing process and that side

37:13

of it was very much different. It's

37:15

a different way of seeing a scene

37:17

and moving through a scene, right? It's

37:20

seen because it is very much. Fluid

37:22

and you need motion and and I

37:24

think I spent my first years doing

37:26

a lot of the earlier videos Very

37:28

much focused on creating a photo in

37:30

video format So there wasn't motion. They

37:33

weren't very dynamic. They weren't very good

37:35

right like it was a still they

37:37

were pretty but they were like pretty

37:39

postcards right like that was just there

37:41

and that's that's great But again if

37:44

it comes back to storytelling and it

37:46

comes back to the story and the

37:48

journey and something that makes us feel

37:50

a super visceral reaction. I always think,

37:52

you know, like the videos that I

37:54

spent hours and hours on and I

37:57

thought we're going to be the most

37:59

beautiful and most successful, they'd have like

38:01

a hundred and thirty views. And then

38:03

there was a 24-second clip of me

38:05

at Prechastolin, Preacher's pulpit in North... where

38:07

I'm sitting on the side and that's

38:10

that crazy cliff in Mission Impossible and

38:12

the others and I swing my legs

38:14

over the side and I kind of

38:16

have my little GoPro or whatever it

38:18

is and kind of like lean over

38:21

and then lean back and you know

38:23

it you feel this visceral physicality when

38:25

you're when you're there and you're watching

38:27

it right and you know that one

38:29

was one of the viral ones that

38:31

went crazy and you know it was

38:34

it was frustrating but it was also

38:36

exciting but it was also exciting because

38:38

it's like oh here's a moment where

38:40

There's a story in these 24, 34

38:42

seconds, whatever it was, right? They're there

38:45

in the moment. They can connect to

38:47

it. And it's not just, that's pretty,

38:49

that's nice, I'm gonna move on. And

38:51

I think that's the same with story,

38:53

right? Like you can have beautiful writing.

38:55

But if you're gonna move me through

38:58

200, 300 pages, or if you're gonna

39:00

move me through a long blog post,

39:02

there needs to be more than just

39:04

a series of descriptive, you know, beautifully

39:06

written descriptives. that give you the language

39:09

to describe and reflect on and taste

39:11

what you're seeing with your eyes, it's

39:13

also not very good. So I think

39:15

in that way, that's the way that

39:17

they all kind of blend together and

39:19

each one kind of gives me new

39:22

insights, new opportunities to reflect and again

39:24

new skills and also each one is

39:26

a complementary place to kind of showcase

39:28

and share. The others are connected new

39:30

audiences. Speaking of video, you've got some

39:33

quite successful YouTube videos about Danish... Danish

39:35

culture, travel tips, going to Denmark, have

39:37

you balanced the need for perfection versus

39:39

just getting the work done? Yeah, that

39:41

very much was going back to the

39:43

basic question of, okay, I want to

39:46

create a whole bunch of small videos

39:48

and at the time it was while

39:50

I was a student and there were

39:52

new students coming and I'm, you know,

39:54

With the background I was studying communication

39:56

and cognition and very focused on the

39:59

tourism side of it and I was

40:01

like, okay, I'll make some videos for

40:03

students that are coming to explain Danish

40:05

culture and my observations and my takes.

40:07

and it's going to encourage me to

40:10

kind of reflect on it. And I

40:12

did a number where I was trying

40:14

to make him really perfect and really

40:16

polished and all that side of it.

40:18

And then I sat and this was

40:20

also when the conversation about authenticity and

40:23

kind of more authentic dirty video was

40:25

starting to kind of hit versus just

40:27

pure clean super polished video production. Kind

40:29

of early Instagram, early, yeah, YouTube, pre-tic

40:31

talk, but moving in that direction, right.

40:34

And so I said. you know at

40:36

the end of the day if it

40:38

resonates with people if they feel it's

40:40

approachable if they feel it's authentic and

40:42

if it's something that I'm going to

40:44

be able to actually create then that's

40:47

the balance I want to strike and

40:49

so then what I did is a

40:51

lot of them are pretty terrible in

40:53

the way that they're lit I had

40:55

a red this like old tan leather

40:58

whatever it was chair in my in

41:00

my in my little room still student

41:02

again at that point in time. And

41:04

so I just sat there and the

41:06

light is bad sometimes and I would

41:08

just block out like five of them,

41:11

right? And it just kind of like,

41:13

and then I'd walk around and I'd

41:15

have my phone during the day and

41:17

I'd be looking at everybody and everything

41:19

going on around me. And then I'd

41:22

jot down like, oh, okay, supermarket, people

41:24

do this. Oh, okay. So the taxes,

41:26

I'm struggling with that or like I

41:28

bought like. I bought a kilo of

41:30

beets one time thinking that I was

41:32

buying sweet potatoes and that they were

41:35

just like weird ugly European sweet potatoes

41:37

and it turned out that no I

41:39

got them home and I like went

41:41

to cook it and I had a

41:43

kilo beets right so you'll like all

41:45

of these little like mishaps of kind

41:48

of traveling around the world and doing

41:50

stuff and yeah so and they ended

41:52

up being super successful and then I

41:54

thought you know I want to try

41:56

kind of the podcast side of it

41:59

but I don't want to re-record all

42:01

of them. So I stripped the audio,

42:03

I put an intro, an outro, I

42:05

did a light edit, and then I

42:07

posted those as a podcast. And then

42:09

I think that picked up another, whatever

42:12

it was, 100,000 listens? It's been a

42:14

little while since I checked on the

42:16

most. recent side of it. But yeah,

42:18

like they just won't, and the Danes

42:20

loved him, right? Because we love that

42:23

cultural, introspective side of kind of like,

42:25

of our own culture, right? And so

42:27

it wasn't even, it wasn't the audience

42:29

that I'd aimed to create them for,

42:31

although, you know, it helped them. Yeah,

42:33

it was a fun one. And I

42:36

still look at him. I'm like, yeah,

42:38

I'm like, should I have, should I

42:40

make him cleaner? And it's like, no,

42:42

you know, it's great. It is that

42:44

kind of consistency and that process as

42:47

well, that, you know, people can kind

42:49

of figure out and they believe it

42:51

more to some degree as well, I

42:53

think, which is also interesting. I was

42:55

curious because, you know, I mentioned that

42:57

they're successful and that's just based on,

43:00

you know, that's an arbitrary qualifier that

43:02

I'm putting on it based on. It

43:04

seems like they got a lot of

43:06

views and comments and people seem to

43:08

enjoy them to enjoy them. that's successful.

43:11

But I'd be curious if you could

43:13

reflect a little bit on like defining

43:15

success for the content that you're creating

43:17

and kind of where is the tension

43:19

for you in terms of like this

43:21

is gaining traction, it's doing well, do

43:24

I want more out of it in

43:26

terms of like should I be monetizing

43:28

this content more or Like, can I

43:30

make more content that's similar that's going

43:32

to push me in a certain direction?

43:35

Like, do those kind of thoughts come

43:37

into your head as you find these

43:39

pockets of success? Yeah, very, very much

43:41

so. And I think when I look

43:43

back at it, the natural progression there.

43:45

would have been because I created the

43:48

first kind of 50 videos over a

43:50

couple periods of time and they were

43:52

very successful. It coincided very much with

43:54

the Hugu kind of movement and fascination

43:56

with Denmark in a lot of ways

43:58

which is this concept of coziness and

44:01

that side of it. So the world

44:03

was also looking at Denmark and there

44:05

a degree of not necessarily necessarily, yeah,

44:07

maybe hubris or maybe just kind of

44:09

petty self-sabotage kicked into it in that

44:12

when I had moved to Denmark I'd

44:14

reached out to the tourism board and

44:16

I was like hey look I'm a

44:18

blogger up and coming kind of established

44:20

going to continue and tried to engage

44:22

with them and they kind of weren't

44:25

interested at that point in time in

44:27

engaging and they've turned over and it's

44:29

a totally different organization that is you

44:31

know really a pleasure to engage with

44:33

now. But at that point in time

44:36

I was like I was like All

44:38

right, fine, I just won't write about

44:40

Denmark, right? So I did, you know,

44:42

the Denmark 101 series, which is, it's

44:44

just the videos, but I, so, so

44:46

is that built up? I had kind

44:49

of self-sabotaged myself, and then that took

44:51

off, because it wasn't in my mind

44:53

like an exercise about Denmark or the

44:55

blogging or that side of it. It

44:57

was kind of just something I was

45:00

doing for other students to kind of

45:02

pay it forward and to kind of

45:04

pay it forward and to learn. It

45:06

was partial to work on my ability

45:08

to work on my ability to work

45:10

on. as well, because I wanted to

45:13

kind of do spontaneous oration and to

45:15

hone that as part of it. And

45:17

then suddenly, yeah, the views are kind

45:19

of racking up and it's picking up

45:21

momentum and, you know, really one of

45:24

the most successful things I've done in

45:26

any of the creative aspects, right, when

45:28

you talk about views and things like

45:30

that. And it was just this like

45:32

fun little thing where I'll sit down

45:34

and talk about it, right? And really

45:37

then what I, what I should have

45:39

done from a business standpoint would be

45:41

continue flesh out the series, turn it

45:43

into a book, launch it as kind

45:45

of probably then consulting about kind of

45:47

cross cultural communication and that side of

45:50

it, you know, expand it and then,

45:52

you know, basically take it and turn

45:54

it into a whole thing, which I

45:56

haven't done, right? And I basically at

45:58

that point it has overlapped with the

46:01

transition I think also back into corporate,

46:03

if you will, and just didn't have

46:05

the mental bandwidth to do both. and

46:07

build it into something and invest a

46:09

lot of energy there and was more

46:11

interested in kind of fiddling with other

46:14

stuff. So there it was a little

46:16

bit of an attention span thing. I

46:18

think or where there was something else

46:20

that was shiny that I'd gotten sidetracked

46:22

by. But I think if I'd continued

46:25

with that, that would have been the

46:27

most successful of all the creative projects,

46:29

which is also interesting to reflect on.

46:31

And I do continue with it, and

46:33

I've considered also like kicking off a

46:35

new series of videos to update and

46:38

kind of reactivate it. But then also

46:40

it's interesting because you lose that momentum

46:42

a little bit, and then everybody's sitting

46:44

around and looking around and they're like,

46:46

Suddenly, you know, there's others that are

46:49

coming up and then it was this

46:51

empty niche that I was able to

46:53

fill Because I wasn't a whiny expat.

46:55

I wasn't bitter. I wasn't angry like,

46:57

you know, like which a lot of

46:59

the expat stuff is kind of like

47:02

boo-hoo-hoo, right? And so the Danes actually

47:04

did like it, right? It was it

47:06

was friendly and positive and positive and

47:08

reflective. So yeah, yeah, a fun project,

47:10

but it's always sitting there and I'm

47:13

just like I should have done the

47:15

book off of it. I should have

47:17

done like really like, yeah, capture the

47:19

momentum. I kind of got my whole

47:21

start in all of this kind of

47:23

stuff with my own blog of my

47:26

own that I started in 2007 as

47:28

well, which was just trip reports of

47:30

my my climb, my mountain climbs, right?

47:32

And that's actually how I learned photography

47:34

and so like starting that whole blog

47:36

was actually like instrumental to where I'm

47:39

at today and like... I haven't written

47:41

a new blog for that website in

47:43

a long, long time. You know, so

47:45

it's interesting because I've found that as

47:47

I've gotten older, I've come to value

47:50

my time more in terms of like

47:52

cost benefit analysis and thinking about, okay,

47:54

if I spend this much amount of

47:56

time on this, is it going to

47:58

bring me X, Y, and Z or

48:00

not? Whereas, like, I feel like when

48:03

I was in my 20s and 30s,

48:05

I was willing to just... spent tons

48:07

of time on something with zero expectation

48:09

of what was going to happen with

48:11

it. And I kind of missed those

48:14

days a little bit. Like, that was

48:16

refreshing and it gives you a little

48:18

bit more creative freedom in terms of

48:20

just playing around and doing... trying new

48:22

things and I think a lot of

48:24

times when you have that intention or

48:27

lack of intention maybe the product is

48:29

in some ways kind of more interesting

48:31

so it's I've done a lot of

48:33

self-reflection around this over the last couple

48:35

of years and I've been trying to

48:38

figure out kind of how to strike

48:40

a balance there. I always love the

48:42

mental visual of sand in your boots.

48:44

Right. So over time, you're walking on

48:46

sand dunes and you just get a

48:48

little bit more sand in the boots,

48:51

a little bit more sand in the

48:53

boots, a little bit more sand in

48:55

the boots. And then by the end

48:57

of it, you're like, boy, my shoes

48:59

are heavy, right? Like, and it's that

49:02

like, oh, one more step is hard.

49:04

And I think Because I reflect about

49:06

just that, right? Like on, should I

49:08

sit down and should I do another

49:10

blog? I'm doing maybe three blogs a

49:12

year, once a birthday, I do a

49:15

top 100 black and white photos, a

49:17

top 100 colored photos, and then those

49:19

are the three, right, that I'm kind

49:21

of doing now, like I'm not doing

49:23

a lot of travel blogs on that

49:26

side of it or some of the

49:28

other stuff. And I struggle with that

49:30

kind of, okay, but yeah, where's the

49:32

time, where's the time, where's the time,

49:34

where's the energy, where's the energy, where's

49:36

the balance, and then how. how much

49:39

have I satisfied myself with that period?

49:41

Right? Like when do we tie off

49:43

a successful period or project that was

49:45

incredibly rewarding? But then what do we

49:47

replace it with? Because it's so I

49:49

mean I'm 40 this year and and

49:52

so I really I went back for

49:54

that master's at 27 and I miss

49:56

that university environment because it coincided to

49:58

with this. sense of freedom and being

50:00

surrounded by people that were doing the

50:03

same thing right like everybody's in curious

50:05

puppy mode right like just I'm gonna

50:07

run over here taste this sniff this

50:09

look at this do this build this

50:11

like that that is what you're doing

50:13

at that point in time right and

50:16

and some of it sticks and and

50:18

kind of carries more but it's kind

50:20

of like oh do I I'm just

50:22

gonna kind of sniff into this like

50:24

photography thing or just kind of taste

50:27

this writing thing over here right and

50:29

uh And yeah, I mean, like we

50:31

are so much more kind of locked

50:33

by our successes and our comfort zone

50:35

and our existing skills, just the bandwidth,

50:37

right? And the need, also the financial

50:40

obligations add to it, right? I mean,

50:42

whatever, I don't have the family side

50:44

of it, but family, you know, kids,

50:46

like relationship time, work time. So it's

50:48

hard. And then, I mean, like, 39

50:51

is young, but I can feel my

50:53

energy is not. 29. Also too. Right.

50:55

Well, all right, so I have to

50:57

be a little bit fair with myself

50:59

that, you know, on that, but then

51:01

again, energy creates energy, right? So like

51:04

when you're, when I'm energized and I'm,

51:06

I'm engaged with a new project, then

51:08

yeah, I feel a lot more fresher

51:10

and vitalized and I think that's also

51:12

where like... photography taking me out and

51:15

doing photography as a, or using it

51:17

as a muse to travel and to

51:19

explore, to go to countries or places

51:21

that I would never go to otherwise,

51:23

or sit on a mountaintop, freeze my

51:25

butt off at six in the morning,

51:28

as even though I'm a bee person,

51:30

an evening person, right? Like, I'm not

51:32

going to do that without photography, right?

51:34

Like, so, so it has become this

51:36

profoundly powerful muse for me in that

51:38

way, and kind of like. pushing that

51:41

side of it. But I think we

51:43

need those, definitely, and have to find

51:45

new ones every 10 years. Yeah, yeah.

51:47

I think that's a good time horizon.

51:49

I've definitely struggled with that, but the

51:52

thing that I keep coming back to,

51:54

and I'm glad you mentioned photography, I

51:56

mean, this is a photography podcast after

51:58

all, but. It's for me, like, making

52:00

sure that any time I'm doing photography,

52:02

whether I'm actually in the field teaching,

52:05

leading a workshop, or if I'm just

52:07

doing my own thing, or from my

52:09

friends, whatever it is, I put a

52:11

pretty low bar in terms of, like,

52:13

what my expectations are in terms of

52:16

the output. And I think because I've

52:18

set myself up that way with my

52:20

photography, it's helped me, helped a lot

52:22

in terms of photography's been like this

52:24

very stabilizing force for me in terms

52:26

of being low pressure, if something great

52:29

comes of it, if not, no big

52:31

deal. And I think having that as

52:33

kind of like a backdrop for me

52:35

has been really helpful in terms of...

52:37

having like a way of relieving that

52:40

pressure and that stress and defining success

52:42

and all of those things as a

52:44

full-time creative person, which is kind of

52:46

ironic because I think most people, like

52:48

you said, don't move to paradise because

52:50

you're going to ruin it. I'm doing

52:53

photography full-time now and that was a

52:55

huge concern that I have, but I'm

52:57

always happy to be out there photographing.

52:59

I think it's where I get stressed

53:01

out and burnt out is all of

53:04

this stuff that comes after that like

53:06

editing. writing about the, you know, like

53:08

the stuff that's not actually out there

53:10

being taking the pictures itself. Yeah. Yeah.

53:12

No, striking that, like striking that balance

53:14

and how to protect that has always

53:17

been the one where I'm like, okay,

53:19

at what point? Because I think it's

53:21

also part of a personality, but part

53:23

of it where you are in life.

53:25

And like when you're ready to kind

53:27

of embrace that like that lifestyle, like

53:30

that lifestyle, that flexibility, that that uncertainty

53:32

is the wrong word, right. But like

53:34

that. dynamism to it versus it's nine

53:36

o'clock I need to wake up I

53:38

go in I do it I've got

53:41

my 30 days of vacation a year

53:43

because it's Europe and then I have

53:45

that window and I go for my

53:47

two weeks here my two weeks here

53:49

my two weeks here whatever it is

53:51

right like and I don't have to

53:54

worry about kind of the next paycheck

53:56

in the same way and dealing with

53:58

it's a rainy day okay I'm not

54:00

out working in the rain like it's

54:02

the office side of it right and

54:05

so that transition and kind of it's

54:07

always really interesting and kind of how

54:09

much of it is protection of this

54:11

safety creative outlet valve because really that

54:13

I mean, I've got kind of two,

54:15

the really big ones that are very

54:18

persistent for me. One is salsa and

54:20

botata dancing, the other is my photography.

54:22

And my photography has the travel and

54:24

everything else connected to it. The salsa,

54:26

when I was doing that younger, I

54:29

learned a lot from it in that

54:31

a lot of people would get into

54:33

it. They'd go really hard for two

54:35

or three years. Skill level would rock

54:37

it. They wanted to be really good.

54:39

And then they'd kind of get lost

54:42

on what to what to do with

54:44

it. And what to do with it.

54:46

And, you know, I've always been strikingly

54:48

mediocre at it. And I'm very focused

54:50

on the social side of it. And,

54:53

you know, I've been doing it for

54:55

over almost 20 years now. And the

54:57

reason I've been able to do that

54:59

almost weekly or weekly is very much

55:01

that, you know, not doing it too

55:03

much, but doing it just enough and,

55:06

you know, not putting pressure on it,

55:08

just enjoying the process, having it as...

55:10

all of these other things that aren't

55:12

directly obvious, the social side of it,

55:14

the creative side of it, the sense

55:17

of movement. And I think the more

55:19

with photography in that side of it,

55:21

we can kind of bring that if

55:23

it's full-time work or if it's our

55:25

hobby. all the better, right? Like on

55:27

the workshops have always struck me as

55:30

a part that would be, you know,

55:32

very cool to organize, but very difficult

55:34

to balance the photography side of it

55:36

on top of it because you're actually

55:38

a workshop guide, right? But you're educating,

55:40

you're socializing, you have this like one-on-one

55:43

relationship with each person, each dynamic, which

55:45

that in and of itself seems really

55:47

rewarding on top of the photography and

55:49

not just chasing the novelty of a

55:51

new destination for a new photo. every

55:54

single trip, you know, every time, every

55:56

place in that side of it. So

55:58

yeah, it's a bit of a jumble,

56:00

but I think I love exploring the

56:02

interplay of that and then looking at

56:04

people who are really successful with striking

56:07

that balance and how long they strike

56:09

that balance and you know, you look

56:11

at photographers that have been doing it

56:13

for 30 years. workshops and they're out

56:15

and selling their work and all that

56:18

side of it and you know what

56:20

is it that makes them successful in

56:22

that and still get up and love

56:24

it right I mean and I think

56:26

about that also with a lot of

56:28

you know the YouTube side of it

56:31

and kind of that's where my cognition

56:33

side of it gets into it if

56:35

I will watch a Thomas Heaton video

56:37

or something like that and you know

56:39

the amount of work that he does

56:42

going in and getting up every single

56:44

day to go and record and have

56:46

his YouTube channel and maintain that engagement

56:48

and win people burn out and then

56:50

they still have to make content because

56:52

that's the career and then find balance

56:55

and back and forth and then try

56:57

and map myself into that and ask

56:59

myself okay if I were to be

57:01

in that situation you know I'm not

57:03

them I'm a different spot in life

57:06

but how much of that can I

57:08

draw on as kind of an insight

57:10

into how I would do in that

57:12

situation and insight into if I want

57:14

to be in that situation or an

57:16

insight into kind of how I can

57:19

enrich my current experience and interaction with

57:21

it. I find so much of the

57:23

the best predictor of success in this

57:25

particular case is knowing yourself right like

57:27

like I know now that having some

57:29

time to be able to go out

57:32

and do my own photography with no

57:34

strings attached to it no time tables

57:36

no like if I decide I want

57:38

to sleep in for sunrise I can

57:40

do that and no big deal right

57:43

and so like I Because I know

57:45

that about myself now, I've kind of

57:47

carved out, and I furiously protect the

57:49

space where that can occur, because I

57:51

know it's super important for my long-term

57:53

success and to prevent burnout, like I

57:56

was asked to be, to get involved

57:58

in a photography conference here in Durango,

58:00

2025, end of 2025 and fall. Well,

58:02

like, it coincides with a window of

58:04

time that for the last decade. I've

58:07

like furiously protected in terms of like

58:09

nope. like my wife even knows like

58:11

you don't even ask me if I'm

58:13

busy or not during that time like

58:15

I will be photographing fall color in

58:17

Colorado from these dates to the states

58:20

and that's how it is because I

58:22

know how important that is for me

58:24

not just for like my business and

58:26

my style of photography and like expanding

58:28

my portfolio and all that stuff which

58:31

is cool but it's also just like

58:33

my time to have fun and like

58:35

those those is like my most favorite

58:37

moments of photography so I have to

58:39

protect that with curiosity. It's but it's

58:41

so important. It's so so so incredibly

58:44

important and to like have that mental

58:46

check in on yeah where's my energy

58:48

level where also from a physicality standpoint

58:50

for it right like I can like

58:52

literally feel kind of if I haven't

58:55

had that that type of pure experiential

58:57

trip it cleanses kind of my mind

58:59

and my body and everything else and

59:01

then I am so much more productive

59:03

afterwards I can engage with everything else

59:05

but I really have to have that

59:08

space and it because people ask oh

59:10

can I come on a trip with

59:12

you can I come and do that

59:14

it's like no no this is this

59:16

is the space right like this is

59:18

the time this is and and yeah

59:21

a lot of people don't understand but

59:23

it's the only way I think you

59:25

survive and nurture the creative in a

59:27

really healthy way long term. Let's pivot

59:29

a little bit. Let's talk a little

59:32

bit more of a nitty gritty side

59:34

of photography. I know that based on

59:36

what you had mentioned in our emails,

59:38

it seems like you've got a fairly

59:40

unusual workflow for publishing your photography and

59:42

working on it. And I'd love to

59:45

hear you talk a little about what

59:47

that process looks like. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

59:49

It definitely triggered a lot of imposter

59:51

syndrome for a number of years because

59:53

you listen to so many people talk

59:56

about. spending hours and hours editing and

59:58

working on images and that side of

1:00:00

it. And for me, I know that

1:00:02

the editing process is something that that's

1:00:04

my meditation now. I get up, I

1:00:06

edit in the evening and I think

1:00:09

throw something on one monitor and Netflix

1:00:11

on or whatever it is and do

1:00:13

it. But that's my final, my big

1:00:15

edit, and I move through my images

1:00:17

pretty quick. But my process actually starts

1:00:20

way before that. So when I'm out

1:00:22

on the trip, and it probably comes

1:00:24

from my travel blogging side of it,

1:00:26

I really like to do wandering photography.

1:00:28

So I'll look and I'll figure out

1:00:30

maybe a couple places that I want

1:00:33

to make sure that I hit, some

1:00:35

of the grand scenic or something like

1:00:37

that along the way. But when I'm

1:00:39

out on the road, I just want

1:00:41

to. wander from point A to point

1:00:44

B. And the more that I do

1:00:46

photography, the more I want to have

1:00:48

novel images. And the secret, I think,

1:00:50

to novel images is, you know, being

1:00:52

in the car or just driving along,

1:00:54

seeing a dirt road or looking, you

1:00:57

know, on Google Maps and being like,

1:00:59

okay, like here's a dead end road

1:01:01

that takes me out in the nowhere.

1:01:03

There's nothing there. There's barely any coverage.

1:01:05

I want to go down that and

1:01:07

just check it out. Like what's down

1:01:10

here? And I get to it and

1:01:12

I'm like, oh, there's this roadside waterfall.

1:01:14

Those are my favorite, right? The ones

1:01:16

that like end in a drainage. But

1:01:18

they're, you know, they're right there beside

1:01:21

the road and they're small and intimate

1:01:23

and just have this all this life

1:01:25

to it. So I'm just wandering around

1:01:27

and taking photos and that also takes

1:01:29

the pressure off of it because getting

1:01:31

really frustrated going and trying to a

1:01:34

railing that takes you up to the

1:01:36

edge of it and you're standing there

1:01:38

shoulder to shoulder with six other photographers

1:01:40

and you know I still am happy

1:01:42

with that challenge of those photos but

1:01:45

what I want is that mix right

1:01:47

so what I do then to get

1:01:49

to the process is I get home

1:01:51

every evening during the trip and I

1:01:53

transfer my raws off of the I'm

1:01:55

a Sony shooter so I transfer that

1:01:58

into the phone and then I take

1:02:00

it and I do a quick edit.

1:02:02

look through and pick one or two

1:02:04

images and a quick just Instagram edit.

1:02:06

So nothing fancy. Again, that's very much

1:02:09

in line with my style as well.

1:02:11

So I'm able to kind of do

1:02:13

a little exposure, little contrast, little sharpening,

1:02:15

shadows, a little bit of work. figure

1:02:17

out a crop or two and there's

1:02:19

some images I just can't you know

1:02:22

I can't take it and I can't

1:02:24

post at that point in time right

1:02:26

but so I'll take those and I'll

1:02:28

post those to Instagram or now Blue

1:02:30

Sky and Threads while I'm on the

1:02:33

road and so that documents and tells

1:02:35

the story as I'm going and it

1:02:37

also encourages me to like get the

1:02:39

FOMO of like not being able to

1:02:41

post the image out of my system

1:02:43

a little bit because it's not the

1:02:46

perfect image it's not the final image

1:02:48

I don't approach Instagram as a portfolio.

1:02:50

I post an image or two a

1:02:52

day. It's, you know, so boom, that

1:02:54

goes up. Right? And then it's live

1:02:57

and people can engage well there. Well,

1:02:59

I know that I'm there on the

1:03:01

journey. So then I get home and

1:03:03

then I pull all my images down.

1:03:05

I edit pretty much exclusively in light

1:03:07

room. I have a weird light room

1:03:10

set up in that I create a

1:03:12

new catalog for every trip. Okay. So

1:03:14

it's Norway 2024 or whatever it is.

1:03:16

I dump all my raws in there

1:03:18

and then I do my first call.

1:03:20

So I just go in through and

1:03:23

I just do a quick X, X,

1:03:25

X, X on anything that is out

1:03:27

of focus or whatever it might be.

1:03:29

And over the years I encourage myself

1:03:31

to overshoot actually. Like I'd much prefer

1:03:34

to have 15 variations and 15 attempts

1:03:36

at a composition than one or two.

1:03:38

and I've missed something or not seen

1:03:40

something. I had a Northern Lights photo

1:03:42

from Mexico the other day from the

1:03:44

May one and I was looking at

1:03:47

the images I was editing and I'd

1:03:49

accidentally ended up with an Osprey in

1:03:51

this image in one of them and

1:03:53

it was only in one of them.

1:03:55

But in the others, you know, because

1:03:58

I'd been just fooling around ever so

1:04:00

slightly, right? So yeah, then I get

1:04:02

them in the light room. Hack and

1:04:04

slash, hack and slash, hack and slash

1:04:06

and cut it down. So let's say

1:04:08

there's 1,500 images from a week. I'm

1:04:11

going to try and get those down

1:04:13

probably 900 in that first call. easily.

1:04:15

Then I go through and I do

1:04:17

my edit. Typically it's between 30 seconds

1:04:19

and about five minutes per image and

1:04:22

I'm looking at kind of editing, yeah,

1:04:24

exposure, temperature, color balance, little dodging and

1:04:26

burning, things along those lines, and my

1:04:28

crop, and then I work through and

1:04:30

I do my full edit and I

1:04:32

edit chronologically. And that's where the kind

1:04:35

of the FOMO with the edit well

1:04:37

I'm out on the trip helps a

1:04:39

little bit because I've just posted a

1:04:41

version of like the the ones that

1:04:43

I have to get out there, right?

1:04:46

The ones that I have to show

1:04:48

the world in some version. And so

1:04:50

I do the call and then I

1:04:52

let them sit. And then I force

1:04:54

myself to go back to wherever I

1:04:56

am in my queue. And so I'm

1:04:59

usually like six, eight, yeah, nine months

1:05:01

or two, three trips behind. And then

1:05:03

I work through it chronologically. And I

1:05:05

do that and export once I've done

1:05:07

my kind of my final edit. entire

1:05:09

trip. I'll do it as I go

1:05:12

and usually in bundles of like 60

1:05:14

80 images depending but depends on the

1:05:16

edit session so two three days and

1:05:18

then I take those and I upload

1:05:20

them to Flickr old Flickr user and

1:05:23

that's kind of my art my online

1:05:25

kind of archive of kind of in

1:05:27

case my hard drives go down or

1:05:29

whatever it is that I've got that

1:05:31

that backup. Okay. And so I upload

1:05:33

my jepags in full resolution to Flickr

1:05:36

and then I go through those. And

1:05:38

I split them between a black and

1:05:40

white album and a color album for

1:05:42

that trip. So kind of mirroring that

1:05:44

again, because then I go through and

1:05:47

I tag them all up. I recently

1:05:49

created a chat gPT thing to help

1:05:51

me. Like I just upload the image,

1:05:53

which who knows what they're training on.

1:05:55

In theory, they're not training on. But

1:05:57

and it'll give me my my descriptive

1:06:00

tags based on that to make it

1:06:02

a little bit easier when I'm working

1:06:04

through a clicker. Like an altag or

1:06:06

a caption. Yeah, the descriptive tax. Yeah,

1:06:08

I don't worry about captioning each one.

1:06:11

I rename them each image separately So

1:06:13

it just saves me that whole process,

1:06:15

right? And then I kind of have

1:06:17

it built to give me 15 and

1:06:19

then I can ask it and it

1:06:21

gives me 15 and then I can

1:06:24

ask it and it gives me another

1:06:26

15. That's cool. Yeah, so it just

1:06:28

saves me that like whole process, right?

1:06:30

And then I kind of have my

1:06:32

defaults that I put on top of

1:06:35

it. So those go up in the

1:06:37

Flickr and then I publish them. and

1:06:39

probably a little bit of bad kind

1:06:41

of community hygiene. I go back and

1:06:43

I look at them and I'm like,

1:06:45

all right, I had three or five

1:06:48

versions of this waterfall and I make

1:06:50

myself cut that down to the other

1:06:52

one and then I do another cleanup

1:06:54

there. And then it goes much faster

1:06:56

than it sounds, but I'll post a

1:06:58

couple of Facebook and then I will

1:07:01

at some point in the future come

1:07:03

back and then I save a couple

1:07:05

versions off of... the Flickr side of

1:07:07

it onto my phone, because I don't

1:07:09

want to deal with the whole manual

1:07:12

transferring and resizing of my 30-meg export

1:07:14

or high-resolution JPEG export onto the phone,

1:07:16

and then that I will upload to

1:07:18

Instagram and re-ed it, tweak adjust whatever

1:07:20

it is for Instagram, and Blue Sky

1:07:22

and Threats, and then that completes the

1:07:25

process. The workflow. Interesting. So through this

1:07:27

process of kind of slow... elimination is

1:07:29

basically the way I'm seeing it is

1:07:31

are you ever worried that like you're

1:07:33

not let me back up I would

1:07:36

be worried that I'd be putting out

1:07:38

not my best stuff and that people

1:07:40

would be seeing not my best versions

1:07:42

of things because because that process you

1:07:44

just described is very similar to the

1:07:46

way I used to do it like

1:07:49

I would get home and like I

1:07:51

would probably get all my edits done

1:07:53

within a day and and then I'd

1:07:55

upload and then I'd have people be

1:07:57

like like not people like trusted friends

1:08:00

and like bro like you mess you

1:08:02

this photo sucks like you messed up

1:08:04

this part and this looks bad and

1:08:06

I'm like oh yeah you're right it

1:08:08

does so like how how do you

1:08:10

wrestle with I don't want to say

1:08:13

need for perfection but like having a

1:08:15

public facing version of your work when

1:08:17

it's not necessarily complete yet yeah I

1:08:19

think it's the the part really where

1:08:21

it's the most at risk of being

1:08:24

questionable is that batch when I upload

1:08:26

on the Flickr and and then when

1:08:28

I upload on the Flickr I do

1:08:30

make sure that I have the time

1:08:32

to go back through him and delete.

1:08:34

And that's actually sometimes where if I'm

1:08:37

a little bit unsure on like I've

1:08:39

got like three variations of an edit,

1:08:41

you know, three versions, I'll ask, I'll

1:08:43

take the links to a couple friends

1:08:45

and I'll be like, hey, I have

1:08:48

this emotional connection to the moment where

1:08:50

I took this photo, this is the

1:08:52

greatest sunrise photo of a cliff. I've

1:08:54

ever seen. Which of these do you

1:08:56

like, right? And I'll use that and

1:08:58

I'll, you know, sometimes I'll pull like

1:09:01

three, four friends and then use that

1:09:03

to cull the others. And then it's

1:09:05

kind of like, because I've already culled

1:09:07

it down to, I like these three

1:09:09

versions. But that like, it's like, I'll

1:09:11

pick in the favorite child, right? Like,

1:09:14

what am I going to do? And,

1:09:16

you know, I could come back to

1:09:18

it in six months and I look

1:09:20

at in six months and I look

1:09:22

at it in six months and I

1:09:25

like, what was I doing or like

1:09:27

I get a new monitor and I'm

1:09:29

like God I edit everything dark or

1:09:31

I posted it at night and then

1:09:33

like the following day I look at

1:09:35

it and like the it's like all

1:09:38

right like what what was going on

1:09:40

there but I think the blogging side

1:09:42

of it very much helped with that

1:09:44

a lot in that the images that

1:09:46

I'm creating for the blog a lot

1:09:49

of times are storytelling or whatever it

1:09:51

is so it's the journey of the

1:09:53

trip and I think I actually see

1:09:55

my album as because and that's probably

1:09:57

why I do it more Norway or

1:09:59

China or whatever it is. Because it's

1:10:02

actually a repository of the trip that

1:10:04

I'm putting out there publicly, with the

1:10:06

exception of Instagram or whatever it is.

1:10:08

And Instagram, the algorithm's messed up and

1:10:10

everything else, so I just don't care.

1:10:13

Because I'm not trying to sell anything

1:10:15

anymore either. So it's more a distribution

1:10:17

platform for me just to push it

1:10:19

to Facebook and elsewhere than anything and

1:10:21

have a chat. And if it finds

1:10:23

people, then great. I think the other

1:10:26

side of it that always gets me

1:10:28

is, and I think it's something that

1:10:30

comes up a lot on the podcast,

1:10:32

what photographers see is so different than

1:10:34

what the average person sees. And this

1:10:37

goes back to that visceral reaction to

1:10:39

it, too. I mean, I was back

1:10:41

home and press kit. I was walking

1:10:43

around and Prescott is in Arizona is

1:10:45

quite unusual in that it's a western

1:10:47

town that has a town square. And

1:10:50

so they'll have like trade fairs and

1:10:52

stuff like that. I was walking around

1:10:54

looking at the booths and then there

1:10:56

was one booth that had a photographer

1:10:58

who had impeccable work up and there

1:11:00

was another that had stuff that was

1:11:03

blown out the D. Hayes had been

1:11:05

like thrown all the way out and

1:11:07

you know you had your classic like

1:11:09

stacked mountain D. Hayes thing and all

1:11:11

that but he was selling images of

1:11:14

the American Southwest in Prescott which is

1:11:16

I think the town slogan is quite

1:11:18

literally everybody's hometown and the world's oldest

1:11:20

rodeo right like those are the claims

1:11:22

to fame and people loved it and

1:11:24

you know when it when you talk

1:11:27

about sales you know I think that

1:11:29

guy was selling selling selling selling selling

1:11:31

and you know I look at it

1:11:33

and I'm just like I this would

1:11:35

kill me right like like like I

1:11:38

don't it doesn't compute for me but

1:11:40

what people experience is so different right

1:11:42

so the emotion and the attachment that

1:11:44

they have to the image is is

1:11:46

wildly different so I'm like you know

1:11:48

what like as long as these are

1:11:51

images that I was at a point

1:11:53

where I was happy enough to put

1:11:55

it out there I'm not approaching it

1:11:57

like a portfolio image and there I

1:11:59

need to lift the portfolio items out

1:12:02

and that's one of the ones I

1:12:04

struggle with because I don't update me

1:12:06

my website enough and I don't have

1:12:08

a place to put enough images that

1:12:10

that are maybe in that top 15%

1:12:12

right or that top 10% or yeah

1:12:15

the top 1% whatever it is the

1:12:17

closest I probably come is the top

1:12:19

100 post at the end of the

1:12:21

year top 100 yeah it started at

1:12:23

50 right and then it was like

1:12:26

I can't do 50 and then it

1:12:28

was 60 and then yeah I've capped

1:12:30

myself at 100 and then I've kept

1:12:32

myself at 100 and then I was

1:12:34

like I got to do the top

1:12:36

100 in color and the top 100

1:12:39

in black and even though as I

1:12:41

look through them I look through them

1:12:43

and it's end of the year, not

1:12:45

even end of the year, because I

1:12:47

don't finish editing the previous year until

1:12:49

June or July. And you know, to

1:12:52

take the ones that mean something to

1:12:54

me, right? And then if people then

1:12:56

like that, great. But I'm not selling

1:12:58

prints and I don't have like a

1:13:00

brand as a photographer that I'm really

1:13:03

carefully navigating. The downside is that I

1:13:05

think it makes my work much less

1:13:07

sellable and much less kind of approachable

1:13:09

for somebody, and it's much harder to

1:13:11

identify where I am as a type

1:13:13

of photographer. The upside for me, from

1:13:16

a creative standpoint, is I'm not like

1:13:18

cubbyhold into any niche, right? So it's

1:13:20

not like, ah, Alex Berger only shoots

1:13:22

bridge photos at dawn in... European classic

1:13:24

capitals in light sepia tones in a

1:13:27

de-hades glow, right? And I think that's,

1:13:29

that goes back to the generalist, right?

1:13:31

Like I just don't have the, I

1:13:33

don't have the, whatever you want to

1:13:35

call it, the consistency, the work ethic,

1:13:37

the focus, you know, it could be

1:13:40

anything, right? To go and to do

1:13:42

that. But it's also, but it's also

1:13:44

incredibly freeing, right? I mean, like, like,

1:13:46

you don't have those constraints. You don't.

1:13:48

You're not meticulously concerned with like quality

1:13:51

necessarily. I'm not saying you have bad

1:13:53

photos or whatever, but like you're like,

1:13:55

yeah, I mean, when you said 100

1:13:57

photos for the year I'm like man

1:13:59

I would feel weird if I did

1:14:01

more than 20 but I know I

1:14:04

could easily go 100 but also it

1:14:06

would just feel weird to me to

1:14:08

go higher than that so it's it's

1:14:10

just an interesting it's a different focus

1:14:12

right and I think to your point

1:14:15

there's pros and cons to having focus

1:14:17

versus not having focus and I think

1:14:19

the freedom is the biggest one for

1:14:21

me it's like don't care gonna do

1:14:23

what I want I'm having fun like

1:14:25

Nothing else matters. Yep, and it purely

1:14:28

is, you know, and I think that

1:14:30

the pivot that I would need to

1:14:32

make away from that to kind of

1:14:34

professionalize it, if you were, like to

1:14:36

turn it into like more of a

1:14:39

career thing and to take it back.

1:14:41

And that was that blogging side of

1:14:43

it that I was getting into before.

1:14:45

to have that portfolio. Like I still

1:14:47

get the feedback that people can tell

1:14:49

it's my image because of how I

1:14:52

edit and what I like and that

1:14:54

side of it. And there is a

1:14:56

style, but it's not a clear, clear,

1:14:58

clear style in the same way, right?

1:15:00

And it's not just the very best

1:15:02

portfolio work that I would only put

1:15:05

up either, right? So it's definitely an

1:15:07

interesting one, but it is that the

1:15:09

day job makes it very easy for

1:15:11

me to kind of do that and

1:15:13

keep it as just... here's a hobby

1:15:16

I don't even have to care like

1:15:18

I'm putting it out there like it

1:15:20

don't like it whatever it's fine and

1:15:22

then my imposter syndrome kicks in for

1:15:24

sure and then it's like no no

1:15:26

you really need to polish this or

1:15:29

like it doesn't fit but well it's

1:15:31

also I think it also greatly depends

1:15:33

on what your intent is with your

1:15:35

photography right and I think one of

1:15:37

the subjects that we were gonna talk

1:15:40

about I don't think we're gonna have

1:15:42

a ton of time to talk about

1:15:44

but it's very related to this is

1:15:46

the idea of photography acting as memory

1:15:48

anchors, right? And so like if that's

1:15:50

your intent with your work, having perfectly

1:15:53

polished images doesn't really make sense. Yeah,

1:15:55

very much so. And within the memory

1:15:57

anchor side of it, right, it's a

1:15:59

concept I think about a lot in

1:16:01

the context of when I was going

1:16:04

out and I was doing the travel

1:16:06

blogging. It was to photograph

1:16:08

a trip and then out of that

1:16:10

I'm selecting a bunch of different types

1:16:12

of photography and I'm going to refilter

1:16:14

that out of that pool. So it's

1:16:17

not just that I'm out for that

1:16:19

postcard perfect image. I'm also out there

1:16:21

for storytelling images that could go in

1:16:23

an article. I'm out there for photos.

1:16:26

I'm out there for photos. that are

1:16:28

terrible photos, but they're photos that when

1:16:30

I see that photo, I recognize and

1:16:32

it takes me back to the moment

1:16:35

I took it. It gives me that

1:16:37

visceral connection. And so I keep all

1:16:39

those in a way and try and

1:16:41

capture them. And then the filtering of

1:16:43

where I post it, how I post

1:16:45

it, which images come out, where I

1:16:47

submit them, how I display them, is

1:16:49

then that filtering layer on top of

1:16:51

it, but I'm always in the back

1:16:53

of my mind thinking, do I keep

1:16:55

this or do I not, and I

1:16:57

don't have to force it straight into

1:16:59

that. portfolio or die kind of like

1:17:01

or delete rather contrast right right out the

1:17:03

gate and it gives me a little

1:17:05

bit more leeway or at least gives

1:17:07

me a lot more file storage

1:17:10

full of files I was gonna

1:17:12

say like you got you gotta

1:17:14

have to some storage space for

1:17:17

that yeah very much right yeah

1:17:19

early on in the podcast you

1:17:21

mentioned that you created something called

1:17:24

Miss Defender What is it? And

1:17:26

what did you learn in the process

1:17:28

of creating it? Yeah, so for

1:17:30

years I'd wanted to try something

1:17:32

entrepreneurial from a product and I

1:17:34

wanted a product that was not

1:17:36

some big super fancy one. And

1:17:39

so that was in the back

1:17:41

of my mind. I was traveling

1:17:43

in Iceland and I was at

1:17:45

a not so secret, secret waterfall

1:17:47

that some photographers may recognize that's

1:17:49

kind of down a slot canyon.

1:17:51

It was late September kind of...

1:17:53

fringe snowy weather and and there's

1:17:55

water dripping down the waterfall is

1:17:57

flowing into kind of the little

1:18:00

Canyon. I'm balancing on these like

1:18:02

black slick rocks. I've got my

1:18:04

tripod partially there, you know, all spread

1:18:07

out in the water. And I'm getting

1:18:09

kind of soaked through while I'm doing

1:18:11

all this and I want the curtain.

1:18:14

So obviously like I need to wipe

1:18:16

and clean my lens and I need

1:18:18

to do that while not falling off

1:18:21

the rock and to then have enough...

1:18:23

time to have like 20 second exposure

1:18:25

before the the the the lens mists

1:18:27

up and covers everything. And I've got

1:18:29

like five different lens cloths stashed in

1:18:31

all my different pockets. I've got gloves

1:18:34

on because it's so cold and I'm

1:18:36

like digging around in them and then

1:18:38

I've also had tissue because I was

1:18:40

you know wiping my my my lens

1:18:42

down with that as well and I've

1:18:44

dropped one lens cloth so that one

1:18:46

has gravel on it so I can't

1:18:49

use that one and then I've got...

1:18:51

tissue-covered lens cloth that's leaving

1:18:53

crap all over it and all

1:18:55

that side. But so, you know, that

1:18:58

plastic, like, photographers dilemma, right, where it's

1:19:00

not just that you've lost your

1:19:02

lens cap, but you're kind of just

1:19:04

like, all right, and which pocket is

1:19:07

the wet lens cloth, which pocket's

1:19:09

the dry one, and that side? And

1:19:11

so I walked out afterwards after

1:19:13

almost dropping the tripod, the

1:19:15

camera, the camera, and everything else. And I

1:19:17

looked at my brother, and I was like,

1:19:19

And then I was sitting there and out

1:19:22

and as I as we warmed up and

1:19:24

kind of brainstorming I was like I this

1:19:26

is the product Right like this is what

1:19:28

I want to want to create like nobody's

1:19:30

done much with lens cloths in a long

1:19:32

time And so Miss Defender was basically it's

1:19:34

a retractable badge with like a three meter

1:19:36

long cord on it and then a lens

1:19:38

cloth, but two lens cloths that are just

1:19:40

stacked to kind of give you more

1:19:42

absorbency because they're they're free floating And then

1:19:44

so I could just hook it on, I

1:19:46

typically hook it on my belt buckle, but

1:19:48

it could go on like the camera bag,

1:19:51

strap, whatever it is, and long enough that

1:19:53

I can reach out in front of the

1:19:55

the around my tripod and then reach the

1:19:57

front of my lens. To wipe it, clear

1:19:59

it. And then hands-free, I just

1:20:02

let it go, it zips back to my

1:20:04

belt, take the shot, can pull it back

1:20:06

out, clean it, boom, back and forth,

1:20:08

right? So like none of the pocket

1:20:10

stuff, none of the hunting for it.

1:20:12

And then by having the double kind

1:20:14

of layer to it, it gives me

1:20:16

a lot more kind of surface space.

1:20:18

And so I was like, all right,

1:20:20

I'm going to try and turn this

1:20:22

into something. So I spent some time

1:20:24

prototyping it and then manufacturing it. semester

1:20:27

at an NBA or something like that

1:20:29

learning how to do the product, build

1:20:31

it, market it, brand it, get my

1:20:33

own trademark, file for the trademark, you

1:20:35

know, go through that whole process and

1:20:38

then figure out the distribution side of

1:20:40

it and distribute it through Amazon and

1:20:42

the US. So yeah, that's the misdefender

1:20:44

side of it and it was just

1:20:46

this cool one that, you know, taking

1:20:49

the passion of photography, learning supply chain,

1:20:51

learning fulfillment, working with the vendors, you

1:20:53

know, like that whole side of it

1:20:55

and then. Yeah, the number of times going

1:20:57

back and forth with like the printer to

1:21:00

get the box the right size or the

1:21:02

fit or the packaging or you know that

1:21:04

that whole craft to it was a was

1:21:06

a fun undertaking. And when did you release

1:21:09

that? It's a good question. I've been

1:21:11

working on it for right before the

1:21:13

pandemic and then it kind of hit

1:21:15

critical readiness right at the start of

1:21:17

the pandemic or big timing which was

1:21:19

terrible timing right and that's the thing

1:21:21

and I'm sitting there and I'm like

1:21:23

Do I just sit on this for

1:21:26

years or like wait or what do

1:21:28

I do? And so yeah, I pushed

1:21:30

it out a couple years ago and

1:21:32

launched it at that point in time.

1:21:34

And yeah, I had big expectations that

1:21:36

it was going to flow on Amazon

1:21:38

and go great and land and

1:21:41

then that goes back to the

1:21:43

video editing side of it actually

1:21:45

because I realized that it's a

1:21:47

product that makes perfect sense when

1:21:49

it's explained or when you can see

1:21:51

it in action as a photographer.

1:21:53

assuming you like a lens cloth versus

1:21:55

a squeechy, right? But as a

1:21:57

still photo on Amazon next to... 30,000

1:22:00

other lens cloths, it just looks

1:22:02

like an expensive lens cloth, right?

1:22:04

Like that has some sort of

1:22:07

weird thing attached to it, even

1:22:09

though there's nothing else like it,

1:22:11

right? It's a novel formulation. So

1:22:13

yeah, that created a lot of

1:22:16

headwinds on it, as well, along

1:22:18

with launching it during a pandemic

1:22:20

when nobody could go out and

1:22:22

do anything. Yeah, that's, that sucks.

1:22:24

But I'm guessing lots of. lessons

1:22:27

learned in terms of, gosh,

1:22:29

like marketing but also distribution

1:22:32

and like, you know, what are

1:22:34

some of the things that you would

1:22:36

have done differently in

1:22:38

hindsight? The number one biggest

1:22:40

mistake was I got impatient

1:22:42

with the rounds and rounds

1:22:44

and rounds of prototyping on the

1:22:47

box and the fit and all

1:22:49

that side of it and the

1:22:51

product was ready. The box

1:22:53

was one millimeter too to

1:22:55

shallow. And I was like, when I put it

1:22:57

in, I'll just be able to rearrange

1:22:59

it a little bit. It'll be fine.

1:23:02

And because I was ordering you, I

1:23:04

was importing parts of it from China,

1:23:06

I decided I was gonna do like

1:23:08

1900 of them at a time, right?

1:23:10

And so that, that one thing where

1:23:12

I should have done one more round,

1:23:14

you know, it's like 50 bucks around,

1:23:17

right? And then just to just to

1:23:19

make sure like one extra, like that

1:23:21

extra one, two extra millimeters would have

1:23:24

made my life much. easier right also

1:23:26

for like opening up kind of something

1:23:28

that fits so perfectly that would have

1:23:31

been really easy to put on retail

1:23:33

shelves as well with all the wrapping

1:23:35

in the packaging versus being you know

1:23:37

not like it's slightly bulges in the

1:23:40

middle. Oh yeah I see right so

1:23:42

like if you have a bunch of

1:23:44

them on a shelf it just doesn't

1:23:47

work. Exactly, right? So it's like properly

1:23:49

overstuffed, you get that feeling that you

1:23:51

know you're really getting a lot of

1:23:53

value, which is very much the case.

1:23:56

So there was that side of it.

1:23:58

I was super proud. to go through

1:24:00

the process of filing for my

1:24:02

own trademark without a lawyer and learning

1:24:04

that whole process and doing it and

1:24:07

then having it go through learned a

1:24:09

ton about overall fulfillment Amazon kind of

1:24:11

how they're working it you know you

1:24:13

look at just shipping right like

1:24:16

the the distribution side of shipping

1:24:18

and I'm sure you know when

1:24:20

you're when you're doing like the

1:24:22

landscape photographer books and you're doing

1:24:24

everything else like That process of

1:24:27

where everything is stored and the

1:24:29

packaging and finding a shipper that'll

1:24:31

ship at a reasonable price when

1:24:34

you're up against like that's like

1:24:36

the I can't say how much lost

1:24:38

sleep I've had over that's that kind

1:24:40

of stuff. It's wild right I mean

1:24:43

it's it's like you create the product

1:24:45

you you spend all the time the

1:24:47

energy on that and then all of

1:24:49

these these intermediary steps are You know, there

1:24:51

are the parts that make it or

1:24:54

break it, right? Because that's access, that's

1:24:56

how it reaches the client, it's damage

1:24:58

to the product along the way, it's

1:25:00

satisfaction, yeah. It's also like, just how

1:25:02

much time you get to spend on

1:25:04

it versus maybe having someone else deal

1:25:06

with it, you know, like, yeah. And that was

1:25:08

very much the thing, right? Because I was like,

1:25:11

I don't want to be licking post, like, I

1:25:13

don't want to be licking stamps for every

1:25:15

single one that I ship out that I

1:25:17

ship out. And do it like direct

1:25:19

from home there and I'm here in

1:25:21

Denmark. So it's it's going to more

1:25:24

complicated right? Yeah. Yeah. So it's like

1:25:26

no Do it through Amazon, but then you

1:25:28

know, it's like okay. But from a

1:25:30

cost standpoint. What does that? What does

1:25:32

that mean? I'm on you know like

1:25:34

what my my take is if you know, they're

1:25:37

they're getting their fair share and

1:25:39

then some right like Amazon always

1:25:41

wins. So like you know like or

1:25:43

but fulfillment time all that side of

1:25:45

it, right? So it's been a fantastic

1:25:47

learning experience along that side of it.

1:25:49

And then of course the marketing, storytelling,

1:25:52

how that works, yeah, where influencer sides

1:25:54

of it might work, where they wouldn't,

1:25:56

right, like on how do you get

1:25:58

it in people's hands. How do you

1:26:00

get it showcased fairly all that side of

1:26:03

it? Where are you at in terms of

1:26:05

the product itself like do you feel like

1:26:07

okay I've been there done that it is

1:26:09

what it is now or are you actively

1:26:12

trying to like ramp it up still?

1:26:14

I think it's much more of kind

1:26:16

of like a general maintenance side of

1:26:18

it got it where if it really

1:26:20

suddenly took off in a big way

1:26:22

again but because it's been a

1:26:24

couple years now and I'm still

1:26:26

working through my inventory I'd need

1:26:28

to re-go through the manufacturing process,

1:26:31

right, and kind of rebuild all

1:26:33

that, and the landscape has changed

1:26:35

a lot, right, because that post-pandemic

1:26:37

stuff, any drop shipping component, like,

1:26:39

you know, every aspect of the

1:26:41

supply chain, I'd almost need to

1:26:43

relearn it, where now I have

1:26:45

my existing inventory, and because I

1:26:47

did a big buy at the

1:26:49

beginning, you know, I've got enough

1:26:51

that I'm good for another, you know.

1:26:53

year or two years probably, as I

1:26:56

burn through at a pace. You never

1:26:58

know, right? But yeah, so, you know,

1:27:00

if it really did catch in a

1:27:02

way, then I think it's one that

1:27:04

I could spin back up and it

1:27:06

would be, it would be, it would

1:27:08

be interesting. It's one of those

1:27:10

things where if you're not a

1:27:12

hardcore first mover and you don't

1:27:14

have real fast momentum, my

1:27:16

big concern would be that

1:27:19

because it's a new product, like

1:27:21

it's a new design, right, right?

1:27:23

that combination of things. There are

1:27:25

existing concepts, right? It's not the

1:27:27

competition would be that difficult. And

1:27:29

the trademark is a brand trademark.

1:27:31

It's not like I'm not going to

1:27:33

go and drop $40,000 on a patent

1:27:36

or something like that at this point.

1:27:38

And then they're not patent, you know,

1:27:40

like realistically with the various imports and

1:27:42

everything that comes in and, you know,

1:27:44

they're not, you know, Timu or whatever

1:27:46

or other things that are bringing everything

1:27:49

in, how much protection you actually have

1:27:51

for something like that it's also. so

1:27:53

minimal unless you want to be super

1:27:55

litigious and play that perpetual game of

1:27:57

lacamole. So yeah, yeah, let's see where it

1:27:59

goes. but it's a fun one that

1:28:02

I still love kind of playing

1:28:04

with and having as a project.

1:28:06

And I use the product. So,

1:28:09

you know, it would be quite

1:28:11

a few years to work through

1:28:13

all of them just on my

1:28:15

own, I think. But I think

1:28:18

that's also one of the parts

1:28:20

that I really loved about the

1:28:22

process. And on top of all

1:28:24

the learning, like every time I

1:28:27

use it. I'm using something I

1:28:29

created for myself, right? So it

1:28:31

is this kind of like... Super

1:28:34

cool. This is fun, right? Right.

1:28:36

Yeah. No, that's really cool. Awesome,

1:28:38

man. So people can just search

1:28:40

Miss Defender on Amazon? Yeah, Miss

1:28:43

Defender. Yeah, Miss Defender. Yeah, or

1:28:45

Miss Defender.com. The site will take

1:28:47

you over to it. Okay. Cool.

1:28:50

Yeah, I'd love to hear what

1:28:52

people think. Awesome. travel stories, but

1:28:54

that'll be a lot of fun

1:28:56

for us. But for the for

1:28:59

the main podcast, last question I

1:29:01

have for you is, who do

1:29:03

you recommend for the podcast? Who

1:29:06

are some other folks that our

1:29:08

listeners should know more about? Yeah,

1:29:10

absolutely. So there's a Danish buddy

1:29:12

who has really just thrown himself

1:29:15

into photography last couple years and

1:29:17

in my opinion is doing stunning

1:29:19

work. And he's doing stunning work

1:29:21

and he's just one of those

1:29:24

people that gets in and has

1:29:26

just hockey sticked with talent and

1:29:28

you just look and I'm like

1:29:31

God that took me isn't that

1:29:33

the worst you're like you know

1:29:35

it's one of like he and

1:29:37

I used to work together and

1:29:40

I message him I like to

1:29:42

do we didn't talk about this

1:29:44

when we were working together and

1:29:47

I was like was I just

1:29:49

really self-absorbed and just like clueless

1:29:51

so I've kind of picked it

1:29:53

since since afterwards I was like

1:29:56

you haven't been gone that long

1:29:58

like like look what is it

1:30:00

but anyway that's it's it's Anders

1:30:02

North stud and he's on Instagram

1:30:05

and elsewhere. Another just beautiful nature

1:30:07

and landscape. Photography is... photographer is

1:30:09

Charlie Van Denbrach. So Charlie Van

1:30:12

Denbrach. And then the third is

1:30:14

a fantastic Norwegian photographer who super

1:30:16

stand-up guy and doing a lot

1:30:18

of photography, especially around the world,

1:30:21

but this gorgeous stuff out of

1:30:23

Southwestern Norway, which it's always nice

1:30:25

when that's your backyard. Yeah, I

1:30:28

love Frank's stuff and Frank's been

1:30:30

a patron supporter for like forever

1:30:32

like ever probably since I started

1:30:34

Patreon and Charlie and her partner

1:30:37

Yost Panicook Yeah, his name is

1:30:39

they were both supporters of the

1:30:41

podcast for a while as well.

1:30:43

So both those are all great

1:30:46

suggestions. So thanks Alex My pleasure.

1:30:48

Yeah, fantastic work. Awesome man. Well

1:30:50

man, we could probably keep going

1:30:53

forever but we'll tune over to

1:30:55

Patreon but for now I just

1:30:57

wanted to thank you for taking

1:30:59

the time out of your schedule

1:31:02

to join me for a chat

1:31:04

today. It's been such a pleasure.

1:31:06

Thank you so much for having

1:31:09

me on. Well,

1:31:16

thanks for joining me for another great

1:31:19

episode. A huge thank you to Alex

1:31:21

Berger for sharing his stories, insights, and

1:31:23

creativity with us. From his unique approach

1:31:25

to photography and blogging to the fascinating

1:31:27

creation of Miss Defender, I hope you

1:31:30

found this conversation as inspiring as I

1:31:32

did. Before we wrap up. I have

1:31:34

a couple of quick reminders. If you

1:31:36

love what you're hearing on the podcast,

1:31:38

please consider supporting it on patron at

1:31:40

patreon.com/Epstop and listen. The podcast operates on

1:31:43

the value for value model, which means

1:31:45

every contribution, no matter the size, keeps

1:31:47

it healthy and alive. Your support makes

1:31:49

these weekly episodes possible and I truly

1:31:51

appreciate Also, don't forget to sign

1:31:54

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1:32:02

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1:32:04

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1:32:07

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1:32:09

industry news, and lots more. I'll put I'll

1:32:11

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1:32:13

get you there. you there. Thanks for stopping

1:32:15

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1:32:18

you next week. week.