Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Mylo Fowler on Finding Your Path to Adventure, and Capturing the Moment

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Mylo Fowler on Finding Your Path to Adventure, and Capturing the Moment · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: So guys, we're here at Overlin Expo West twenty twenty two.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: We have a super special guest with us.
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: Milo.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: I've just been catching up with Milo here.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, you have like the craziest story mat geophotographer.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: You've had this amazing philanthropical aspect of your career.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Where did it all start?
• 0:26
  Speaker 4: It started with really just a crazy idea, honestly, trying
• 0:28
  Speaker 4: to figure out what do I want to do with
• 0:30
  Speaker 4: my life and how can I make a contribution or
• 0:32
  Speaker 4: a meaningful impact.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: It's a bad place to start. Yeah, it's just like,
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: you know, what am I going to do?
• 0:37
  Speaker 4: And as I analyze, like oh, if I do this
• 0:40
  Speaker 4: or if I do that, I just came down to
• 0:42
  Speaker 4: the fact that regardless of what I do, I'm going
• 0:44
  Speaker 4: to probably be helping somebody. And the second thing is
• 0:47
  Speaker 4: I'm probably going to be solving problems in some way,
• 0:49
  Speaker 4: shape or form.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: And I think to a degree we all do that.
• 0:52
  Speaker 5: You know, with our occupations and professions.
• 0:55
  Speaker 6: And a special thanks to red Arc for supporting this podcast.
• 0:58
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• 2:12
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• 2:14
  Speaker 3: And if I remember, you started off by leading tours
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: and antel opinion and spending a lot of time out
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: in nature. What was it about those those early trips
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: and guiding people into that beautiful part of the world
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: that inspired you to take your own photographs.
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: You know, it's a really funny story because I grew up,
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: i mean living off the land with my grandparents, and
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: I recently looked on Google Earth to see like how
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: big the land was that we had to where we.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Had corn splash canalope, I mean just.
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: Whatever we ate and it's basically twelve acres And so
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: you know, I've always been attached to the land from
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: as far back as I could remember because it provided
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: for us.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: In the world of photography.
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: Is really funny because the slot canyons are insanely beautiful, right,
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: And so at that time I would see people This
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: is days of film like thirty five millimeters meeting format
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: four by five. I've saw an eight by ten every
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: now and then, but digital the biggest censor was like
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: two megapixels.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: Sure, you know, I was like, whoa you know, the
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: cameras that had the floppy disc that went in.
• 3:09
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Think was like the first one that like, well I
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: could put my photos in a floppy disk.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: So with photography, it's just like you know, I see
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: people come in with big backpacks and tripods and flashes,
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: which is real. You never want to use that inside
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: the canyon for anything. Basically, it was like just say, okay,
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: I figured out like where the nice colors are at,
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: and essentially I would just say, hey, you guys have
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: all the gear and the light's really cool right here
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: for like two minutes, and then after that we're going
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: to go to this place over here, and then we
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: have like thirty seconds and then we'll have like ten
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: minutes over here. Essentially, I just took people to these
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: spots and I said, okay, y'all do your thing, step back,
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: and then go over here, and then afterwards I would
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: ask them, so how was it? And I always got
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: two responses, Like the canyon itself was incredible, right, if
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: you've been to a slot canyon, it's it's unforgettable. Of
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: like the human experience that people have. However, their experience
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: behind the camera was totally different. Were exposed under exposed.
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: I couldn't get dialed in. This, you know, is a
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: struggling and the ones that had digital cameras you could
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: see their photos. Oh, tripod was shaking and it was bad,
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: and it was really kind of two degree disappointment, you know.
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: And so then you know, we're here in flag Staff
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: and at that time I called a bookstore here. I
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: was like, hey, do you have any books about photography?
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: And the guy was like, I've got one coming in.
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: I think you'll really like it. It might be a
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: month or two, so all right, here's my number.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Just call me.
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: And I remember I was in middle of nowhere going
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: to Salt Lake and my phone ring and the guy's like,
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: I got a book for you. And I was like, crap,
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: I'm going to see this really hot chick. My job's
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: on the line and I'm not getting any tips. And
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: I asked him, like, well, how late can you be
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: because from here to flag Staff that's like six hours.
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: I'll be I'll be there around like one am. He's like,
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: I'll be here all right. Turned around it came back here,
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: got the book and it's a book about this big
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: and and I looked through it and the guy's like,
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: this is one of the best books you'll ever I
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: was like cool. I opened it and it's like photos
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: and a short paragraph two liners, and I kept going.
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: I was like, what's the lesson like about the math
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: aperture shutter speed? And it was basically The Range of
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: Light by Ansel Adams And the first page was signed
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: by him, oh and so, and the book it was
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: like eighty bucks and I was like, for me, that
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: was expensive, you know.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So I went through.
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: I went through and there was not a single like
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: here's how you set up your camera or instruction. However,
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: I began looking at his images and then afterwards I
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: saved my money again and I went to a camera
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: store in Phoenix and all I could afford at that
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: point was a spot meter. Sure, and the guys, I,
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: here's how you use it, Here's how the dials were.
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: And then I just went into the slot canyons and
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: metered this that, and I worked there for a few years,
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: and so I had note cards like, okay, this light
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: beam only comes in from July second to July fifth
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: at this time, and it's only available for seventeen seconds
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: and that's it. So I was really dialed in. And
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: then the confidence that I had was really kind of scary,
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: because it's like, these are people to have a lot
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: of gear, and if I tell them, what, you know, recommendations,
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: how are they going to receive that?
• 6:10
  Speaker 7: You know?
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: So I just like, hey, you know, for this next scene,
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: you know, here's probably what you want to do. Go
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: to this iso, this shutter speed, this aperture was what
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: you got going on there, and let's try that.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: And then the guy was like holy cow. He used
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: other words, you know.
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: And then and then I was like, all right, this
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: guy likes it, and let me go tell this guy, Hey,
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: this next spot we're gonna go to, We're gonna have
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: like five minutes, I'm gonna set you up. We'll be here,
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: so I want you rock right beside me. Once we
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: get there, I'll set you up this way. And when
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: we're there, I think these settings are going to help you,
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: you know, and just slowly, slowly. At the end of
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: the tours, people were like, holy cow, happy you know
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: about seeing the place. And then afterwards they pull out
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: their wallet and I got a new twenties fifties hundreds.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, yeah, this is it. I mean that
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: was really the case.
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: I mean, for the first little bit, it was almost
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: like a year of just Hey, we're gonna go here,
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: y'all do your thing.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: We're going to here, y'all do your thing.
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: And then it just turned and then trip Advisor was
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: it's kind of new, and then people would write, oh,
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: if you go to the Canyon, you got to go
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: with Milo, you know, so if you look like Antelot
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: Canyon type of Milo, you'll see hundreds of reviews.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: Like to this day.
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: I mean, the last time I was working at the
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: tour shop was probably gosh, like fifteen some years ago,
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: and they still get phone calls.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: Can I go with Milo? Amazing? Yeah, So that's how
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: it started.
• 7:20
  Speaker 6: You talk a lot about light in some of your
• 7:23
  Speaker 6: articles that you've written and things like that, how do
• 7:26
  Speaker 6: you see light today that you've now that you have
• 7:29
  Speaker 6: looked at that Ansel Adams book and you've spent all
• 7:32
  Speaker 6: of these years photographing, how do you see light today?
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: In the very same way. It's a source. There's a
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: range of it. You know, It's it's either really bright
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: or it's really dark. Figuratively, when I go to like
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: photograph like at night or in like the slot canyons
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: where your shutter speeds are you know, four minutes, eight
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: minutes long, depending on your settings. It's amazing how just
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: a little bit of light can really illuminate the area,
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: and you're like, wow, you know, and I think, you know,
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: for photography, that's what it really is, is being able
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: to understand and can is like my number one objective nowhere,
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: no matter where I go to photograph. And then secondly,
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: it's a reminder that I think we all have a
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: little bit of light and that no matter how bright
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: or how dim, I think we probably think it's really
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: dim at most of our lives. However, even that little
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: bit of dim light, just being kind to somebody saying, hi,
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: how are you? I like your truck, or you know
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: you have a cool beard, or you know, just something
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: that is positive and uplifting is like, man, I really
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: needed to hear something. And you just don't know how
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: much of a difference that made for me. On my
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: way down to here, going through the canyons, there's this
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: vehicle pulled over and I saw the trailer. I had
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: two jet skis. I turned around, pull over as a
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: mom and four kids. As she said, yeah, nobody's stopped
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: here for We've been sitting here for like over an hour.
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: I said, yeah, it's probably because the roads are kind
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: of windy, you know. And she's like, she's like, man,
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: just you stopping alone just like made me feel so
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: so at ease.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean they need a new axle, new bearings,
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: you know, whatever.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: It's just amazing.
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: How like being in a rush, I decided just to
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: pull over for five minutes and see if I could.
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: I couldn't be I couldn't do anything, you know, just
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: the active kindness of just stopping and saying, hey, are
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: you okay?
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: Do you guys?
• 9:05
  Speaker 5: You know, is there anything I could do?
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: But just that thing, I think that is something that
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: we can do in different ways to bring that little
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: bit of light to somebody.
• 9:13
  Speaker 6: Light spin a theme in some of your commentary, and
• 9:16
  Speaker 6: you talk about a dream that you had a monument
• 9:19
  Speaker 6: valley and how it changed your life.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: Why don't you share a little bit about what that was.
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So, a couple of days before my birthday, I
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: remember waking up, I was dreaming, and I remember waking
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: up at two fourteen in the morning in this vivid
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: dream and it felt so real, like I was there,
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: and I've had a couple of those more spiritually happened
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: in my life, and whenever those happen, it's like, Okay,
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: we're doing.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: It, you know.
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: I mean that was years ago, but I was like, man,
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: I've got to go there, you know. And so I
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: go to this place overlooking all the Monument Valley and
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: you need, you know, a really good a good rig
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: to get up there, because you're going through super soft
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: sand and then your slick rock and you're you're going
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: up angles pretty steep, and then you get up there.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: That night it got super cool.
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: So my birthday's at the end of April, and that
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: night we got snowed on and I'm just like, oh,
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: it's windy.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: Worse than this, you know. And I was like, oh, man.
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: But the next morning, about about four o'clock in the
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: sun you could see a little bit of light, but
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: it was started.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: It got really calm. And then by then, like around like.
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: Five o'clock, you start seeing the tour vehicles their headlights
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: going through the park. But I didn't see any I said, oh,
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: what's going on? And then I just saw one of
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: the most amazing sunrises. And I used my panoramic film
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: camera to create the image. It was a it's a tachihara, yeah,
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: tachahara four by five back with a you know, in
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: a panoramic setup. And then I called my friend. I
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: was like, hey, how come, like I didn't see the
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: school bus or tour vehicles. He's like, well, it snowed
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: so bad that we were not allowed to go in
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: and so they cancel everything. And so usually by then
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: you see dust like a layer of that in the valley,
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: but that image was so clear and so crisp.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: And then that was in April, and then and.
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: Had the largest fine art show for indigenous artists in
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: Santa Fe and I sold that print for a really
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: nice paycheck.
• 11:11
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: It's like it's just coming that that dream that I
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: had and realized like, you know that, why did I
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: have that you know, vision, that feeling, that like impactful moment, and.
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: Then I decided to act on it, and then it
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: turned into like believing that, Okay, I could make a
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: career out of this. So however, at that point it
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: was it's kind of the beginning of another lesson too,
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: was like I was really like making really nice images.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: And chasing the paycheck. Yeah, and yeah, that kind of died.
• 11:37
  Speaker 6: It's just amazing that you took that opportunity to take
• 11:40
  Speaker 6: something that inspired you, like this dream, and you put
• 11:43
  Speaker 6: it into action, then you ended up with something amazing.
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's kind of sometimes a scary point, right.
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: I was like, Oh, I've always wanted to go to
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: this place, or you know, go go apologize to somebody
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: that I may have wronged in the past, or you know,
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: just that little bit of inspiration that nudges us that
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: you know, I think somehow it happens and then it's
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: up to us them to proceed with it. And I
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: think those moments there can be really enlightening in different ways.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no question.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: You know, I think one of the things we were
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: talking about earlier was, you know, the Gold King Mind.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: I'd love to dive in back. It's fascinating me that
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: living in Colorado at the time, you know, of the
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Gold King Mind disaster, all you heard about was the water,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: the fish, whatever, and you had like this totally different
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: perspective on it and how it affected your family. There's
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: always so many sides to a story and it and
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: it blows my mind that that's the story that we
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: didn't hear. I would love for you to maybe elaborate
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: in that conversation that we had, you know a little
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: bit earlier. So we don't know more about it, because
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: did you know what the whole gold King is.
• 12:38
  Speaker 6: That's the one where they were doing the animal river
• 12:40
  Speaker 6: digging on the side of the slope and all the
• 12:43
  Speaker 6: water broke out.
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: Well, so I went to school in there and port
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: lewis enduring, Okay, yeah, my cousin went there. Yeah, and
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: so the anam is run back to town. Yeah, And
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: so I heard about it. I was like, holy cow,
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: like that's crazy. And I didn't know how massive it
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: was of an issue. And I started seeing that it
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: continued to make it make its way into the San
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: Juan River and right in that right where that confluence
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: is at, you know, that's there's a lot of farmers
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: right there, a lot of my aunt lives right there,
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: you know, stones throw from it.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: And then it started to become more.
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: Of a serious issue when people were seeing a further
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: downstream like around Bluff Utah, around you know, Monument Valley area,
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: and then even more south all the way to where
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: it comes into Lake Powell, which is that that's quite
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: a ways away. Yeah, and so the it happened at
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: a time also where a lot of you know, people
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: were like, you know, they had crops going, they had
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: hay or whatever else. They were just ready to you know,
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: to take for the for the season. And basically with
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: all that mess, everybody lost access to the water, the people,
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: the livestock, the crops, the wildlife. I mean, it was
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: I've never seen a river turn you know yellow, like
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: it was this crazy. I saw a photo in the
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: New York Times. I was like a couple of people
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: kayaking in it. But you seek their like in like
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: corn pollen, yeah, or something that's like, oh, what's it called?
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: Arena? You know, crazy super yellow. It's like you don't
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: envision that it was not a natural color. Yeah.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: So you had the idea to throw a palett of
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: water on the back of your truck, and that just
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: you know that the good will that is the common
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: theme through what we're talking about, you know, that light,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: the small things that you could do just really spiraled.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: And I'd love to hear more about it. Yeah.
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: The so I had an assignment to go out and
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: then I was also getting ready for my largest my
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: only photography Show of the Year again in Santa Fe.
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: I just build a little website, you know, a lot
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: of dragon drop, you know, and I said, you know, hey,
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: if you if you buy this image, you'll get a
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: file and you know, you can print it like an
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: eight by ten, you know, just really five, ten.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: And twenty dollars, you know increments.
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: And I figured it's like, oh, maybe I'll just go
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: to my big you know store here locally in Salt
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: Lake and then throw a big palette of water so
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: I can go take that down to a grandma, a grandpa,
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: or a.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: Single mom or somebody that just could use water. Went
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: away for four.
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: Or five days, came back logged in. I just remember telling,
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: you know, my wife's like, holy cow, actually, what's wrong.
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: I was like, we have another problem. Because I did
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: the math and the calculations. So my idea was basically
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: to go get a truckload of water. It turned into
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: being able to buy seven semi trailers of drinking that's crazy.
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: So it's just like at that point, that was the
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: turning point I think in my career where I could
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: use photography in a way that make the world better.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: And the other thing too, is I mean when you
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: look at seven semi trailers of plastic bottles that we
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: instituted a crazy, rigorous, strict, you know, recycling process because we.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: Didn't want that that was the only way to really
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: deliver it effectively.
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, nobody else was out there, No, no major like
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: natural disaster team was out there.
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: It's just kind of grassroots.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: And to this day, they was just crazy to me.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: I mean it affected a lot of people. Yeah, I
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: mean ten over tens of thousands of people. It's just
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: pretty wild.
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: And so from that, I mean that then sprouted is
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: like going to visit these families who live, you know,
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: close to the river out there, and then I would
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: ask them say, oh, what do you you have power
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: or electricity? What's kind of a story about that? You know, Yeah,
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: we don't know when we're going to get power or if.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: We ever will.
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: Well I'll be back in two weeks and well I'll
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: bring a solar kit.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, respectfully, I think that a lot
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: of Americans don't even can't even comprehend that there are
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Americans that don't have power and don't have water clean waters.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Like I'm somewhat aware of it, but you know, after
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: talking to you earlier. I'm just like, what, Yeah, that's
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: It's it's twenty twenty two, where like you know, Jeff
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Bezo was suspen sending himself up into space and this
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: is still able.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: To get access to clean water.
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I get that all quite a bit
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: more regularly now. It's like I was thinking about sending
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: my kid to, like, you know, some other country, and
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: is there a way I could just send them over
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: to you know, like the issues are somewhat similar, however
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: it's just right here in the southwest of this country.
• 16:57
  Speaker 7: You know.
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's really eye opening for all a
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: lot of folks that don't realize that what's.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: Going on, and you know, with the pandemic.
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: All that really did was addressed the challenge we have
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: for our elders we call them the knowledge keepers, you know,
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: and then also brought a lot more awareness of like
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: what the situation is.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: However, it's it's just not like the Navajo nation that's this.
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: Way, It's almost every other indigenous tribe and yeah, you
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: know throughout you know, North America.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: Why are people getting left behind? Like what is what
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: do you think is causing that? The way the some of.
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: The regulations are structured to things like starting a business
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: or being able to build a home. So I just
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: went through this process for example, to have a homesite
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: at least of one acre.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: Basically at least your home site was south of Page.
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah, on the Nava Reservation. It's along the Echo Cliffs.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: So we have an amazing, beautiful, beautiful area.
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, However, I had to go through a two year
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: process for them the clear that, and then I'm basically
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: ran team our land from the federal government for about
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: the next seventy years and after that it goes back
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: to them.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: So is there any of stuff to anybody else out there?
• 18:10
  Speaker 6: Well, just that's a big investment for you to build
• 18:12
  Speaker 6: a home and everything.
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there are you know, things in place where like
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: I'm limited to be able to what I can do
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: and what I can't do. The other The other thing too,
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: is that a lot of families, you know, prefer not
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: to move to like.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Like a neighborhood.
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: Right where you got neighbors, you got you can run
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: a big tight water line in and electrical line in.
• 18:32
  Speaker 5: However, it's like, okay, well, how do we then have like.
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: Our livestock, our culture which is heavily based around you know,
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: the land, the wildlife, the animals, and the language and
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: so a lot of that is really intricate, you know,
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: to be able to run you know, waterline from one
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: home to another because we're not on a great system, yeah,
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: the costs would just go through the roof.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: And so some of those are just like.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: So some of that I understand is just like logistical hurdles.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: But I can't help you get to lease the land
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: that is rightfully yours from the government and you can't
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: own it.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I never knew that I never will be
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: able to own it no matter how much you improve it.
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: No, but I could buy a home here and say
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: this is my land, yeah forever, right as long.
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: Or our house in Salt Lake.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: That's just that that you know, you have those aha
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: moments and you start to realize, you know, when you
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: drive through through through Navajo Lands, you notice that the
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: quality of the homes isn't what you would see in
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: another city or whatever. But I've just had this this
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: that aha moment, and it's like, oh, yeah, that's why
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: would they Why would they why would anybody invest into
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: the infrastructure, you know, or or or anything if yeah,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: in seven years, what do they do that is bulldoze?
• 19:43
  Speaker 6: You know?
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, who knows, but.
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: We'll climb over that fence when we get there. Yeah,
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: it's quite wild. So yeah, there's there's you know a
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: lot of improvement, and I think, you know, for me,
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: I'm so optimistic. You know, it's like, Okay, we've got
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: an issue, and what can I do to help be
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: the solution?
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean we were talking a lot about
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: you know, the kind of the film traffic stuff that
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: you're doing, you.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: Know, to bring power with Goal zero.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Not not to be like commercial or anything, but I
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: think it's cool that, you know, Goal zero kind of
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: stepping up the plate on that stuff, you.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: Know, and then moving on from that.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: But you know, like let's talk about that on you know,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: how you've used photography as this springboard. You started with
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: the water, and now it seems like you have these
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: projects coming up and that you're and things that you're
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: doing now that are just you know, you're you're pushing
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: even further, you.
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: Know, with our the great thing with Goal zero, you know,
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: they they've helped us power over five hundred homes and
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: so later this year we're going to power another hundred
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: homes right around when.
• 20:38
  Speaker 5: The kids are getting back to school.
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: And so the big thing there was, you know, personally,
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: I grew up without running water or electricity, and so
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: rather than do my homework, I'd rather make sure we
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: have all of our lambs and our sheet and that
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: coyotes aren't coming around, because that's important to us.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And so with school and education I fell behind.
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: I mean I remember doing my homework like in front
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: of my our wood burning stove.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: Or Education's great, but so is the essentials for a living. Yeah.
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So when you go somewhere, what am I going
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: to eat tomorrow? You know, how much more water do
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: we have? And how much gases in the truck? And
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: when can we go make the next run to town?
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: Like those are always just naturally in the back of
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: your head, like you just never you just don't stop
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: thinking about that. And so when you get a homework
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: or a project or you know, a scholarship opportunity, it's like,
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: you know, sometimes those things can take a back seat,
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: you know.
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: And so so fortunately.
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: Over the years we've been able to you know, since
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: twenty fifty actually the week right after we did the
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: water delivery Golzier. I said, hey, we would love for
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: you to come down because when we go visit these
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: grandmas and these grandpas, we don't speak Navajo. We haven't
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: found anybody that could help us translate how you know
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: a solar panel, cables lights, how the power turns work. Yeah,
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: And so I went down and it was just amazing.
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: And then I asked them that what can we do
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: to do more of this? And then we began putting
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: ideas together and then recently we started using bigger four
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: hundred system solar panels and then fifteen batteries.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which is huge. Is enough to power the kid's
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: chromebooks that they're coming home school.
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: And we recently partnered with aut Domatic.
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: So now there's families that have a refrigerator and so
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: keep food longer.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so they keep food longer, they eat healthier.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: And you just don't think of these things like I'm
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: not trying to dwell on it, but the disparity between
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: the quality of life, you.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: Just, yeah, these are real, real.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, maybe this is what makes a great podcast,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: but I'm just so curious about this because you don't
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: hear these stories. You don't hear people talking about this stuff.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Most people when they when they experience Navajo Lands, it's
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: something that they're blowing through to get to Lake Powa
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: with their boat or you know, they're they're telling the
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: rock crawl or the moab and it's like, oh, I
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: don't want to stop here, I don't want to do this.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: But they don't actually have any any frame of reference
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: as to like why there are issues, what's causing them.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: And you know, as you're saying, it's that.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Little bit of that little bit of light on a
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: on anything is help bring people together and understand, like,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: you know, what's actually what's actually happening.
• 23:06
  Speaker 6: And how do people find out more about what you're
• 23:09
  Speaker 6: doing with providing water and power and the refrigerators.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Do you have a website that people can refer to? Yeah?
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: Absolutely, they can go to Heartofamerica dot org. Part of
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: America is a nonprofit based out of DC. It's really
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: about providing education, transformation spaces, addressing the inequity and education.
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: And so I work with a lot of schools across
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: the country with like NBA teams, NFL teams, awesome. You know,
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: one project I worked on is in Baltimore, which that's
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: kind of a tough area too, you know. And in
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: a day with a bunch of volunteers and none of
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: the players were there, but like staff trainers from the
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: Ravens game.
• 23:48
  Speaker 5: And in a day we planted over I think like
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: seventy five trees.
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: We built two outdoor classrooms and just put an amazing
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: like outdoor lawns where it's like this really it's like
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: a school just got a crazy facelift, and and the
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: kids and the teacher are just like this isn't the
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: same place anymore, you know, And so out here it's
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: kind of really going back to the basics of providing
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: power so that a kid can do light, you know
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: under you know, a solar lantern as opposed to.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: I mean sine, which is you know those things.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like you've got the carrosine lamp going, which then
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: costs money. You can't do your homework if you don't
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: have light because you can't see. Yeah, it's those little
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: things or charge the chromebook. But you know you have this,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: you know most people consider them, you know, small things
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: like lights or this or whatever.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: Well, then you're like.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: They you start to make the connection of how how
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: everything really is connected. You can't do the homework, you
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: don't have the power, no refrigeration, Like mean, I can't
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: imagine living in my jeep without a refrigerator.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and they have to deal with day to
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: day that way every day. Last year it was.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Just a reality check to like how easy a lot
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: for clearly in this space, how easy.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: A lot of people haven't. Yeah. Wow, It's just one
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: of those things that's pretty amazing.
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it kind of makes you think of like what
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: I think also at the same time, of like what
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: we do have access to, you know, I mean I
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: live in Salt Lake, and I'm always grateful for you know,
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: what we do have there, and remind our kids of like,
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: you know, you're in the third grade right now. However,
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: you know you look at kids the same age as
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: you go back home. You know, those kids are at
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: least two to three grades behind, and now two nine
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: year olds, there's a four grade difference between the two.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: You know, it's it's just falling a little more behind.
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: And so that's what we're really excited about, is to
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: bring that opportunity because they are the future. You know,
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: they're going to be the ones finding solutions for us
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: when we get older in some much shape or form,
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: and so to be able to provide them an opportunity
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: to kind of make it somewhat equal as possible is
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: just really a fun, really a fun mission. So Heart
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: of America we work together with Real Salt Lake. We
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: install solar kits on like a dozen homes around southern Utah, and.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: Then that just grew and grew and then solve energy.
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: If you go towards Monument Valley, there's a big solar
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: farm there.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: I saw that. Yeah, it's on the south side of
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: the road. Yeah.
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, they reached down they said, hey, we've got this
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: check that we can give to a nonprofit, so whenever
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: you start yours, we'll send it over to you. And
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: then the pandemic happens and I'm like, okay, my band
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: was just got like to zero. However, could we send
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: that check to over here to Heart of America And
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: we still do the same thing because we're now addressing
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: education and that just took off like crazy and it's amazing.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So during the.
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: Pandemic, we delivered over ten thousand distance learning kits. Goal
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: zero solar lanterns already powered about one hundred homes with
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: the bigger goal zero batteries and the domatic refrigerators and
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: so it's just the next thing now is going to
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: be Internet. So my vision is like, how can somebody living.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: We've got a few SpaceX employees, Yeah exactly, Yeah, like.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: I've got I've got a kit. So I've got a
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: friend who.
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: Has acts to that Internet and just south of Navajo
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: Mountain and it's like it works. It's unbelievable that I
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: think is going to be the next Try to figure
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: that out. Because our kids they read books, watch educational
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: things from their school because we got Wi Fi in
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: our truck and they do all their homework right there
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: whenever we're out camping, and they continue to get ahead
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: that way, you know. And yeah, and so to give
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: a kid that same opportunities, I can't wait.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: For that day. It changes everything.
• 27:29
  Speaker 6: Yes, Well, one of the things that's really neat about
• 27:31
  Speaker 6: your your history is working with National Geographic, and so
• 27:35
  Speaker 6: for me, it's always been a publication and an entity
• 27:38
  Speaker 6: that I've admired. So talk a little bit about your
• 27:41
  Speaker 6: experience with National Geographic, what projects you've.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: Done with them.
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: I got an email from them and I just ignored
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: it as I just stand you know, Yeah, this is
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: no is whatever. They're trying to get me to sign
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: up for a magazine. Yeah, two weeks of buy and
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: then they reached out to guys. All right, this is
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: really because I applied back, and then they wanted me
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: to contribute on the adventure side, you know, more like overlanding, yeah,
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: show trucks. And I was like okay, and I said,
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: I've got this idea where I'm going to compress an
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: image with like a six hundred millimeter lens with the
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: with the biggest full moon.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: Of the year. We're going to be at the Bonneville
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: saw Flats.
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: I'm going to open up my rooftop tent and then
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: put the moon right in that hole. And it was
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: the So that's where like apps and like you know,
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: technology came in. I was like, okay, where do I
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: need to be degrees and angles and shutter speed time,
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: you know, And that was just so fun to pull off.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: It kind of goes back to the canyon of like
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: we have seventeen seconds of white here.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I live here for four seconds. Yeah, there
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: was a reason why you learned all that it is.
• 28:44
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And even with my film when I go out
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: photographing nowadays.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Like my light meter anymore, because when I had that light.
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: Meter for like three years, I made probably over twenty
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: thousand note cards of I'm.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: Here and I'm metering this. Here's the weather, the situation,
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: the cloud, the light.
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: If I had a camera, here's what my settings would be.
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: And I just really memorize those. So now when I
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: go out, it's just like, Okay, here's kind of the
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: light situation we're in.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: You're your own light meter now. Yeah, if you look
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: at it and you know, yeah.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: You're the one person that can use like an old
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: school like an M two, it's fun.
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: But an experience that I had with with that GEO
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: was really one that heightened my, I think sensitivity to
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: the images that I create. And I sent it, you know,
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: a handful of images to them and they just said,
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: you know, well, what we want to put out there,
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: your images are just a little soft, meaning like a
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: little out of focus. And I was like, wow, how
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: did they see that? You know, like how did they
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: find that? And it just made me so much. It
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: made me become more aware of what am I focusing
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: on and how is that and my approach to photography
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: to create great images that they would happily use and
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: share and allow me to write about. It's an amazing
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: opportunity that came my way. And I always say, you know,
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: I'm a kid that up in a home no bigger
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: than these chairs right here. Yeah, you know, it's probably
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: six hundred square feet. And I think sometimes I still
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: feel like I don't matter because I come from nowhere. Yeah,
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: you know, And nowadays I love to say that create
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: great work, creat images, and you just never know who's
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: going who, what's going to impact because I think to
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: say thank you to somebody it takes energy or courage
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: should genuinely say I was inspired by that. You know,
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: we're shy about that, I think as people. I mean,
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: I try to do that more. And whenever that happens
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: to me, I always try to establish a relationship and
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: you know, return that gratitude for them taking the time
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: to look at my work.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: Well, it's your work is beautiful.
• 30:44
  Speaker 6: It's I mean, some of those images of that place,
• 30:47
  Speaker 6: which is one of my most favorite places on the planet,
• 30:50
  Speaker 6: I mean southern Utah and northern Arizona. Every time I
• 30:53
  Speaker 6: go through there, it completely captivates me to see the
• 30:56
  Speaker 6: work that you've done there. You know, it just makes
• 30:58
  Speaker 6: me realize that I've got I've got so many levels
• 31:02
  Speaker 6: to go of my own work. When I see work
• 31:05
  Speaker 6: like you've done, it's just absolutely incredible.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: You drive a Nissan, I do. Yeah, So talk a
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: little bit about your overland truck.
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: So I've got a twenty twenty Nissan Titan to Pro
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: four X got it before dealers had it, had a
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: really great opportunity and built it out. So I've got
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: a I'm running thirty fives from a General Tires xtreets
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: tu Lee rooftop ten awning, a Domatic CFX seventy five
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: band fridge. Yeah, kids need ice cream and then we'll.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: Know we all need we all need ice cream.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: And that's the coolest thing, the biggest flex It's like
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: a the does and then you walk into somebody eating
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: and ice cream.
• 31:40
  Speaker 6: Oh yeah, it's totally the biggest flesh it is.
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and then when you had a campground and then
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: we're making cotton candy. You know, it's like we bought
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: this little cotton candy, make it for our daughter.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: So it's a really fun truck and I love using
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: it for you know, like so once a month we
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: try to take one of So we have two kids, Dnalli,
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: and so some months I'll take one kid and my
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: wife will take the other and will go overnight do something.
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: And the kids are always like, let's go cam big,
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: you know, but we put that responsibility on them.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: Okay, what do we need? What's the weather? Which is
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: the wind blowing here?
• 32:10
  Speaker 7: You know?
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: What do we can have for breakfast, lunch, dinner? And
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: you know, they're part of it. I load it and
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: then when we get out and one hundred percent like
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: a bonding moment, you know, where we talk about like
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: important things while horses.
• 32:22
  Speaker 5: Squirrels, the environment or consolations, you know.
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: And one question I always ask them every single time
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: is you know, bubble gum, how can I be a
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: better dad.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: Or to my son? I'll say this as asked that question.
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: It's it's it's a scary question because these kids will
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: tell you and then amazing, I'll tell you what.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: From from this moment, It's like, huh, Not a lot
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: of parents ask that question, but maybe they should.
• 32:48
  Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, what are some of the things that you'd
• 32:52
  Speaker 6: like to share that you've learned from that, you know,
• 32:56
  Speaker 6: practice soccer with me more?
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, help me a little bit more with my homework. Sure,
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: teach me more Navajoa. You know, Like my one of
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: my funner ones with my daughter, just how I know
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: it's been too long is like if I'm not somewhere
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: with painted nails, I look at my hands and like,
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: it's been a minute.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been too long.
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: And so my daughter we just FaceTime yesterday and she's like,
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: because she knows I'm here, and what this events about?
• 33:19
  Speaker 5: I said, Dad, when you come home, can we go camping?
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's been it's been a last great you know,
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: I said, Yeah, that's a big indicators, like how long
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: do I have like peak nails or my toes or whatever.
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: You know, it's just just fun. It's a really innocent
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: moment where it's wonderful. You're there with another human being
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: or there with another soul that's thinking things and they're
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: reacting to their surroundings and their own environment, and it's
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: just like the most beautiful thing to see them blossom.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: In return, I'm also led to figure out like how
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: can I be a better you know, role model to them?
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: And then we make goals together, you know, look at
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: our accountability. We talk to them about important things about
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: where you know, to their age group, how they can
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: also be I just more say hey, you know, be
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: a friends, be kind and have a blast. That's our
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: daily rule every day when go to school, be kind,
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: have fun, and be a friend to somebody.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so we could all get that advice for sure.
• 34:14
  Speaker 6: This content is brought to you by Overland Journal, our
• 34:17
  Speaker 6: premium quality print publication. The magazine was founded in two
• 34:21
  Speaker 6: thousand and six with the goal of providing independent equipment
• 34:26
  Speaker 6: and vehicle reviews, along with the most stunning adventures and photography.
• 34:32
  Speaker 6: We care deeply about the countries and cultures we visit
• 34:35
  Speaker 6: and share our experiences freely with our readers. We also
• 34:40
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• 34:44
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• 34:50
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• 34:55
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• 34:59
  Speaker 6: you are watching or listening to right now. You can
• 35:03
  Speaker 6: subscribe directly on our website at Overland Journal dot com.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: For sure. Yeah, and they remind they remind us whenever
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: we go driving, like, oh, Dad, you're going to pull over?
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: They got a flat.
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: You know, I got an impact, I've got a you know,
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: a yellow gems Yeah. Yeah, And it's just amazing how
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: like it takes three minutes to help somebody and you
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: never know who you're going to pull over and help too.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 35:27
  Speaker 6: Well, I've got one more question on the on the
• 35:29
  Speaker 6: kid thing before Matt's question. But so, your daughter's name
• 35:32
  Speaker 6: is Danali. Our son is your son's name? Your daughter's
• 35:35
  Speaker 6: name is Aurora Winter. Now, you spent a lot of
• 35:38
  Speaker 6: time in Alaska, So what what inspired you to name
• 35:41
  Speaker 6: your son Denali.
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: There's one major inspiration that came from that is in
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: the early nineteen.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: Hundreds when the weather was a little bit different.
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: My great grandmother she lived with us in her late
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: age and early nineteen hundred, she saw the northern light
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: back home with like an hour and a half north
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: of here, and I just remember her talking about the colors,
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: the movements, the swiftness of it, and then also the
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: sacredness of it as well, and the prayers that she offered,
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: the offering that she made, the songs that she sang
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: about our relatives of the North, the holy people of
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: the North. And I just never forgot that because I
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: was a little kid, and she explained everything, which is
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: so much more descriptive in our own language, yeah than aaaha.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: I never forgot it.
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: And so I found out that we're going to have
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: a daughter, I said, you know, I want to tie.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: Her name forever to that story from my great grandma.
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: And that's where we got Aurora Winter, the mostly color
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: bubble gum. And then Danali was the significance of like,
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: you know, the naming of Mountain McKinley going back to death, yes,
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: and then it meaning the high one or the grand
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: one or the tall one, the you know in terms
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: of like hype, but also impact in terms.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: Of like what does that name mean to you? You know.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: So my best.
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: Friend married a guy that's half Clinket and half Lumby,
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: which is not a federally recognized tribe in North Carolina, And.
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: So we would go to Alaska a lot.
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: And I remember the first time I went to Alaska
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: was with my four by five and my burdler bat
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: wooden tripod, and I took four plates, four slides, and
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: I spent two and a half weeks up there and
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: I came back with four photos.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: That was it amazing?
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was just so pure, and it was in
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: June and I was like, man, the sunset is lasting
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: like five hours.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: It's crazy.
• 37:25
  Speaker 6: I know, it's wonderful. Yeah, it's truly wonderful. And the
• 37:28
  Speaker 6: further north you get, it just kind of laps up. Yeah,
• 37:30
  Speaker 6: it doesn't go down. It's hard to sleep. Yeah, And
• 37:32
  Speaker 6: then Matt's about ready to go to Alaska, so.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: Ilean went the tenth Oh, so we're gonna go all
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: the way up to tech tiak Tek and then I'm.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: Going to go for two months. I know I'm heading north.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: That's what I know. Geez.
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: So you're gonna have a fun time if you ever
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: get a chance to go, I say, go in the winter, okay.
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: I photographed the Northern Lights about two hours north of Fairbanks,
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: and I remember it was negative fifty and opened the
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: door on like two seconds. Everything freeze is like your
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: clothes will just get like hard, your nose will like freeze,
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: and it's like hard to.
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: Blink, you know. And it's just one of the most
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: like unearthly moments I've had. And the aurora is something special.
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, so, and I recently saw it in Iceland
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: on another assignment with Sony and so it's just it's.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: Amazing, it really is. Yeah. You know, you had an
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: interesting when we were chatting earlier.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: You were telling me about that, you know, the Navajo
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: family structure, there are no cousins. I had never known
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: that or or heard that before. And I tell people,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: just want to know that everyone's a brother or a
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: sister or your aunt is a mother.
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: So whenever we are in a setting like this and
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: we introduced ourselves, we always say ya a ben in,
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: which is like good morning, or referencing the time of
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: the day, you know, ya, which basically means hello, my
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: relatives and my people, you know. And so so there's
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: no real division amongst being what we say the holy.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: Five finger people. You know.
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: It's so in our culture, like our kids will call
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: my sister and you're arranging it would be hurt their aunt, right,
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: But for us it's shamaf my mom, you know.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: So we don't have cousins.
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: So whenever, like a lot of my cousins sisters served
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: in the military, but I always say my sister served
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: and over here, over there or that's just our family structure,
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: and it's all based around like this kinship of cash,
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: which is our relationships of who who are we with
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: this next person here that's sitting, regardless of where they
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: come from or regardless of you know, their background or
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: beliefs and whatever.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: No matter what, you are my.
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: Relative, because when you take a step back, where you're
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: all on the only place we'll all ever call home
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: one time, right this red earth Underfather's guy. And why
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: shouldn't we, you know, be something else besides relatives?
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: When we call this poem the second time I've gotten
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: a good pone for this podcast, I'm right there with you.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: I just feel somebody like now, it just feel like terrible,
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: like the amount of times I've driven through your lands
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: and I don't even know how to say.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: Hello, and you know I don't know any of that.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, where can people learn more about the Navajo.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: Language and you know, customs, because it's just not taught,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: you know, Like I mean, it's it's on our doors,
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: like in in northern Arizona.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: It is it is so close to us. I mean,
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: it is right here.
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: I mean San Francisco Peak, that's our western sacred mound.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: And it's not it's not supposed to be called San
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: Francisco Peak. I was reading right because.
• 40:31
  Speaker 7: That was what's the original name, so it'd be the
• 40:35
  Speaker 7: sleeping We have this he spurt's Mount Taylor and Mount Blanca, Okay,
• 40:39
  Speaker 7: and and then we have to Colorado River, and you know,
• 40:42
  Speaker 7: so really like this is our our holy area that
• 40:45
  Speaker 7: we when we leave that area, we we come back
• 40:48
  Speaker 7: with the goodness and we come back with stories and knowledge.
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: I remember whenever we were so I grew up by
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: Marble Canyon above on the Eco Cliffs, and so my
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: grandpa you do al'ways say hey, let's go crazy today
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: and let's go to Marble Canyon get a pepsi and
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: an ice cream.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: You know. That was my grandma going crazy the other day.
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: And I just loved it because anytime we crossed the
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: Colorado River, he'd always pick off his hat and he said,
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: you know a couple of our relatives helped build this
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: bridge in nineteen twenties, and two of them floated away
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: and they were never found ever again.
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: You know, they riched our lives so that we could
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: traverse this canyon a lot faster and easier. And you'd
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: always offer a prayer whenever we left home, even if
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: it was to go get a Cannesota and ice cream,
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: and then you'd come back and say, hey, you know,
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: we're always grateful for protecting us.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: And that's you.
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: Know, one thing that we always do in our family
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: whenever we're coming back like by page. You know, cage
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: isn't technically on the nave of a reservation anymore.
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: However before it was, it was on that whole line.
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: And so you know, you can go online, you know,
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: with YouTube, social media, there's a lot more opportunities to
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: learn now the words and even the words like yacht,
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: which means hello in English. However in US is again
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: going back to like I am here with you in
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: the sacred universe. That's the little like translation of how
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: we say hi, and that's ya ya yata.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: Like your kids' names are so thoughtful, awful, like they
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: just choose their names out.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: Of his books, totally like out of my head. I
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: think I was named after a horse and then for
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: me like both of us, three first.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: Names, three first names, Scott and I's.
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: The funny thing about my dad is his verth certificate
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: is totally incorrect. So his name is James, but his
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: name was totally I forget what his real nava name was.
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: You know, they basically looked into the Bible and said, hey,
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: you're James.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: That's how he got his.
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: Name was out and then my great grand mother, the
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: same one that taught me about the northern life, she
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: delivered my dad.
• 43:04
  Speaker 5: So on my dad's birth certificate it shows that he.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: Was born in April. And so years went by.
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: I asked my great grandmothers a grandma, was you know,
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: was my dad born in April during the season. She's like, no,
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: he was born during this time. You know, the lambs
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: were this age, the juniper were looking like this, the
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: sage we're turning colors. You know, the wild grass were
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: already turning yellow. And she based my dad's birth under,
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: you know, around the environment in nature, and it's fun
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: to go back to the very tree that my dad
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: was born at. And so you know, April is a four, right,
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: January being one April's fourth. What had happened was somebody
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: initially put in nine, which is for September, and the
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: recorder put a four instead of a nine because my
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: grandmother says, you know, your dad was born in this
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: month in September. On his birth certificate, it showed that
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: he was born at Tuba City Hospital, when he was
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: born at our summer camp. My grandmother washed Hon with
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: snow after he was born. So pretty well story, so cool.
• 44:01
  Speaker 6: Well, Milo, we're going to run out of time here,
• 44:03
  Speaker 6: but you are an inspiration man.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: Thank you for thank you for being on the podcast.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: Absolutely yeah, that's really thank you, and we thank you
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: all for listening.
• 44:11
  Speaker 6: Uh. We wish we had some time for questions, but
• 44:15
  Speaker 6: we'll have another one tomorrow at one o'clock, so be
• 44:19
  Speaker 6: good