64: Marsel Van Oosten | Wildlife Photography Mastery, How To Take A Photo People Care About & The Economics Of Photography

Article Attached To This Podcast!🎙️: https://atlasgeographica.com/marsel-van-oosten/

This podcast is with Marsel Van Oosten, a Dutch, master photographer.

Marsel is responsible for taking some of the best wildlife photos of all time, and this is not just my opinion. On a list of the 100 greatest wildlife photos ever taken, Marsel occupies as close to an objective measure you can find in art, several rungs on that list.

Marsel has been the recipient of many photography prizes, most notably he has been awarded Wildlife Photographer of the year, Travel Photographer of the year, and as well, the International Nature Photographer of the year. In addition to all of this, Marsel also works as a contributor with National Geographic.

You can expect to hear in this podcast about the following and more…

• What Works & What Doesn’t Work When Making A Good Photo.
• Behind The Scenes On Iconic Shots.
• The Economics Of Photography.
• ISO Specific Breakdown (for all my fellow amateur photographers listening).
• The Influence Of Social Media On Photography
• China In Africa 
• And Of Course More, More & More As Well.

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• 00:00 – Introduction
• 03:52 – Witnessing The Death Of A Baby Elephant
• 09:52 – Is There Any Thrill In The Danger?
• 13:50 – Are There Any Animals You Are On A First Name Basis With?
• 15:37 – Was It The Inspiring Dutch Countryside?
• 17:02 – The Journey To Becoming A Professional.
• 23:32 – What Works & What Doesn’t Work When It Comes To Taking An Effecting Photo?
• 43:22 – The Social Media Influence On Photography.
• 54:19 – Marsel Van Oosten On Post Production & Editing.
• 1:00:42 – Behind The Scenes On Some Iconic Shots.
• 1:08:37 – 1600 ISO (Golden Couple).
• 1:13:16 – On Distance In Photography.
• 1:17:27 – The Piegraph Of Photography.
• 1:29:37 – Artificial Scarcity & Economics In Photography.
• 1:53:40 – South Africa (Switching Gears).
• 2:05:02 – Marsel’s Outlook For Africa & China’s Influence On The Continent.
• 2:17:32 – Where Is Left & Undiscovered To Take A Beautiful Photo?
• 2:21:32 – The Skinny On Kangaroos.
• 2:25:47 – The Most Serendipitous Outcome Of Being A Notable Photographer.
• 2:33:17 – A Moment In Your Life That You Can’t Believe You Were A Part Of.
• 2:43:40 – Does Marsel Have A Favourite Photo?
• 2:47:32 – Conversation Between Any Two People Of History.
• 2:48:56 – Afterthoughts & Ambition For The Podcast.

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Marsel Van Oosten Links

• Squiver – Marsel’s Website

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

The following is a conversation with Marcel van Hoesten, a Dutch master wildlife photographer. Marcel van Hoesten is responsible for taking some of the best wildlife photos of all time. And this is not just my opinion, but on a list of the hundred greatest wildlife photos ever taken, Marcel occupies as close to an objective measure you can find in art, several rungs on that list. In addition to this, he is also responsible for having taken one of the most viewed photos of all time, which you've very likely seen. And if you think you know what it is, uh check out the link attached at the top of the description to see for sure. Marcel has been the recipient of many photography prizes, most notably, he's been awarded Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Travel Photographer of the Year, and as well the International Nature Photographer of the Year. Marcel also works as a contributor with National Geographic. He surely has one of the most remarkable resumes for a living wildlife photographer, and he's taking some unbelievably beautiful photos. And obviously, I'm not just saying that, it's really, really beautiful. Check out his book, Mother, if you want to get a taste for it. It was a real privilege to get a chance to speak with Marcel for so long. I think we actually ended up getting along quite well. Uh, I think him and I have very similar sensibilities, so it was a real pleasure. The conversation starts as a masterclass in wildlife photography and then ends with a casual discussion of Africa and more general topics in that vein. But of course, and as usual, navigate the chat with timestamps if you are so inclined. But also just listen from beginning to the end if you can, because such is the nature of these types of conversations, they can jump around a bit, and obviously you might miss out on the fun anecdote by just jumping directly to the timestamp on how do I take a good photo, for example. But in this chat, you can expect to hear about what works and then what doesn't when you're making a good photo, behind the scenes on some iconic shots that Marcel has taken, the economics of photography, uh, an ISO-specific breakdown on one of his most famous shots for just a very specific one for my fellow amateur photographers listening. Uh Marcel's thoughts and the influence of social media with photography, China in Africa, which is obviously a huge mutual interest of well, which is a huge interest of mine, and now, as I know, a mutual interest of both Marcel and I. But then of course, more and more and more as well. And that is all you need to hear from me. Hang around to the end of the chat to hear my afterthoughts, and also for me to explain what my ambition is for this podcast. And with no further ado, here is the photographic Dutchman, the master himself, Mr. Marcel Van. Good morning, Mr. Van Usten. Thank you so much for joining me. Well, thank you, Ryan. Thank you for having me. Yeah, really, it's my uh it's my absolute pleasure. I came across your work um as I was doing some research on sort of different wildlife photographers to try and draw some inspiration and maybe learn some lessons as to how I could create my photos a little bit differently. Um and then I came across a few of your shots, so such as Facebook update, for example, and I realized, oh holy hell, this is this is one of those photos that hundreds of millions of people have seen, you know, inadvertently now and again. Um and yeah, some of your some of your photos really are just drop-dead gorgeous, amazing. Uh so it's really cool to get to talk to you uh about all of that, how how you got there, how you do it, and so forth. Well, thank you very much. That's very kind. But um to make a rather awkward transition, I'll start somewhere else. Can you talk to me about the time you witnessed a pride of lions kill an elephant?

SPEAKER_01 4:04

Oh yeah, um, so um let me think how long ago was that? That must have been 2007, I think. Yeah, we were in we were in Botswana, and um it was it was raining cats and dogs, and we were on a on a game drive, and there was not not many people in the in the park actually. And we were driving along and then we approached the waterhole. So we saw a single uh a single baby elephant standing at the waterhole, and we were like, where's the rest of the herd? Because that's very unusual to see that. And then as we looked to our left, we were still driving, we saw a whole bunch of lions lying in the bushes, all spread out. And um before we knew it, they all ran towards the baby elephant and jumped on it and uh and started started killing it. Um we expected to see the the rest of the herd like uh running back and uh and come and save the little one, but that didn't happen. And then what followed was a very gruesome probably one and a half hours or something before they actually managed to to kill that uh that baby elephant.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

It was a one and a half hour struggle.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

Yeah, you know, the because uh even a baby elephant is still quite it's quite big and it's difficult to you can't choke it, you know. Uh a lion will usually go for the throat and then try to choke it, but with uh elephant that's that's too much throat, they can't really like close that off. So then they have to close off the the trunk. But you know, then it still has the mouth to breathe. So it's uh yeah, it was very painful, uh painful to watch. But then again, that's that's nature.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

That's nature. I can imagine definitely painful to watch, but you guys stayed there and watched nonetheless. Was it out of a sort of morbid curiosity, or was there a chance to make it artistic almost?

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Um well it's I mean that it that that sort of scenes at as hard as it is to to watch it, it is ultimately what uh nature is all about. Uh it's uh killer be killed. And um we we don't see most of it. You know, there's a lot of these kind of things that happen in a at a very small scale, you know, like insects. They're doing it like all the time, killing and eating each other, you know. And if we see a bird uh picking up a little bug, then we're not freaked out at all. It's only when the when the victims start getting a little bit bigger, and especially when they're more charismatic, yeah, then suddenly you know our brain starts to play tricks on us, and then we're suddenly uh really upset. But there's not a lot of difference, I think, between um an animal an elephant being killed by a lion, or maybe uh a bird being killed by uh some other predator.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Yeah, I suppose. There's there's still I I wonder, maybe this is a stretch, but your favorite authors is Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. So you clearly have a very like uh evolutionary worldview that we are just animals not so separated from those on the savannah. We just have maybe a better intellect and developed a little bit some more advantageous genetic traits.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

I wonder and the and the the opposable thumbs also greatly helped, of course. Yeah, but yeah, I agree with that statement, yes. Yeah, I think we're we're we're just we're just yeah, we're just better evolved. Well maybe not not necessarily better, but we're just more evolved. And I think we're just lucky that we were the ones that uh draw the uh drew the uh the how do you call that the longest stroll. So um I think in the end we'd we're just lucky to be the the ones that uh came out on top. It could have been different, you know, if the if that meteor hadn't uh hit the uh the earth and the dinosaurs didn't uh didn't die off, who knows what might have happened.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

The game of wildlife photography would be a whole lot more interesting. Yeah, definitely more dangerous. Yeah. But you know, it's just as as someone who I'm probably projecting too much of myself here, but you know, many, many other young guys and girls around the world who sort of look up to and uh try to emulate what other great wildlife photographers are doing. Um it there's like the anecdotes of the danger involved, the anecdotes of being so close to the animals involved. I mean, you've been charged by lions, hippos, elephants. Can you tell us a little bit about the sort of whether that is a thrill that you enjoy, or whether that is like a a downside of the craft, you know, exposing yourself to that danger. Is it something you actually enjoy? Because I get the sense that that's part of the thrill of doing this type of work, in a sense.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

Um well, actually, no, I I I think I speak not only for myself but for uh almost all my colleagues, is that those dangerous situations we actually desperately try to avoid that because we we don't want to end up creating a situation where the animal feels the need to charge us because uh once that happens usually we can only blame ourselves. So it's up to us to create an environment where um both parties feel relaxed and don't feel the need to uh to get stressed out or uh or or attack. So um we always try to avoid that situation from from happening. However, I mean it's it's wildlife, so we we have very little control over what happens, and um all the animals are also individuals, so they also they all have different different characters. So the one line is not the other one, and and elephants the same. So even though we try, it doesn't always work because you don't you don't know what that uh you know an elephant might just have experienced something really traumatic, you know, it might just an hour before it might just have been charged by lions, so it's like really uh like uh stressed up. And then when I appear and I do everything according to the rules, still that elephant might uh might charge me. So it's just something that we have to always be prepared for, and um that's why we pay a lot of attention uh to the animals and trying to read their body language, because that's usually uh you can usually tell a lot by uh by looking at how they behave, whether they're relaxed or uh stressed out. So as soon as we see that animal is is not relaxed and it's really responding to our presence, and um very often we decide to uh to leave it alone and uh and move on.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

How do you just as um a friendly piece of advice to someone whoever gets in that situation, how do you react when you are say charged by a lion and a hippo or rhino? Is it just run away or are there special things to do?

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Well, that really depends on the on the animal. Uh some animals it's best to just run as fast as you can, and some other animals it's better to not run at all. Um so for instance, if an elephant charges you, you should never, never, ever run because that will just make matters worse. So you should just uh stand your ground and stand tall, uh wave your arms, use a loud and low voice just to uh tell the elephant, you know, I'm not as scared, I'm not afraid of you, and uh stop what you're doing. But if there's uh if if there's a hippo running towards you, you better just uh you better start running to start running. So that really it really just depends. And with some animals it's just uh it's just very difficult to predict what's gonna happen. Most and almost all animals give off uh clear signs that they're about to charge you. Whereas, for instance, uh a K buffalo does not give up of any warning signs whatsoever, nothing, zero. They just go from seemingly relaxed to to a full-on charge. And um so that's why well buffalo are the uh is the animal that most guides fear the most in the in the wild because of that, yeah. So they're not afraid of lions or leopards or uh even most elephants, not really, but it's the it's the buffaloes that they're scared of.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Having been in these various areas um so many times, like you've probably clocked up hundreds of safaris and in the same areas and are you on a first name basis with some of these big animals? Uh like some of the big tusters you can recognize and they recognize you, animals who you might come back year after year, month after month, and see. Do you do you feel like you have these sort of personal relationships with certain animals on the on the on the savannah, I suppose? Or out in the parks?

SPEAKER_01 14:15

Well, if you say relationship, that's the that that only works if it's like a two two-way uh thing, huh? Uh I don't think that there will ever be something like that because they're wild animals. So I may recognize, especially elephants, sometimes you just recognize it because they have certain specific um uh features, like a tusk that's really uh really recognizable, or like scars, you know, the same with lions, you know, sometimes have just these features that are easily recognizable. I know that from the the snow monkeys in Japan that I photographed a lot, I recognized quite a few of them every year. Again, because they just looked a little bit different from the others. Uh with the tigers, I have the same thing. I can also recognize a lot of them easily. But most of the most of the animals I die, oh no, I wouldn't, I wouldn't actually recognize them very easily. They they look very similar, huh? So uh and and and I'm also too focused, I think, on uh on the photography part, and I'm just spending so much effort into thinking and analyzing what I'm doing that very often I'm not paying attention to the to the to the small details on the animal itself, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

So, was it the uh inspiring mountains and drama of the Dutch countryside that developed your romantic love for nature? Uh where where did this come from?

SPEAKER_01 15:56

I don't know. I th uh the only thing I know is that uh when I was little um we used to watch a lot of nature documentaries. So whenever there was something on television that had animals in it, we as a family would would watch that. So as I as I grew up, I yeah, I I guess that's how I learned to really appreciate animals. Um that has just always always been there, but not uh I didn't really I didn't realize it very much until much later during life. We also visited zoos very often with the family. So usually in the weekends we either went to my grandma's or we went to a zoo somewhere, and um yeah, so always liked animals, but it wasn't until uh I started doing photography uh that I realized that that's actually the subject that inspired me most.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

It's interesting um for me, and I'm sure for other you know aspiring photographers to see how you transitioned into it becoming a self-sustaining venture. So for so many years your advertising career supported your photography passion. Were you confident the whole time it was all gonna work out? And you do you remember a moment when you realized that your dream of having this uh work sustain your lifestyle was going to pay off?

SPEAKER_01 17:28

No, not at all. I wasn't it and it was not like uh one moment where everything just happened, it just gradually uh developed. So um when I was in art school, I had the option of uh uh taking photography as one of my uh majors. Uh but at the time I was totally not interested in photography at all because all I thought all I thought about was uh having to spend countless hours in a dark room uh messing around with chemicals and film and stuff, uh didn't appeal to me at all. And um so that's when I uh decided to do graphic design and art direction instead. And it wasn't until I started working in advertising that I got exposed to photography more because as an art director I was uh responsible for uh the visual uh part of uh of the advertising. So I was the one who had to select photographers who were going to uh photograph my uh my concepts, basically the ideas that I created with my copywriting. So that meant that I suddenly had to study all these different uh portfolios and the work of all these different photographers and figure out which style was most fitting to my uh to my ideas. And then I spent um a lot of time working closely together with a ton of different advertising photographers, ranging from car photography to lingerie photography to whatever. It's like you you can't you can't think of it, and I have um I have done advertising for it. So by working so closely together with photographers, I really started to uh learn a lot more about photography, and also started to appreciate uh uh photography much more. I started to enjoy it actually because I could see how it was done and I could see the effect of it, and it was just super fun to come up with an idea and then pick a photographer and then together work on that idea, and then in the end it resulted in something uh what do you call that tangible? Um something real that you could see. So literally visualizing ideas, and that was that was a lot of fun, and at some stage I bought an uh I bought a like a serious camera myself, and that's when I started to take photographs myself, sometimes just uh you know during the weekend, and I start bringing my camera on on vacations, and then very quickly I started realizing that my photographs actually pretty much sucked, and that was a that was a frustrating moment because I had learned in my advert as a as an art director, I had learned to analyze images and to uh to see which one would work and which one would not. So I was pretty good at uh telling whether a photograph was good or not. So then to produce photographs yourself and look at the results, and then constantly have to have to say, like, well, that's that's pretty crappy. And and that's when I decided to to actually start learning more about photography. So I then I started to pay more attention even during the shoots. I started asking questions to the photographers that I was working with. I started paying a lot of attention uh during the post-processing and the selection process, and then I started um uh buying magazines, so just just uh photo magazines, you know, the ones that have technical explanations in them, you know, with with pictures next to it, and trying to understand the basics of photography basically, because that's the one thing that was really missing uh thus far was I I I knew what a good photograph should look like. But I had no clue what technical skills you needed or how to actually operate a camera. So then I decided that's something that I should really learn. And as I learned more about that part, I started to really enjoy the photography more and started photographing more and basically started photographing everything. I was like a photographic omnivore. And then the moment that I decided that I wanted to do uh wildlife more than anything was uh on our honeymoon. So when my wife and I got married, that was in 2001. We went on honeymoon to Tanzania or Tanzania, so people pronounce it. Um that was my first safari ever, and that made such a such a profound uh uh impact on me. That that's the moment I decided this is it, this is what I want to do a lot more of. So from then on, uh my focus narrowed to uh to wildlife basically. Wow, that's a very long answer, and I I haven't even answered it completely yet.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

Oh, but there's so much in there, Marcel. So much good stuff. I don't want to distract you too much from the main thread of that. But as an art director who critiqued so many different types of work, and not just exclusively in wildlife as well, as you said, think of it, and I've you know produced a some sort of commercial for it or advertisement. Can you make give us some examples of what works and what doesn't when it comes to a photo? Now, obviously it's contextual, but as you're sitting there right now, there must be some things in your head that are immediately deal breakers. So what works and what doesn't when it comes to a good photo?

SPEAKER_01 24:02

Yeah, so the the the the difficult uh thing is that from my perspective, uh the the kind of photography that I do I consider it an art form. So um already that means that it's it's entirely subjective as to what is good and what is not, and what uh what attracts me or what pleases my eye may not be what pleases someone else's eye. And so that's already a hard thing to say. However, uh for me personally, uh there's a couple of things that were very important when I was still an art director in respect to uh to the to the ads that I created. And there were certain laws, basically or rules, um, that were really important. And one of them, for instance, was that nobody has asked for your ads or your commercials. You know, you're an uninvited guest. So that means that you have very, very little time to introduce yourself and very little time to grab the attention of whoever sees your ad. So in that extremely short time, you have to try to either surprise them, uh, grab their attention, and try to communicate something to them. And that already means that whatever your message is, that it has to be short, it has to be unambiguous, and it has to be interesting, you know, and entertaining maybe. And that's in in much less than half less even than half a second that people usually glance over and over an ad. So in terms of uh of the of the R direction part, that means that for instance the graphic design had to be very simple and clean. Because you don't if you you know less is definitely more in advertising. You want to have a single-minded message, as simple as possible. You have to just narrow it down to that one tiny little thing that you want to communicate and strip everything else and then focus solely on that. And that really matches with my with my character because I'm very much uh a less is more character. I like I like clear choices and I like what's the word cleanliness. Um I can't show you my house because I'm now in a sort of a closed-of area, but like super clean in our house. There's no books, no bookshelves, there's no plants, there's no colors. Just and it's entirely black and white and gray, and uh just clean. Everything is focused on lines and shapes. So, and that's also in my in my work as an art director, I was very much focused on the concepts, on the ideas, and um form follows function. And then in my photography, I basically still use the same the same techniques or tactics. So I always try to make it as simple as possible and get rid of any kind of distractions. Um that is probably one of my one of the things I spend most time on, getting rid of distractions. So already in the field that that desire to create something that's hyperclean that determines where I actually go and where I don't want to go, so location-wise. And um, yeah, so for me, a good photograph where a photograph works is if the photograph is single-minded, if it's if it's immediately clear what the photograph is about. A good photograph for me has no distractions, so that my eye is not seduced into wandering into all kinds of corners and areas in the image that have no value. So that's really important to me. And um also separation. So for me, separation is super important. So if I photograph uh several subjects or elements I have in the frame, then I go through great lengths to creating separation between uh the subjects or between the different layers, so foreground, mid ground, background. So um, yeah, that's all it all has to do with creating a visual hierarchy. So I want if if there's one thing that's important in the in the photograph, then that means that I don't want anything distracting from that uh from that element. And yeah, so that's that's how I select images, and that's also the how I process the images with that in mind. Yeah, that the well another thing that's really important is is is the is the idea that's behind uh the the photograph. So uh the best ones I think best the best photographs they are they're they feel that they have a certain uniqueness to them. So that the there's like this element of surprise in it, either because uh of the subject itself or because of what the subject is doing, or because of the angle or the viewpoint or whatever, there can be a lot of reasons, but um it's really important, I think, to at least try to create something that is different, even if it's only like one percent different from what's already out there, and this is probably the biggest mistake that um uh starting photographers make that in the early early stages of their career they're too much focused on uh copying instead of exploring.

SPEAKER_00 30:47

Um it's so great that you added in that end the element of surprise, whether the subject is rare and that's a surprise, or whether they're doing something surprising. Two of your uh most notable photographs, the Golden Couple and Facebook update, in one of them the animal is doing something completely surprising, and then in the other one, the subject is itself a very surprising animal. Uh and so that sort of speaks to that right there immediately.

SPEAKER_01 31:12

So, yeah, so it's that's that's it's I thank you for uh mentioning that because um that gives me the opportunity to say something about those two things, because um those two images are very famous, and um I would argue that the the the monkey with the iPhone is the much more famous one because that actually went viral all over the viral. Yeah, very viral.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

Potentially potentially hundreds of millions of people saw that photo.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

Yeah, yeah, I think so, yeah. Yeah, and um the other one was because it won me an important uh award. Um but even so, for me, there's a very, very clear distinction uh between those two images because uh one of those images I'm really proud of, and the other one not at all. So the yeah, so the snow monkey with the iPhone image I'm not proud of at all. I'm very happy that I was the one shooting it, but I'm I'm critical enough to realize that that's really a shot that anyone could have taken, like literally anyone. You just have to you just have to be there and witness that and then point your camera at it and then press a button. And so I'm never trying to make that story bigger than it is, because I just happened to be at the right time, the right place, and know what to do. And the other image is the is the opposite of that, because that's actually an image that I pre-visualized, that I created in my head when I was still at home, and then tried to try to photograph a scene like that as I had envisioned it, and actually took a lot of work and a lot of planning to get that shot. So that is actually a shot that I'm very proud of, and and I think rightfully so, because you know it's it's it's it's also one of a kind, but it is one of a kind uh as a direct result of my creativity, whereas the other one is not. And uh so so that's so I prefer I prefer images where I can clearly see the thinking of the photographer, where I can see, oh wow, he he or she did something really clever here to to get this image, and most of the time, it's not like that. Most of the time it's just like oh wow, this photographer was really lucky to get this scene presented to uh to him or her, and and lucky to be there at the right time, especially with wildlife photography.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

You are very classically humble, uh, the Dutch humility rise uh shines through, but I would say that not anyone could have taken the first photo because there is also this notion of serendipity. You were conducting a photographic tour, so you were already putting in lots of hours to master that craft, and you had to have the right equipment, which probably not everyone there had that day, but you also had to know how to operate that equipment like the back of your hand, you know, because if I remember reading about the photo, it was uh extremely hot, so your lens kept fogging, and you also needed to get your lens as close to the water as possible to create the nice angle. Now, it's not like nearly as technical or as impressive as what you did with the golden couple, but still, not anyone could have taken that photo, and so if if you know, outcome is just luck versus where luck meets opportunity, right? It's a lucky moment, sure, but you still had to capture it and take full advantage of it. And so I disagree that not anyone could have taken it. Uh, it really only a few people could have, if you just happen to be the guy that was there when it happened.

SPEAKER_01 35:18

Yeah, well, that yeah, that's probably true, but still I think it's it's more healthy for myself to just stay like super critical, and just when I analyze that shot, it's just not something that I can be particularly uh proud of because, especially from a creative point of view, there's nothing that I added except maybe a little bit of fill flash that helped, but there's not not not not not something special uh that I did. So again, I I'm super happy that I shot that because it's unique, it's one of a kind, and it's and it makes people laugh and it's done me a lot of good. But it's you know, this it's if I were to have a portfolio that's full of that kind of shots, I would say that's I know I wouldn't just not be happy.

SPEAKER_00 36:10

No. Also, just to speak more about what does and doesn't make a photo, is there and forgive me if this is too much of a stretch, because it very well could be, but is there a are there certain traits of a photo that through our evolution we are more likely to respond to? So for example, big eyes that are sharp as hell looking directly into the lens, we know that that will trigger more of an emotional response in the viewer than if, say, the eye was looking somewhere else or even if the eyelid was was closed over. So that's a very obvious one, eyes, because we respond to eyes. Is there other factors and elements of a photo that we are more likely to have an emotional response to that you know me and other young photographers can try and um capture? Or that you think about, right?

SPEAKER_01 37:02

Yes. Well the answer is yes. And um, I'm thinking of too many things right now. So before I give the answer, what's important to realize for starting photographers is um they have to ask themselves who they're photographing for. So, for instance, when I was still working in advertising, this the question that you just asked me was a very, very important one because if you have less than half a second to communicate to your potential customer, um you need to be really really certain that when they look at your ad that they understand it and that they feel a connection. So that's when you start to do a lot of research as to where are people looking, and uh I've seen tons of research like that, like what is the best place for a logo, you know, what's the worst place for text, and etc. etc. So being very aware of those things, I could have decided in my photography to also use uh the that information. Um however the problem becomes when you're starting to use that kind of information just because you want a lot of people liking your shots. And um if that's what you want, you the only thing you need to do is just uh open Instagram and scroll through your feed, and it is very easy for everyone to see uh what works, what people really like. And um so with wildlife on Instagram, for instance, it is absolutely true. You started with the big eyes. So on Instagram, just tight portraits work extremely well. There's one guy on Instagram that shoots only like tight portraits of monkeys. For me, as a as a professional photographer, it has zero artistic value because every shot is like a mugshot. It's like the monkey is like really close in the shot. Just the way I'm I'm we're we're seeing each other now, and um most of the time it's the the the appeal is just because it's an exotic species, and there's not much really special about it, but it works because yeah, you know, it's like uh it's like a full-on headshot, and uh the the the monkey is looking looking you straight in the eyes. So if if that's what you want, if you want to be the most popular photographer, then that that influences your uh your your thinking and the way that you work, because then you have to first start to think, what what does my public like, and then you're gonna shoot that. Um I think that's very unhealthy for an artist. So I think it should be the other way around. You ask yourself what you like and what inspires you and what you're passionate about, and then you're going to photograph that, and you're gonna photograph it in the way that pleases you the most, totally ignoring what other people think of what you're doing. And if you do that, it is much more likely that you'll create something that is original because it comes from your heart, and um it may mean that you will not be as popular as someone who only photographs uh kittens and puppies because those people will likely beat you in terms of popularity, but it's uh yeah, it's just a matter of what you what you want, what kind of career do you want. So, but uh to go back to your question again, to your answer, it's it's the big eyes, it is um high contrast is more popular than low contrast, uh, high sharpness is more popular than low sharpness. Um high saturation, super, super popular as opposed to low saturation. So that's why if you if you compare the most popular black and white images on Instagram with the most popular color images, the difference will be humongous. It will be out of the out of this world. In favor of color. In favor of color, yeah. If you look at the just look at the most popular uh landscape photographers on on Instagram with like a million plus followers, and you'll see that they all have the same things in common. Their images share the same characteristics, and that's uh high sharpness, high contrast, high saturation. So the more saturated and dramatic your skies, you know, the more people are gonna are gonna like it. And that's actually a segue to another subject that you can write down because then we can talk about that later, maybe the influence of social media on uh on photography.

SPEAKER_00 42:27

Cool. If you feel like tackling it right now, go nuts. Otherwise, we can later.

SPEAKER_01 42:32

Yeah, no, let's do that then. So, what what happens with uh especially a medium like uh like Instagram is like let's say you're a beginning photographer and you want to create a following, you want to become more popular because maybe you want to to make photography your your day job. So you're following all these photographers, and every time you see one that you like, you follow that person, and then you well, every day you start scrolling through your Instagram feed, and and you see all these amazing photographs and you'll you like all of them, and then you see below the photograph, you see like this one got like 20,000 likes, and that one got like 30,000 likes from people who have like a million plus followers. And after a while, what will happen, because that's just how our brain works, is what you're seeing will just occupy a part of your creative brain space. And and and in that little brain space that that that that what you're constantly seeing, it will be normalized, that will become the norm. And the next time you're processing your images, you will it will be very hard for you to resist the urge to process your images in exactly that way. That way that you've seen being so successful. for other photographers and then you see how they're uh how they're using light how they're using contrast how they're using color and um so for a reason also not for reason for um for example um I won't mention any names because I don't think it's necessary but necessary but there's like a landscape photographer who shoots all his daytime shots where there is like a blue sky or like uh like half clouded you know puffy white cloud clouds and a blue sky and he makes all that blue he turns it into like some sort of steel blue so like very desaturated blue and dramatic yeah like desaturated and darker than like in reality that I mean it would never occur in reality it's just impossible and the rest of the image would look very natural like very oversaturated of course and uh super sharp but those those blue skies always like fascinated me because I was like why I I understand why but it's it was just something really um something that most people didn't do and then after a while uh as you would expect you you see other photographers doing that as well and then now we've reached reached a stage where uh where every well like a lot of the landscape photographers when there's like a sky that's not like uh sunset or sunrise and has some blue in it then that blue tends to be like heavily desaturated and and darkened to get that same look and that's what I'm talking about when I'm talking about uh the the what I call the un unconscious brainwashing that happens when you spend a lot of time scrolling through um uh the your Instagram feed that you'll be exposed to so many styles and it will just inevitab inevitably influence your your own style so I'm I'm personally very careful with how much time I spend on social media because uh I just I I've noticed it a couple of times you know on processing and then I'm like I wonder what it would look like if I do this and then I realize oh the only reason I'm actually thinking about trying this is because I've seen it before I've I've seen that uh I've seen the other people doing that and that's usually when I stop and then I ask myself like well is this something that I really want or is this just going to be like um like a fashionable thing that I'm going to do only for like a year and then you know I'm I'm hopping on to the next uh the next thing and that's that's what I think is really important we've had the we've had the the period where everybody was using these so-called uh Instagram filters you know all these uh all these looks and that's it's it's getting less and less now but there's still quite a lot of people that do travel photography and even some some wildlife that have these very very heavily filtered uh images that still seem to appeal to a very large number of people whereas if you were to analyze the actual photograph you would realize that the photograph itself isn't that special at all it's actually very very straightforward and all the effect is uh gained through heavy heavy filtering um yeah so that's so the the effect of uh of Instagram or other social media that involves images is that it creates all these like uh fashionable styles that and people all jump on the bandwagon and and start to uh cop copy uh copy that and then um a year or two years later everybody moves in an entirely different direction again and you don't want that because uh if you if you want to look at your own portfolio you should be able to see your own personal development and not like oh this is when I jumped onto uh to this I don't know the word for it it's not a different word for fashion hype yeah hype is the word it's definitely true that social media just further embellishes our sort of uh species no it further embellishes our love for survivorship bias you know we um see and act upon survivorship bias everywhere just because a popular Instagram account starts doing X type of filtering now we're gonna try and copy because we know that that might you know be able to get us some sort of likes and like you say with this landscape photographer who made the still blue skies and then other landscape photographers started following him there's you know it's kind of an inescapable reality of the social media though isn't it because most people's best by far exposure to the random world like the serendipitous world where some art director or someone who's looking for a photographer might find them on Instagram it becomes this almost necessity to do what you can to get the bigger follower count to get the bigger like count and so and so forth. And that's you know that's it sucks but it's kind of it's just life isn't it like that's the reality that's this slog that I suppose you have to go through and if you're brilliant enough to really differentiate yourself and still get the likes and followers then I mean that's amazing but I wonder and this is also again I might be grabbing at more than uh I should but don't we sort of also instinctually not respond that well to hyper edited hyper saturated photos because we know that in our lives we've never seen you know a mountainous foreground with an animal in front so clear and as well um pictured with our own eyes and so we kind of don't believe it as much I I'm not sure what you make of that but there's a part of me that thinks photos actually perform better not necessarily on Instagram but maybe in a gallery they perform better if they're more realistic if the viewer can say wow like I've I could have seen this exact thing in my life whereas if it was hyper edited they'd be like this a computer made this wasn't actually captured in the world do you know what I'm trying to say yes I am uh yes I do uh I I do understand um and I I agree uh I think it has to do with uh context so um on Instagram for instance because it's um let's be honest it's a ridiculous medium for photography because it makes no sense how small the images are on there you would expect uh the most important uh platform for photographers to show the images the glorious size instead of these uh pathetic thumbnails um and yet there we are um and the the thing is that in an Instagram feed people are scrolling through that and the images are so small if you want to stand out you know you have to be your images your image needs to be screaming it needs to be screaming for attention and screaming is uh loud colors and it's high contrast and lots of clarity and in-your-face subjects so it's the that it's the entire context that determines the popularity also of a certain kind of image and I agree that completely different rules apply if you were to create a portfolio for for a for a gallery for a physical gallery that has like large very large prints because then that would just look horrible all those oversaturated images that you see on Instagram I don't think that would that would work it would just be like well your your your your crazy uncle in his Hawaii shirt you know it's just like too much too much in your in your face and but yeah that but again it depends on what you want to do with your photography. So if you're an uh a photography photographer who just wants online fame then it for me it's very clear what direction you need to go yet if you want to be like the photographer who sells limited edition uh prints uh that at a very large size yeah then you need to do something completely different. Let's talk more about the post-production um because it seems like in your career from film to now how do you think about post-production and do you do it all yourself as well yeah so the the the um ex the analogy that I often make is that um of a professional chef so for a photographer you know it's important that you you get the best uh uh on location and you get like super high quality image uh however it is usually that's that's just um more or less a copy of what you've seen because that's that just tends to to be the thing that cameras do they you know they may they make a copy of what you're what you're looking at and um it is during the post processing uh time that you're really gonna add your own spin to it you're gonna add your own your your own recipe so like I said with a a chef the same you know a chef will buy the best ingredients like the best piece of fish but that chef will not then just throw that fish in a pan and then cook it and then serve it to you because that would there would be no art in that it would just be catching a fish cooking it and putting on your plate so what a chef will do is he will add certain herbs and certain spices and especial sauce and it's the combination of those those little tweaks that make that fish into something much more than just the fish. And I for me post processing is post-processing is exactly the same thing. I also want to have the the best quality ingredients so my that would be my raw file but then during the post processing that's when I start to uh tweak uh the image a little bit and I try to make that image the way that I w like it to be and that's usually not exactly how I saw it. So that might that might be as simple as just making it brighter or darker but it can also be increasing or lowering contrast and all kinds of selective adjustments that I can do. And so for me that's a super important part of the of the photography because that's where I make the image my own and before the post processing I I usually don't feel like the image is mine. I just feel like it's it's just been out there and I just I just grabbed it and and then I still have to make it my own. Nice um Bjorn Pershing said that the raw file is the canvas and then what he does with it after is the sort of the art the painting so forth I I I really like that um cooking analogy are you doing it yourself and is it Photoshop and Lightroom that you're using yes I do everything myself and it is Lightroom and Photoshop that I'm using and uh with a with a bunch of uh plugins for uh for certain things that I want to do this is the thing that I um am just so weak at is making I can see the raw file and I can see in my head that's how I want it to look recreating that within the uh the application is um I don't know it's it's obviously a learning curve right it's not something that is impossible it's something you can get to but um it is just like a I don't know it's a frustration isn't it you know because you know how you want it to look but you can't necessarily do it and yeah I know I know very much I I know very much how that feels because when I was in art school uh one of the things we had to learn was uh drawing so then we would have uh drawing lessons and then we would be in this one room and there would be like uh usually an overweight model naked in the middle we got our charcoal or whatever and then we had to like uh well get going and then uh an hour later we had to show the results and I I royally sucked at uh at drawing I was just so bad at it I just I could I could see it and then for some reason my hand would just not be able to to draw what I was seeing whereas most of my um most of the other students in my class they they yeah they were amazing at it and so it's just yeah that's that's hard to learn I still can't I still can't draw so for photography I think there's those are really two different uh disciplines how you say that yeah so the photography is one thing the post processing is an entirely different thing that requires a completely different skill set and so to master both of them is uh that's not easy and uh I would argue that the uh the the photo taking part is actually the easy part and and it's the post-processing part that's the really difficult part because that's where you need to be really creative and really have like a a vision working towards that.

SPEAKER_00 59:31

Yeah. So we've inadvertently been speaking the mechanics of photography for a while so I have a few more on that and then general questions and then the economics of photography. So take me behind the scenes of taking some of these shots. So just off the top of my head I remember the Golden Couple it required you uh sort of strategically following them for a while. It wasn't necessarily where you could just set up and forget it.

SPEAKER_01 59:59

I mean David Yarrow talks about predicting the movement of animals and he has some photos that he's taken with pre-focused remote control cameras that he'll then take from a distance but then Bjorn Persian the other week was telling me about how one of his best photos he took from a jeep just because the animal happened to come up at the perfect time but then he's also crawled under the nose of a rhino to also take photos so there's a gamma spectrum of how it can be done how do you do it and how do you think about it so with regards to that to that golden couple image of the two golden snub nosed monkeys I I would actually I should actually start taking a few steps back because that's actually the most important part of the of the picture taking and that's the part where you're still at home. That for me is always the most important part of the entire journey towards the towards the image because when I'm still at home that's when I start pre-visualizing coming up with ideas and so for this specific species for instance I did a lot of research to find out okay where do they live and how do they behave and what does the habitat look like and what kind of images are already out there. This is one of the most important questions to to ask what's already out there because if you want to make it as a photographer you need to you you need to create content that is fresh. So if you find out that your subject has been shot to death already you know that's going to make it super hard for you to create something that has a feeling of uniqueness to it. So already at home I did a lot of research and then I realized you know I'm lucky because not a lot of people have photographed this species before so that gives you like a blank slate almost the other thing that I realized and this is why it's important to be very aware of your own aesthetic preferences is that these monkeys live in in rainforest so it's like a dense dense foliage. And being as allergic to distractions and clutter as I am that presented a major challenge for me because you usually that's so off putting to me that I decide to not photograph a certain species just because I don't like the habitat and I already know that whatever I'm gonna shoot I'm gonna be frustrated because of the lack of simplicity and the abundance of distractions. So I really had to think very hard about how am I gonna manage this nightmare of a habitat and that's when I decided okay I'll have to create my own light so I have to try to control the super high contrast in the that forests usually have especially when there's bright sunlight so I need to reduce the contrast I need to get rid of the brightness in the background and I need to create my own light so that I can create more separation between foreground and background. So and then by studying the animals I realized that the the most glorious part of their body is actually the the back they have these really long guard hairs on the back and I really wanted them to to stand out. So then my plan was to go to China follow them as much as I could and use off camera flash from like a sharp angle and hopefully on the back of a monkey with a monkey looking sideways and meanwhile using my the my exposure to lower the ambient light and make the flashlight more dominant and by doing that I would have more control over the over the habitat basically so that's how it so that's how it started and I think that's really important because it for me that meant that even though I'd never been there before the moment I got to that place I already had a plan. I knew okay this is what I'm working for and this is the technique I'm gonna use this is the these are the this is the gear that I'm gonna use need for that and after that it was just you know trying and trying and trying to get something that looked the way that I had pre-visualized it. And that's how I prefer to work. So to put it so the idea is leading and pre-visualization is the most important creative tool that I use for that.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:18

So in that specific photo you actually had someone else um administering a flash from another angle to highlight the back. So that really is making a photo rather than taking a photo that famous distinction.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:38

So um yeah we're we're a team so whatever what whatever I do you know she is she's very important for that so we um we always work very closely together and the obvious benefit in a situation like that is that I can use her as a as an assistant basically because if if Uh well you can't do that with it with a light stand for instance. That would be too uh too not flexible enough. So yeah, so then she is she's holding the flash for me and I just can tell her the you know hold it lower or higher or uh uh use a different angle, etc. While I'm checking the results, I can make small adjustments to the flash output and um so there's a lot of variables when you're when you're doing something like that, and it can also be quite stressful, I think, because if you're if you're only using ambient light, there's only one thing that you need to do. Just keep looking through your lens and keep watching your subject and press the shutter when something uh interesting happens. But the moment you're doing something like this with uh with uh off-camera flash, it becomes way more complicated because there's a ton more things you constantly have to think about because you have to think about uh how the light is changing, so you have to uh make adjustments for the ambient light, and then you also have to make adjustments for the flash output. You have to look at the exact angle of the of the light. So but in the end, you know, it's it's it's it's a lot more fun to work like that than to just uh move through nature uh like a copy machine.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:27

Well, yeah, but it's also I mean that's also the level of professionalism that gets you that type of photo, right? I mean, the type of resources, the access, the fact that you're in that geophotographer, like all of that comes into being able to be in that moment there, which is truly amazing. Um, just a very specific mechanical question, which will, if the audience hasn't already been um um isolated, it'll be furthermore. But can you talk about ISO? So you you shot this golden couple at 1600 ISO, and I've always been told by professional photographers to keep it as low as possible. Now, clearly you're in the bush, so you need to pump it up a bit. But was that you just through the range finder finding the ISO that works, or was that you knowing beforehand exactly what the 1600 is going to give you?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:22

Well, in the in that in that particular location, the uh the the forest was quite dense, so it was actually quite darkish. So, in order to get a decent uh to get a decent shutter speed, also I you know I was shooting handheld. Um I tend to shoot with relatively high ISOs because I just don't want to risk having any motion blur. And cameras nowadays are so good, you know, the sensors are amazing. My uh all my all my uh Nikon cameras, whether it's a D850 or my Z7, at super high ISOs, they still perform very well. As an example, I have there's one photograph in my in my in my book of a leopard drinking. If you look at the exif you'll see that I shot it at uh I think 51800 or something ISO. So just ridiculously high, yet it is um it's printed in a in a large at a large format in a photo book. I think it looks uh looks pretty good for for ISO that high. So I would say that ISO 1600 is not actually that um that high at all. If I go on a Safari, my default ISO is usually already 800 because I know that because I know that gives me high shutter speeds. So if something suddenly jumps, you know, on on my left and it happens to be like a super shaded area in the early morning, then that's that's not going to be a lot of light there. Um but I have to be fast, you know, if I want to if I want to get that shot. I don't want to be messing around with uh with ISO. So uh that's just that's a little bit of a compromise. But at 1600 ISO you still don't see any any noise. There's it's obviously a little effect, so it affects color saturation a bit. So be you lose some you lose some saturation. You get your the the the characteristics of your of your pixels look a little bit different, but um that's a compromise I'm very happy to uh to take because it uh makes my that's interesting to hear.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:43

Um it's great as well. It's contrary to everything I've been told because I've been walking around uh say Sweden right now, it's extremely dark. So if there's a cloud over the sky, I mean it's really dark. So I'm walking around 1200 ISO thinking, ah damn it, I don't want to pump it up too much more because all my professional advice so far has been to keep it as low as possible.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:03

Um I just should I should add that um there is there's quite a difference between uh, for instance, shooting a landscape or an animal is totally static and you have to time, and um trying to be prepared for something that might happen, or trying to shoot something that's just uh very fast. And for on a safari, you just have to always be prepared for the unexpected, so that's why I prefer to have the high ISO. However, when I'm shooting landscapes, I'm shooting the lowest ISO that I can shoot, because that means that I just have uh max maximized my dynamic range and uh capture as much uh noiseless information as as possible. But it's especially with the wildlife that I'm I'm not afraid. If you if you were to flip through the uh thumbnails in my book with and look at all the exit information, you'll see that uh I I use 1600, 3200, 6400, uh quite a lot, actually.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:10

The biggest variable for these great photos, well maybe not the biggest variable, but a massive variable is like distance from the animal. And so that's kind of what I was trying to get at before. Um, you know, the closer the animal is to the lens, the more we are going to instinctually respond to the photo, you know. Again, coming back to what do we respond to when we see an eye, but also if we can tell it's in front of us. So, how do you think about this variable getting cl as close as possible to the animals?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:44

Well, I think you need to distinguish between um getting as close as possible to the animals, uh whether you're talking about um physic physically getting closer to the animal or getting the animal as big as possible in the frame, because those are two different things entirely.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:09

No, I'm talking about distance, physical distance. Physical distance.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:13

Um well yeah, I'm not so sure I'm not sure whether I agree because um I think what what the the physical distance, what it does, if you're if you're super close to the animal, um even if you're not a photographer, you'll instantly feel that uh you are very close to the animal. Um while that certainly can have its charms, it can also destroy the uh the feeling of like uh wildness. Because with a lot of animals it's just not very natural to uh to be so close to an animal. So if I have like a super wide angle lens, a sort of sorry, a super wide angle shot of a uh of a polar bear, you know that it won't feel wild, it will feel like you shot it in a zoo, because that would be the only place where you could get super close to a polar bear. In real life, you would never get super close to a polar bear other than with a remote-controlled camera. So, as a photographer, you need to be very aware of the effect that uh your physical distance to the subject has as well as the effect of each focal length, because it will have an effect, and most of the time it's subliminal, so subconscious people won't really pick up what causes this effect, but that they will feel it. And so I would argue that it's not necessarily the case that getting closer to your subject makes the image more impactful, it will just tell a completely different story and it will communicate a different kind of uh of feeling. So to add to that, uh for me the main reason to want to get closer to an animal is to be able to use a shorter focal length. And I don't want to do that to uh to get a more in-your-face shot, but I want to do that to be able to include more of the habitat or more of the sky. Because the longer your focal length, the more you lose of the uh the habitat usually, not only in uh in terms of the amount of habitat that you'll be able to include, but also how that habitat will uh will look like, which means with a long lens the habitat will usually be reduced to either a blur or something that's uh very very out of focus. Whereas if you try to shoot the same scene with a with a short lens and ending up with the animal the same size in the frame, you'll have a lot more habitat in the background and it will be a lot more sharp.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:13

Yeah, so it is just uh it's a balance, right? Whatever the individual photo is you're looking for requires the different attention to uh how close you're gonna be and so forth. Yes. Um Marcel, I'm um I'm interviewing as many photographers as I can, right, for this podcast. And I'm all asking them this same question, and I want to be able to see at the end what the you know what the most common responses are or what it what it is and so forth. So if you could give a percentage allocation on a pie graph to the following ingredients for what makes a great photographer. So just three components percentage allocation on a pie graph, research and access, the equipment, and then the eye of the photographer.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:09

I I don't understand why the first one is is combined research and access.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:16

We can make it separate. So four components.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:20

Yeah, so research I would say um seventy-five.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:32

Um access, you need to define for me what you So access, for example, you're a national geographic photographer with lots of resources. You can say go walk in Cameroon and take photos of silverback apes if you really wanted to. That is not possible for me, just given limited access to limited resources. So access and resources are one of the same, but also the fact that you're not geophotographer is huge access. So um think about access like that. Your ability to go into Antarctica, for example, that's very limited access. Um, so how important is access um and resources? Consider them the same.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:14

Um that's a really that's a tough one. Can I only can I only say a number or can I also explain afterwards? Of course.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:28

Of course, yeah, explain. Explain away. But it would be nice to get the numbers.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:33

Um so my well for me personally, it's what you think being the photographer that I am and what I like to do, uh yeah, access is super important. Obviously, otherwise I wouldn't be able to do what I do. So I would give that like uh I don't know, 80, 80%. Yeah. However, um when I just started as a photographer, I didn't have all that access. And um, I just you know, you just have to work with what you got, and you just have to come up with all kinds of solutions and you start like you know differently. So uh when I was just starting in photography, I did a lot of photography in zoos, or just photograph, yeah, or photograph, you know, animals close to home. I shot a lot of like cows, even. So it doesn't, yeah, it did, I mean it doesn't really matter because it's that's good practice, and um even though most wildlife photographers will make a very clear distinction between wildlife and uh animal sorry, uh how do you call it farm animals? Yeah, but farm animals, I never really understood why, because for me they're all animals, so I don't see why you know it's being I I couldn't I could not enter a photograph of a of a cow into the Wildlife Tour of the Year awards, and I think that's just just absurd. Anyway, so I I you know I could take a lot of photographs of cows, horses. I actually follow one photographer on Instagram, I th uh maybe even two, that create this amazing photographs of horses. You know, every country has horses. You can just go, you know, somewhere where they have horses, and you can just go crazy and try to uh uh create something beautiful. So even though I'm shooting what I'm shooting and I'm going to all these places doesn't mean that this is something that I knew that I was always going to do. This is just something that evolved over time, and I'm pretty sure that if I hadn't had the resources that I have or the access, as you call it, I would have come up with a different solution because that's what creative people do. You know, they they look at for their options and they look at the parameters and the limits, and then they just come up with an idea. And if it wasn't if it had not been possible for me to go to all these places to photograph uh wildlife, I'm pretty certain I would have just moved into a more landscapish sort of direction and spent a lot more time on landscapes. So while for me it is really important, uh this doesn't apply to everyone else. Even not to me uh 15 years ago, it would have been would have been different.

unknown 1:21:42

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:42

Sorry, that's not very long answer, but it's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:44

No, but it's it's it's nice and it's also an inspiring message as well, um, because you know only the tail end of the distribution really do have that access. The rest of everyone in the group is a good thing. You know, and it's the same amount of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:57

Yeah, and it's a and it's a critique that people like myself often get, you know, the the and it's usually the same. It's usually, yeah, but you know, yeah, for you it's easy because you you you can go to all these places and uh and and get these photographs. And um, and that's that's that is very limited, very narrow-minded thinking. Um I follow a guy that does macro photography, even though I hate macro photography myself, but he creates the most amazing stuff, and it's all like right where he lives, and absolute art. And you know, he doesn't have to travel at all. He probably never even leaves his own province. And but yet he has you know he has he's found something that he is really passionate about, and and that's all he needs. And I think that people should instead of looking at it as a as a problem that they can never solve, just you know, keep looking at opportunities, keep looking at ideas, um to to just do something else, because otherwise you'll just end up super frustrated and you'll always be saying, Well, this Marshall guy, and he always goes to Antarctica, and I can never go because I don't have the resources. Yeah, that's that sucks, but you know, that also goes for me. Because if I see someone driving a beautiful car, then I'll also say, like, well, why is he driving that car? I'm I'm I'm on my mountain bike. You know, that's that it's yeah, that's that's that's not how you should live your life, I think. Just you should look at everything as a as an as an opportunity to come up with ideas.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:40

And um, all right, next beautiful, beautiful. So round it out then for us. Equipment, eye of the photographer, research access. How do they fit on the pie chart?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:52

Okay, so then uh the next one is equipment. I think equipment uh is probably like uh well let's say 30. Okay, 30% equipment. Yeah, maybe 25. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe 20. Yeah, it's so uh while equ having good equipment definitely helps. It helps you to bring something that's already good, maybe to being something that's maybe uh a little bit better, or it helps you to get images that would be a little bit more difficult with uh equipment that is uh not as sophisticated. But in the end, uh the equipment is uh not important at all. That's just a tool, and it's basically like saying to a painter, like, oh wow, that's an amazing painting, you must have like a really good brush. You know, that's that makes that makes no sense. And it's the same for me. If you give me if you give me the cheapest Nikon with uh with a kit lens, I will still be able to do exactly what I'm doing now. It will probably just take me a little bit more effort, and uh but it yeah, it would not make a whole lot of difference, and so that's why I'm always telling people that ask me for uh advice on equipment, especially for starting photographers, please do not spend all your money on getting the the most expensive bodies and the most expensive lenses, because that's just a waste of money. It's better to spend that money on a on a course or uh you know go on a photo tour with uh with a with a photographer that you admire that you can learn from, because that's so much more valuable than just a tool, you know. And um, so that's why the that percentage is is is rather low. Rather low, yeah. Yeah. And then the last one is the the the the what did you call the creative eye? Yeah, the eye. Yeah, that's it, but that must be a hundred, uh that's the most that's that's that's um that's the most important thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:14

Uh just say we've ended up with 280%. So I'll uh I'll wrap that down to fit it into a hundred.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:21

Okay, so that means that the the I is a hundred and the all the other three are zero. Um yeah, okay, so I would say then let's let's then make the I 75 and then make the uh the resources maybe uh like uh yeah. Let's make it like twenty, like low. So then we're already at ninety-five. Yeah, so we just left five. No, you you do the math. That's good. I'll figure that out. So the resources and the equipment and uh and that that's all that's all trivial compared to the to the eye. That's the most important thing. And um yeah, everything everything is about that, uh, how you as a photographer look at things. And it's every photograph is the res is the result of a million tiny little decisions. And that's basically what it all boils down to making the right decisions, and because there's a whole list of decisions you have to work through to get to your uh to get to your photograph, whether that is uh what you're gonna photograph, why you're gonna photograph it, when you're gonna photograph it, uh, when and where and how. Those are all very important questions, and the answers to those questions determine. where you will end up and what you're gonna shoot and with what and what technique etc and so it's it's basically just making a whole bunch of decisions and it's all done in your head and has nothing to do with money or with uh with gear or whatever it's all um it's all part of the creative creative process so that's the most important thing and that's why I always tell people that they should spend a lot more time thinking before they start uh shooting because that will that will result in in um in better and more original uh photographs and let's talk just very briefly about the economics of photography because creating artificial scarcity is something that's really interesting to me you know how do you price it the right way how do you distribute it the right way so I noticed that you have a limited edition photo book you sell your prints as fine art on your website I assume you're cooperating with many galleries around the world talk to me a little bit about creating artificial scarcity and getting the price right yeah so this this is this is actually a very difficult uh topic because um that was something that puzzled me and confused me greatly when I just started in photography because you're creating something that has very little value um other than what you decide uh develop the value it uh it's gonna be um I found that very difficult uh in the beginning because you can make it you can make it whatever you know I can't I can decide tomorrow that I'm gonna increase my print prices tenfold and I you know that would be perfectly fine for me to do that um but the question is you know um just like in advertising what kind of product do you want to sell you know do you want to be um available to a lot of people that a lot of people can buy your your your art or don't you do you want to be like the Louis Vuitton or the you know the Bentley of uh of wildlife photography and that's uh that's up to me to decide that and for now I've just always decided that I didn't want to be like the the the Bentley of uh wildlife photography because I I just wanted to be that well to price my my art in a way that other people can also afford it and I might I might change that I might not um I'm not sure I and just to understand that you mean if you were the Bentley of wildlife photography you would create lim limited edition prints way less editions and much higher prices versus what you're doing now which is more prints but at a lower price for access to the regular person yeah yes that's what I that's what I would do because you know in the end there's a there's a million products that you can come up with that are like super super high quality yet they're quite affordable like Toyota for instance you know you can't break a Toyota it will just always run so in terms of value for money you know everybody should just buy a Toyota. However a lot of people will well not a lot but some people would just buy not a Toyota they'll buy Ferrari even though we know that they're you know they're not as durable and they're very expensive to maintain etc etc but it's you know yeah that's some people just want to buy expensive things and Louis Vuitton is the best example I think of something that is not only ugly but like horribly over horribly overpriced and it makes zero sense whatsoever to spend thousands of dollars on a s on a small handbag that looks hideous. But yet people do it because they're tricked into you know into believing that this is the most exclusive thing that they can buy and that it will enrich their lives.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:16

But no because they mastered the artificial scarcity you know I forget who said it but it was basically there's no margins like luxury fashion. Yes and the same could be said for the highest end of art as well if you can position yourself in this super scarce high status limited edition wow look I have a you know a Paul Nicholin hanging on my wall it can become this type of you know yeah that no sure I mean I don't know what the most expensive photographs that was ever that's ever been sold I think it was like I don't know two and a half million or something.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:54

I don't even know that the it was it was it was it was contested right I think it was Peter Lick and it was yeah he was the first one I think that sold something for a million and I think that's gone up since that image was called one I think and it was um I know Peter a little bit but in all honesty I don't think that anyone should pay a million dollars for um for you know an image image like that you know that that to me it made no to me it didn't make it didn't make any sense and I would I still struggle to understand why out of the I would yeah that's it so that's why I said it's it's basically it's just saying okay this photograph is the Louis Vuitton of the Bentleys and it's like super super scarce and and yeah I know I'm too rational I'm too rational for that kind of thinking yeah which is which is good um though you are do exist in a field that is subject to that type of thinking right and it's something that I you know really uh do think about a lot you know like what how do you find the right pricing and if you take the ethical considerations away for a moment and just think about what is your maximum revenue you can make like imagine the Facebook update photo now many editions have already been sold but imagine you took that and you said you know what I'm gonna do limited 10 editions this photo that's been seen a hundred million times across the world um you know it could feasibly be one of these million dollar photos that gets printed blown up and you know put on the wall of some tasteless you know businessman right it's theoretically it could that that that could play out like that and I just find it fascinating uh to ask someone who's in the situation how do you deal with it and how do you think about it you know which I know you've already said but nonetheless that's why yeah so and some too much and too down to earth and being Dutch I think also yeah you know yeah I I yeah I I I don't think I could ever sell something for a crazy amount like that. Yeah I would I wouldn't be able to look at myself in the mirror I think to to do that unless I would think that I had really created something that is not only unique but also like important so that if you you know you can imagine if you were the only photographer in the world to get a photograph of I don't know some president getting shot something you know that is and you're the only one to get that then well that's an important part of history and so being the only photograph yeah that makes it super valuable. But with art it's I mean it will always be difficult you know some some paintings are being sold for millions and then there's there's a lot of paintings that I think are are much better and there's crap that sells for millions and millions and millions of dollars.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:08

And that's almost the artist taking the stuff that is I think so yeah that's unfortunately beauty doesn't dictate the price it really is it always just comes back down to this random status artificial scarcity.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:24

Yeah and that that's that's something that I really struggled with when I was in art school because being as hyper rational as as I am it was really difficult to to be in art school because there was just so much bullshit being taught and being being discussed you know and I was constantly like seriously are you really what I'm doing and that I'm not like turned into like a painter or something like that. Just speaking exclusively in emotional language no yeah that that I would that I find very very hard yeah I like to talk about ideas and not so much about emotions because it's you know that's it's super personal and yeah that m that's yeah just no I wonder if I could ask you one more dirty economics question. Basically from your experience uh 20 plus years you know at the top of the industry how do you see how do you see popularity for photographs changing photographic books changing and for photography in general are there like large trends that you can see um just through conversations you might have with people and with National Geographic and so forth and maybe Nikon like you might be getting signals that other people might not be able to see well obviously photography is is developing like super rapidly uh because of uh because of social media and um so if you compare photography now to like uh I don't know when what when Facebook started it must it was like 2000 um yeah five I think yeah something like that yeah that was an entirely different ball game there was just people people who really liked photography that were photographing and then with social media yeah it was different and suddenly you got a lot of people interested in photography not because they wanted to photograph they want that it was just to be more popular basically and get get uh like get likes and and followers so I think that has greatly influenced uh photography as a as a business that uh yeah people are there's a lot of copying going on in photography there's a lot of more traveling because of social media because everybody wants to go to the most remote and beautiful areas most exotic locations to take photographs there and again to get more likes and followers so the the whole idea behind it the how do you call it the the engine that's running it is different the motivations are different at the same time what I'm seeing is what I've predicted a long time ago that is that uh video will eventually take over from uh photography so I'm actually I actually think that photography as we're still doing it will become less and less and less and it will especially for the wildlife and action sports photographers will move towards video much more because you'll just be constantly videoing instead of taking photographs so you will never mention you'll never miss you'll never miss a moment we're already we already have cameras that shoot more than 24 frames per second and 24 frames per second is uh is video I think we're getting to the stage where you're basically shooting video and the technique is already there where you're even when you're not shooting the camera is constantly recording and then discarding the material that is shooting after like 10 seconds. So even pressing the button too late doesn't mean anything because you still have it because the camera is the camera is running anyway so that that technology is already out there and it's already being used. So that will already that will also go into like consumer electronics and then yeah you see also on platforms like Instagram and TikTok you see everything is focusing on on video and Instagram is pushing video and tic tac and Snapchats all video video so this entire young generation is growing up with video and I think we might end up with with a generation that doesn't easily get excited anymore about anything in particular but especially not with photographs. So I think that photography might be too boring maybe you know people have seen have seen everything you know they have seen all the exotic locations in the world they have seen all the animals in the world and it will be too difficult for for people to um to get excited about a photograph so then they'll still get excited about stupid things like someone in a penguin suit doing a strange dance you know in front of a camera and I think that's that's gonna excite people more because they've seen everything already. Either that or photography is going to move completely in a direction of where everything is so heavily manipulated that it's gonna be very very far away from reality I don't think we can continue doing what we're doing like forever because people they're all their attention span is already getting shorter and shorter and shorter so I don't see how in 25 years people will still you know look at an image the way that they're doing now.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:52

That's that's really interesting to hear I think you are probably right or almost certainly right in that fact that everything's moving towards video.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:02

But I just wonder if there is ever going to be something that will replace the image on the wall you know the other but it will because it's it's already happening because it started with those tiny little uh photo frames that you can plug into your computer and then you can load up like like a hundred images so that instead of having that one single image in that frame on your uh you know on your uh how do you how do you call that cabinet or whatever shelf yeah and instead of that it's gonna change like every 10 seconds because uh God forbid that you get bored looking at that same picture so it's the same way that people are using the television you know there's already companies out there actually I've been comp uh contacted by one of them that uh that's just an app you can install on your TV and you can leave your TV on the entire time and as as TVs the size of TVs is growing rapidly so instead of having that black screen there you just have like all these beautiful images from professional photographers and it's just uh constantly changing you know so I think that's what's gonna happen because why would you have one image constantly on your wall at the same time you could say you know in the evening I would like to have this image because it's more subdued in colors it's darker and when I have friends over I want to have this image sure and and I think that's gonna happen because that technology is going to get cheaper and cheaper and more accessible for uh for everyone yeah that's true it's kind of a it's kind of a depressing dystopian outlook too because I can also completely imagine that same digital frame which you hang on the wall sitting TV it will eventually just play short videos as well almost on a loop you know because if you're just gonna be I mean you're a product of your environment right and if you most of the time is watching short videos on TikTok I'd like how you called it Tic Tac by the way or Instagram or something like this then yeah you're almost you're already primed for that type of entertainment or that type of you know background imagery to be hang hanging around in your house and I mean advertisements as you I'm I'm sure you know you know they've moved to a lot of video and like places where they used to be stationary at bus stops I'm watching videos on the bus I'm watching videos. So yeah it's shorter also videos and commercials uh have are getting shorter and shorter and shorter because they realize that uh people people have a very short attention span and everything has become on demand. So people have no patience whatsoever. This is a good thing for people like myself you know the wildlife photograph needs to have a lot of patience and uh but the way that people grow up now it's uh they have zero patience so um yeah everything has to be fast and changing constantly so that will that will have an effect if you look at old movies uh even like even like 20 years ago it's not that long ago but if you look at those movies they're painfully slow you know like really come on and and so that means that we as people we you know we're getting more and more used to things going fast if you look at video clips how fast they're edited as opposed to like 30 years ago or or 20 years ago everything was slow painfully slow so it's I think it's it this will continue this will develop and now I don't think if I if all the images in my house were replaced with videos it would drive me crazy because it would be just you know you would just not you would feel restless but maybe people in 30 years will be totally fine with that because they're used to constantly be bombarded with small video clips all over the place and I think that they'll probably be be fine with it.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:25

Yeah. I wonder as well if you could give an insight into national geographic how has their readership and their engagement changed and maybe dropped off or increased in the time you've known them because that might be a good high level signal to say what is going to happen to attention to wildlife or to you know yeah well I think that if you if you look at the magazine um I think they've they've s really stuck to uh what they've been doing and what they've what have made them great.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:02

I mean they've just diversified into doing more things like doing TV doing documentaries and um having a very strong presence on on the internet but at their core they're still doing the same thing so it's still very uh uh high level of journalism uh not not so much the pure art but like sticking very close to uh to reality whatever that is but like really they want to be the the trusted uh medium so that people can trust that whatever they're seeing in National Geographic has not been doctored and is uh actually something that that happened and this is this is very important to them so this is what they're gonna stick to I'm guessing forever and this is entirely different from what you see happening elsewhere so if if you look on social media actually it's moving the opposite direction so it's very hard to tell what is real on when you go on Instagram and for people like myself it's very easy to tell whether something is real or not because of my knowledge of animals and my knowledge of how how light works and you know how the weather works and that sort of thing. So if I see a photograph with a very big moon and the moon is has clouds behind it then it's uh you know it's a dead giveaway that it's uh that it that moon has been pasted in the sky but if you look at the comments of images like that you'll you'll see that people don't know you know they they just look at oh wow that's so beautiful and and then later they find out that they've been tricked into thinking that it's real and that's why National Geographic is like you You can trust them. But what you see in the magazine is usually it's something that's important and it's real. And they've done that in the most artistic way within their very tight uh parameters that I set up. So even though they use my work every now and then, I am not an initial geograp geographic photographer in a sense that I directly shoot assignments for them. And there's also a reason for that because of what I just explained earlier. They are way more conservative in the post-processing part than I am. So I would I would not feel comfortable getting my images published without me being able to fine-tune them and make them 100% me. And even though it's usually tiny little things that I would like to tweak, you know, those tweaks are very often already outside of their limits. So it usually works the other way around. They ask me whether they can use a certain image, and then if that image is say very close to what I shot, then they can obviously use it. But quite often I've done something to the image. So for instance, if I clone out a tiny little branch that sticks into the frame, that for me that's a no-brainer. Of course, I'm gonna remove that because it's distracting and it serves no purpose. So from an artistic point of view, there is zero reason for me to keep a distracting branch in the image if it looks much better without it. But for them, that is already crossing a bridge that they don't want to cross. Because for them they say, Well, you know, that's big then it becomes a slippery slope. Where do you draw the line? You know, the next next photograph you might say, Well, I have three monkeys in this shot. I only want to have two, so I'm just gonna remove one. And yeah, that turns into an entirely new discussion about uh what is truth, what is reality, what is art, where do you draw the line, what is allowed, what is not allowed, and uh that would take another three hours.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:35

Though I do think we've kind of addressed those questions throughout, to be honest. Yeah. Um look, Marcel, I have a number of questions here for you. I wanted to start with um your adopted home, South Africa. So this isn't a photography question. Um, you might have seen that this podcast is more geopolitically focused, right? The uh photography angle is kind of a new direction. Um but how optimistic are you about this country's future? And I'm you know really leaning into the politics of things here. How is it to live there at the moment? Because I saw earlier in the year and in 2020 lots of really distressing stories coming out of South Africa, but you know, it's hard to know how dramatic it all is. So I'd yeah, I'd love to hear what you think about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:27

Yeah, so um when we decided to move to South Africa, we were uh we're very aware that this country has its uh problems and uh challenges, but um because we travel so much all over the world and we got to a lot of different countries, uh we realized that you know every country has its problems and its challenges, and whether it's uh I don't know, whether it's China or Turkey or Iran or uh South Africa, you know, the they all have uh they all have serious issues that they have to deal with. And South Africa is no different. Um South Africa has a very problematic history, and uh luckily that's that's has all been changed. Um still a long way to go, I think, but it's also a very big country, and um you know the the one end of the country is is completely different from the other part. So for instance, where I live, it's near the coast, it's uh it's quite relaxed and chill, and but if I were to live in Johannesburg, it's yeah, it's completely different there, it's a different way of life, and um but yeah, so we're we're happy where we live for a lot of reasons, and uh it's it's not only the weather. I mean you've lived in the Netherlands, so you know how it is there, so it's not always very pleasant. And um, we prefer the mentality here, people are more friendly. Um, there's a lot more nature here, which I obviously uh like very much. So we spent a lot more time outdoors here than we have ever done in Amsterdam. Um it's cheaper here, so it's a long list of reasons, and for us it was a no-brainer to um to to move here. And um I'm I'm I'm a bit of a pessimist when it comes to people. So um I'm not very hopeful in terms of you just have low expectations of them. Yes, yeah, yeah, very much so. So I I think we're just as a species, we're just extremely selfish and short-sighted. And we're very clever, but we use that cleverness always too late. So we first, because of our selfishness, we first let things escalate because we just don't like to deal with the problems because too much effort or it costs too much money, and then when it totally goes out of control, that's when we use our cleverness and then we come up with all kinds of solutions. But by then, usually we've already like caused a lot of damage and destroyed a lot of stuff, and uh but but we're reaching the point where I think that's that's going to like go faster and faster, right? The the rate of destruction in my book. I also talk about that because everyone is so uh focused on climate change, you know, and uh the destruction of the rainforest and that sort of stuff. Um I agree with all that because I'm also concerned about climate change, and I'm also concerned about the fact that so many species are being uh and uh threatened with extinction or endangered, losing habitat. Um but for me the main reason of all of that is overpopulation. There can there can only be one reason for me, and that's it. It's just there's way too many people on this planet. And uh and but that's the elephant in the in the conservation room that nobody wants to talk about. It is completely off topic. But realistically speaking, if we had like uh if world population would be halved tomorrow by some catastrophic event, we wouldn't be talking about uh climate change anymore, we would not be talking about uh habitat uh loss for animals because suddenly you know people would have would have a ton of space, the the resources would be enough, and uh we would not pollute as much, we would not, you know, animals would have more space to wander into. Basically, everything would be solved with less people on this planet, but uh yeah, it's the it's the big taboo. We cannot address it. Whereas if you if you uh if you ask these statisticians, uh the people who know about these kind of uh developments, that that they have been warning us for decades, and it's looking very grim. You know, the the population on the planet is still growing rapidly, and to make matters worse, populations are growing the fastest in places where the problems that are caused by uh population growth are the biggest. So that would be like Africa, for instance, sub-Saharan Africa. Lagos, Nigeria, one of those crazy places. Yes, yeah, Nigeria is gonna be the second or third biggest country in the world in terms of uh of inhabitants, population. Population, yeah. Yeah, population. And they're already struggling, you know, there's already so much poverty. And to to look away from that and the the cognitive dissonance that that is ruling the planet, it just baffles me. I I just can't I just can't understand why we you know we're only focusing on that like more solar panels or more wind turbines and more of that. But it's in the end, you know, it's we're all in the in the in the in the Netherlands we say you're chasing after the facts. You know, so you know you're always one step too late because you're not addressing the real the real problems. So yeah, so I'm not yeah, so I'm not very hopeful.

SPEAKER_00 1:59:37

Yeah, well, lovely optimistic message, Marcel.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:40

Yeah, it's always nice to finish off with uh Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:59:43

What about? I mean, did you watch or read the book Inferno by Dan Brown? No, I didn't, no. No, okay. So the villain in that book um devises this virus which would essentially wipe out half the humanity. And I don't know how sophisticated it is, but there is a really interesting discussion in the book over the merits of it, you know, because you have to make the decision: do you think that he's making the right choice or do you think he's making the wrong choice? Ultimately, it's the wrong choice. You don't want to get rid of half the population because that entails getting rid of half the population. But um, you know, there might be some optimistic news on the horizon for you. If you think about uh global birth rates, since the 1400s it's been on a very steady incline. But um, in the last few years, you look around to most of the most of the developed parts of the world, especially Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, parts of North America, birth rates are not only flat, but they're also negative. So there is a real shift in the amount of population coming to these areas. And if you live in Europe, as you did in Amsterdam, you lived in Museum Plan, like you know how crowded it can be in some of these places.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:51

So um, yeah, but there's also tend to be the least problematic areas in terms of overpopulation and also counterbound. Exactly. South Africa. Yeah, because it's now not only Africa, there's also huge parts in Southeast Asia that are still booming, huh? Like Indonesia. I mean, that's that's growing and growing and growing, and they keep chopping up that rainforest uh like nobody's business. I don't I don't see that stopping anytime soon. And then so all these people, they you know, they're gonna be there's gonna be more problems there. There's gonna be more poverty, and there's gonna be more people that want to escape from their countries and they want to migrate to other countries, but they don't want to migrate to a neighboring country because it just usually has the same problems, so they'll want to migrate to you know richer countries, and we already see that happening. You see that in the United States where there's a constant stream. They did a survey in the United States in in South America, and they asked that if the United States were to open their borders, which which actually a lot of Americans think that they should do, which is I think complete insanity. And the but it's like more than a third of South Americans said that the moment they opened the borders that they would go to the United States. But it's that that it's I don't you know if something like that were to happen, that would be you can't manage something like that.

SPEAKER_00 2:02:24

No, you can't. I mean, but there's borders for a reason, right? Yeah. Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:29

Yeah, but we've we see that happening all over the place and all of like North Africa, we see all those little uh little zodiacs with too many people trying to escape the poverty in Africa, and they're all moving north. And I think we we are the cause of that, you know, because we could have we could have helped them, we could have solved a lot of problems, but instead, you know, we're too much focused on our on our on ourselves and on our Louis Vuitton bags and on being comfortable and we don't want to make a lot of sacrifices. Um but yeah, but it yeah, it's like a festering wound, you know. If you don't attack you if you if you don't give it the proper care, it will just get worse and worse and worse. So that's that's my uh rather grim prediction for uh for the future.

SPEAKER_00 2:03:20

We're doomed. Yeah. Yeah. Well, hopefully not doomed, but there's I think you're I think you are so I mean I think similarly to you in terms of a maybe a more grim outlook for Africa specifically, because like you've said, the population growth happens in the very places where it just cannot sustain it. Um and I wonder in my lifetime how sorry, your lifetime as well, forgive me. I wonder how it's going to uh you know how it's gonna develop. Um I'd be fascinated to know, but I mean you're you know extraordinarily well traveled throughout Africa, so I imagine you'd have a pretty decent sort of you know taste of things. Is there parts of the of the continent that give you optimism? Are there certain countries that you think, wow, these guys are doing really good job?

SPEAKER_01 2:04:13

Well, I hate to say it, but it's uh it's it's yeah, the situation is not very good, huh? And it's especially if you that's there's two two ways of thinking, uh sorry, two ways of looking at it. And the the popular way of looking at the situation in Africa is to say all the problems in Africa have been caused by colonialism. And this is the this is the popular opinion. So they need our eternal help. That's basically uh that's the solution. And the other way of looking at it is that if you look at all the governments, you're basically looking at hyper-corrupt governments that usually consists of a lot of nepotists and um that are being bought by uh a country that I shall not name. But that entire continent is just being bought by one uh by one country. France?

SPEAKER_00 2:05:14

France is not the country even mind? You don't have to say it. No, okay. Oh, it's China, of course it is, yeah. Sorry for you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:05:24

And um, yeah, that they're they're just stripping the entire continent of its resources and they're just paying all the governments, and um and the governments are only focused on themselves, you know, not on the not on their people. And it's and it's a tragedy because a lot of those countries are actually very rich, potentially. So they have a ton of resources, and and the people in those countries should have good living conditions. And theoretically this is possible, but it's it's because on a governmental level the the the wrong decisions are made like constantly. So the one dictator or wannabe dictator is just being replaced by another one that's only after enriching himself and his friends and family, um not giving a damn about the population. And I think that's that's the real problem, not so much the history, it's it's that. And um I'm yeah, I don't know how to how you can solve it, because if you want to intervene, you can't, because of history, and usually the governments don't want your so-called help. Um too proud, or you know.

SPEAKER_00 2:06:39

There's a fascinating book, such a good book. It's called uh Blood River by a comrade of yours in South Africa, actually, called Tim Butcher. So he was uh foreign correspondent for the BBC for the longest time. And um I really highly encourage you as someone interested in the continent, but also anyone interested in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but also Africa more generally, to read or listen to. Um it's a fantastic book. He goes and travels across foot um east to west, the journey of the DRC, which hadn't been done for um 500 years or something. Uh whenever the Belgians first came into the Congo, it had been done on foot and he recreated the journey. And it's such a great book because his journey was much significantly harder than it was for the Belgian who did it hundreds of years before him, because there was no infrastructure. He was taking these extremely dangerous um journeys on motorbikes between towns where before there was a railway line or before there was a road. Um, and if you just for me at least, someone who's never been to Africa, well, I've been in Morocco, but I haven't been into South Africa. Um for someone who's never been there, it was so interesting to hear an explanation of that specific country's history and how the you know kleptocracy just destroyed it, or the colonial influences destroyed it, or whatever reason. They're all they're all contributing factors, right? There isn't one reason. Um, but how it also works as an archetype for a lot of other nations in Africa and the how their development's been stifled. Um, so yeah, I highly recommend it to you. Um I think you get a kick out of it. Super interesting book, and you know, you might even be able to reach out to the guy. He lives in South Africa. Okay, good tip, thank you. Yeah, um, on the you you know, I mean you brought up China. Um, I have a like an ambition to create a photo book of China in Africa because I'm just imagining it would create for these amazing visuals, but it's also a great opportunity to tell a photojournalistic story because it's such an important thing that's happening in this continent that people kind of know about on the periphery, but the implications of which are not fully understood. I mean, it is a it is another type of colonialism because once those resources are gone, they don't just come back. So it's true.

SPEAKER_01 2:09:08

But you know, the what's interesting is that um the so the morally superior would they will want to look away from that because the self-hatred is so huge that they want it to be all about us and not about some new influence that is doing the same thing. And um yeah, it's astonishing. And like you said, we've traveled to so many countries in Africa, and you see the same thing happening everywhere. You um you get out of the airport in Zimbabwe, and the first thing you see, like literally the first thing, is like the massive, massive billboard with Chinese characters on it. Really? And uh it's basically just saying thank you to our Chinese friends for building this airport, you know, and uh and that's everywhere, uh outside on the airport, you know, there's lots of uh just Chinese characters, not no one can read it except for the for the Chinese. But even when we were in Libya a long time ago, all the infrastructure was done by the Chinese. And they have a very clever way to work because they they just say, okay, we're gonna help you with your infrastructure, we're gonna build your railway lines, we're gonna build your roads. The only thing we ask in return is that whatever we find, like a kilometer to the left and a kilometer to the right, that is for us to do what we please with. And obviously, they already know that uh when they're building that road, that uh there is something really interesting somewhere, like uh some precious metal or something. So those roads and railways will inevitably like move into those directions. So that's literally all major infrastructure projects, whether it's uh also housing, like huge buildings, uh, airports, uh, all that stuff, it's all all the Chinese do it, and we see it in a very small scale, also. For instance, when uh we we do a certain tour in uh in South Africa, and every year we drive through a tiny little town, and that town had like four like tiny supermarkets, and then one year one of those supermarkets suddenly had uh a Chinese couple running it. And we're like, wow, that's it's it you you you in instantly noticed it. And then a year later that other supermarket also had a Chinese couple running it. Um and that's when you know that's when when I started to put it together, like yeah, this is this is how it works. You know, that it's just small, small bits, you know, everywhere. You know, shop here, shop there, and I'm not a conspiracy theorist at all because I always want to I wan always want now I also want to base all my decisions on on reason, science, and uh and logic. But this is just something that we see happen like all over the all over the continent. So it's something we cannot ignore. And then we just think of it. China has so many uh people living there. So the amount of resources that they need is just mind-boggling. So they will have to they'll have to like move into other territories and make sure that uh that there's a steady flow of uh of resources. Um there's already these huge trawlers that uh go up and down the east coast of Africa emptying the uh the ocean there because there's not much left in their own ocean. So right.

SPEAKER_00 2:13:07

I'd love to learn more about this. Um are you familiar with people who are doing good work reporting on these issues? Or is this all just anecdotal experience for you?

SPEAKER_01 2:13:18

No, this is just pure anecdotal. Uh this just from from just going to the same places like constantly and seeing what's what's changing and just noticing that you know there is no there's zero Western companies doing anything in uh in Africa. It's all that's all China. And I can understand why. Because it I understand why, because from a Western perspective, look at what we're doing even with China. We want to do business with China. What do we say to China? We want to do business with you, but you first have to address these human rights issues. You first have to, you know, these uh yugurs or however you pronounce it in uh in English. You know, in the yeah, so you know you have to fix that, you have to fix that. And uh Chinese are completely different, they don't care. They just you know they go to this government in uh in Africa and they say this is what we want. And um they won't ask for uh any government changes or for any political uh activists to be freed from jail, you know. But this is exactly what Western countries do. They're there and they obviously come across as extremely arrogant. And um, like, why should we listen to you? This is an internal matter, and uh and you have no say about that. And that makes it a lot easier for African countries to deal with countries that you know don't care so much about those issues.

SPEAKER_00 2:14:55

I could really I could really talk to you about China and geopolitics of China all day. Um but perhaps we should save it for another time because I do have a few more questions for you, and I don't like to take it.

SPEAKER_01 2:15:06

I would like to add though that I've been to China several times and really enjoyed it. And um, I think that uh the Chinese are very uh friendly people, nice people, had many good encounters, um, very cheerful, etc. So by saying what I just said, I don't mean any disrespect to the people themselves. We're just talking about uh like geopolitical uh strategies, you know.

SPEAKER_00 2:15:35

And there's a giant difference between the CCP and China's people. There's a huge difference.

SPEAKER_01 2:15:41

Absolutely that difference couldn't be bigger. And we see the same thing in Iran. I mean, we've been there a couple of times, and the difference is so stark uh you can't put it into words. That's it's not the same thing. And uh it's unfair to the people because uh you know when when you say I'm going to Iran, people are like, oh wow, I don't it's isn't that dangerous? And I said, Well, it's not, you know, it's the there's a huge difference between the uh the government and what the government thinks and what the government does and the people themselves.

SPEAKER_00 2:16:16

Yeah. So so much of the planet has been beautifully photographed. You yourself have travelled to most corners of the globe. If you were to just pull out a map of the world, where is somewhere that you can point to that hasn't been captured brilliantly? I'm thinking like Australia-ish, maybe Mexico, but if you look at a map of the world, do you see a place that is a great opportunity to have good photos taken?

SPEAKER_01 2:16:46

Okay, so I'm gonna I'm really reluctant uh answering that question because I know I know for a fact that when I answer this, then it will inspire it will inspire people to like you know um investigate those areas because I I definitely have a list in my head of places that I want to go to and I want to photograph, and um I well based on previous experiences I know that when I when I communicate that there will be other people who think like, oh well, that sounds interesting, yeah. I'm also gonna investigate that. And before I know it, then there's already other people that are doing the same thing. Because like I explained earlier, it is the idea is super important of any when you're a creative person, it's all about it's all about ideas. And so if you have an original idea, it's critical that you keep it to yourself, and otherwise, you know, it's like the iPhone, you know, you create something unique, and what do you know? It takes less than a year, and then the biggest competitor made something that looks identical, and yeah, and cheaper, of course. Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, fair enough. And that's uh this uh yeah, we uh we especially had to deal with that a lot with our photo tours. So we've been running photographic tours for 15 years now, and our uh our uh objective was always to create original uh journeys for people to like exciting new locations, doing exciting new stuff, and that's not always easy. And then we noticed that uh as soon as we set something up, and that that was really popular, then in no time it was incredible. Just people started copying it, and it was just so annoying. So that's when I started to be a little bit more careful with what I communicate, and um yeah, we go through great lengths actually to keep it a secret for as long as we can.

SPEAKER_00 2:19:07

If I can rustle together 10,000 euros, I'll join you in 2023 in Iran as well. I I was I saw that on your website, it looks amazing.

SPEAKER_01 2:19:16

Yeah, that's that is amazing, and that's uh that is actually one of those countries that is like really uh undiscovered. We've I've we've we've taken our guests to places where I'm like 99.9% sure that no one has ever photographed before because it's just so ridiculously remote, and it took us so much effort to uh to find. Um a lot of people think that everything has already been photographed on the planet, but it's absolutely not true. It's just the accessible and um easy stuff has been photographed to death. But beyond there, is it that there's a whole world that you can still discover, but it just takes a ton more effort and um to get to those places.

SPEAKER_00 2:20:05

That's why I think Australia could be a not necessarily completely uncovered rock. Um I don't I can't point to beautiful, beautiful fine art photography of kangaroos, for example. And there's no reason why they can't be captured in an extremely aesthetic style and way.

SPEAKER_01 2:20:24

Are kangaroos considered wildlife, is my question. Or are they all domesticated?

SPEAKER_00 2:20:29

No, no, no, they're famously impossible to domesticate.

SPEAKER_01 2:20:32

So yeah, they I know I know nothing about kangaroos, so hence the stupid question.

SPEAKER_00 2:20:38

I'll give you the skinny then, if you're interested. Are you interested? Yeah, sure. Okay. So uh the reason I know this is because for a brief period I thought my business was going to be exporting kangaroo meat to China, but it kind of all fell on itself. But but basically, in my in my research of these animals, I learned that the um they they're a they're a type of uh rodent, right? So they're descendant from the sort of hamster, the rat, etc., the mustupial. Their population estimations vary, but most confidently people say it's 60 million of them, which means there's three kangaroos for every person in Australia. Um they are famously impossible to domesticate because they're so good at jumping and their tails are so strong that they can just get rid of fences. They whack down fences and then jump over them. They're pests, you know, they eat everyone's crops and and harvest, so it's actually legal to hunt them like at all times and hours of the day. There's no sort of limit on how many you can kill, there's no obligations as what you should do with the body afterwards, and so you really just can drive through graveyards of kangaroos if you know someone who's got a property that has them. Which is quite horrible, to be honest, it's really horrible. Um, and if you ever are in Australia, by the way, yourself, Marcel, but also if someone's listening, and you find a ball sack that's being converted into a bottle opener, uh, or pores that's been converted into a bottle opener. This is because some Chinese people have gone down the highways and chopped these things off and then mummified them and made them into like tourist trinkets. So it's a it's a very popular thing. You'll see, like, you know, the paw of a kangaroo with a bottle opener at the end. Oh god. Yeah, seriously. So that's uh, you know, just FYI, don't buy those products, people. Um, but yeah, so that's kangaroos in nutshell. I mean, they they are uh the most Australian animal I can think of, really. The platypus is obviously also very Australian, but in terms of just what it represents for the nation. Um and so therefore I just think kangaroos could be done really well. They're very skittish. Humans, you can't get close to them. So I was thinking like if you could get the if you could if you could set up a remote camera and um you know get them out of morning, I'm thinking it could be done. Um But yeah, Australia could be one of these places, you know?

SPEAKER_01 2:23:00

Yeah, it's it's it's on the list because it's the only continent I've never been to. So oh well. Well it's a surprise.

SPEAKER_00 2:23:08

Well you'll you'll love it. It's very similar to South Africa apparently.

SPEAKER_01 2:23:12

Yeah, so there's a there's a c there's a few reasons it's not at the top of my list, and one of them um is that you know I haven't seen a lot of uh photographs from other photographers that really uh excite me. Uh that I don't I don't want to sound like arrogant or something, but it's just like um I can get very easily inspired or excited when I see a beautiful photograph and I see not only the photograph itself but just the subject matter when it excites me, and I I sometimes get really inspired and I think like, oh, I can do this with that, or I can do that, and I can um yeah can give my own spin on it. And um Australia it's pool. I would I would probably probably first go to New Zealand, to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 2:24:04

Oh mate, don't do that to me. That's nonsense. Australia is is dripping in beauty. You'll find you'll find good stuff there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:24:14

Yeah, you're you're very objective, uh obviously.

SPEAKER_00 2:24:18

Exactly. Um well look, uh I'm looking forward to seeing as the photos come out these locations that you have in your mind, because although it's true that the world has been, you know, turned over and and had its it's been exposed completely, there are surely still corners of the planet that uh have so much beauty that hasn't been captured yet, and I'd love to see what you end up finding on uh in that vein. Um when you look back on your career, actually no, this is better. Um given your notoriety as a famous award-winning photographer, National Geographic photographer, what is the most serendipitous opportunity that has come your way because of that? Um what does the the word serendipitous uh serendipity uh is like a chance encounter for the upside. So uh what's a good example? So, for example, you moving into s your house in South Africa, your neighbor might happen to be some person who has like perfect access to an animal that you wanted to photograph. The fact that you randomly met this person is serendipity. And the fact that you're a national geographical photographer means opportunities would come your way. What's the most amazing one, basically? If one stands out.

SPEAKER_01 2:25:44

Jeez, that's that's actually a very hard question, I have to really think. I don't want to disappoint you because it's uh it was a very original question, but now I'm like thinking of an answer. And I can't really come up with something.

SPEAKER_00 2:26:07

Oh, but that's okay. There's no pressure. Um you know, if uh if nothing pops out, then that's probably for good reason because it you know didn't stand out as uh a really Yeah, or maybe I just blocked it out or it or just forgot about it.

SPEAKER_01 2:26:20

I don't I don't know, I I can't really answer it now.

SPEAKER_00 2:26:22

But the word serendipity, just FYI is it's a it's a beautiful idea, you know, that if you expose yourself to the world, and that sounds weird, but basically if you put your work out into the world, for example, I discovered your work because of you know your website. That was a serendipitous encounter, for example, and the fact that you have so many photos that so many people might be touching across the world, it creates opportunities that wouldn't have been there otherwise. I'm maybe bundling it a bit, but this is kind of the idea of serendipity. It's a beautiful thing. Yeah, okay. Meeting meeting your wife, for example, you know. I don't know how you met her, but if you met her at a random place at a random time, how many alternative universes did you not meet her, right? But the serendipity made it so. So it's a beautiful type of upside of randomness.

SPEAKER_01 2:27:11

Right. Well, I totally believe in randomness. I think everything is random anyway. Um that's a whole different discussion. I think we have very very little influence over what's going on.

SPEAKER_00 2:27:26

Yeah, that's a great one. Are you are you familiar with Nisim Taleb? Yes, I am. Okay, good. Well, my other podcast is a Nisim Taleb podcast, exclusively his work. So you can see why it's I think we think very similarly along those lines.

SPEAKER_01 2:27:42

Yeah, so one of the one of one of the books that made a great uh impression on me was uh uh Free Will by Sam Harris. Yeah, and he um he talks about the fact that he thinks that people actually don't have free will. And before I read the book, I was like, that sounds like rubbish to me. And after I read the book, I was like, yep, yeah, I don't actually think we have free will, we're just like, you know, we're slaves to our brain, and our brain is just uh another organ that does all of these things.

SPEAKER_00 2:28:18

Um imagine your schedule completely opened up, you had no obligations, and plus you all of a sudden had access to any way you wanted and the best resources, you know, what photo would you go out and take? And I'm sorry if this now overlaps with the previous question, I'm realizing it might. But in case it doesn't.

SPEAKER_01 2:28:46

Yeah, too much overlap.

SPEAKER_00 2:28:47

All right, all right. Yeah. Um in that case.

SPEAKER_01 2:28:50

I guess I could try to make um uh I could maybe in a more general way without being too specific. That works. Yeah. Well, you know, the way that I work now is very much influenced by the fact that my main source of income is from running photographic tours. So that means that I'm uh the majority of my time I'm traveling together with my wife, um, hosting photographic safaris for uh for small groups of people. And that means that even though I'm usually shooting alongside the people, people that we travel with, um the way that I'm photographing is actually quite different from when I'm when I'm on my own, so when I'm by myself. So if for instance tomorrow I would win the lottery, I would be completely financially independent. Um we would probably still do run a couple of tours just for fun, but then I would just spend a lot more time uh just by myself, and that basically means that I would um invest way more time in less locations. So now I'm doing the opposite because you know you have a limited time, and people have like 10, 15, 14 days of holiday, so you want to give them uh a lot of variety. So uh even though everything is focused on photography and we're trying our best to let everyone return with the best images that they can possibly get. Still, if I were to do the same things by myself, you know, I would reduce the amount of uh locations drastically and uh pick maybe one or two and then spend all my time on those one or two to really like go deep, deep, deep in there. Because I know for a fact that that will give the best uh the best results. So I don't know if that's an answer to your question, but 100% sort of. 100%.

SPEAKER_00 2:31:07

Okay. Yeah. Um I like the line more time in less places. Really completely open up the potential of one area rather than this the the thin layer on the top.

SPEAKER_01 2:31:21

Yeah, and the and the you see the opposite happening uh now like on Instagram. People are rushing, they're rushing from place to place, wanting to capture as many icons as possible. You know, oh they see this photograph that's popular, and then hop, off they go, all to the same spot, and and get that get that one photograph, and then hop in the plane, and then uh chasing that next next iconic shot. Um but it's it's missing depth, and that's another thing that I think that uh the that National Geographic is doing really well. Um they go really in-depth, so they they really turn the turn the subject upside down, inside out, and get to the bottom of it, instead of just uh like any other magazine that would spend maybe two or four pages maximum on a subject.

SPEAKER_00 2:32:16

Yeah. What's a moment in your life that you look back on and you just truly can't believe you are a part of? And tell me if you want me to give you some context for that, if it doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_01 2:32:31

Yeah, sure I do.

SPEAKER_00 2:32:33

Okay, so there's a guy called Lex Friedman, he loves martial arts, and he got to train martial arts with George Saint Pierre, one of the greatest martial artists of all time. And he was there training with this guy, and he commented, I couldn't believe I was a part of this moment, it was too surreal. He got a chance to train with the best of all time. So it's like a moment that you've been a part of, and that you look back at it and you just think, I cannot believe I was there. How did I get to be a part of that moment? Is there anything like that?

SPEAKER_01 2:33:11

Um, yeah, that's one that comes to mind, and that's actually the moment that I uh won the Wildlife Photographer of the Year award. That was extremely surreal. And um, because when I started my career, if you if you start if you start a career in anything, usually people have certain goals. So I I had a couple of goals. One of them was to get a publication in National Geographic, and um and the ultimate goal I didn't even formulate. So I will I just wanted to have one image win a award in the Wildlife Photography Year because for me that was like that was like the Oscars, so that was that level was so high. I was like, if I ever managed to do that, you know. then my then my career is a success. And um winning the overall uh title has never even come up. So I've I've never actually made that like a goal. And so when I was there during the awards ceremony and I I didn't know that I was gonna win that title. So when I won that I literally was just lost for words. I don't think if you can you would be able to find that back because during the award ceremony I'm they call me onto the stage and I the idea is that I should say something to the public and I can't. I just I did that was like a scenario that I it it had never crossed my mind and so it was it was like I was not standing there. I was just an out of body experience like standing there all these people a lot of photographers that I totally admire and then trying to understand what just happened and yeah that was just one big like haze and took me a long time to grasp what uh what happened and I'm usually not that easily um what do you call that phased yeah so yeah that's one of that one of those moments where I think like oh I I can't believe that that uh that that happened but I'm obviously there's also things that uh like happen just during my work so on location sometimes you witness something really special I mean even like that snow monkey with the phone you know I if something like that happens you I was just so extremely aware of the importance of what was happening. I knew instantly like I better not screw this up because this is gonna be gold. Yeah so I was like I I couldn't have been more focused then I was like I was like really a hundred percent in that moment and uh trying to capture that uh that that one shot that um that I managed to get and mind you I was not the only photographer there was like I think seven or eight other people there and for some reason I don't know I don't know why but for some reason it seems that no nobody got that exact moment where it was holding the phone like a human. I've seen a lot of other shots from people that were there with me but usually the phone is like half in the water or like at a weird angle or or the monkey's not looking at it. So yeah so those are moments that when they when they're when they're finished like oh my god I can't I can't believe that I just witnessed this because you just realize how lucky how lucky you are and the chances of something like that happening are actually very very very slim.

SPEAKER_00 2:37:04

How did the it's a beautiful way you described winning the National Wildlife Photographer of the year award how did your life change and your sort of status within the photography community change tangibly?

SPEAKER_01 2:37:17

Like was anything different or was it just an amazing moment but then back to the same stuff afterwards well obviously right after it was like a bit of a chaos because then I had a lot of requests for interviews and um before I knew it I was I was sitting up at the BBC being interviewed and Dutch television I was like suddenly I was like all over the place. So it was all one big roller coaster right but I must say pretty quickly after that everything went down to normal it has just been it has been really good for my well for my C V obvious and I've really enjoyed it because it's it's it's quite the honor to get like the highest well the highest achievable that you can that you can get in your in your field of work. So I was pretty humbled humbled by that. And then but what it did is fascinating because um after I won that title I actually lost uh my interest quite a bit uh in entering competitions so before that I was constantly entering my work into competitions and trying to see where I stand and also just as uh as basically free free PR you know every time you win something then your name gets out there which again is good for our business but after I won that title um yeah I lost I lost a bit of the drive to keep doing that. I don't know I think it's probably because I just felt like well you know I just won the highest thing that I could win so what's the point? So I'm still doing it every now and then but I'm yeah I lost a lot of my drive for that and other than that nothing that hasn't really changed me one bit because in the end it's just purely subjective and I'm pretty sure that a lot of people think like well that's a travesty that that guy won the won the won the award with those bloody monkeys and it should have been that or it should have been that and they're probably right you know it is it's an art form so whatever whatever wins it's highly debatable whether it's actually the best quality out there. So I'm not gonna be the one that says you know this proves how good I am you know it just proves that you know I was just maybe lucky that the judges that were there at that time just happened to really like my work because let's face it it's only like four or five people in one room maybe one was really dominant you know he was really he really wanted that shot to win maybe it's just totally dominated the other judges and said well I we should we should do this one.

SPEAKER_00 2:40:16

You know anything you know I'm I'm like I said I'm a realist so I don't uh yeah I'm yeah very down to earth and um not you're so right I mean art is subjective and yes whatever the mood was whatever the theme the trend was at the time it it should render yours the winning picture.

SPEAKER_01 2:40:38

Yeah so that's why when people ask me like how how can I win an award then you know I always tell them well you should ask yourself why you want to win an award you know what is your reasoning behind it because if you if you just want people to give you a tap on the shoulder and say oh well done you know sure that that will work but in the end it's an art form and it doesn't mean much it's like what I call the Justin Bieber effect you know Justin Bieber has a has a lot of followers and sells a lot of records but like like real people that know real music I think they will all agree that it's maybe not the highest highest form of music you know and the same goes for Taylor Swift I think Taylor Swift has like now you're getting yourself involved water Marcel almost sold as many records as Michael Jackson I think or the Beatles you know it's like it's getting close to that. So you know if you just look at the numbers you'd be tempted to say well well clearly it's just as good as the Beatles but I would argue no well no maybe not and it's the same on Instagram people with a million followers it does not mean that that person is uh is a hundred times better than someone with uh with 10,000 followers there's usually a ton of other reasons behind it and maybe that person made one great shot and that shot was so good that it gained it's this person um hundreds of thousands of followers in a very short amount of time and after that you know it just it's a self-fulfilling prophecy because then everybody keeps following this person because this person has so many followers yeah so yeah yeah that's that's almost impossible to determine quality in when it's when when it's about art alright Marcel um for these last three questions just give me a short uh instinctual answer so we can get them in do you have a favorite photo both of yours and then of somebody else yeah my favorite photograph for myself is the one that I put on my new book so it's an elephant at the fr at the edge of thick falls so this isn't mother this is another book yes mother yeah this is mother yeah yeah yeah so on the on on the cover of that is a vertical image of uh African elephant standing very close to the edge of uh Victoria Falls on the Zambia side yeah yeah that's another so yeah so that image for me is it's it's exactly what I like in my photography. So it's what we call animalscape. So it's an animal in a spectacular environment combining both wildlife photography and landscape photography. So that's my ultimate kind of photography that's the style that I like most and also that was one of my first publications in National Geographic ever in my first year as a professional photographer. So that was in is very important for me. It's also a very well-known photograph very popular and it's unique so there's no there's no second one of that so that's that's a lot of very good reasons for me to pick that uh to pick that photograph because a lot a lot of meaning for me and that's for the second half of your question the um what popular photograph of another not popular just your favorite of some oh my favorite one yeah that's you know there's quite a few huh there's there's a lot of very good photographers out there there's one in particular that I really liked uh there's uh leopard in uh fever tree by uh um photographer called David Lloyd that I really like that's one of my pop most most favorite uh leopard photographs and there's another photograph I I won't describe it because I forgot the name of the photographer but it's also stunning those are the kind of photographs that I wish that I had shot myself so yeah beautiful yes okay go go no go on no I talk too much go ahead next one um okay these last two I've asked every single guest that's come on to the podcast um and so yeah don't think about it too much just um instinctual reaction what is a country that you are most bullish on looking into the future most what on bullish uh excited for you think they have a very good future ahead of them I I I honestly don't understand the question it's uh that's that has nothing not nothing to do with photography you mean nothing to with photography just generally like for ex I mean for example people might say um I'm bullish on Canada for X, Y, and Z reason um like it's got a good future ahead of it.

SPEAKER_00 2:45:50

So do you have in when you look at all the countries of the world do you think wow this country has a really good future ahead of it? This isn't the question. Yes New Zealand Oh for God's sakes okay that's I'm cutting I'm cutting that out for sure no I don't no yeah I explained earlier I'm a bit of a pessimist so whatever country I think about I immediately see all kinds of problems from the news and what's happened and what I see happening so I no I I no sorry for but I don't no sure no problem no finally if you could witness a conversation between any two people of history dead or alive no language barrier who would you like to watch who that would probably be uh Jesus and Mohammed Yeah yeah probably that would that would have been s something that I would like to watch nice well Marcel van Usten it's been a real real pleasure truly um thank you for being so generous with your time and I yeah I hope it was good for you as well yeah thank you that was a lot of fun I like actually like these uh these longer interviews I'm pr pretty sure you're familiar with the podcast by Joe Rogan.

SPEAKER_01 2:47:19

Of course yeah yeah so yeah I I always enjoy listening to those and this is one of the reasons just uh having someone that really asks the non-obvious questions and can listen very well and then having having this amount of time um always create also creates the opportunity to go a little bit deeper and past all the obvious uh questions so thank you for that thank you I couldn't agree more and also just for your information I only asked about half the questions I had here so oh my god yeah truly you know I I I mean I am so fascinated by your work essentially you know and that's that's the driver of a lot of it so if you ever want to come back we can do another three hours on just you know manipulating aperture and also talk about the state of the world and politics yeah all right mate well hello thank you for sticking around to the end how did you enjoy that I hope it was good.

SPEAKER_00 2:48:27

Do yourselves a favor go to his website squiver.com there is a link in the description and you can just peruse through the gallery of the photos that him and his wife has taken and also some other photographers that contribute to the website but some of them are so beautiful so amazing I uh take loads of inspiration out of uh Marcel but look you've stuck around to this point so I assume it's not out of a masochistic interest and hopefully you've enjoyed it which is why you might still be here but what I want to do is corner the podcast market for eclectic curiosities in whatever country it is that you're listening in from so for example because the podcast directories are in the Stone Age but you can do something which helps a lot and that is to subscribe to the show but leave reviews so I listen to my podcast on good pods you can leave ratings on each episode if you listen on Spotify you can leave a five star rating on the show itself that would be amazing by the way if you listen on Apple Podcasts which is where the majority do you can leave a review written and stars on the podcast so please I ask you it would there is nothing you could do more for me than that and if you've already reviewed pick up your girlfriend's phone pick up your mate's phone your kid's phone your dad's phone and just start spamming reviews because the more nice reviews that come through the more other people can see it the more I can dead the more time I can then dedicate to this podcast perhaps bring a high level of professionalism with it. I have this beautiful idealistic future in my mind where I can physically go to the guests and talk to them but I'm getting ahead of myself thank you for staying for this long you're an absolute legend. Goodbye and ciao