Into the Swamp, Into the Soul with Clyde Butcher

This week on "Spotlight on Good People," we're honored to welcome the legendary photographer and conservationist, Clyde Butcher. Known as the "Ansel Adams of the Everglades," Clyde's breathtaking black and white landscapes have not only captured the raw beauty of Florida's wilderness but have also played a crucial role in its preservation. Join us as Clyde shares his incredible journey, from his personal tragedies that led him to find solace and purpose in the swamps, to his relentless advocacy for protecting these vital ecosystems. Discover how his artistry has become a powerful tool for environmental awareness, inspiring generations to appreciate and safeguard the natural world. Tune in for a profound conversation that explores the intersection of art, nature, and the unwavering dedication of a true good person.

Transcript

Clyde Butcher _ SOGP Episode 12

[00:00:00] Hey everyone, and welcome back to the spotlight on good people, where we shine a light on humans who are making our world more compassionate, connected, and kind. Today's guest is someone I've long admired, not just for his art, but for the way he's lived, loved and persevered. We're here at his Venice Gallery, surrounded by the soul of Florida, captured in black and white.

Clyde Butcher's name is etched in the heart of conservation, photography, and the human spirit, his lens doesn't just see landscapes, it sees something sacred. It's an honor to be with this living legend. I saw a picture of you with him. Oh, we were, yeah. Up there in DC got a, a medal from the Arts Council.

Yeah. Yeah. That was pretty neat. Uh, spent six hours in the White House. Did you really? Yeah. What was that like? From all the, all the movies you see of all the different people who had been in the White House and, you know, uh, some of the, the hallways were Reagan and Kennedy were all, you know, mostly photographed.

That was pretty amazing going in that walkway. Mm. [00:01:00] Because that was, it's a famous where everybody, they all do their PR work. Yeah. The presidents. Wow. Uh, and see all the rooms. Of course, now the rooms are different. You know what Trump did in the Oval Office? You can put these little sculptures up on the wall.

They're plastic sprayed with gold. He put, he said they're gold. He said, I put gold in there. You know. It's fake. It's fake. Why? Why? What's the point? There's a reason for that. Keep people confused. I never know what to believe, what's coming out of any, any governmental, you know? Which is why I actually like this format of talking to somebody.

Well, there is, uh, what's the guy's name? Um, hick. Mm-hmm. He seems to be straight arrow. [00:02:00] Uh,

there's, of course there's, there's Bernie. Mm-hmm. Well, now you're in your lifetime, you've been through a lot of presidents. Mm-hmm. Oh yeah. Lifetime. I've been with, uh, several. I took, uh, Carter on a swamp walk. Uh, yeah. I've seen pictures of you with him. Yeah. Yeah. And then, uh, you took him on a swamp walk, is that right?

Yeah. Oh yeah. Secret service for scared to death. I wanna tell you about somebody who's been a huge support to our family during a tough time. As many of you know, my father-in-law recently passed and this past February, and it's been, it was very unexpected, very sudden, and a, a real devastation to the family.

My father-in-law was so vital, so alive, so full of life. And we just, you know, you just never know. And it happens so suddenly. So it's been tough on our family and, uh, somebody who's been there to help us and support us through that, is my brother-in-law, Gary. Uh. My, my father-in-law had a home in Stero, has a home in Stero, and my wife [00:03:00] Michelle and my sister-in-law, Christie, uh, had to get things together, his affairs, et cetera, to put the house on the market.

And there were things that needed to be done with the house. We had a lot, we were dealing with, uh, houses in Es. We live in Naples, so just didn't have the bandwidth to handle all of it 'cause there's just so much to that. That's where my brother-in-law, Gary comes in. Gary has a small business called Home Watch.

Honestly, I think it's more like a peace of mind service. It's incredible. He stepped in and handled so much for us, helped us in so many ways. He coordinated all the repairs that needed to be done around the house. Uh, got estimates, uh, made sure we got great prices. He oversaw the work. He kept an eye on the house.

He just knew exactly what was needed and he gave us such peace of mind in a really tough time. I'm sharing this with you because many of you have homes in this area, or maybe you travel or even take a vacation. You need somebody to look out for things for you, or you have hurricane prep issues or you need somebody to just check things out or [00:04:00] accept deliveries.

He does a lot of things that. Give you a lot of peace of mind. He's the guy, he's got over 30 years of experience as a homeowner, homeowner himself, and he knows how to spot trouble before it actually happens. And here's the thing, Gary, uh, was a federal probation officer for 20 years. He was a supervisor for the federal government.

He's very trustworthy and reliable. He knows how to handle just about anything. If you're from Ohio, he's also a Browns fan. And a Buckeye. Yes. He admits he's a Brown fan. Sorry, Gary. If you're from Michigan, don't hold that against him. He's a great guy. 8 1 3 7 6 6 9 4 5 3. Gary's home watch at Gmail. Trust me.

You'll be glad you called him. I tried to explain to him the best weapon out here is a stick. You got a gun, you, you could shoot a gator and the bullet bouncing hit kill. Somebody said, if you're gonna shoot a gator, you better know what you're doing. You got two places to shoot a gator, the eye or the air.

That's it. Because the bullet's not gonna pierce. They're bounce off. Mm-hmm. [00:05:00] Now, you've spent a lot of time with gators, haven't you? They're, they're just not a problem at all. Mm-hmm. No, no. They're,

they're, they're a problem in golf courses, uh, behind people's houses that are in the canals where they feed 'em, and there's dogs and such. So there's, but now the wilderness, I don't, maybe there's not, it's not true, but I've never heard of anybody getting killed over a gator in the wilderness. I. In the wilderness.

Right. Okay. Yeah. It hasn't that have that, it hasn't, um, played with them, tried to mm-hmm. Do something. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But they can be aggressive. Uh, my best friend was Oscar Thompson. He was a fifth generation, and he actually lived in, um, big Cyprus for a while with the Indians. Is that right? And he could speak to Seminole.[00:06:00] 

No kidding. Really? Yeah. I did not know that. That was really fun. You go around the Indians, he, they start talking about you in Seminole, and he answers them in Seminole. Oh my gosh. Wow. So, anyhow, because he's, he's had one gator, a big one that, that chased him. Uh, I, she shot him 43 times before he stopped.

Wow. He had to load the gun as he was running. No kidding. So, anyhow, it's G Gators a really interesting animal. They, um, 'cause we had, you know, with our house there in the swamp, we have this beautiful patio that overlooks a pond, which have gators and birds and everything. And the Mother Gator plays with their babies.

They ex, they actually are playing games. Really? Yeah. You never hear that about Gator? I, no, no. Always look so serious in math. Well, science doesn't know about it. So they don't live with them. [00:07:00] Mm. We lived with them. Yeah, you did. We from, they were like 60, 70 feet away from the window. Wow. So we could see 'em every day.

And the birds could be more aggressive than Gators. Is that right? Oh, particularly eagles, bald eagles. Oh, that's, yeah. You see eagles out there too. Yeah. You would see them too. Well I was in, in Kissimmee, an island in Kissimmee, uh, lake and a lot of eagle nest. 'cause there's, people don't usually go there.

Mm-hmm. Um, uh, this farmer has this island that he has, uh, uh, what do you call it? Wild, wild African animals on it. Mm-hmm. And so we're putting along looking for pictures. And these eagles were swooping down trying to get ahead, knock. I mean grab, wrap onto us. It was pretty scary. Just they're big too.

They're a big bird. Yeah. You can hear 'em coming. Yeah. I'll bet the wind they're kicking up. [00:08:00] Yeah. The other most, uh, dominant animal I've had problems with is cows. Cows. Yeah. They're stupid. Is that They got big horns. I had one had her camera, her, her horns wrapped up my camera. Is that right? Really? Well see when you have large format camera, you got this camera on tripod.

You got this dark cloth over the camera, over your back. So are you an animal? Oh, so she's checking us out and see what we were Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And they didn't like you being there? No, well, she was, she's, she was a head cow, so she was checking out for the herd. Oh, wow. The things you have been with in your lifetime to see, not from a textbook, but from, from the real world of living with the wildlife.

Yeah, it's, yeah. We, we were in, in, uh, southern Utah [00:09:00] and, uh, out in Escalante area, a whole herd of cow in the middle of nowhere. This whole herd of cows come running through us. Right. Scary. You've been married more than 60 years, right? Well, in June 15th he'll be 62. 62 years. Yeah. And I heard you say that, uh, it was love at first sight.

Oh, yeah, I can, 'cause I was dating her girlfriend. Wait, what? Wait, what?

I, I knew that story. Well, you know, I was going over her house. She, they, they came down for Poly Royal for the, at the end of the year at Cal Poly. Uh, they have a big banquets and stuff, and Cheryl got, had got, Nikki, uh, wanted me to get her, get her a blind date. So I got a blind date. So I went over to, to her house to talk and.

Uh, before the bar or Nikki was there and [00:10:00] it was, yeah. Wow.

It was, wow. So we started write, writing each other. And, uh, Cheryl was not the girl for me. Shes, she ended up, um, marrying a, uh, ministry, a, a person that administrates, administrates, uh, hospitals, hospital administrator. Mm-hmm. Little on, on the, uh, different conservative side from, from the, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And we've been through so many interesting things in life.

Uh, we could write probably several books. I bet. I bet. So, yeah. You have been through a lot and you've built a, a business. You've been through grief. Mm-hmm. You've been through a lot of things. Yeah. Storms of all kinds. And I had, I had a big business in the seventies. It was $10 [00:11:00] million a year business in the seventies.

Wow. Which, uh,

didn't make any, I didn't make any money, but I had a lot of debts. Now our rep, we have, we had three main reps that wrapped our, we had picture, picture clocks take a, a large photograph framed and we. A silk screen of, of, uh, face on it, punch a hole in it and put a clock in it came the largest clock manufacturer in the United States.

Is that right? Yeah, because we bought, we know we were the largest, 'cause we bought almost every mechanism that was met, made, made in Japan and Germany. Oh, is that right? So for the, the mechanism of the clock itself. Mm-hmm. And then you were doing the, you would do a picture picture that became the clock.

Is that right? Yeah. Wow. Wow. I didn't not know that. Didn't say that. Anyway, yeah, there was the, we figured out there was about, uh, a clock, uh, one out of 10 homes. The United States had a clock [00:12:00] at one of ours. Wow. No kidding. That is not in the, in the storybook of you. I did not see that anywhere. Well, it's in the, it's in that book.

Okay. That one there. All right. Well, yeah. So good. We're uncovering some new stuff here. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Well, yeah. It's, um, been a very interesting life and people don't realize I started out with black and white in, in, in the sixties, and then I, I, I went full-time and selling, trying to sell this art in 69.

And, uh, about 71 I said, just not doing well. We were, we had a, a, um, gallery in Furniture Mart in LA in Hollywood. We were selling to decorators and architects, but we weren't selling to general public. So I said, well, what happens if we, you know, all the people that got this earth stuff, you know, [00:13:00] the uh, avocado furniture and appliances.

Gold carpets. Gold couches. So we started doing color and it was the main person we started out with was, uh, Spencer Gift. Oh, I remember Spencer's. Yeah. Is that right? And what they were doing, uh, to get people in the store. Uh, what we entered had this, what This wall that was about, I'd say 20 feet long. 20, yeah.

At least 20 feet. And we had all of our color, color pictures thing that brought people into the store and it Spencer Gifts. Mm-hmm. In the malls. All those Spencer gifts. Yeah. There was two at that time it was 275 of them. Yeah. They were in every mall. Yeah. I mean, every, everywhere. I remember that. There's some still, I think.

Yeah. Yeah. I remember when I used to get to go to the mall on my own, being able to sneak into that store. 'cause some areas of the store you had to be over 18 to get into was a big deal to get into this. The black [00:14:00] light. Yes. Yeah. You had the velvet posters, the black lights. I had one of those. Yeah. Yeah.

So, and then we, we, that's where we tested out the clock idea because they had these, all these stores, we'd put a new item in 10, 10 of the stores. I. They'd see how it went. Hmm. So that's where that got developed promo. How'd you, how'd you get that connection? How'd that come about? Uh, how'd it come about?

Hmm. That's a good idea. Why? I think we approached them. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, they, they were looking something to bring people into the store. Mm-hmm. And that was a conservative way of doing it. They had the hippie stuff in the back, right? Yes. So they had the conservative stuff in the front Uhhuh, you know. So, uh, then from there we had, you know, Sears Wards, pennies, SPKO, [00:15:00] sny, screen stamps.

Oh, yeah. Uh, the, uh, oil, all the oil companies had the little flyers. You guys mm-hmm. Used to get flyers. Mm-hmm. Uh, we had, uh, on back of cereal boxes.

We, we, back when that, in the seventies, it probably sold photography to about every different way you could except fine art. And, and were you always using that, that signature camera that you mm-hmm. Still use today? That was where you Well, I started actually in 71. Uh, I had a, um, uh, uh, a, my Mia r Rzt and a quarter three and a quarter two and a quarter two and three quarter camera.

And a middles. What a medalist is. It's a two and a quarter, three and a quarter camera that, uh, they used in World War ii. Mm. Wow. It's a range finder, so it was very small. Mm-hmm. So they could, [00:16:00] you know, and war, it was very high quality, but it wasn't much bigger than, you know, 30 fives now. Oh, okay. It was real small, but it was real, unfortunately, it was really

had problems with, uh, breaking down a lot because, because it's, well 'cause after they, so they were old too. Mm. And well used. Mm-hmm. I think, I don't even, I've never seen one for sale for a long time, but, and you were, so you were black and white then color, then black and white. That was the sequence, right?

Right. Mm-hmm. Uh, when I went to, uh, black, back to black and white, it was who my son was killed. And, uh, we were in, in Ann Arbor, Michigan in an art show with my color work. And this, it happened in June 15th then we're, the art show was in August and everybody thought we should [00:17:00] go to the show because keep your mind off what happened.

And I'm sitting there looking at my, my booth. I'm saying, you know, I think people really like Florida, but the color is not doing well. There's almost too much color. Mm. You can't see it 'cause of the color. Mm. So I said, when I get back, I'm taking all my color work to the dump. I'm gonna buy a, uh, eight by 10 and just start, start shooting black white again.

Wow. That was like $400,000 for the pictures. Wow. And I was doing really good. I mean, I was, our shows were ranging from, for a weekend, from like $3,000 to $18,000 in sales on a weekend back then. Yeah. Wow. Wow. And, and this is 86. Mm-hmm. And the guys doing black and white we're averaging between three and $500 for an art show for black and white.

[00:18:00] So there was no market for it almost. So this is something you wanna jump into full feet. Yeah. Where clearly where all the money is, right? Yeah, absolutely. You know, but now the color just is so destructive. Destructive. Not, not destructive. It's destructive. You can't see the picture before the, before the color.

Yeah. Yeah. Like white. You can see, you can feel and feel the emotion of the picture. Yeah. I am learning that I, I have a real deep appreciate, I mean, spending most of my life in Florida. And, uh, you have. It certainly captured what Florida is in a way that no one else ever has. It is. You have lived in, literally lived in the swamp and captured Florida.

Yeah. People think, uh, are you from Florida? Were you born in Florida? No, I was born in Kansas City, Missouri. [00:19:00] And then California. California. And I was there from high school through college and that I graduated in 64 and we came out here in 80. So it's been a good many years in, in California. Mm-hmm. And when I came here, didn't see anything to photograph.

Yeah. Especially coming from California where you had s mountains, Yosemite waterfalls, you know, 300 feet high and all this dramatic stuff. And the first thing I started exploring was, um, the beaches, because I shot the beaches out. California. Hawaii, uh, Oregon, Washington. 'cause that was a typical sellable item was beach shots, sunsets, and such.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So my first was the, uh, shooting the, the panhandle that was in 83. [00:20:00] So I'd been here three years before I, I, I took anything I. Mm. Well, I took pictures of boats and, you know mm-hmm. Family stuff, snapshots. Mm-hmm. And so, in fact, I went back this about a month ago, and the first picture I took was a sand dune.

And it was a color, and I never could make it. It was never good color at all. It was terrible. So I said, Hmm, I bet if I changed that to black and white, it'd be really great. And it came out to be a really great picture. Hmm. That was the first one I took to Florida. Then in 84, uh, we were going to an art show in Orlando, and my wife wanted me to stop at, uh, Tom Gaskin's place at Fishing Creek, because had these little signs out there, if your husband won't stop, take your shoe off him in the head.

So I [00:21:00] stopped because she, she loves the, the, the, uh, you can see from her work she loves the offbeat part of Florida. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so I stopped and, uh, she was having, she was really having fun there. She enjoyed it. And Tom saw I was really kind of bored. He says, you know, there was a board walking back.

Now, I, it was, this is in Fishing Creek is a swamp, or it's, it's actually a creek, but it's considered a swamp. I'm not sure why it's all, any of it's considered a swamp. It's not, they're all rivers or creeks, but, uh mm-hmm. So I said, well, that's good. 'cause I've, California has seen all these pictures of snakes and gators and so being on a boardwalk sounds like a good idea.

I have to get in the water. So I go back there and it was a boardwalk, a boardwalk, a, a board, a boardwalk. But I got to the very back of the, and there was [00:22:00] a, he had built a little platform so people could, uh, stand there and look the scene. And it was just that whole transform. I just, it reminded me of the Redwood Forest, California, and it just fascinated me.

I came back the next day with my camera, took a picture there, and then the same week I met Oscar Thompson, he is the, had the camera store in, in Fort Myers and he was looking at some pictures and I said, where's that? Is that I forgot? He said, no, no. Sit down the street. I said, you can take me there someday.

He says, what about right now? He excused to leave the store. So we got his four wheel drive and went down a big Cypress and, and uh, between that, that one week I got found out what Florida was about. Mm. And I haven't got out since. Yeah. I mean, it's just. [00:23:00] Florida is so much more subtle, but so much more dramatic.

Mm. I mean, how many places in the world have skies like we do? Mm, yeah. I mean, our skies are tremendous. Yes. And the, uh, ecosystem is alive. It's not dead. That shot. Theres, well, that's, well, that's actually Florida. That is Florida, yeah. Yeah. That's up in, um, east Coast. Yeah. I would never guessed that. I didn't know that.

Wow. Well, it's kinda like Cuba too, Cuba's a lot different than you think too. Is it? The, the north part's, like Florida and south part, like California. Oh, they've got some mountains in Oh yeah. 6 66 6600 feet. How, how did you get into Cuba? When did you go to Cuba? 2002. [00:24:00] Uh, we were, we, uh, I have a friend, it's, um, park Wright that's, uh, a, uh, likes brothers, uh, relative.

And he had, their family had a big farm in Cuba, so he wanted me to go down there. And Clinton had put a, um. Thing, uh, for the artist to go to Cuba. Oh, okay. And it was gonna be, uh, two thou, it was 2002. It was gonna be the year of the mountain, the un. So that was kind of our excuse to do. It was for the u for this un thing.

Mm. So I had three day, three 10 day trips there, one in, in June, July, and October. So I got three different seasons. Oh, wow. So we went from one end to the other and you lugged your big camera down there. You took the, the, well, that was the first day, the first time I [00:25:00] I, in Miami, they wouldn't let me in the book because of the, they wanted to open my boxes of film.

Look inside the film boxes. Oh. 'cause they're boxes. They're not rolls. And, uh, so that didn't work. So next time we took four by five, I had a four by five with roll film. Took two and a quarter by five inch negatives. So that was then the third time we took the five, seven, no, we took the eight by 10, the third time finally got used to the airport down there.

And, but you know, it's, it's there in, in, uh, 2002. The x-ray machines aren't as bad as they are now, or as good as, or as good as they are now. They would, they would expose the film. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So now you could put 'em through and Yeah. If, well, you have to, there's a trick to it. [00:26:00] You, you, you stand there where the thing going through the x-ray thing.

Mm-hmm. And you, you block up the thing, so, so they can't, people are behind you, you, you fool around stuff until the last thing goes through. So you put your film in a container by itself, so it goes right through. 'cause again, there's nothing in there. Oh. So it goes right through. Okay. But if you put it in with your camera gear, it's gonna sit there and get x-rayed and x-rayed Oh.

For longer. Oh, okay. So that's trick. You get, sip it through uhhuh tricks of the trade. Yeah. But, but I'm, I'm not going to any airports anymore. I'm sick of the, I can't drive there. I'm not gonna go. Yeah. I don't blame you. Traveling's no fun. Not that way. Well, yeah. It's, it's, it's, yeah. Yeah. I see. I see you've had some knee surgery before too, huh?

Hmm. You've had some knee surgery before too, huh? Yeah. Yeah. That's, this was in, uh, June 20. June 24th of, uh, [00:27:00] this year. Oh, just this year. Yeah. And that's what really helped did, it's really screwed me up for my photography this year. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, it wasn't the knee surgery, but a week after the surgery.

Jackie had some pictures that she wanted me to sign. So I came down and I got really woozy 'cause I shouldn't have been traveling. And I, like, I almost fainted. So they got the, the rescue people or analysts, they took me to the hospital and they put me in the hall with a bunch of COVID patients. Oh, great.

So I got COVID. Oh, great. So then they had the next two months they wouldn't let me outta bed. Oh geez. And you have to keep this thing exercised. Yeah, right. That's a big part of it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I was basically like, right now it, the muscles are sore because of there's probably a scarring [00:28:00] in it.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know, but I'm, I'm doing, I'm doing better than 'em before the operation at least. Good, good. I'm glad. Yeah. And I'm, I'm getting better. I can, if I'm careful, I can walk with some, some distances without a cane uhhuh, but I, I don't wanna fall again. No, we can't do that. Uh, 'cause 'cause I, I fell, uh, when I, when I came back from the hospital thing after, back for three days, I didn't know I had COVID.

Then I, I went going to the bathroom, I fell and then I got, didn't realize it, but I had, I got internal bleeding. Whew. And, uh, they bought Jackie, my father just about lost me that one. Oh boy. Wow. Yeah. Six or seven doctors working on me for an hour. Is that right? Really? Wow. I don't remember any, remember any of it.

Mm. I was completely gone. Oh boy. But you're one tough cookie though. [00:29:00] Well just keep So you just keep, keep, keep punking. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. But you, you've always had this, this risk taking pioneer spirit. I mean that you just pack up and go, come to Florida and Yeah. You had some sailboat time in there too, right?

Uh, you just, oh, I'm going to stop color photography and throw, get rid of all that and start this. You just were willing to just, uh, start clean and fresh always without this Yeah. We, we, we bought my, we, I, I built a sailboat, uh, called Flick 20 Foot Sailboat when I was in California. And we had a, I built the cabin for the kids, the, a cabin, so a 20 foot boat.

Okay. They had the cabin on it half. Yeah. So, but it had six foot headroom in the main cabin that Right. And, uh, nice. We had a real nice, uh, bed in the four peak, but in, in the inside of the boat, um, you could sit down on the head and cook head was here [00:30:00] and the cast stove was here. Is that your architecture background that had you able to Oh, we, we, yeah.

It was, it was amazing. People for four people. We spent, uh, three months on it. Mm. Uh, but I had 60 gallon water tank built into it, you know, and so it was, had a six horse diesel, all the six horsepower. I had to put a switch in there to turn off the alternator to start the engine because it was using the alternator wouldn't start, had the power to start the engine.

So Kansas City to California to sailboat, to Florida. To, yeah. To the swamp. To the swamp. I mean, we're living in Newport Beach, California. What was Newport Beach? The Newport Beach that it is now back then too. Like it's the Uhhuh. It wasn't. Mm-hmm. Uh, I was right. I was, we were, we were living, we stayed, we all had a [00:31:00] morning and our mo was right behind John Wayne's boat.

Is that right? Really? Yeah. Wow. And, uh, John Wayne was just across Lito Island, across from us. Oh, wow. Uh, yeah. It's, yeah. When the, when, when, uh, particularly Ted when, uh, they were in school, they make, they would make friends with the other kids in Newport. Mm-hmm. And they would go over their houses and. This one house that he guy had, you know, downstairs he had bowling alleys and Oh, geez.

You know, I mean, uh, that's Newport. Yeah. Yeah. He, he was a, a, a, uh, a, uh, I guess financial trader of some sort. Mm-hmm. He, which he had downstairs and he had a forklift with pallets of gold. Oh my gosh. So there, it wasn't his gold, but he would, he, he would, if country would sell something here to this other country, he would take their gold and put it in that pile.[00:32:00] 

Wow. So, anyhow. Um, and all their kids said, I wish I lived in a boat like you guys do. Yeah. That was an adventure. It had to be awesome as a kid. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. He had a surf surfboard and he just, uh, the surf was walk across the street and that was the surf. Mm-hmm. It was, you know, typical day, typical four to five feet surf every day.

Yeah. Sometimes eight. Yeah. That's a surf cap. That's a great spot. Yeah. Yeah. It had the wedge too. He never, nobody, we never tried the wedge. What's the wedge? The wedge is where the, uh, pier goes out and the beach is an angle like this. Okay. So the wedge had a, a breaking right along the sand. So you body surf.

Oh, okay. Along the Okay. Yeah. And, and Sand's here. And you're body surfing here.

That'd be really good. Yeah. Well, that's the cold Pacific too. It was a little colder than our water over [00:33:00] here too. Yeah. It was amazing. Every, every once in a while in, in, uh, July and August, it would get up to 70 degrees up to 70. Right. And everybody's say, Hey, let's go boat. Let's go, se let's go to the beach here, get 70 degrees.

Yeah. Nah, I don't go that, that's the coldest I think it would ever get. I don't even know if it ever gets that cool around here. It's like always going into a can of soup. A hot soup. And, uh, the Gulf, well, the, the, uh, springs here is 72. It does get down to 72. Okay. They're all 72. Well, some of 'em are.

There's a couple of 'em that are 68 and some of 'em are 73, but 73 is the hottest. Yeah, right. How did you end up, why Venice? How come not Naples are closer to the, that area? Uh, well, we came here mainly, we first arrived in, uh, Fort Myers and we got a, a house, um, on, uh, a little canal off of Satchie, a dark room there and everything.[00:34:00] 

And, uh, then Jackie met Neil. Uh, they were Jackie's your daughter. Uh, they, they were, she was, she, she, she had a. Uh, Kayla was about a year, year old, year and a half year old. That's your granddaughter? Yeah. Mm-hmm. And they were, uh, the, um, road that goes out to, to, uh, uh, Sanibel, you know, all those beaches there.

Mm-hmm. So she was, uh, underneath one of the, the palm trees with his little baby. And this guy comes up with a windsurfer and they got talking and got, they got married and, and he's a, he's a, I call a, a venite, he third generation Venice. Oh, okay. So this is his, his area? Yeah. Yeah. So, and Jackie had a, uh, her own [00:35:00] business and, uh, so they, she had that here from, I'm not sure, from about 87 to 2000.

And, um, after they got to a point where she got, I got, uh, a, um, some business from Walmart doing Christmas cards. Hmm. So she needed a building. So she got this for, for that. Mm-hmm. And there was the room in the back of the dark room units. Mm-hmm. It was just sitting empty. The front here were offices in the back, very back was storage.

Mm. Uh, and I was doing dark room work in the swamp, which I had to carry all the chemistry out every week. You can't dump it in swamp. Right. And so she was getting more and more interest in what we were doing, Uhhuh. And when I got to dark room here, [00:36:00] uh, she discovered that this was doing very interesting things for society, my work.

And she thought she would like to work with us. So both, both, um, eventually came to work with us and then, I can't remember what it was, uh, anyhow, uh, she basically, we, uh, took our, uh, death benefits and gave the bus, was able to give the business to Jackie without having to pay any taxes or anything.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So now we're, uh, she said, come over here two o'clock, so, okay. I'm here at two o'clock.

Yeah. She was checking on you. Well, we, in fact, we took your parking space at first, so we, we, we moved our car over. Okay. So we knew you got a special spot there and Yeah. Didn't mean to do that, but we, we saved, we saved it for you there. Yeah. [00:37:00] I, I parked there. Yeah. Yeah.

Um, there was something, um, about the second take. Let's see. What was it you said about the second, um, one of your quotes.

I do a lot of crazy quotes. Yeah. There have been some. That's some fun ones.

Well, this I like, 'cause we kind of touched on this too. Yeah. And it's, 'cause I'm learning about this from you too. Wilderness. Wilderness is a spiritual necessity. What's at stake if we lose that, we lose our humanity. Mm. If we lose our, lose our wildernesses, we are, we're no more than robots. Mm. Uh, you've gotta be in where life [00:38:00] began.

Mm. Particularly the swamp life began in the water. And that's why I want to take people to swap walks. It's so they don't understand sometimes why it's so unique, but you're walking connected to the ground and the water. Mm. And we're about 80% water. 90, I don't know how we're pretty much water beasts.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh, and Star Trek, they call it blobs of water.

Um, so. Yeah. What's a place that you've been to or that you go to that moves you to tears when you photograph it or when you're there?

Well, probably two main places is our backyard by the [00:39:00] gallery in Big Cyprus. Uh, and then the other one is Redwood Forest in California. Hmm. I mean, these trees are, you know, 2000 years old. Wow. And, uh, just

they've been here since Christ. Yeah. How can you, I mean, uh, I, um, we found the cypress tree up in, uh, Santa Fe. It's probably been here 1500, maybe a thousand, 1500 years probably. Wow. Unbelievable. I mean, that's you, it puts you in perspective what the environment is about, the continuity. Mm. There's only one place in the world that, um, dinosaurs we're in that's still here, and that's the Redwood forest.

Mm. [00:40:00] Wow. The Redwood Forest was here, I think it was 15,000 years. Before the Rocky Mountains came outta the ground. Wow. Is that right? Wow. That give you an idea. Yeah, that's, and uh, we, one thing you need to do is you go out there, you need to hug one for about an hour. You get, you get the energy from it. Oh, bet.

It's amazing. Wow. And I was there in, uh, Pepperwood Forest in 1975, taking photographs. This was my color period. And this 300 and maybe 20 foot high tree fell right in front of me. Wow. Wow. It does make a noise. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. And I hit the, I I, I hit the ground. Like somebody threw a hand grenade at me.

'cause therap was going everywhere. Oh wow. I can imagine. Yeah. The ground must have shook. They don't, they, they don't cut [00:41:00] trees down like that. They cut 'em down in sections. Yeah. Because they're so heavy. I mean, this tree is, you know, um, 40, 50 feet. Second conference. Oh my gosh. It's, uh, wow. Is there a lot of heavy wood there?

Yeah. Yeah. So, um, that, that forest and, and the undergrowth on the, the coastal redwoods is so beautiful too. The ferns and the, the, uh, we have several different kinds of ferns. Mm-hmm. And the other, other plants too. It's. Pretty unique, and you could feel the oldness of it. Mm-hmm. Now there's a place on the, on the Santa Fe River where the Santa Fe meets the Suwanee.

Where's these, these cypress trees are like probably, at least at 500,000 years old, average trees [00:42:00] are about six miles of them. Wow. And that's pretty impressive. Mm. Yeah. Uh, it's, yeah, we, we, we shot that a lot. Uh, unfortunately, uh, I haven't got back in the boating since the stroke, but I'm gonna try to get back this year in the boating.

Is that right? Yeah, yeah. 'cause I gotta get back there. Yeah. I gotta get back there. Yeah. Yeah. It's so, and it's, it's, what it is is the Santa Fe river is, is pretty wide and pretty deep, but on the sides is where all the trees are. And they go back, some of the areas go back 200 feet of trees, and it's only about three, four feet of water.

Wow. So you can just walk through that whole area? Just walk in there? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wow. You would spend, [00:43:00] you would spend a full day. To get one shot in the Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. In the swamp. Well, I mean, uh, well, let's see. Oh, well, the, the, uh, uh, the cigar orchid pond, I found the composition January 1st, 2000. And I went back every year for nine years before I got the shot every year for nine years.

And this was in July and August where it was hot. 'cause that's when they needed to be there because of the water and uh, you know Oh, right. Rainy season and the water and clouds. Oh, right, right, right. The clouds. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, there's a shot, you know, on Newport, on, not Newport Fort my beach. I was back to that, that place 23 times before I got it.

Wow. Lugging all that gear out there and the whole process. Right. Yeah. It's not like bringing an iPhone out. No. You, [00:44:00] well, you know, if, if people say how many pictures you take today, if you can take one picture a day, you're doing really good. Wow. Wow. I mean, really a picture worth taking. Yeah. Like I just, I just, uh, when I was in the hospital this last summer, 'cause I went, when I get my struggle, I went to digital 'cause it was easier.

Um, the dark room work was harder for me. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I decided I'd go back to film and Paul. Uh, dark. Uh, he, he works, he's one of our older employees here. Uh, he's into photography. I told him what I wanted when I was in the hospital. What kind of camera? I needed all the specs for it. And he actually found it.

It's made in Iran, right? Okay. Yeah. Iran makes a camera. [00:45:00] Yeah. And it's the most logical camera, uh, sophisticated. Better than any German camera, Japanese camera. Really? Yeah. Bullshit. Uh, it was, and unfortunately you have to ship it through lab, uh, Dubai. You can't ship it from there, but here, because we don't like Iran.

Oh, okay. Okay. People are great. I mean, you should see the landscape, the pictures you have of the landscape in Iran. Beautiful country. Mm. Just some,

we got people in the world that just don't understand what's important. Mm-hmm. And it's having enough money to live on is important, but having bunches of it, it's not, it doesn't bring any more happiness. No. It probably brings a lot more misery. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, on the other [00:46:00] hand, people like Musk. He can do great things with the money he has.

Yeah. Which nobody else is doing. Right. Uh, bill Gates is trying, but he's just so slow. Yeah. Can't, he can't get anything accomplished. Yeah. 'cause he is not an engineer. He's, he's a money man. Right, right. Yeah. So I guess Musk has ability to do business and engineering. Yes. Yes. And far as I can see, he's the only one that's fighting global warming.

Yeah. I got my Tesla out there. We, we were on autopilot, full self-driving on the way up here. I appreciate Elon. Uh, I mean, it's, uh, theoretically it's gonna go online well in, uh, Texas, in, in, uh, July. You won't have to touch the wheel. Yeah. Yeah. We didn't have to touch it coming up here. Yeah. But it is [00:47:00] not theoretically you're supposed to Correct.

Correct. I do have to keep look my eye on the road. 'cause it, the cameras watch me. Yeah. If I look down, or even if I pick up a cup, it thinks it's my phone and it will say, you know, Hey, I almost bought it. Bought, bought a Y but I didn't like the braking system. Mm. That feeling of the, well, you can't, you can't take your foot off the gas.

Right. Right. It's like a golf cart. Yeah. No coasting yet. No coasting. Right. And uh, so we, we ended up, we had a volt Uhhuh Chevy Volt, which is, uh, we got 53 miles on the, uh, battery and 350 on gas. Mm-hmm. So our average, uh, mileage was a hundred miles to a gallon. Yeah, that's nice. Between the electric and the gas.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so we bought a Toyota that's, uh, the, it's the, uh, Raven Robin, Raven four mm-hmm. Four [00:48:00] wheel drive. Mm-hmm. And it has 43 miles on battery and then almost 500 miles under gas. Mm-hmm. It gets 40 miles a gallon under gas. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And, uh, like I said, we've got 43 miles battery.

Like when I came here, it's all, it's all bad. Anything, uh, we, we probably put gas in it unless we're going on a trip. Our gas bill's probably $20 every two months. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's nice. That's not bad. Yeah. Yeah. And we have solar on the house, which, uh Oh, do you really? Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. We don't have to pay for it.

Yeah. That looks enticing. I've been looking into that. Well, it's more than enticing. It's, it's, it's mandatory. We're gonna save the planet. Yeah. Yeah. That's, but you, but you gotta put battery back up. Hmm. And apparently the Tesla system is the best. That's what I like. Yeah. I've been looking at that. I really like that.

Uh, because it's, [00:49:00] uh, well, you get a hurricane, you don't have to go. You, you don't, you're not out of juice. Yeah. Yeah. And we've, we know what that is. Yeah. Like our house, we have battery backup in our house. Nice. And uh, but we haven't had the panel panels cleaned for about oh, 15 years and they're still working.

Okay. That long. We're gonna have, we're gonna have 'em clean a couple of months somehow. I got called Bill and have 'em cleaned, but because we have a bill now, we get, we're getting like a $40 a month bill running two air conditioners and 40 a month. Yeah, $40. Well, it used to be, we didn't have any bill, you know, when they were clean.

Oh, okay. There was no bill at all. Wow. That's a big savings. Yeah. Yeah. Well, in fact, there's enough extra to pay for the hookup fee too. I'm paying, we have two air conditioners. This ours is, I've been averaging 400 and we have [00:50:00] the gas appliances. Gas dryer, and uh, still it's four, $400 electric. Yeah. We're just, yeah.

It's, it's outrageous. So I, I like the idea of the, and I, and they make those, they make the solar panel. Look like the roof now too. They, they look like tiles. You can't even know it's solar. I would, I don't know if I'd do that or not. I mean, just That's a lot more money too. Yeah. Well, it's also not as sufficient.

Oh, okay. Okay. Uh, people get too hooked up on their look of their house. Yeah, that's, I mean, if you don't have any air debris, either water to drink pretty soon, what difference does it make? I don't think I I hear you. I mean, I hear you. Uh, and, and, and there's, there's some house, some condominium places that, uh, you can't put anything on your roof except by law you can put energy on your roof, period.

[00:51:00] Mm. Okay. There's no, uh, uh, you know, uh, restrictions uhhuh. Yeah. They have to let you do it. Yeah. Okay. But if you, if you have to replace your BI put metal up first that I like that look that that's a good look too. Also. It'll last until you die. Yeah. No more of this insurance issue with it. Yeah. And also I, like we put regular roofs on, they're only good for 12 years.

Yeah. Yeah. That's a big problem now. Yeah. Except a lot of people say, well, I'm gonna move in 12 years. So I guess it's not for those kind. Well, it's just the right thing to do though. Yeah. And also I put, uh, white metal on ours, so it reflects the heat too. Hmm. You're, you've got a, a broad depth of knowledge about so many things you need to Oh, yeah.

[00:52:00] Well I,

Musk is doing so many, I mean, I, I've talked, I said to Brien, you know, he didn't like Musk. Mm-hmm. Now he kept him out. Yeah. And I said, you know, Musk is the reason he's the one changing the world for getting global warming. Yeah. Yeah. So he didn't, but because you said that to him, you said that to him. Yeah.

Because if he hadn't started the car business, they wouldn't be making batteries. Hmm. Now we had solar panels, we had wind, but where are you gonna, how are you gonna run a, a country with wind and solar without batteries? Mm. Know where to store the energy. Right. Yeah. I mean, so that's one of his biggest business now is gonna be batteries.

Mm-hmm. For, for not just the houses, but for the, uh, you know, for the, for the grid. [00:53:00] He's got these batteries that are big. Yeah. Uh. Actually, Australia was the first place to really, uh, caught into it. 'cause their electric bills were so high and the in frequency of, of problems with electricity. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

And so that's becoming about as big as his car business. You don't realize that? No, I didn't. Then his, uh, semi trucks, most polluter polluters in the car business is, is diesel trucks. They put like 18% of the pollutions from those trucks. Right, right. Yeah. He's gonna, he's building a factory that can produce 50,000 semis a year.

Yeah. Supposed to go online next year. It's being built right now. Yeah. That'll make a big difference. I saw the Pepsi [00:54:00] fleet that mm-hmm. He brawled out. He asked his drivers, how do you like it? Oh yeah. Yeah. I like it. Plus it's quiet. It's cuts down on noise pollution. It's, there's no shifting. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's no shifting. You push the funnel. Yeah. Push the pedal down. Oh, yeah. I, I can attest to the feeling of it. Yeah. It's, yeah. They, uh. Yeah. And he's taken his money and just, he just keeps reinvesting it. He doesn't buy houses and, and yachts. Yeah. He just keeps pumping it back in. He doesn't care what the value.

Well, he also gives a lot, a lot more money away to different charities. You, you realize. Yeah. Most people don't, they don't realize it. Yeah. He doesn't live by quarterly results. That's what's different about him. He's got he could care less. Yes. And his vision is, well, he is, he's done the figures. He says, you can do run the whole, our whole country on, what was it?

Uh, solar, the size of Rhode Island that much. The whole United States. You have that the whole United States [00:55:00] would need any, any kinda companies, any other thing. It's just, it's instead of spill all the money on bombs and killing people, which all the trucks and cars and stuff are killing people. True. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. The only one thing he's doing kind of bad right now is, uh, this AI computer business. It's taken a lot of power. A lot of power. Yeah. A lot of power. Yeah. That's the, that's the pitfall of that right now, right? Yeah. Is the power that it's consumes. Yeah. But it might solve some of the other problems.

So have you, have you, have you experimented with that at all? Chat, GPT or ai? Have you done anything? Jackie has, my wife's just been doing it with this new book. She's got an idea on how to get research on, because it's, she has this idea of the last bird and [00:56:00] they, they have, uh, they invent the future. Been in a time machine.

He goes back to try to bring the birds back. Hmm. It, uh, but he, so she's, she needs to get a lot of the information on how we're getting, getting screwed. How we're getting screwed up, how the birds are getting lost. Mm-hmm. So she's using the AI for that. Mm-hmm. Which is, she's getting, she's, she was, it was just two or three days ago, she says, you realize we're gonna all be living in the north and South Pole according to ai.

Mm. North Pole doesn't have any land. You know that, right? No, I didn't. It's all ice. Oh, so it's all in ice. It's not land itself. There's no land itself. Oh, it's just ice. Yeah, of course it's Greenland, which has land. Okay. No, I didn't realize that. No, it's just ice. That's it. Yeah. Wow. I didn't know that. So, I, in fact, I had, uh, uh, uh, five years ago, I think it was the head, uh, [00:57:00] scientist on Greenland was, was staying at one of our, our houses at the Swamp.

So I got him aside. I said, tell me what's happening in Greenland. He started telling me, he says, you know, it's a lot worse than you think. Hmm. What's happening is the, the, um,

glaciers on the edge are starting to break off, and then the mountains, the ice is being undercut by water. Hmm. So, so when all this ice from the shore is gonna be gone, ice on the mountains will slip off and that's where all majority of the ice is. Oh, okay. Okay. So the, uh, back here it says, where, where's the swamp?

We are at 10 feet. He says, uh, you'll have 19 feet of water over you. Oh. 'cause it's kind of, it's gonna have an impact all the way down. Yeah. The whole world. 19 feet from 10. [00:58:00] Wow. Just from Greenland County. South Pole. Yeah. Wow. Iceland. Yeah.

How, how have you been able to do that throughout your life to balance your career, photography, your business, and conservationism? 'cause you've been such a big advocate for that. Well, you just have to keep, you have to be always tuned to what fin that information. Hmm. The internet has, you just have to find it.

It's there. Mm-hmm. And this AI stuff is gonna be really interesting. Mm-hmm. But I'm just, you have to be, I was interested in solar. If I put my first solar on a house, well, the first thing I did, the gallery on the swamp, uh, I think I put some of the first LEDs in a gallery in the United [00:59:00] States. Each bulb was $80 then.

Wow. Uh, and I had a hundred bulbs that was $8,000. Wow. Right. Yeah. Know no more than that. 800. It was a lot of money. Yeah. A lot of money. And, um, that was in probably 1994 or five. Your electric bulb probably went down a lot too. Your AC bill went down. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's tremendous. I mean, it's tremendous.

Of course, these are all, all ladies. Yeah, of course. Yeah. But now they're eight bucks, right? Not 80. Right. Eight bucks now. Yeah. Thankfully. But for people like me, I got it going. Yeah. And then I put solar on the, uh, house that had it down by [01:00:00] the gallery. Uh.

Uh, 2001 or two. And it was, um, what was it? It was tremendous. It was like $50 a watt, or now it's six or seven. Wow. A big impact. Yeah. So, so I, I've been interested in the concept of the power problem for mm-hmm. 30 years. Mm-hmm. So I've got, I've been keeping that tie on for 30 years. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And that's why Tesla is so exciting to me.

I just, weird for those breaks, you can just take that, that function off. If you're using autopilot, well, you can now, you can take that off. You can have it behave like a regular car. You [01:01:00] can, there's a, there's a feed. Yep. There's a function for that. Just for that exact same issue. 'cause people were so used to, the yellow way of the car will move when you take your foot off the brake or accelerator.

It moves, it's the idols that move when you're in drive. So he purposely put an update to the car. So we'll do that now. We may have to get a river rock right here. You, you might have to. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And model YI have to, well, also, I think next year they're gonna have better batteries too. Yeah.

They just keep getting better and better. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they definitely do. And they, I keep getting an update, you know, I get an update every other week. I get an update every other week in the car. So there are always new things that are always new features and functions that it has. Well, our, our car runs on, uh, auto, on the freeway.

Yeah. Otherwise you just have your hand on the wheel. It'll, yeah, it'll look at the car up. So, you know, it'll, it'll keep, it'll run by itself. Yeah. The, the whole reason why I bought one was a friend of mine, somebody who worked out at our gym, had one and I'd been looking at it, [01:02:00] and this was in 2018 and she let me drive it.

She said, you gotta drive it, you'll love it. And, and, and I used the autopilot feature. And what happened was a car, it was on autopilot. A car pulled in front of us and we, to avoid hitting that car, we had to cut over this way. Take a hard Right. 'cause it laying next to us was free. Had I been driving it, I didn't know that Lane was free.

I wouldn't have been able to react that quickly. It knew immediately where to go and how to get outta the way. And once I had that experience where I felt like that car just saved an accident, I was like, I gotta have one of these. I gotta have one. 'cause I'm a good Dr. I'm, I'm not a great driver. I'm, I'm a slow driver, not great.

Um, and I. Ever since then, you know, I've been using it and I, and I absolutely love it. You know, the autopilot really, it does a better job than me. I, I'm not good at merging into lanes or when I gotta get over and take a right and I gotta cut people off. It knows [01:03:00] it, it does that so politely. Right. All I have to do is wave my hand.

Now it gets in the lane and I say thank you. It makes it nice. I, I have a deep appreciation for Elon for the, and they're cheap. They're cheap. They are. They've come way, way down. You can get a model Y now with, with the tax thing of 37,000. Yep. Yep. People say they're expensive. Not compared to most cars. I pay 50,000 for my Toyota with us.

Is that right? Really? Yeah. The cars are crazy now. It's not cheap. No, no it's not. But I do have four wheel drive and it's higher. Yeah, that's nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I can go off road with it. Nice. Yeah. But, uh, I imagine you would need that, but it's still, it'll only tow 1500 pounds. Oh yeah. So you can't put a boat back there.

Small and a little one a canoe. Okay. You said sometimes it's a second exposure that gets it right. That's life. [01:04:00] Sometimes you don't make it the first time around. Mm. Uh, life is a learning process, just like photography. Uh, if you're not willing to learn and experiment, you're never gonna get anywhere in life.

Same with photography. Uh,

like that shot in, uh, fort my beach. It was 23 times round. Mm. Wow. I mean, I just, I thought there was a shot there. I thought there was a, and I just kept, I have the right, actually what I had to have, this is silly, even want to have it, I needed to have a cloud that was low behind me so it would bounce the light into the scene because I was shooting into the sun.

Wow. I had to have a cloud that would be like a, a fill light. How about that? That's something [01:05:00] else to be, yeah. Using the nature. Yeah. That's not cloud. I had to wait for that raw, it's not cloud. Yeah. Yeah. It's not static. It's dynamic. Where's that cloud? But you know, when you, that's not extraordinary. In the sailing world, we, we raised our kid on a sailboat for seven years.

You learn to live with the weather. Hmm hmm. If you're out sailing in the ocean, you better learn what's, what's gonna happen. Yeah. When, when things don't look right or feel right. Yeah. Take the sails down. Yeah. You develop another sense almost, right? Mm-hmm. And you understand the weather of like, like if you're out in outside here in Florida and Storm is coming.

The storm is gonna pull the weather into you. Hmm. And then when, then there'll be a point of about 30, 40 seconds, there'll be no winds at all. [01:06:00] Hmm. And that's when the shit's gonna hit the fan.

I don't think that's proper for the, uh, they won't censor us. It's a, it's good because that's what happens. I mean, uh, 'cause a lot of times like Ista Poka shots. What shots? Ista Poka. Ista Poka. There's some, uh, cyp Lake Tka is Oh, okay. Some, uh, cypress trees that I was trying to photograph and I needed sun, but I didn't need any wind.

Hmm. Because of the, the moss of the tree coming down. Hmm. So, I mean, I, I, I'm in, I'm, I'm in the water and it's mud and I was probably in that mud for three or four hours and I'm sinking further and further, further and further. And because [01:07:00] I was waiting for that 30 seconds so I could take a one second exposure.

'cause the one second exposure, wind's blowing and everything's gonna be outta focus. So I'm waiting for that. So one, one storm will go by. Went by, had no wind. Had no sun. Hmm. Oh boy. So it took, uh, probably six or seven storms that went through before I got it. Wow. Wow.

That the one second exposure is something that you do for a lot of work, right? Well, it's in large format. That's probably the fastest exposure I have. Oh, is that right? One second is fastest bright sun. Wow. Yeah, because you have to stop, you know, F 64, you have to use an orange filter. Two and two and a half stops there.

Uh, use a hundred a SA film. It's not like a digital, you can put the thing up to, you know, 8,000 a SA and see. [01:08:00] Yeah. You know? Yeah. I'm working with a hundred a SA. When you put the orange filter on, it's, see, it's, it's um, about 15 a SC Oh, it cuts it down. Oh yeah. Two and a half stops. Oh. So each stop from a hundred as C 50 is one stop.

25 is two stops. Then a half stop is probably, it's probably 15th of a second. Wow. So you really, it's, you can't have any wind or any movement. It's gotta be rain now. Some of the shots, um, well, like that one there, that was a six minute exposure. And so there's nothing can move for six minutes. Six minutes.

Wow. Oh my gosh. Look at the water. Wow. See, that's make the water like glass because the water's moving. Oh. [01:09:00] Oh wow. Six minutes. Yep. Oh my gosh. Some of the, uh, redwood forest shots are 10 minutes. Is that right? 10 minutes. Oh my gosh. If you've ever had a, it'd been in the middle of the 10 minutes and kicked it or something.

It does happen that, that, that shot did, uh, really the great one in Pepperwood, uh, I did it 10 times before. 'cause there was a plant freeway, or, well, you consider it a freeway. It was only maybe quarter of a mile away and a semi would come by and it'd be enough wind to move the plants. I'm a semi. Wow. That would be frustrating.

So I get halfway through the shot and go like this, oh, well do another one. You knew the shot was done once you heard the semi, that was not gonna happen. Right. And then you also, when you're out there in the [01:10:00] woods, when a cloud goes off under earth, over the sun and off of the sun, it changes the wind pattern.

Oh my gosh. Who would've thought that? Like I, and you just. Being so much with nature, you Oh yeah. These tendencies. You, you can say, okay, here the shadows. Oh, here comes the wind. Wow. Wow. It's like you're earth man. You literally, it just so in tune with what's going on. You had didn't been able to read environment.

Yeah. In a way. I just never imagined, never would think about that. Oh, how many people shoot with a large format camera in Florida? Yeah. Right. I mean, Florida does not like large format. It loves digital

or iPhone. Yeah. Right. And the iPhones are getting darn good. But there's something about film and [01:11:00] silver print that's, I mean, I do digital prints that are great. Mm-hmm. But they're still, still not the same. Mm-hmm. And I do, I, I think I do a really good job of those digital black and white printing. 'cause people don't realize when you make a black and white print like this mm-hmm.

There's actually two in the black and white paper. There's actually two colors. There's two colors. The highlights are different color than the shadows. So with the, with the rip I got for the, for the Epson printer, you can adjust the color of the highlights and adjust the color of the shadows. To get look like a silver print.

Mm. If you do a straight print on d on the digital, they don't look like the Right. Don't get that. Oh, I didn't know that. Wow. Cost, it costs $2,500 for the rip. Okay. [01:12:00] Okay.

Yeah. It's, and if you don't, if you have, you don't have enough black paper. The paper, the photograph have a little greenish look. Mm-hmm. Have you ever, have you ever, I, in the process of developing, uh, old school, have you ever been surprised by what showed up? Have you, have you had a picture that you thought, wow, how did that happen?

Or, oh, well, yeah. You're, you're always surprised. 'cause you never know if you, when you take a picture if it's gonna work. Mm. Is you choose the right color filter, you choose the right exposure. Mm. You know, uh, and then there's an awful lot of burning and dodgy involved. 'cause large format lenses, if you look at that big picture there.

Mm-hmm. See, the edges are darker than the center. Yes. Yes. Well, that's because the lens is a simple lens. [01:13:00] So for anybody who's not seeing the visual portion of this, 'cause I know Zach will get a shot of that in there. Where, where is that? What is that shot? Uh, that's a conservation one. Uh, off of, uh, it's.

It's on the way to it's headwaters of Everglades. Mm. Um, so

it's hard to explain, but when you have this, these are all wide, mostly wide angle shots. Now, when you use wide angle on, on, on digital, or 35 millimeter, or two and a quarter, they design the lenses. Um, so that, it's really silly. But the, the wide angle lens, the image is formed in front of the lens and then projected with telephoto elements back to the film.[01:14:00] 

The first, uh, 20 millimeter wide angle lens was designed, uh, by, um, uh, oh, uh, Exacta in, uh, 1960. It was the first 20 millimeter lens. Now, Leica had 21 millimeter lenses, but that the Leica is like a large four minute camera. The, the back of that lens is this far from the film. So the image is going like this, not like this.

It's, it is a white angle, but it's going like this. So the distance between the, the el, the Irish. And the side mm-hmm. Is longer than the distance from front here to, to here. So it's like a stop and half difference on the side. So how's that affect the image then? What is that gonna do? Well, there you go.

That right there? Yes. Yeah. Straight shot. Ah, and no burning on the edges. Oh, okay. Okay. [01:15:00] Which is an effect that you're right. Makes it natural. Yeah. Yeah. That's an eight by 10 nig. Eight by 10 nig. Yeah. Yeah. Are we go? Are we okay? Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. I'm just checking on you. You okay? I, I've been keeping 'em below time here.

Oh, okay. Okay. Having fun. Okay. That's all I have, so I have to check. Good. I certainly am. Your, your batteries haven't run out yet. Uh, yeah, surprisingly, this one's getting a little better. Actually. Have question about this one. Do you, even with that effect, did you dodge and burn the, the edges to try and bring back some of the vignetting effect that happened?

Or is it just you, you burn in the center? Not the edges for the, if you wanna make it more even, you burn the center in. Oh, really? So the whole thing's usually a lot more, a lot darker. You just bring back the center. That's pretty natural there. That one. Yeah. That was pretty, pretty natural. Uh, what you do in the dark room, you stick your [01:16:00] fingers and you go up to the lens and down and up and down like this, and do a graduate burn in the center.

Is, is there any footage of you, anywhere of you working in a dark room? Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. That'd have to be, just ask Paul if you want some of that stuff. Yeah. That'd be pretty cool to see. Yeah. Wow. And he has, uh, uh, we have a lot of files of 2000 DPI for tv. So he Nice. Call, call him and ask him what you want.

If you want, like the Fort Myers beach. Uh, you, he and I've talked about You can, yeah. How great would that be? Yes. For people, give people a, if we get some of that and put inter put that throughout the Yeah, yeah. The, the conversation so people could see that. Yeah. The, uh, dark room work is, the sink is 37 feet long in this building.

Mm-hmm. How many feet? Three, seven. Is that right? I [01:17:00] knew the room was what, 2000 square feet back there, right? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Each tray is, uh, four foot by five foot. Wow. Both 10 gallons of chemistry. Oh my gosh. Wow.

So, yeah, it was, I I had to, I had to make all that stuff. 'cause it didn't exist, right? Doesn't exist. No. You made it. Oh yeah. Well, I'm an architect, you know, I could do that stuff. Yeah. Build boats. Yeah. Right. Build boats. You can build sink.

And and why was it that you originally made the move from being an architect to photography? I thought I saw something about that. Well, um, well, I was, uh, when I worked in, in, in the architect's office, a friend of mine worked there also, uh, was a painter. And he would, uh, take, he had some A-frames he'd go, they would have a, you know, [01:18:00] seven or eight guys get together with their A-frames and go in front of a grocery store and set up a art show on the street.

And he said, why don't you come try it. Give, give it a try, see what you like it. And so I did that and made more money than I made in architecture, and it was a lot more fun, uh, and architecture. Unless you were born in the right family or married the right person, you aren't going anywhere. The only architects that I know of that are having really enjoying their being an architect is they build their own buildings and sell 'em.

Design their mm-hmm. Do their own design. Yeah. Right, right. Okay. Yeah. So they're, they're the client. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. So, so that, you know, it's, and, and in architecture, I was using the camera a lot for taking pictures of architectural models and sort of thing. Mm-hmm. So I was. [01:19:00] Really into, uh, working with a camera.

Hmm. Like I had, like, I had the first 20 millimeter exact lens. I think it was like six months after it was invented. I got that lens. Wow. 20 millimeter. That was in 1961. Wow. So I've been working with wide angle. 'cause wide angle. Uh, it is actually probably the most difficult way to photograph because to have the composition, you're taking so much area and you have the whole thing has to work.

Hmm. Like if you're using a longer lens, you can say, okay, I'll do this little tree here, I'll do this little thing here. Yeah. So you can focus in on it. But I, I work lenses up to 130 degree angle.

It's a wide angle. Yeah. Yeah. And with doing [01:20:00] that, one side is always darker than the other side. One side is always darker than the other side or lighter, whatever we call it. Yeah. Because the, uh, angle of view Oh, okay. Oh, is the way the sun is. I mean, it's way you can't do it. Okay. Yeah. So, and color is almost a difficult, almost impossible to get.

It's more difficult. Yeah. People use wide angle. They'll have a nice sunset and this side will be lighter than that side. It'll be darker. Mm-hmm.

But with, uh, black and white, I can get away with it. What a, what a gold mine of goodness. Out of this. This has really, it's been so fascinating. Yeah. Well, you know, there's, uh, that's one thing that I probably should start doing is doing some

talks about these sort of things too, for, 'cause I'm, you know, I'm 80, almost 83, and [01:21:00] I'm not gonna live forever. And not many people know what I know. Yeah, I know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You, uh, you've been on the cutting edge of things your whole life. You've just been a pioneer every step of the way. Yeah. The, the, the question I'm gonna ask Nikki ask AI is, uh, who or what is solving the, the doing the best solving of global warming in the world?

And I'll bet it's Elon Musk. Yeah. And I can't tell you how many, um, environmental talks I give and everybody's pissed off at, at Musk, and I said, do you understand Musk, what he's doing? Yeah. Oh yeah. He's throwing people out of government. Well, so you understand what he is really doing. Hmm. [01:22:00] All you hear is the stuff on the news about him.

Yeah. You don't understand what he's doing. Right. Yeah. It makes me upset because this one lady was charge of this whole environmental organization. I said, you need to start looking up and researching what he does for you, giving me this bullshit. Yeah. Right. They just hear what, they're just repeating what they say on the news, which catches eyeballs and Yeah.

Yeah. 15 seconds. Yep. Yeah. Which is really why I like the opportunity to have this kind of conversation with you. It's not just a quick blurb. I get to hear the depth of what you're talking about and hear you, whatever that means. Whatever that means. Yeah. Yeah. To hear it all, not just the soundbite. Right.

You know, not just a little soundbite, which is Well, you can't get a soundbite. There's so many things happening in the world right now. Yeah. You know, I mean, people have gotta be nicer to each other. Yeah. I mean, uh, yeah, no kidding. For sure. I mean, this, this thing in [01:23:00] Ukraine, like the UN is worthless, right?

Yeah. It's worthless. Yeah. Yeah. It's a symbol of nothing. Right? Well, they put, they put, uh, all this, this, this group of, what is it, 12 together? Can, can we or, or Russia or China or anybody can cancel anything out. Yeah. You know, and that should, it should be the. How many nations are there? 200 or three. Yeah.

It should be, the nations should be able to vote on what, as Russia being an ambassador asshole. And you should vote and say, okay, we'll, we'll, uh, we'll take and go bomb 'em. We, we should be in there getting rid. We just in and get rid of them. Mm-hmm. Because I don't think the atomic bombs are even gonna work.

Not anymore. No. Do you don't understand how atomic bombs work. You've gotta rework 'em all the time. They fizzle out. They tried to launch [01:24:00] one a couple days ago and it wouldn't even launch. I mean, we spent, I think it was $80 billion keeping the, uh, weapons working. Hmm. Not making them. Yeah. And Russia spent $80 billion on their whole armed forces in a year.

Hmm. And when And so how many, how many, how much did they spend on, they, they have these, all these bombs that they haven't gonna work. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. And not only that, the, the damage they do, if we, if we launched anything nuclear, we're gonna end up having repercussions from that too, because of the fallout of it too.

It's not like it will just stay local. Right. It's gonna affect the globe. Does it affect everywhere? It's round Girl World is round. Yeah. Oh yeah. Imagine that.

They don't, people don't understand we're a [01:25:00] spaceship. Mm-hmm. Now, the, the, uh, space station we have, do they have to resupply that all the time? Or is it up there for Infin? They don't have to do anything. The, the don't, they have to take food up there. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Have to take, repair it. Same with the world.

Hmm. It's only so much resources here. Yeah. Yeah. Finite. Yeah. I mean, we have to be resupplied or we have to have a world that we don't like. Okay. The batteries, people get a little thing about batteries. They say they're gonna, they're taking all these minerals. You can not, you can, I think it's 95% of the batteries that Tesla uses is gonna be recycled.

Wow. So, because they're gonna go in a landfill, then they can be re they can be reused. That's awesome. No. Yeah. In [01:26:00] fact, one of the guys that made one, it was called Redwood, uh, he was an ex, uh, uh, employee of Tesla that made this factory to recycle the batteries. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's gonna be again, what Musk gives us opportunity for all these people to learn stuff.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. He's a pioneer like no other man. He just keeps doing it. How many people on the line of General Motors are millionaires now? Musk has millionaires working for him. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. On the line? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. People don't, they don't report that. They don't talk about that though. No. No. I think, I think it's something, something like two thirds of people are pretty well off.

Yeah. He's done that for a lot of people. Yeah. Because they'll never, my Tesla stock alone, he's done well for me. I'll just hold, hold on. Well, I, I did pretty well too. I, uh, see [01:27:00] what was it? I'm not sure dates wise, but there was a point where I sold enough stock to pay for my investment, so that, that, that part I've always kept, almost everything else is gravy after that.

Yeah. Now all my stock is 1100 shares, so it's now it's worth what, 400,000? Yeah. And it cost me dime. That's nice. I like that strategy. That's good. Yeah. So that's my wife's strategy too. The stock does well. Mm-hmm. You sell enough to pay off What that for? You put in $40,000. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And if it's worth 80, you sell 40 of it.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You keep the other 40. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Then you're working off the, the gravy of it. Yeah. Yeah. If I buy a Tesla, it's [01:28:00] free.

I gotta go back to your bride, your bride back to back to reality. Your bride. Is it just your bride? For me? 'cause I I, she's behind so much of this. Oh, she is. How, how would, how would she describe you? Uh, non-linear? Mm. Chaos? Um, persistent. Uh,

either she's my first love or photography is my first love. Mm. She doesn't know yet.

I,

yeah, I think, I think maybe pretty good definition of Yeah. 'cause I'm working on my, even the philosophy of photography every day and, um. [01:29:00] Thinking about what to do. I'm, I'm trying to figure out how I can do more visually, get people excited about the world. Hmm. Um, and now it really is, uh, probably pr, I mean, I've done probably enough photography to illustrate the art of the world.

Mm-hmm. Uh, I don't see I could do too much more. Mm-hmm. Um, and I'm not interest in photographing rocks too much. Is, is there anywhere, if, if travel wasn't the issue, is there anywhere you would like to photograph in the world? Uh, Florida, um, actually, uh, if I, I was physically fit, probably [01:30:00] some Kentucky Mm.

Some beautiful stuff in Kentucky and Ohio. Mm. Uh, Michigan. And I'm just unfortunately not strong enough to do those kind of areas now. Mm-hmm. Not yet. Well, you do a lot of hiking up and down hills and mm-hmm. Uh, when with my stroke, I'm still not balanced. It's not, I'm getting the point where I can walk. A problem from here to the wall there without a, without a cane.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But, uh, if I could walk in the swamp, that'll be my first, my first big thing is to walk in the swamp. Mm-hmm. Because there's, that's not level. Yeah. You don't know what you're stepping on there. You got stumps and rocks and Yeah. All kinds of stuff. Yeah. So, um, but I would like to work on more books, which we're, we're, we're redoing the, uh, Everglades book, but out of that [01:31:00] one, and I think that's important book because is a special place.

Um,

the springs in Florida are pretty important, but

I've tried, I've been working on Springs, but I haven't figured out how to really pull it off yet. Mm. I don't know. It's a whole different world. The Everglades. I understand, uh, the springs are kinda like the Everglades, but not, and um, unfortunately

more people, or fortunately more people are interested in the Everglades because it's become a national treasure. Yeah. Yeah. And it's unique. Yeah. Uh, like Northern, [01:32:00] Northern Florida's, Georgia, south North Carolina, but, uh, Georgia, I mean, uh, Alabama, I mean. Mm-hmm. Pretty much. But there's, there's nothing like the Everglades anywhere else.

No. Mm-hmm. So that's kind of unique. Yeah. And also it's the first ecosystem that's gonna go with global warming. Mm. Along with Miami and New York and Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The show Flipper. Oh, that was one of my favorite shows of slipper. That's one of the reasons I came to Florida Slipper. Is that right?

Yeah. And Gentle Ben. Gentle. I remember that too. Yeah. And, um, sea Hunt Uhhuh. Remember that one? Yeah. Flipper. Of course. I was also Hop hop along Cassidy. I had a hop along Cassidy save his account when I was young.

So the Cowboys were always, and you know, the [01:33:00] Cowboys shows are all mostly photographed in, um, Alabama Hills in California. Oh, really? Yeah. California. Yeah. They're on the, uh, the, uh, eastern side of the, of the, uh, the mountains were Yosemite. Okay. All the big boulders, John Wayne movies. Yeah. Hmm. Well, Harrison Ford did a lot in, uh, in, uh, monument Valley, which was, which was that, that was pretty impressive movies he did there.

But, uh, monument Valley was kind of interesting, but, uh, there's a lot of interesting places. Yosemite is fun. Uh, we spent a month, we, we've been there a lot of times. Uh, I mean, I first probably got interested in photography in, uh, Yosemite. 'cause I went to dating my wife there in 61 and saw Ancel Adam's work, ah, [01:34:00] country Could've bought Moonrise of Hernandez for 75 bucks.

Is that right? Yeah. Probably pick up one now for, I don't know, 400,000. Wow. Wow.

Well, you are the, uh, Ansel of the East Coast of, you know, you just, well, you know, it's, it's, it's a privilege to have that recognition because, uh, well, I kind of, well, I probably may photography more of a HA ho a a home household word that he did with my stuff in the clock line. Oh. From that really, I. Wow.

I know one picture alone, one image. It was a 19 by a 50 inch print, so 700,000 clocks. Wow. Just the one image. [01:35:00] Wow. That one just kept track of probably, I don't know. So, I don't know. 10 million clocks at least. Geez. Maybe 20 million. I don't know how many. Oh my gosh. Wow. And that's not even the biggest part of the story, but it's a big bar.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I didn't know that. Didn't know that. Oh, yeah. I mean, Avis sent, uh, I think two containers to, uh, Saudi Arabia. Oh, it was international then It was all over. Yeah. Uh, some to Japan. In fact, I went to Japan in 78. They wanted to, uh, talk to me about the picture clocks. They wanted to, they thought it was a good idea.

They wanted to do it. And, uh, the way they were doing it was gonna be so expensive or so plastic. I said it wasn't gonna work. Mm. It was my, my labor, the way I designed them, making the clocks was less than [01:36:00] the freight to, to chip Japan. Cost more to ship Uhhuh. Is that right?

Uh, I mean, uh, one person could put 200 clocks a day together. I. Frame everything. This was this, what, what year was this? When was this? Uh, from about 71 to 78. Mm-hmm. A jig put, just put it, kind of put it all together. Mm-hmm. It was air operated. Mm-hmm. And, uh, are you familiar with, uh, uh, mi even it was mire saws, right?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Because they have one, it's called, it's two, two blade one. So it cuts, both cuts at once, two blades go down, and, uh, I had 12 of those cutting frames 24 hours a day. Wow. Give you an idea. Oh, [01:37:00] geez. Volume. Yeah. Semi-truck a day. Clocks. Wow. Time. I had no, I had no money, so I was, it was, I had to have, uh, logistics, uh, so that all the materials would come in like they were trying to do now.

Mm-hmm. All, everything come in the right dates. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So, so I only had, I think I had, I worked on three weeks turning inventory in three weeks. Normally it's three months. Wow. Um, so I, I've learned a lot of different, I've done a lot of different things. A lot of different ways. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Because that architecture background, I have an idea. I try to figure a way of doing it. Mm-hmm. And, uh, as S Musk. As Nick, yeah. And, and, and Nikki has said it about you too. You're persistent too. You're gonna figure it out. Yeah. Yeah. You make it happen, right? Yeah. Unfortunately, I didn't figure out one thing in making [01:38:00] those trays back there.

Mm. God. We have a paper that's 54 inches wide rolled paper, like that one there. And so I built the sink. Uh, I got 65 foot plexiglass with 60 inches, but there's a half inch in each side. It takes up, you know, half inch. Mm-hmm. So only have 59 inches. So I have 54. Well, that's enough to work. It didn't realize it expands two inches.

The paper expands two inches. Does it really? Yes. Two inches. Two inches. No kidding. So you do barely get it through the tray.

How you holding up over there? You all right? I'm good. You good? You good? It's great. All right. Isn't it fun? I we're, I'm so happy we made the trip up. We're, it's time for the just for fun segment here, so, okay. Uh, what music's playing while you're working in the dark room or driving is, or music that you listen to.

[01:39:00] Jimmy Buffett. There you go. That's my favorite. Yeah. I love that. That fits the Florida theme real well. Yep. Any books or podcasts that you. Go back to Randy White.

That's a podcast? No, Randy White's. Books. Books. Randy White books. Yeah. He's a Florida guy. Oh, he is a Florida guy. Okay. Doc Ford Restaurants. You heard Doc Ford restaurants. Oh yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah. That's his, that's his main character in his books. Oh, really? Yeah. Um, podcasts. I like a lot of 'em. Uh, I used, I, a lot of 'em I listen to are the Tesla ones.

Mm. Um, anything on energy. Mm-hmm. Of course. Photography. I always have my, all the, Hmm. It's,

it's hard to [01:40:00] find podcasts on modern photographers. Uh, they just don't really understand what they're doing. And they're not, they don't work with philosophy. They just work with, I use a Fuji because it's a hundred megabytes or mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Uh, they don't talk about the lenses like I have, uh, from all my digital cameras, I only have one set of lenses, basically, or Canon tilt shift lenses.

Because you, you, you, when you take a picture, you can't tilt the camera,

you can't take the sky and go like this or get like that in the foreground, distorts everything. Mm. So what you have to do, your camera has to be perfectly level, [01:41:00] but the lens can move up and down.

And that's your digital camera. Mm-hmm. Well, it's the same as a film. That's how film cameras work. That's the same as film. That way it got, it was really easy to get involved with digital because they had the, the, the, uh, cameras and the lenses that would do the same as my large format. Ah, gotcha. Okay. So I, I fell right into it.

Mm-hmm. I started digital work with digital probably in 1999, but that I would, uh, 'cause I, I wanted to scan my, my negatives for the books. Hmm. So I had to figure a way of making the scans come out the same as my prints. Hmm. So I had to develop my own technique for scan, for printing to do working in Photoshop, [01:42:00] which not hardly anybody uses.

Yeah. You know, uh. Most of the thing I use history brush the eraser, gradients, and that's about it. You, you, you just had to create your own pathway for Right. So many of the things you've done, haven't you. Right, because, because, uh, uh, the eraser is a powerful tool. Mm-hmm. People don't know how to use the eraser.

Mm mm Give you a hint how you, no. If you look on, if you look on, on the internet, I think, uh, Photoshop made easy. Clyde Butcher or something like that. There's, uh, the techniques are on the internet free. Is that right? On free? Oh yeah. Yeah. Um, like for instance, if you want, how do you control contrast in one particular area?

How do you do that? You know, Photoshop at all? Not like he does, you know, Photoshop not like he does. I know [01:43:00] Lightroom more than Photoshop. I have no idea how Lightroom works. I think it's How do you control like a, I just do like masks in light room for that to mask on something in a particular area. You can adjust contrast or whatever else.

Yeah. Well that's one way of doing it. I dunno. Photoshop as, as well. The way I do it is I, I make another image particularly, and, and then I, uh, bring off the, the high make it so it's really high contrast in the image. Then in areas I don't want, um, contrast in, I just race it. Oh, yeah. So you could like, kinda like stack it mm-hmm.

Put the high contrast one underneath and like poke mm-hmm. Theater like Right. Yeah. This is the way I do it there. That's the way I do it. Mm. I change because the larger back here you've got two bulbs, green and blue bulb. Green is low contrast and blue is high contrast. So if [01:44:00] I want more contrast in the area, I turn the green off and I use my hand to burn in that area.

I want Wow. More contrast. Wow. Wow. So basically it's the first Photoshop that's a, uh, so, so much art that goes into it. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. A lot. But see, it's also a lot,

a lot less exact than Photoshop. Yeah. And that's why one reason it has a different look. Yeah. So when I use Photoshop, I use the same concept. So it's not, you can do things with a, with a brush and make it very exact. Mm-hmm. Uh, you can, anything you can do on the image as you can brush it in. Like for instance, if you have, if you want more, uh, sharpness in a picture and you don't want it in the sky.[01:45:00] 

You can brush a sharpness in the foreground. Mm. 'cause you don't want to sharp in the skies. Yeah. You can't have a sharpened cloud. Yeah. Clouds don't look sharp. Not gonna look right. No, they don't get sharp. I mean, I, for some reason, I first started out, I Why can't get that cloud sharp? They're not sharp.

If, if you weren't a photographer, what do you think you'd be doing today?

Maybe being a sailor. Mm. Uh, I just can't imagine not being a photographer. Yeah. Um,

well, what I'd probably do is work on my, more of my negatives, the printing part. Mm. That, [01:46:00] that's what I'm gonna start doing too. I'm gonna start working more in, back in the dark room. Mm-hmm. Wow. Never stopping. No. Well, when you're six feet under, you can stop. That's right. That's true. Why stop you enjoy it?

Yeah. Yeah. Like, if you enjoy this, you're doing, why should, should you stop? Of course. Yeah. No, people's talk about retirement. It's like, what do you, what would you, what would retirement be? Put your feet in the grave quicker. Yes. I, I couldn't agree more. Yeah. Yeah. You're an inspiration. You just never stop no matter what.

No. What God throws at you, you just keep going. They, they were took about Es Adams, they said he stopped really photographing when he was 54, and he just spent the time in the dark room. I'm not,

actually, since my stroke, I've probably photographed more than before my stroke. Is that right? Really? Wow. Wow. [01:47:00] That's awesome. What's something about you the most people don't know, but should, they don't know and should

probably, uh, politically I'm a conservative, but I, I, I have my whole mission. The definition of what cons conservation conservative is. Mm. It's kinda what the old Republican party was. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Finance is conservative. Yeah. Uh, being good things for people. Yeah. Uh, for some reason they don't consider doing good conservative anymore.

Right. Yeah. What happened to that party? What happened to that, those Trump values? Trumpism. Trumpism happened. Yeah. It's like we, one way to the other in these extremes. There's no middle. It's like there's nothing that, uh, well, you look, listen to [01:48:00] to some of the Kennedy speeches and you can figure out what, where, where he should be.

Yeah. Do not for you what you can do for your country. Yep, yep. Trump is, what can I do for me in hell with the country

and people, I don't understand why people vote for him. You know? He is a crook to be convicted of criminal crimes. No politics.

Well, it's not politics, it's just truth. Truth ain Paul. Okay.

Alright. A hundred years from now, how do you want people to, to remember Clive well that was a good teacher.

Mm-hmm. You have the heart of a teacher. Well, I wanna teach pe people teach people that this, their worth is, the world is something worth [01:49:00] saving. Mm-hmm. And uh,

it's more important than an extra car. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. It's been hard for us. We getting by with one car now. Uh, you know, with two people, you know, wife goes to grocery store, I do something, you know, but mm-hmm. Now we get by with one car. Mm-hmm. We have a small house, 900 square foot house. That's all you really need, right?

Yeah. We've got two bedrooms in the bathroom. We have a sauna, uh, an office, living room, dining room, kitchen. Yeah. Solar. Yeah. Okay. We got 12, about 11,000 watts of solar batteries. Um,

electricity goes out. Our television still works.[01:50:00] 

That's important stuff, you know? Um, so yeah, I, I, I, I've learned you've been a good teacher. Less, you know, you've definitely worth the trip for us. I mean, this is great. I feel so honored that we got the opportunity to capture you. A big chunk of you in this. Well, there's, that's, that's important to get out there, that, uh, there's good things to be done in the world.

Yeah. Uh,

yeah. It's great that we, um, why do we, if we, if we didn't have all these wars, we would have global warming solved in a second. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of money spent on one year of our. Money was Bill military would solve global warming just one years. Yeah. Trillion, trillion dollars. Yeah. I bet you could pretty much do all the solar, wind, and batteries.

Yeah. For a trillion dollars. Yeah. [01:51:00] We gotta keep Trump's uh, keep, uh, Musks out there. Keep him, keep him doing his thing. Yeah. I I, I, I think he's getting out of this government thing. Yeah. It's, I think he's discovered that it's a lot more complicated. It's hard on him. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Is it really worth it?

Well, it's, it's something that's so inbred, inbred in the, uh, how society works and, um, you know, the, uh, it's okay, you've got this, uh, how much do we spend, how much we get in taxes a year, 23 trillion, something like that. Mm-hmm. Well, it's a lot of money. So do you have to have a lot of checks and balances on that money?

And like, uh, I was gonna give, uh, money to the, uh, big Cyprus preserve to buy solar panels, say, you know, so they could set up, say electricity [01:52:00] and Bob says, God, don't do that. We're gonna waste two thirds of it, figuring out if we should have it. Mm. Studies. Right. All the studies we're gonna do on it. Yeah.

Just, just buy 'em and send it to us. Mm. And then they found the money to install them.

Yeah. I guess that's how government works, right? Yeah. They, they gotta waste half of it before they Yeah. I mean, but I don't think, uh, Trump understands that. And some of it's, I control, I'm sure there's a lot of fraud, but that's, you know, 200 years of Yeah. That's been 200 years of it. Right. You know, we've worked up, you know, uh, and for some reason they don't want to tax the people that have money.

I mean, people say We're, we're hurting on Social Security. Well, why do you stop charging people at [01:53:00] 250,000 a year? Why don't you just stop, pay that social security for whatever you make? Yeah. Period. That, that, that's more logical than even the income tax. Yeah. That just works. Yeah. It would solve that whole deficit.

Yeah. And they're not, it's not gonna hurt them. Well that 7.65 is not gonna hurt them. No. So, you know, that's the silliest thing I've have. Uh, yeah. Yeah. I don't want to hear her yell anymore about politics, so we better keep it down. Right. She'll hear us. I think social social security doesn't, no Social security word safer that that's bureaucracy there.

Yeah. But, uh, it is politics because, uh, not charging, uh, the rich side. I don't, what is it? 3%, 2%? I don't know. Theresa,

I ask her how much it is. Yes. How much, uh, is social security taken outta your paycheck? Oh 7 [01:54:00] 6 5. Yeah. What, what, 7 6 5 7 0.65. Yeah. So why don't they charge everybody that they do? No, they don't. Who It stops at $250,000. Oh yeah. They take it. I don't know. I mean, you know what's not your fault? Fault? I'm just not her smoke keeper.

No, no. I'm just saying, you know, I'm just curious. You know why they have to stop? You're the walking encyclopedia. My number guy will take over my job. Yeah, but see, the problem is it would all be, yeah. I think it's this. Well, I'll just put that down. And you have, you, you actually have to do it by the numbers.

I, I do it by just, eh, about this, know. Yeah. But usually I'm pretty, pretty mouth because you're always right. Well, I'm not perfectly right. I haven't found you wrong one. Okay. All eight years.[01:55:00] 

I really appreciate you. I was a math major in college. Oh, you math is your background too. Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. And, and architecture. So the right side of the brain and the left side of the brain, you got the artist side and I got both sides. Yeah. Huh. Yeah. And that's what, that's a rare, that's a rare combination.

Yeah, it is. It is. It is. Uh, but now a lot makes sense to me now hearing that. I get it. And that's why I understand Musk. Yeah. They that side of the ring. Yeah. And then, uh, I understand that's a lot of that side of the brain. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Zach, you did a great job getting this gentleman to be a part of our community.

It's gonna be, it's pressure there. Yeah. No, the one on top. The circle. Mm-hmm. What is it that a woman dancer? Yep. I, I did it for [01:56:00] my logo for my other business. It's called I Encounter. It was trying to create something looked like an eye sinners. The iris. Yeah. Mm. Whites the outside. I tried photographing an eyeball.

It's ugly. Yeah, I bet I did that in 1971. Really? Yeah. That's impressive. Before Photoshop. Yeah. I was gonna ask about that. Yeah. Because that's like, that's something that a lot of people, even with Photoshop. Most people can't pull that all. Uh, that would be very difficult in Photoshop. Yeah, I might have to take a picture of that and show it to my girlfriend.

She's a dancer, so that's why I was able to pin it. I could have actually just did a bunch of photos for her, um, this past week. I'm like, just like a white backdrop. So I'm like that familiarize myself kind of with the pose. I'm like, wait a minute. It's not, yeah, that's, that's, that was little, there's a little more going on there that [01:57:00] Yeah, I think there's something like, I don't know, 64 images there or something like that.

Wow. I'm not sure. I have to count again. Is it all the same? Yeah, it's the same images for the center and the outside. The center's the same one doing also. Yeah. Yeah. I see it, it took me a week, two hours a day for a week to get it done. I went through many, many copies. I had my dad help me. He was mo I had a piece of, uh, Masonite the hole in the center, like for like a regular player and I had all, every, everything marked off.

And so I would, I had my, I foot switch on the, for the en larger, so I had my hands like this and I would, uh, hold the back area hit, I would do the exposure, hit it, and he would move it, and I hit it. [01:58:00] Wow. And another innovative technique you've used. Oh yeah. Well, that we had a, that was a 60 area we all kinds of record players take.

There was a record player technique and solarization and, uh, use, uh, stockings over over your lens nylons. Oh, wow. Oh, you know, well it was, it was a time of exploration. Yeah. I did all those things. Uh, I did, uh, color separation.

Um, on slide film I would take you, you use slides, the slide film? Well, no, I, no, all my color photography was negative. Oh, okay. Never wanna use slides. That's terrible. Uh, but what, what you would do, you have, there's three filters that mix color, uh, blue, green, and red, [01:59:00] right. Blue, green, and red. So you would take some, if you could a picture of things that were moving, you'd take it with one filter and then, uh, double expose it with another filter.

And another of us was another filter. So you have three different exposures with three different filters. So some of areas would be blue, some would be yellow. It was really wild. Hmm. Innovating all time. Like a, like a ocean rocks. Mm-hmm. Like that would be really wild for it there. That one, each time the wave came in, it'd be a different color.

Mm. Wow.

He's just, uh, may it very easy with digital, but, uh, yeah. Can you, can you, can you double expose digital? Um, I mean there's probably some, there's probably some technique, like advanced technique for that type of thing, do basically anything with it, but I don't [02:00:00] specifically, I, off the top of my head. Hmm.

It's been such a pleasure. Really appreciate it. I think the world knows that, uh, your life reminds us that beauty is not what we see. It's how we see it through grief, love, and reverence for the natural world. You've given us, not just images, but invitations to slow down, to pay attention and to care.

Thank you for letting us step into your sacred spaces. You're truly a good person. Well, I hope I am. I, you know, I mean, I'm sure I do things that are probably not purely correct, probably, but, um, I don't think anybody can be purely correct. Mm. But, um, I try to do good things. Yeah. Try to help people out. Um, and I don't try to, I.

Make money to be making money. Yeah. [02:01:00] Like we have, I think three or four traveling shows now that we basically spent thousands of dollars on just to educate people. Yeah. I think we're, uh, Paul, I think next week, week after next has to go to North Carolina and pick up one of the shows. These are, uh, museum shows.

Yeah. Great. Uh, we just had one in, uh, Indiana, one in New Mexico,

Montana,

Ohio. Another one in Indiana. We've had shows, I don't know, quite a few different strong country in Maine. Uh, South Carolina, North Carolina. I don't know. We've had a show in Georgia. Covered a big chunk of the country. Yeah. [02:02:00] Uh, Colorado. Texas. Now that's Paul. Paul's gonna be doing that one. He's gonna be picking it up.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's who you're gonna talk to. Is that who he should talk to about getting some Yeah, yeah. Getting some, yeah. Pictures. He's okay. He's, he's a photographer too. He's, he takes. Going to good shows. Takes a couple days to do pictures too. Oh, good. Okay. He's at it. So he's really, I think he's been with his 13 or 14 years.

Oh, nice. And um, what he was doing when I hired him, he was delivering pizzas.

We, we have a different way of, I guess, looking for employees. Yeah. You were a mentor for him. That's pretty awesome. Yeah. Uh, I was looking for a darkroom assistant back a few years back and a guy called up Spain [02:03:00] working in Las Vegas, and he gave me all these things and I said, are you tall? Yep. I'm six four.

Yeah. Okay. You're a gotta have tall guys do those.

Oh, it's fun. But, um, oh yeah, it's been fun for us too. I, I can't thank you enough. I really, really appreciate you spending time with us here. Well, thank you. Make someone unhappy in Naples. Yeah. Get past Collier Boulevard. Get out to the gallery. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We gotta get out there. Yeah, well, you know, it's number one destination in ER county, our gallery.

Is that right? Yeah. It's number two in, in the state of Florida. So we gotta get out there, Zach. We gotta go, we gotta go number two in Florida, is that right? Yeah, number one is Disney. Number two is, uh, our work and number three is, uh, nasa. Yeah, that's a beautiful thing. Wow. [02:04:00] Yeah, we do. Yeah. Yeah. And the rain and the be getting to be a good time here.

Coming, uh, this in the fall we have, uh, uh, swamp walks coming. Might want to talk to, um, go down the gallery and talk to, uh, uh, Scott and Connie do a lot of soft walks. Mm-hmm. Uh, it's for big raising money for Big Cyprus. Uh, I think it's gonna be in November, 1st of November. Okay. And that's the best time.

Water's high. Uh, mosquitoes are probably pretty much gone. Mm-hmm. Uh, we have less mosquitoes there You do in Naples. Oh really? There's fewer there. Is that right? I've been, wouldn't have thought that because we have fish to eat 'em. Oh, we have bladder. Need the mar. Yeah. We have bladder, bladder war, carnivorous bladder, water, seenum, uh, the rain usually in the summertime.

Rains rain rains every day. It keeps us as Vermillion washed [02:05:00] out. Mm-hmm. And water's running. I mean, the grass is like that in the summertime. 'cause the water's flowing so good. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, that's pretty. So it's, and the water is, uh, well clear. Mm. Probably cleaner than a Rocky Mountain Stream. Wow. Wow.

It's not like New Jersey. Yeah.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah.