The Camera Cafe Show
Moose Peterson: Well, ended up coming over and sleeping next to us like a dog, literally. Because he thought, I don't know if it's he or she, that between the moms and the one dad the safest group to be with was us. So, and this is a three and a half, 4-year-old that's probably weighing 400 pounds and curled up literally right next to us. I have a photograph our guide right there on the ground and right on the other side of him is this goober just laying there. So that's the big scary bears.
Tom Jacob: Greetings and welcome everyone this week to yet another episode of our Camera Cafe Show podcast. I am your host Tom Jacob and I glad to invite you today to listen to amazing photographers, their stories and move your own photography. Our guest from today needs little introduction and we have a master from the craft and storytelling with us. We move the podcast today to USA into Montana while on the other side a Nikon Ambassador, a John Muir Award winner, the epic wildlife and conservationist Moose Peterson is waiting for us.
Moose is shooting for decades the most amazing wildlife, both in the United States as outside, has been published in too many magazines even to count, and by now has written 29 books about photography. He is also research associated with the endangered species recovery program and of course a wonderful storyteller. It will be a bit a longer podcast but I urge you to stick around until the end because I know it is worth it. Enjoy our talk.
Tom Jacob: So Moose welcome, it's a great honor and a pleasure for me being with you here for tonight on our podcast.
Moose Peterson: Well, thank you so much. I'm humbled to be asked and gladly we have a little time to chat.
Tom Jacob: I think it'll be a very enjoyable talk. Moose, to start off a bit first, Nikon Ambassador. Could you just detail that a little bit? Because I think people always think you get all the goodies for free, but you still have to buy them anyway.
Moose Peterson: Yeah, that has haunted me since day one, all that free gear. But you know that thing called taxes? You know, if you sing it logically, if you get a bunch of free gear, you have to declare that and then you have to pay taxes on it, and then you don't have any rights.
So, yeah Nikon Ambassador. First of all, I gotta tell you, I have no clue why I'm a Nikon ambassador. I'm quite humble and honoured by it but befuddled too. I'm just an old shooter. But Nikon is very kind and has empowered us ambassadors to go out as much as we physically can to mentor and inspire and get other people involved in photography. It's really quiet that simplistic. It's just getting out and talking and I like to do that as much as possible. Like we're doing right now.
Tom Jacob: I was going to say, it's the meaning also of the podcast we started, just to get people inspired and go out and make pictures of course. And I have to mention your podcast, Moose, if anyone is interested. Every week Moose is there on his podcast, and it gets sponsored by Bedfords camera where you buy all your gear.
Moose Peterson: Where I buy all my gear, yep.
Tom Jacob: So you can give a little shout out to them because I think it's very important to have a shop where you can go with people that know their stuff.
Moose Peterson: Well, Bedfords is a marvelous mom and pop camera story, you know, they have many locations. They give you basically that very personalized service. And because of that, they have a great inventory, great prices. And, for those who go there and mention my name, you'll see a 5% discount when they check out. But, more importantly than all of that, which of course is important, and photographers are gear heads, whether we need something or not, we're gonna buy it. That's our very nature. Thing about Bedfords is they've got some marvelous, marvelous people who will spend as much time as you want and require to get the answers you need. As we both know, one of the challenges of photography is knowing the question to ask to get the answer you need or the gear, which is one of the reasons why I really love Bedfords.
Tom Jacob: It's very important. So, Moose, I want to go a bit back to the eighties when you started out. You remember what was the moment you told your wife, let's go, let's try to make this photography adventure work?
Moose Peterson: Well, it's like much of my career, I would like to say that wasn’t that kind of a moment. But it was just the way life kept directing us. It wasn't like all of a sudden, like a light switch clicked on. I was already, since as long as I can remember, outside, I've never been a great person inside four walls. I do much better outside.
So that was already part of my DNA and then, taking photographs, started, you know, with my grandfather who was doing it back, at the term of 19 hundreds. And then my father and brother and uncle. And I mean, that was part of the DNA as well. I thought it was gonna go into more lucrative, let's say, end of photography doing advertising, fashion. But that didn't work.
So it just the way life evolved for us. The fact that we were gonna do it together, that might've been a click moment. But I don't think so since Sharon got her degree in business and her senior project was on starting a photographic business. So it just, like I try to tell a lot of people who try to get into business today, plans are great, but life is how it unfolds, for me personally.
When I decided I was gonna become a self-employed, literally the next day the Gulf War started, and this is President number 41, and there wasn't a single person who went any creatures pictures, you know, from north America when that Gulf War started. They wanted pictures of animals, you know, covered in oil and things like that. So, right off the bat I put myself, you could say behind the eight ball, and it just taught us the process, which we kind of still work through today.
Tom Jacob: Yeah. Apart from all your awards, the winning of the John Muir Award, I guess, has a special place in your heart. It's an environmental award program focused on wild places and encourage people to connect and care for nature, aiming to honor the legacy of John Muir. What did it mean for you to receive it, Moose?
Moose Peterson: Well, it’s kind of goes back prior to actually being a photographer. There is a, a long section of backpacking trail that starts in Southern California and goes all the way up to Yosemite. It's called the John Muir Trail. Something that I did with my father. We did about 500 miles a year backpacking and we had walked the entire John Muir Trail. And I read all of his writings. He's a marvelous writer.
And I don't know how many years ago, I have to do the math, I can't think of it right now. But we started off, Sharon and I, throwing slide carousels and projectors in the back of the Camaro and we drove up and down California, getting paid $25 to go speak to this Autobahn group with that Autobahn group for their evening programs. We did that for many years. And then the Sierra Club, had us come to Yosemite and we would spend as much as 45 days at a stretch in Yosemite Valley and I would do evening programs for the Sierra Club. And the whole idea was to get people involved with their wild heritage. The John Muir Award was a culmination of doing that for many years, many miles, many hours presenting. And it was just a really nice way of saying, all your efforts are appreciated and have been noticed!
Tom Jacob: . But, you know, wildlife photography requires a lot of patience and persistence, and I think you are an advocate for the photographer not interfering with the animal, just waiting, and let it do it thing, right?
Moose Peterson: Yeah. I don't chase creatures. I let them come to me on their terms. I count it like being the guest at someone's house. When I go out, I feel like a guest in their world, and I try to be the best guest I can be. And then they tend just to let life unfold. And that's where the photographs happen.
Tom Jacob: And how you stay motivated? Because what we are missing always is time, and I guess you will spend a lot of time waiting.
Moose Peterson: Yeah, people think wildlife photography and myself in particular have to be really patient. But you just ask my sons, you'll find out I'm not really that patient. When I'm out there, it is a true love affair. Watching what’s unfolding in front of me always fascinates me. Questions always come to mind.
I worked for decades with biologists, pretty much hand to hand, all the projects, and I think especially my mentors, I drove them nuts with all the questions, that I would have. But that's how I got the honorary, you know, college degrees, was being out there and asking questions. And one of my biggest honours is one that no one really knows about.
And I was put on as a part of the group who wrote the first multi-species federal recovery plan for endangered critters. So, you know, I stay motivated because I'm always asking questions. I ask questions of everything, whether I'm woodworking or trying to, you know, put a new firmware and a camera to a new beta software. I'm always asking questions. And the reason is simple, I just want a better way to tell a story because our creatures are disappearing. And I don't want my photographs to be the last record for any species.
Tom Jacob: Going back to the story side, Moose. Aside from all the technical aspects we have to come over as photographers. What you think sets apart and be an exceptional wildlife photographer? Do you think it's telling a story more than just taking a picture?
Moose Peterson: Well, one of the beauties of photography, no matter the genre, is that ability to insert ourselves into that photograph. The biggest manipulation of any photograph is our heart and our mind. It's just like, again, another one of those many fortunate things that I’m folding in my life.
And my very first teacher, I guess probably in elementary school, who was given the first lessons about how to write. She was very insistent that to write about subject, you have to know that subject. And it's one of those lessons that I took to heart. And it's something that I really apply myself too, especially when it comes to creatures. You know, they do so many different weird, bizarre things. And not that I or anybody gonna know all the answers about what we're seeing. But when you have some sort of hint or idea what might unfold the next few seconds or minutes, a lot of times for myself, puts me in right space place and frame to make that click, then bring back, whatever that story happens to be.
I've been doing it for a long time, and so I started off in stills and i’s still my main medium. It's how I think, even though I shoot a lot of videos, most of the video doesn't tend to be the peak of the action or the crescendo of the story. It's kind of like the B-roll most of the time. The heart of the issue in the story will always be in those stills.
Tom Jacob: I find it also very important, and I see it with every interview I do with photographers, me myself included. You start in a genre and more like wildlife or macro or anything that has to do with wildlife, that you start out taking pictures and you become like almost obsessed in the end of learning an animal you saw and trying to understand it and trying to bring this the next time into your photography. I think it helps a lot and I tell it always to people that the first thing you have to know is the animal you are going to make pictures of. It helps really a lot.
Moose Peterson: Well, it all starts so also people have to remember with your passion. If you got a passion for whatever your subject and your genre is, that carry you through a lot of things. And that's really quiet a corner stone to successful photography.
Tom Jacob: Moose, while many wildlife photographers, they're always drawn to very exotic places and you are drawn to the American wildlife and moreover, I think most of, not most, but around your home it's where you like to make pictures.
Moose Peterson: That's true!
Tom Jacob: Is there any place you have on your calendar you say you need to go because time is running out for an animal or something there?
Moose Peterson: Well, you know, there are lots and, and every day the list kind of grows a little bit. I mean, you just look at some of the photographs that come of creatures, like everything from Scotland to Japan and China, Vietnam, Borneo. I mean, I've said it a million times. I'll say it again. North America got the short of the stick of really colourful creatures. You know, we do shades of brown, shades of grey, a couple spots of black and white, and we're done. You go outside North America and you've got the entire colour wheel, practically on every single bird in different ways. Those colors kind of really get my attention.
I'm going back down to Costa Rica here, I guess in about a month. And I'm going specifically for the snow cap hummingbird. But Costa Rica has got a lot of amazing crazy looking birds. And we are very color centric species as humans. And if you want to get someone's attention, color makes a big difference. So that's part of it. And then there's a lot of that I've not seen, but keep in mind that Moose doesn’t do well in heat and humidity. That, even though, I really wanna see those birds, the idea of having to shower multiple times in a day because it's just pouring out of me. I'd rather go where it's minus 40 than. So that's a little bit of a barrier for me is that heat and wet wall.
Tom Jacob: Costa Rica is also very good for macro. I think you should take me with you Moose. It's a lot of tiny little animals sure.
Moose Peterson: Then, last time I was there, which has been a number of years, we put out light clock at night. And a lot of fun with all the insects that came in. It’s a biodiversity explosion when it comes to wing creatures, insects or birds or mammals.
Tom Jacob: I have to go because I see too many pictures of such amazing, crazy, tiny animals, I have to be there.
Moose let's go onto the gear question because I think photographers that listen are waiting for that. I think, Moose, you are one of the first ones who embraced digital or first wildlife photographers who embraced digital with Nikon D 1, I suppose.
Moose Peterson: 99, I was, yeah!
Tom Jacob: 99 and now you've gone all to mirrorless.
Moose Peterson: Yeah, we've been completely mirrorless now for 14 - 18 months.
Tom Jacob: What's the biggest step that made you go all mirrorless?
Moose Peterson: Well, there's a couple things. The first is that with the flip of a lever, without even removing my eye from the ELV, that I can actually go from stills to video. And for my aviation work, for example, that ability to have the camera up against my eye so I can use proper hand holding and I can shoot video and stills seamlessly back and forth, that was huge. The next thing about mirrorless is the weight savings, smaller size. I hate this whole idea of getting old, I don't know who invented it. They should have their head examined, but I used to really like carrying really heavy backpacks and photo packs, and I don't like that anymore. So, less weight is great.
The other thing is that mirrorless is taking the whole sharpness quality of a file to another level. The mirrorless lenses that now offered for the Z nine, Z eight and what have you, I can't get over the Z 600 F four or the Z 51.2, that what's coming out now is just absolutely spectacular. All those things combined and the one thing which, be honest with you, has absolutely nothing to do with the file or the photograph or the story, but the one thing I absolutely love is the fact there's no slamming mirror noise anymore, no clickety shutter noise. You know, you shoot, and I can still listen to the birds or the water. There's absolutely no interruption to that sensual overload that comes when you're outside. And I really, really love that. I mean, when I go somewhere and there's other shooters and I hear that clackity clack of a mirror, it always a little bit jarring to me. And it's like, wow, for 30 plus years I listened to that, and I guess I just tuned it out because I didn't have a choice, but boy, that's silence. It's golden.
Tom Jacob: I think many wedding photographers will think the same in the church.
Moose Peterson: And golf photographers, because now they go that backswing.
Tom Jacob: I do a gear list question, but there is no use because, everybody, I mean if you look at your website, you have it all such marvellous detail there. But what is your main lens, this I would like to know Moose, what you use the most nowadays?
Moose Peterson: Well, it's still probably gonna be the big glass, the Z 600 F 4. That's my main lens, it's probably very few days out the year that I'm not behind it. You know, I was out shooting with it this morning and yesterday. I mean, it's a very valuable tool. But, if you head to the website and you look at the picture at the top of my locker, you'll notice I really don't have lot of gear.
When I take clients out shooting, I am usually low man of the totem pole when it comes to amount of gear. It’s simple business, right? There are lot of gear I would just love to have, but it's not gonna pay the bills. And so I can't justify having it in my locker. I have just the tools that I need to tell my story and no more.
Tom Jacob: And I think this comes with your craftsmanship also, Moose, because you, if you go out, you just know which tools you'll need.
Moose Peterson: Well, we like to think we know. But there are many times that I'll grab the first lens. I go, eh, no. And I have to go back, get another lens. But yeah, you hit it on the nail head. Craftsmanship is a big part of it for sure. That’s part, it goes back to my old schooling when, you know, you shot a slide and you went clicked, you're done. There was nothing else. And you could not stay in business sending in that 35 millimetre slide with a bunch of silver tape on it, cropping down the image to say, this is really the picture. It had to be what you saw inside that cardboard, you know, mount. So that very true economic pressure. Right, because without a sale, there's no check. Without check, everybody knows what happens if you don't have any money. So that is carried on. And I still go by those same things today with digital. I don't crop and post. People always find that hard to believe and they wonder how, but it's just how I was trained. It's how I shot for decades. It's how I think. And it's the knowledge that if I don't get the photograph, the sun will still come up tomorrow. So I try to make every click count.
Tom Jacob: It is very important this thinking. Of course, you don't crop because we are playing with wildlife. And wildlife can be very finicky of course. And you need the right tool to make the shot. I mean, if not people just can crop in edit of course. It's, each is its way. But I was wondering, Moose you enjoy the editing part of photography?
Moose Peterson: Do I enjoy it? I wouldn't say something I look forward to. I mean, even though Photoshop is the adult video game, you know. The whole process is for me at the camera. Now. With that said, the camera still has limitations. For example, our vision to steering off, we can see 14 stops of light. The camera is at 5. If I want you to see all that I'm seeing with my eyes, which are these incredible tools, we have to jump through some hoops to make that story come true. I've done a number of classes for Kelbyone on finishing aviation photographs, and it's just that basic, I shoot for the subject, and I finish for the light. So if the light's not there, then I don't take the picture to start with. I don't raise the ISO, I'm not that kind of shooter. If the light is gone, that's just a sign from God, smell the roses and enjoy the moment. But if the light's there and if there's a deficiency in that light or the camera itself, because it has, I call it affectionately, the cold-hearted bastard isn't able to get all that information, then I will go into post and deal with that.
And to get to the heart of your question, is there enjoyment there? Only in the fact that, I guess in my own mind, I've actually won the game. I've taken this picture, I tend to always look at that photograph and say, as I take the picture, I can finish this by doing that and that, I never spend more than two minutes on an image anyway. If it doesn't work, I just take notes how I failed, because that's how I learn is by failing. And if I win, where you could say the satisfaction comes from being in post is the fact that the thought process behind the camera actually worked out in post.
Tom Jacob: Moose, can you walk me a bit through on the Z 9, which settings you have when you leave home, I suppose, you have the same ones, more or less active.
Moose Peterson: Well. Just so folks know, I publish all my settings for the camera, so you can see every single setting on my website for the Z 9, Z 8. But I do have what I call a null set or a set that the camera is always gonna be at. So at the end of the day, I put all my settings back to these settings. So I pick up the camera tomorrow, I know exactly where it's at. I can't walk and chew gum. If I try to do everything, I cannot put a landmine out for myself to step on with that in mind, so the camera, the lens, it'll be set. So the lens is wide open. I typically shoot a wide open. The ISO is gonna be 100. So I like to shoot in the basement. The camera will be shot, set to aperture priority. That way I control the depth of focus. The camera depthless manner will take care of the shutter speed. I have the exposure compensation set to zero, I use exposure compensation liberally to tell my story because to me exposure equals emotion. The camera gonna be set to continuous high, so it's gonna shoot 20 frames per second if I hold that button down. But I do practice, so I can just take one shot or 20 shots. And that's simply pressure the finger. And then, when it comes to auto focus mode, it's always, I shouldn't say always wrong word, the vast majority of time it's gonna be set to 3D and then will be probably put to either animal or bird eye detection. And that one thing about eye detection, just keep in mind that the camera's not really looking for a retina and a pupil and stuff. It's looking for those shapes. It’s not looking for that exact eye, and it's looking at the pattern of those shapes. So in 3D eye detection, for creatures and for birds, I could photograph turn around, photograph a person or a plane, and it's still gonna grab the focus for me. And the card's gonna be wiped and the battery will be charged. Basically, my cameras go to bed every night course they're cleaned and been checked.
Tom Jacob: I don't have the Z 9, but it's a beast of a camera, Moose. You think you will ever need something more apart from one thing is something else, but you think you will need something like Z 10?
Moose Peterson: Well, you know, I had a D 6 and I thought that was the cat's meow after replaced the D 5, which I thought was the most marvellous camera, which, you know, the F 5, the F 4, the F 3, and I started with an F 2. I'm not the guy that's gonna be able to invent all these great features, but boy, when the engineers bring stuff out and I see their imagination, it lights mine up. So, to answer your question directly, I have absolutely no doubt there's more great stuff coming down the pike. And they will come up with something that my imagination never thought of, but it's a problem that needs solving and they're gonna solve it elegantly.
And for quick example, the Z 9 has GPS built into it, which for some things, for what I do is essential when it comes to because I collect a lot of data about creatures via the photograph. And that location information, in some different points in time can help biologists, researchers. Well connected to that is GPS log and you turn that on when the GPS is on and it's gonna log all of your motions. And one thing I use that for is when I'm doing an air to air photo mission, I'll turn on when we launch and then I'm gonna exactly know where because it's gonna keep track of all of the flight. Until I land again, turn it off. So, then you just put in map exactly everything about your flight. And before I would never think that would be like really cool or I needed it and now I've got it, it's like, wow, that's great, I need this. So after the fact, I just love diving into that stuff, figuring out all these new solutions for problems that I had that really didn't think about, and then applying those things.
So yeah, whatever you know, the Z 8, that's a great example. I had no clue that, for lack of better terms, you could shrink down a Z 9 into the package of Z 8 and just have a great time rock & roll. Other than losing your GPS and you have a smaller battery. And the smaller battery only really affects you if you shoot a lot of videos because video, no matter what you've got, it’s a battery. I mean, it's just power-hungry kind of process. Then that the Z 8 is basically a Z 9 in a smaller package. I would never have thought I would need or really love a smaller Z 9, but I do, I love that Z 8. It's a great, for lack of better terms, knock around camera.
Tom Jacob: It's a wonderful camera. And teleconverters, you use them Moose also?
Moose Peterson: I have since the very beginning, yep.
Tom Jacob: And I think now we can finally put to rest this, that photographer always think that it might degrade your image quality.
Moose Peterson: We can never put those myths to rest. That wouldn't be photography. Because then what we discussed? We'd have to talk about what good like, good stories? So it's better to talk about things. But I've used VIR since the very beginning, since 1981. They're an incredibly good tool and as far as the ones for the Z, the 1.4, the 2 X, yeah I use them all the time. And the quality is still spectacular. And they still serve a great tool, especially when it comes to limiting depth of focus. So, yeah, I always used teleconverters, they're just a great tool for storytelling.
Tom Jacob: Then let's move on a bit to your storytelling, Moose. I know you told me in another talk we had, you don't like to discuss it a lot, but in the years, you've been capturing wildlife, you have on your own files what you told, seven extinct species alone, which is both sad and it's a big eye-opener for what's happening.
Moose Peterson: Well, you know, the either seven or eight bird species in Hawaii last year were said to be extinct now. So the number of creatures disappearing is worse than a pandemic kind of state. Most folks don't realize that since 1970 the globe has lost 50% of its wildlife, it's just gone. So in easy terms, if it’s used to be a million, now there's only 500,000. There's a proverb, a Japanese proverb that's on all my emails I think sums up the best: Nature can live without man, but man can't live without nature.
Tom Jacob: Yeah, I am going to pick you up on the seventies, what you just told. I had this week a talk for a future podcast with Will Hawks, who is an entomologist from the UK and now works in Switzerland and he studies insect migration. And he was talking to me about hover flies. You know, these tiny things, you know, they migrate Moose? I never thought, and he told me that they did a study in the seventies and they did a study back now. And you know, the percentage of how much they have declined? Just a wild guess.
Moose Peterson: At least 50%.
Tom Jacob: 95%, 95% moves. So we are doing something wrong and it's better we start reversing it as fast as we can.
Moose Peterson: Well, I did a project back in the nineties with film with the Black Swift, one of the fastest falling birds on the planet. And their nesting cave was at about 3000 feet altitude. And then they would fly up another 8,000 feet that's where they would forge on these high-flying insects. And they would open their big mouth and catch these insects. And then at dust they would come crashing back down, just screaming, back into the cave to feed their kids. They had to have those insects up there. They weren't gonna like feed on insects right outside the cave entrance or in the cave. They had to fly up 8,000 feet to catch their prey. So there's a lot about this world that we take for granted and we abuse it's gonna come back and bite us.
Tom Jacob: Yeah, I was not going to ask you for a favourite animal because you will have so many. But there is one, a bit related to the other question before, you feel you have an urge of capturing before it's too late, you have one on your list?
Moose Peterson: Well, actually there's quite a few, but there's a lot of creatures out there from the Blackfoot at ferret to a number of creatures out there I'd love to get photograph before, you know, I think they, they disappear. I should say, it makes it sound so simple, I had a project for over two decades. I worked with the San Juan King Kit Fox, which is a one of the first creatures to be listed as endangered here in the United States. And you get attached to things when you spend sunrise and sunset in a blind watching them, and you watch the whole their biology unfold. And then I have this one photograph of this den site, and it's the two adults and seven pups. And then fast forward two years in that entire den site is now a parking lot, it's all black asphalt. So there's a lot of critters that I would love to have photographs of and spend time with, but that thing called time tends to get in the way more often than not.
Tom Jacob: But then you always have your nemesis still, Moose. Tell me a bit about your white-tailed hair. Who keeps escaping your lens?
Moose Peterson: Well, we affectionately call them the bastard. And white-tailed hair it's not in danger or anything like that. It’s actually a common rabbit, it's a hair. That I spent a lot of hours on snowshoes, trying to get photographs of it. I only have two pictures. One kind of it is smallish than the frame, and it's looking at me. And the second frame is its butt as it's hopping away from me it's a critter. It's here in my backyard. It's been in my backyard now for years, 30 years. And I see it's tracks, I see it's poo and I have no pictures. And some point in time, it's gonna offer itself up and I'm gonna make it, even though it might be reluctant to it famous.
Tom Jacob: Your wife is not making fun of you with this. No?
Moose Peterson: Oh, my family keeps me humble by making fun of a lot of things that I do. So, yeah, this is just one of many things that dad gets to crow about.
Tom Jacob: If you have to choose between going out for a bird of going out for a mammal, which one you choose.
Moose Peterson: Well, I'm very fortunate I don't have to make that choice, but it would be birds probably. You know, I've been into birds since I was eight years old so. It's the one thing about mammals, you can't just walk out your door or you can't just drive to some place and you're just gonna see, you know, you just can't drive to say, oh, there are grizzly bears, or there's pronghorn, you know? Mammals are as numerous and they're not as plentiful where birds, you can see them anywhere and everywhere. That's probably why I have always been into birds. You know, in North America there's over almost 400% more bird species than mammals. So, North America, most of the mammals are small little guys, which I enjoy photographing, and I've always found it's a challenge. And, so birds would be it.
Tom Jacob: I think because maybe we don't have any grizzlies or, bison or, whatever here. So it would be amazing to see it. Although it might be dangerous, of course. If you do your workshop Moose, say you go to Yellowstone to make pictures, you give your students like a class how to behave also? In case of something should happen.
Moose Peterson: Well, it's not like a direct class on that, but, you know, field ethics is something that I think most of my attendees learn from osmosis as much as anything else. When we go and do any kind of adventure, we take a select group of people, for example, photograph Brown bears twice a year. I write a huge paper and that is given to them long before they get up there. And then we have a zoom, call prior to gathering at location. And there's little mystery on those things and, for better or worse, I have a well earned reputation that no photograph is worth sacrificing the welfare of a subject. But bears aren't scary. I mean, I've been working with them for three decades. Never been bluff charged, never been scared by them, never been frightened by them. They are just an incredibly amazing creature. And most people don't realize that the bears will do one or two things when you see you. And majority of the time, they just disappear. They can disappear in a whisper of nothing. If they don't disappear, they just hang around. So they don't go and look at us and say, Hmm, boy, dinners served. It's not, it doesn't work that way. That just sells a lot of papers. It doesn't translate to the incredible experience. It's hard to understand unless you actually go out.
But when I take someone out for the first time to be with like the Kodiak Brown Bears, you're out in the middle of nowhere and there's, I don't have any guns. I don't carry bear spray. I just have some basic biological knowledge that's been passed along to me by biologists and some that I've learned in the field. And that's it. And the people after the first time with the bears, they've changed. They have an incomplete new appreciation for everything because a Kodiak brown bear can stand almost 11 feet tall, hard to imagine. But when they stand up in their hind legs, talking about 11 feet, almost ten 10.9 or 10.10 I think is the record. But, you know, it's a lot of animals and you're talking about 1200- 1500 pounds. And you look at them, and you we might have 30 feet away, 40 feet away sometimes. And they just look at you they just kind of do their thing, and you do your thing. And if you're a really good guest, they don't care what your thing is.
Then if it's photography, just shoot it up all you want. And funny story is, so bears basically they're with their mom for the first three years. And this is generalizing. It could be less, it could be more. And the day comes when mom says, hey, you know, I've touched everything. It's time to go on your own. And it's, it's kind of a brutal separation. It's not really a kind thing. And then they become what the biologists call a goober. And they're three and a half, four years old. They're scared of their own shadow. And so a couple years ago, or on the flats of Kodiak and there was a goober. And there's a couple big females, a couple big males, there we were. And we weren't at all nervous or anything like that. We were just taking pictures. And this little goober didn't know which way to turn. Well, ended up coming over and sleeping next to us like a dog, literally. Because he thought, I don't know if it's he or she, that between the moms and the one dad the safest group to be with was us. So, and this is a three and a half, 4-year-old that's probably weighing 400 pounds and curled up literally right next to us. I have a photograph our guide right there on the ground and right on the other side of him is this goober just laying there. So that's the big scary bears.
Tom Jacob: I was going to ask you almost for, a special moment, you had somewhere, a moment where you forgot to take even maybe a picture. But I think this is already a, good answer to, my question.
Moose Peterson: Well, I'm afraid there are lots of those moments, it just, I get wrapped up to it in, what I'm watching and the story, and I do forget to push that button. A very old saying from a very old poem, says that it's forever exposed on the thin emulsion of my mind. So that's where it resides.
Tom Jacob: We can always call it back and, have memories. Moose, countless magazines and 29 books by now.
Moose Peterson: Yep. Yep, yep.
Tom Jacob: Any new project in mind for another book number 30?
Moose Peterson: Oh, just not really per say. There is no money to be made in books, so I try not to do many books. I have looking at my list here, I have four book ideas sitting there that really haven't done much with. I spend more time though generating articles for magazines that easier to do. But yeah, I would love to do a lot of books, but that comes back to that time thing. You know that time thing's just a killer.
Tom Jacob: Moose, despite your success, I read somewhere you mentioned that you feel you didn't have a definite breakthrough moment still.
Moose Peterson: No, no. I read about those things, and I wonder how I missed the boat. I don't have that one. Like, sitting at the bar and some director came in and said, I'm gonna make you famous. I never had that kind of moment. I don't think that ever was in the cards for me. I just keep plowing forward, despite, how I might put my foot in my mouth, I just keep going right foot, left foot and putting the photographs out there. Hopefully that I keep grabbing heartstrings that I'll make the difference. I'm hoping to make it.
Tom Jacob: Moose, coming back to a moment, to that breakthrough moment. What would you define a breakthrough moment for a photographer and, how he can then push his boundaries in his own work?
Moose Peterson: Well, you know, that breakthrough moment, I always, in my own mind, was looking for that one phone call that someone's gonna say, we saw your image, we see all this potential. Let's just give you a bunch of money to do your thing. And that's kind of the daydream thing. But it doesn't work that way. In fact, talking strictly business, I always, especially before the days of a cell phone, would be in a front when the phone bill would come and the phone bill was lower than the month before, because I wasn't on the phone making phone calls making something happen. There's a lot of misinformation when it comes, I think, to the business side of photography that a lot of photographers, since they don't know any different, kind of get sucked in by and that always makes me sad. I know of a lot of really, really good photographers who didn't stick it out because they kind of got the wrong information. They thought they're gonna get that great breakthrough moment. And didn't realize that photography is really, when it comes to a business, is not all about fame and riches. It's about a lot of hard work and gotta put your heart into it every day. And it's a full-time, you know, 80 -10 hundred hour a week job. It thing is, like I mentioned earlier, if you have the passion, it never feels like a job. And that's the beauty of, and the far as I'm concerned, the allure of the whole photographic process,
Tom Jacob: And then of course you have the advantage that you make a package, like you make the pictures, and you also write a text, I suppose, for editors is something like marvellous because they have it all in one go.
Moose Peterson: You hit the nail on the head. That's always been the key to my success. There's a lot more money made in multiple image sales and a text rather than just one image. But it's important, you ask about a breakthrough moment. There wasn't one as far as the business concerned, but there was definitely one, let's say, morale booster or a confidence booster. When I worked at a camera store for a number of years, and the, somehow I got the attention of the regional Nikon sales manager, not the rep for the store, but the actual manager. And, to say, he encouraged me as an understatement. He, I wanna say, probably pushed more then anything else. Not that he ever said, this photograph is great, or you should buy this lens. It was nothing like that. It was like, you know, you need to work harder and you need to perhaps try this and, and you've got some talent, so you should go this way. And it was just a credible source who gave the pat on the back, multiple times when I needed it most. If there ever was a breakthrough moment for me, it would've been just that one, important person saying the right word to keep me going. Right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot. And truth be told, that's a big, big reason why I have always Nikon. I always will shoot Nikon, is because when I needed support, Nikon was there supporting me, and I don't forget those things ever.
Tom Jacob: I shoot Nikon because it's a camera that never let me down, but in a way that it can stand a bump. I mean, I travel a lot and I go on donkey carts or bus or boat and the thing swings around. I broke lenses, yes, but I never broke camera body. So I can trust it and what is most important for me, I know what it can do, and I know what I can do and will make it work.
Moose Peterson: They're a great tool. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.
Tom Jacob: Moose, looking towards the future, what legacy do you hope that you will leave behind in your conservation and photography?
Moose Peterson: It's a great question. Because it actually for too long that really kind of concerned me the legacy I might leave. And it doesn't even in the back of my mind anymore. The photographs that I take, the stories that I'm fortunate to witness and to share, some of those stories are in the moment, there's no ifs, ands or buts about it. And some of them are timeless. If stars align and I've done some things right then those timeless ones we'll continue. And it's, be honest with you, it's totally out of my hands. Things come up that, when I say things, a phone call, an opportunity, they come out of the blue. It's not like you can plan for them. When they happen, it's like, wow it’s great, it’s really happened! Then you go, okay for the last 10 years, why didn't that happen? You know? And then you go, okay, I don't know why it didn't happen, then it happened now, can I make it happen again? I used asking those questions, like I said, I ask a lot of questions. Questions like that is almost pointless because it's just the way the world turned. When people get involved in editorial photography and the editorial business, which a lot of people need to do and they're really scared to, because they read about that rejection letter. But what most people don't understand, that rejection letter is not a rejection of you as a person or as a photographer or of your photography. It just means at that particular moment when your material hit their desk, they didn’t need it. Doesn't mean they won't need it tomorrow, it doesn't mean they didn't meet it yesterday. It just means at that moment they didn't need it. So you’ve get rejected. So, you know, it comes to my legacy: It's not really up to me, it's up to the moment!
Tom Jacob: Well, I think, it's true like you say. You don't have to worry much about it, it comes as it comes with for the moment. Moose, I think we can all enjoy already all these marvellous pictures you make, I mean, I can go to your website and I can spend two hours looking to your pictures instead of doing two hours podcast.
Moose Peterson: Thank you.
Tom Jacob: It's amazing. I think we can wrap it up Moose, but one thing I still have to know, how is your macro photography?
Moose Peterson: How is my macro photography? It sucks. My hat's off to you for what you do and others. But sticking my butt in the air, waiting for the wind to stop blowing, to take a picture of some small thing, that is just not in my wheelhouse at all. And like one of the things that's in my files that's extinct, which is Doyen’s Dune weevil? It's a little bug that was briefly discovered and it was started to be gone. They rediscovered this next to the I-5 Freeway, which is a major corridor going through Central California. And this little patch of I don't think it was even grass, but it was still native, for somehow it had survived. And the little weevil was there. And how big is weevil? This one it's a little bit bigger than like half a pea, little bit bigger than maybe a ladybug. And, you know, I was asked, hey, can you photograph it? I'm like, sure. And I was that and my foray into doing, Californias endangered butterflies. Just, yeah, macro not me!
Tom Jacob: If we meet up in Costa Rica, I will show you, Moose, no problem.
Moose Peterson: I'd be grateful. I would listen to every pearl of wisdom and then hopefully not let you down with my execution.
Tom Jacob: Ah, you will do fine. I'm sure.
Well, I hope Moose, we can catch up one day there. I will be on the lookout for your workshops. I would love to do one and I will be in contact, Moose. Thank you very much for this interview. It has been what, we are talking for one hour. It can go on, but we have to do other things. Thank you very much and we'll stay in contact and I will let you know when this podcast comes out.
Moose Peterson: Thank you, my friend. I appreciate the time and the space, and you take care. You take really good care.
Tom Jacob: You take care, give greetings to the family and keep making pictures.
Moose Peterson: Likewise.
Tom Jacob: See you soon. Bye bye.
Tom Jacob: Well I think that eye-opening interview with Moose Peterson, and the way he sees photography and the world through his eyes. So don’t forget to think about all what he has just told and shoot your own photography maybe in stories next time. Talking about the sharing, you know our podcast is available on all podcast players such as Apple and Spotify, so please, give us your like and comment, and subscribe of course so you don’t miss anything for the next episodes.
I leave you today with the quote of great Ansel Adams who said: “ There are no rules for good photographs. There are only good photographs.” Think about that... Now go out, make your own story, and move your photography. Thanks for joining us and see you soon!