"Art Wolfe: A Life Behind The Lens (Part2)"

"The first thing I tell them is this is not a choice of a business or a job. If you think of it as a job, you are unlikely to succeed. You have to think of it as a complete lifestyle. So, you have to live it, breathe it, give your life over to it to be successful. If you think of young people come up and they'll say things like, What should I expect to make the first year in salary? And I say, If you have to think along those lines, you're unlikely to do it. But I encourage many of them to take up photography as a passion and have a job where you can pay the bills because it's not what it used to be. You know, it's unlikely that any young photographer can live the life I've had simply because so much of where I went has changed. I'm talking about cultures and landscapes and so forth and so on that nobody's going to start out like I did and get to where I am, simply because they want to do it. It's just a different world now."

Intro:

Welcome back to The Camera Café Show, the podcast where we brew up inspiration for your photography journey. I’m your host, Tom Jacob, joined by our co-host Richard Clark and Tetiana Malovana working behind the scenes. Today we’re diving into Part 2 of our conversation with the legendary Art Wolfe. 

If you thought Part 1 from last week was fascinating, you’re in for another incredible episode. This time, we talk about Art’s  adventurous TV series, Travels to the Edge, and the challenges of filming in extreme locations. He shares wild behind-the-scenes stories—from navigating dangerous regions with armed guards to blending in with camels in disguise! 

We also explore his friendships with other iconic photographers, his insights on climate change, and the lessons he’s learned from decades of exploration. Plus, Art also has some brutally honest advice for aspiring photographers, his love for Japanese and Mexican cuisine, and even the craziest things he’s done to get the perfect shot! 

It’s an inspiring, thought-provoking, and sometimes hilarious conversation—so grab a coffee, settle in, and enjoy Part 2 of our talk with Art Wolfe. 

Tom: Travels to the Edge. Talk to me about this experience. It's 26 episodes aired in, I don't know how many countries. What were the biggest challenges you had there doing this, Art?

Art: The biggest challenge was for me to be working with the head photographer, who also worked with Rick Steves. Still works with Rick Steves, who's an American history professor, I think, who has done a very successful TV series for a very long time, showing us Europe. We also used on Travels to the Edge, and like any videographer, if they see something, they want to get it now. And I would always be at odds with him because I'm taking him to places he's never been. And if you take the time to shoot this, well, there's something better just 10 minutes down the road, that always was the source of conflict.

The other thing about Travels to the Edge, to make it economically feasible. We had also do three different episodes in three 30 days, and that was exhausting because to do a half hour show, they would often shoot 30 hours of footage. And so a lot of my words, a lot of the things I was talking about, never saw the light of day. And I like to be very judicious on what I shoot, and be very focused on that. And I think Travel to the Edge was the polar opposite. It was like, shoot everything, and then wind up editing that down. And so, that was challenging for me. Physically it wasn't that difficult because I was only doing what I've done for the previous three decades.

That crew was small, there was only four of us. So we had a cameraman, we had a second cameraman that was doing nature rounds and just little vignettes. And then we had a helper that would make sure everything was in our hands when we needed it, if we forgot it. So, I like the crew a lot, and I think the odds I was having with, I'll say his name, Carl, actually made the show better. Because if everybody disagrees on everything, it's maybe not as good as it could be.

And in fact, that's something I've learned over the years, also with all the books I've worked on, that it takes a team. It takes editors, it takes designers, it takes writers to make a really good book. And every book I ever worked on, I wouldn't get all the photos I wanted in the book, but other ideas that came in from other places made the book stronger, so. And in fact, that's what I learned from my own staff, that if you don't micromanage and tell them everything that you want them to do, they thrive on their independence. And so, those are lessons learned over the years.

So that was Travel to the Edge, we went from the Sahara to the Antarctic to the polar regions, into the Amazon, up into the Himalayas. Everywhere I wanted to take people, we went. And one of the best ones was Mali, Africa, and the Dogon people and other tribal people. It was great, but two years later, it was invaded by Al Qaeda identifying people, and Mali then became a dangerous place to be. Yeah, when we were in Timbuktu, Mali, about to go north into the desert, we had 15 people with automatic rifles and turbans in a second jeep following us because they were going to fight with whoever they needed to keep us alive. And it was like, I kept on saying, I'm happy that they're on our team, because when they're wearing turbans, and they got sunglasses, and they got automatic rifles, you want them to be your friends.

Tom: Can it be you had to wear one time a turban not to scare camels?

Art: Well, you have done your research, I have to say, Tom.

Yeah, I mean, getting close to shoot a wide angle shot of camel drivers coming out of the heart of the Sahara. If I got that close and I was wearing a baseball hat, the camels react. But wearing a turban, I look just like everybody else to the camel. And so I could get really wide angle close to them. That's the reason they said, put on the turban, otherwise you're going to have camels that want to kind of leave you and it's like, okay, not for this shot.

Tom: The monkeys in Japan, how close can you get to them?

Art: Well, I think I was perhaps one, if not the first American professional to photograph the snow macaques. That's a good, I would say 40 years ago, maybe 35 years ago. And when I was there, there was two old Japanese photographers that I saw every day for three days. But back then you couldn't get within say two meters of the snow macaques. Today, they'll come out of the water and climb on top of your camera. I think you probably saw the shot of the monkey looking into the lens with Gavriel holding the camera. So that, and now, when you go, there's a thousand people a day. On a good day, there'll be a thousand people that will come all day long. But the result then is the monkeys are standing below you, sometimes they're climbing your tripod. They are so accessible, that you can actually get shots that you couldn't have gotten before. But you just have to be careful of not including the hordes of other people that are around you.

Tom: Art, a lot of people, a lot of photographers, call you a really good friend. Today, just by coincidence, I was writing an email to David Duchemin, because he will be on the podcast, and I think he told me that you are the one that phoned him in the hospital when he had his tragic fall in Italy and he was very grateful for that. You knew well, Galen Rowell, Art?

Art: I did.

Tom: How was he as a person?

Art: Very charismatic. He was 10 years older than I was and seeing how he was able to make a life shooting mountains encouraged me into a business that I never thought would become a business. And unfortunately, as you know, he had a tragic death with his wife coming back from yet another trip. So he was complex, he was very articulate, his mother was very smart and I think a musician as well. And he was inspired by his mother a lot. And yeah, we lost a good one too early in life.

And now when you see famous climbers that are raising money for schools and things like that, you just hope they have the ability to know not to climb something beyond their skill. And because those kind of people that have the spirit of adventure we want on this planet. We don't want to lose them when they're 25 and they made a risky move and suddenly they're gone. So I put climbers and explorers and scientists in the same category that they all contribute to the health of society. And they could be the ones that help solve our issues about climate change.

So, climate change is a natural phenomenon, but there's no doubt we've accelerated the speed with which ice is disappearing. Certainly the soot in the air and all of that. So, but there are very intelligent people that are working in NGOs or startups that are focusing on this problem or that problem, but they don't get the credit or the awareness. Because there's so much other negativity going on in the planet right now. I see I drift. You ask me one question and I take it on its own journey. So part of, I'm sorry for that, if I'm not succinct in answering.

Tom: I love it. I was just thinking, imagine if you had tequila, where we would go?

Art: Yeah, there would be a few salty words, I'm sure. I'm being proper here. You know, the thing about that, Tom, is if you spend most of your life out in the muck, up to your ass in bird guano, you better be pretty open to ideas and not take yourself too seriously.

And a good sense of humour also goes a long ways because what we do as photographers is we bring important stories to the public and I do believe a single salient, emotionally impactful image can be more powerful than the written word. But you also have to have that sense of humour.

If all you do is extremely important stuff, but you don't have humour in your life, I think it can get people down and I cite war correspondents that have taken their own lives that get so caught up in it. The negativity that they're documenting and they're very valuable to have, but they are less careful with their psychology, I believe. And some of them wind up demoralized by what they've seen in life. And that is one of the reasons that I try to work on projects that keep me moving, you know, five decades later with excitement, rather than having chosen a different path photographically.

That can really work against your psychology. I think we're fragile. In other words, I think the line between sanity and insanity is often right on the borderline when you are cut off in traffic or for momentary lapses where angry. And we kind of lose it, but then hopefully you bounce right back to your normal self.

Tom: Then let's talk a bit more about humour, Art. It lifts our spirits. Tell me the most crazy thing ever you did to take a picture and not the one with the mountain goats where you peed on a rock. I know this one. Richard maybe doesn't know it but I know it. So what's the most crazy things you did to get a shot Art?

Art: Well, okay, I would frequently give slideshows in Seattle as I was getting out of college and becoming a photographer. I would give public talks, but I would go at great lengths to make jokes for instance. I did a series of photos of a snowshoeing in Seattle where there's no snow. And I would have the snowshoer in the middle of traffic snowshoeing and people would be looking at him like what the hell is going on with that guy. Or up on the top of our football stadium, I had him snowshoeing on the top, I got permissions. And so that's a degree of the length that I would go to carry on a joke within presentation. I had all these photos of animals sniffing your armpits. And so I had a little can that I made up that was called Art Wolf's Wilder Descent. That if you spray this on yourself, animals came out of nowhere. So I had, you know a grizzly bear nibbling on my neck, which was a trained bear. I had a mountain goat standing right above me. I had deer. You know, over the years you get these animals that are just fearless that will come up to you. And so I would take advantage of that.

But I think the most crazy thing I did was years ago under Ronald Reagan as president, he had a James Watt as the secretary of the interior and James Watt wanted to cut the forest. So I made up a big sign that had the emblem of the National Forest Service and I placed it off a major highway in the mountain range, east of Seattle, where there was a clear cut. And I called it James Watt's National Forest and thousands of people a day would look at this sign and it looked so professional that they thought it was real. And I was just doing it as a condemnation of James Watt. And I would have been arrested if somebody knew I had done that.

And years before that, when I was even 13, I destroyed some bulldozers and road graders that were carving up the forest that I grew up in or near. And so I was able to disable all these major machinery. And eventually within a week, the developer who was already in his mid nineties died from a stroke. I didn't think what I did to the machinery led to the stroke, but the family of that man donated the entire forest to the city. And now it's a wild area preserved for ever. And so, when I was young, I did some crazy things, but always in the name of preserving the natural habitat. And all the people that worked on that machinery are long gone because I was only 13 at the time. You know, statute of limitations are gone and I can tell that story finally without, I think, a retribution.

Tom: You love to work under pressure, Art, it's like your energy drink to always stimulate yourself and to come up with something new.

Art: I really work hard at coming up with something new because I knew a photographer that was older than me that loved photographing ducks. You've probably heard this story. And when he photographed every type of duck in North America, he was no longer interested in taking pictures. He had done what he wanted.

And so I always use that as a metaphor for constantly redefining what I'm interested in and pushing my career and my spirit forward. So I'm always evolving into different genres. Knowing full well that the artists that I studied in art history had one style, for the most part they had one style that they were known for, but I don't have one style. I don't know if I have a style, but certainly I love all these different genres. And I intentionally do that to keep writer's block or photographer's block from happening and that is what writers sometimes face. They run out of inspiration and it's deadly for their career. So, I think photographers and painters are wired the same way. So long as we are still engaged in finding new ideas and new locations, we won't run out of ideas.

Tom: I think also you told while you studied art school that you, in that time you didn't understand Picasso still because you were too young?

Art: Well, Picasso was still I didn't understand that. I mean, I got it a little bit. But Jackson Pollock and the other abstract expressionists, I didn't understand at all. And expressionists were painting non objective work, which meant, you know, in objective work, you understand that's a horse, a dog, a road, a tree, a forest, a mountain. Non objective wasn't anything we recognized.

And so they would famously say that their paintings end where your imagination as a viewer begins. So they were trying to tap into the viewer or our subconscious and imagine what it possibly could represent. And so I was too young and too immature in college because I was right out of high school. I knew paintings of trees and landscapes and still life and things like that. But, I didn't understand abstract expressionism. Picasso wasn't really that much of an abstract expressionist, but he certainly had a varied career, because he painted, he sculpted, he created still lives. I mean, he did a great variety of subjects, whereas Jackson Pollock threw paint on the wall, or on the floor, and created beautiful, large paintings, but that's the style he's known for. And you could argue that many of the French Impressionists also had a unique style that they stayed with throughout their lives.

So I tackled on abstract expressionists. I studied, I started going out photographing very similar to their work. And then I started teaching that in degraded environments around North America and also Cuba. So Cuba and Astoria, Oregon and other places which have a lot of rust, a lot of peeling paint, a lot of degraded environments. I would give a lecture on William de Kooning or Jackson Pollock or Mark Rothko. These are famous abstract expressionists and I would say go out into this old forgotten landscape or urban environment where it's degraded and find your own creative work. And people love it. People love it. So you set the right hook. And people take it and those are among the most popular workshops I give and certainly not one that a lot of my colleagues would be trained to teach because many of my colleagues come in from a biology background or a science background. Whereas I'm coming in like you from a perspective of art first,

Tom: Ask away, Richard.

Rich: So you've probably been asked this many times, but for those who are like starting out in their photography careers? What would you say is like a main takeaway for them starting off at their, their photography, whether it's landscapes, nature, whatever it may be?

Art: Yeah. The first thing I tell them is this is not a choice of a business or a job. If you think of it as a job, you are unlikely to succeed. You have to think of it as a complete lifestyle. So, you have to live it, breathe it, give your life over to it to be successful. If you think of young people come up and they'll say things like, What should I expect to make the first year in salary? And I say, If you have to think along those lines, you're unlikely to do it. But I encourage many of them to take up photography as a passion and have a job where you can pay the bills because it's not what it used to be.

You know, it's unlikely that any young photographer can live the life I've had simply because so much of where I went has changed. I'm talking about cultures and landscapes and so forth and so on that nobody's going to start out like I did and get to where I am, simply because they want to do it. It's just a different world now. And so there's so many people competing for air on the internet or in magazines, that are fewer devoted to photography and nature. I say you're better off just finding a job that pays the bills and keep photography as happiness and passion, rather than something you are going to be stressing over, trying to make a justification that you're a photographer. Because the minute becomes stressful and hard. You're not going to look at photography as the same way I do, which has always been positive and a happy place. So that's what I tell people. It's much more difficult now than it was. There's a lot more people on the planet. There's a lot more people taking pictures. And there's a lot more professionals and semi professionals that have been inspired by Frans Lanting or Galen Rowell or Jim Brandenburg and perhaps myself. We've encouraged a lot of people to do what we do, but to the point where it's much more difficult because there's a lot of people out there shooting.

Rich: So I know that Tom asked Moose Peterson when he was on, whether he'd can remember like one particular breakthrough moment. And Moose he didn't feel like he ever had that breakthrough or that moment in his career. But what about for yourself? Have you got a particular fond memory of, Oh, I've made it to the peak?

Art: No, I think it's just been a steady climb. This year alone, I've been bestowed with Lifetime Achievement Award from the University of Washington, which has 90, 000 students. So it's a big learning institution, I've been awarded by the new governor of the state, award that will be given to me in April on exploring and being an environmentalist. There's an exclusive club in downtown Seattle that costs a lot of money to be a member each month, and they're giving me a lifetime membership. I would never dream that these awards or honours would come my way. It's just been a steady, slow climb. And I know nothing else at this point. And so I don't think there was any monumental moment that I felt like I've arrived.

Probably in the early days, it was when I was getting an article in National Geographic or Audubon or Smithsonian. Those were minor moments of happiness, but then you're working on the next project and so you move on. And so those weren't like big breakthrough moments. I think it's just been a steady incline on something.

You know, there's very few people that travel as much as I do that have worked on as many books or TV shows as I have. And I'm not saying that they should have because they're raising families and they've got other priorities. In addition to being photographers, but I'm kind of on one track. And so I live it, I breathe it. And finally, now in the third quarter, last quarter of my life, people are starting to recognize the contribution. And as I said, I never entered contests to become photographer of the year. It wasn't the way I was motivated. It's just a band, a slow process.

Tom: Art, before we go to a bit more fun questions, advocating for conservation has always been a great topic in your books and in your life. Has there been a place you visited, like say in 20 years between where you in real life noticed climate change?

Art: Definitely a lot. I mean, almost anywhere in the polar regions is the most obvious when it comes specifically to climate change. That's where we're seeing the most drastic results. You know, what used to be a glacier behind a group of penguins now is barren rock. That's South Georgia. I've been up in the far Canadian Arctic, Greenland as well. And you see glaciers receding everywhere. And it gives me pause to think about Southeast Asia, India, the subcontinent of India, and other countries in and around the Himalayas are reliant on glaciers feeding the rivers that keep them alive. What will happen when those glaciers are gone? There will be a mass human movement.

We're seeing that out of North Africa and Syria to Europe, but we'll see a lot more people moving, unless we reclaim water. We're on a planet of water, and the very fact that we're running out of fresh water means we need to really develop the technology to use the seawater for our own survival. We have the technology, it's just very expensive.

When it comes to human change, yeah, I see a lot more rapid change in remote cultures that I was in. Cite the Omo River of Ethiopia, many people have now gone there. There was Leni Riefenstahl, who was a German lady that photographed in and around that region very early on, after World War II. Then Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher, fellow British citizens, did a great series of books of African traditions, including the Omo.

And then Gav and I went in right after them, and I included the work from the Omo in books, which then got the awareness of travel companies that specialized in photography tours, and they latched on to it. And then everybody else wanted to go there. And so when Gav and I went, we were reliant on our own vehicles, our own food. There was no tradition there. And after us and after an episode of Travels the Edge, it really opened the world up. And I regret that immensely. To the extent now that if I'm in a really delicate environment or a culture, I'm not going to identify exactly where that was. Because now I realize that in the age of Instagram and instant travel, people, which I had never thought would go through what I went through to get to these locations, are going there now. And they may not have the same sensitivity that we did, which was never leave any trace that we were there, even if the people are in rags, we're not going to give them the shirt off our back because that is what their culture was.

And people now are giving baseball hats and T shirts and sunglasses and it really changes culture. And the minute we lose a culture, the minute we lose a language, the earth is diminished. And so we're extremely careful about bringing in something to give to them. But it's usually the food that they normally would grow. We would bring in additional food that they would consume and it'd be gone. And so we never just take, take, take. We try to contribute, but we don't want to contribute to the changing of their world. And certainly a lot of groups that came in after us have changed the Omo drastically. So I see more change, obviously, because I'm not always up in the Arctic or the Antarctic.

I'm traveling into India and other places and the Western creep of civilization is very real. And it changes cultures. In another way, it's amazing when you used to go to Asia, people were lean and skinny. And now they've adopted a lot of the bad eating habits of the West and they're getting fat. I mean, there's fat monks where they used to be emaciated. Now they're eating hamburgers and Colonel chicken and things like that. So yeah, it changes. Hard to hold off, but I don't think we can accelerate it by publicly saying where it is and go there and change it.

Tom: In all those notebooks you have lying there, Art, you have some, like say, tribal communities or cultures you want to visit before they change?

Art: Yeah, I mean, just, we mentioned early the Saudi Arabia. You know, I want to go there right now. Because when they open Saudi Arabia up to tourism on a mass way, everything that we see in a couple of months will change. It will change. So Bedouin culture in remote areas of Saudi Arabia would inevitably change as a tourism comes that way.

I want to see Uzbekistan for act of faith. I've always been enamoured of the Silk Road and how merchants would travel from the Mediterranean into the East. And so that comes from my historical history background as well. So there's a lot of places I want to see or traditions I want to see before they're gone.

And I've gone and seen most of it that I had on my hit list, including the Garrow Wall in the country of Chad. I went and photographed that a couple years ago, and that will go into the Act of Faith book. I've seen mostly the animals I've ever wanted to see, I've been able to see it. So I have a degree of satisfaction that in my short lifetime, all the things I wanted to see, I basically have seen, but there's new things I'm discovering every day. So it'll occupy the rest of my life. I'm sure.

Tom: Uzbekistan is not this country with the crazy dictator?

Art: I think that's Kyrgyzstan or I don't know. I know friends of mine that have travelled recently and they said it's Samarkand and Kara are really ancient cities. Bukhara is in particular, a very ancient city. And so there's a lot of mosques and things like that, that are beautiful. And I want to see that it's the stands. I've been all over Western Mongolia and Western China, Pakistan, but I've not been in Kyrgyzstan or Uzbekistan before. I've photographed a lot of the Kazakhstan people that live in Western Mongolia, they're the eagle hunters. So there's pockets of places I want to see, they're on my hit list.

Tom: They never make it difficult for you to enter Art?

Art: No. China did, as I mentioned before. Yeah. I have no desire to see the Soviet Union again. I'm not crazy about the leader, of course. But, no, I haven't had much difficult, because I'm not a journalist. I don't have an axe to grind politically, publicly. want to celebrate what's there that's positive. And so generally, I haven't really run into too many obstacles, but I'm not walking the Syrian Iraq border anytime soon. You know, I don't put myself intentionally into harm's way.

Although I did that once in Ulaanbaatar. I got in between protesters and the police with Gavriel and we were photographing it thinking we were war correspondents. But tear gas was landing near us and bricks were landing near us and I said, I think we should leave. And that night five people were killed. And they burned down, the communist headquarters in Mongolia because democratic party had won, but the communists declared victory. So they tore down, they burned the building to the ground on the very night that we were there with the film crew Travels to the Edge. So that got a little close. It got a little heated. And the president declared martial law, and the flight that we were going to take in the morning didn't leave till 2 a.m. the next day. So everything was disrupted for a week as things settled down.

I've got stories and stories and stories. You know, there's a writer that wants to do a biography kind of book, a memoir book, and been interviewing. And someday that will happen, probably within the next couple of years, because I've got the memory for a lot of the stories. I forget names really quickly, as I teach a lot of workshops, and it's very hard, but faces I recognize. But, show me a photo that I've taken 40 years ago and I'm likely to identify exactly what was happening, when I took the picture because I got that kind of targeted memory.

Tom: Let's go to end this a bit to more fun questions. What's Art, a hidden talent or a passion that people maybe don't know about you?

Art: Well, I think I've revealed pretty much everything. I am gay. If you were going there, that has not ever been a liability for me. It's just who we are, like left handers or whatever. I think everything I've talked about from bonsaiing trees to travel, to coming up with new ideas, that's all part of my path to keeping doing this for five decades.

Tom: If you could time travel Art, from which painter you would love to have a class?

Art: Which painter? Which style? I would have to say it would be Jackson Pollock. He died in a car accident, he was an alcoholic. But he certainly created an amazing body of work. Now that I understand what he was after. So he would have been one of the painters. Anybody in the French Impressionist period, Gauguin, you know, Monet, Manet, Seurat, all those different Impressionist inspired me for works of art that I turned into styles of photography.

So I've drawn a lot over the years from painters, whether it's the that period in the mid 18 hundreds in France. Or in America, post war America, abstract expressionism has inspired me. So I started emulating a Jackson Pollock and then suddenly I start to shoot the chaos of his compositions naturally. So once I start emulating it, you absorb it and then it becomes part of your own, excuse me, vocabulary, visual vocabulary is a good way to put it.

Rich: Tom and I are foodies. Oh, we really love our food. So what do you miss while you're traveling? What's your favourite go to?

Art: I think Japanese food, Mexican food, Vietnamese food. Those are among my favourite. Yeah, those would be my favourite. So, I mean, Seattle's seven hours away from Tokyo on a good day. Nine hours if you're heading west or seven hours if you're heading east. So the Asian aesthetic of culture is what I've adopted in my garden. And certainly the minimalist way Japanese live for the most part is influenced and the variety of food that you get in Japan. I love taking people up to Hokkaido and staying in little inns and having a variety of tempura or sashimi and that kind of food. Mexico, if you go to Mexico, it is a great cuisine. If all you know of Mexican food is tacos and enchiladas or burritos, then you're really not aware of Mexican food. Yeah, Italian pizzas, French cooking.

The worst food I ever had was actually in Tibet because back in 1984, in the winter of 84, when we were passing from Lhasa to the base camp at Mount Everest. We were served food that was uneatable. And so I'll never forget that. That's not a place for foodies. But Vietnam, as I mentioned, is always great for its fresh ingredients. I like Thai food. Food in general. That's why I'm so heavy right now. I love food.

Tom: How are your cooking skills, Art?

Art: When I have to cook, I'm really good at cooking. I pay attention, I follow, I look briefly at the cooking instructions, but I'm pretty good at just throwing things together and coming up with something good.

I learned a lot from Gavriel Jacan. Romanians are like Italians, you know, in fact, Romania is the second Rome. So they had a lot of cooking skills that I've learned from Gavriel over the years as well. But I, once or twice a year, I'll cook for my nieces and I love it, I plan it.

And cooking is a great diversion for me, but it's not something that I do very often. I cook for myself. I mean, I'll make chicken tacos and things like that  that are really easy, but that's just for me. If I'm cooking for somebody else, I really want it to be special.

Tom: And soon, Art, Christmas is around the corner. Where will you spend Christmas this year?

Art: Actually, at a dive lodge in what they call the Triangle. It's off the top end of Sulawesi Island, on a tiny island. And so, whether they celebrate Christmas or not, I'll be there. And I've half my birthdays in the last 20 years have been celebrated in Africa.

So I'm not really a traditionalist when it comes to celebrating what a lot of people celebrate, because it's just another workday for me. And I'm not miserable about that. It's just that, who am I giving presents to? Nobody at this point. And I don't have a tree, but I do have a party. On Friday, this is currently Wednesday, midday, day after tomorrow, I'll have about 75 people for dinner. I show them a presentation from all the travels I did this year, and this has been a tradition I've kept up for 40 years.

And the next day, Saturday, I have all the surviving members of the Everest expedition coming over to my house and I'll give them a presentation, looking back some 40 years ago, what we looked like and what we did. And then in about the end of January, I'm inviting the University of Washington president, current governor of our state.

Other people that I've met over the last couple of years, I'll have a special party for them. So I do that every year because most times I'm gone. So to keep up relationships with people, you have to work at it. And I do it through the gatherings at my home.

Tom: Sounds amazing!

Art: It's a lot of work, but it's worth it.

Tom: Richard, I think we are there. I think we have to leave this man to his Japanese garden now because

Art: It's not raining. So I got to get out there.

Tom: You see. Art, thanks so much for this talk. I hope we can do it again, maybe next year or whatever, when you have another good story to tell, you let me know. And it's been a pleasure talking to you.

Art: As it has been for me. Thank you very much, Tom and Richard.

Rich: Thank you very much, Art. It's been a pleasure talking to you.

Art: Absolutely.

Tom: Take good care, Art.

Art: I will do this.

Tom: We'll see you around.

Art: Thank you. Bye.

Tom: Bye.

Outro: 

And that’s a wrap on Part 2 of our conversation with Art Wolfe! What an incredible journey—from his time filming Travels to the Edge to his deep commitment to conservation and storytelling. 

We hope this two-part series has inspired you, whether it’s to travel more, see the world differently, or simply embrace creativity in new ways. If you enjoyed the episode, make sure to subscribe, leave us a review, and follow us on your favorite podcast platform—your support helps us bring more amazing conversations like this! 

We’ve got more exciting guests coming up, so stay tuned. Until next time, keep shooting, keep exploring, and keep on moving your photography. This is Tom Jacob, Tetiana Malovana, and Richard Clark signing off for today—see you next week!