Tom: Nice meeting to you, Sarah, and welcome on the podcast. It's a pleasure to see you and to have a little chat about photography and a bit about your life too.
Sarah: Thank you, Tom, for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.
Tom: It's going to be an amazing talk. Sarah, in our last, in our last talk we had a while ago I think you mentioned you still needed to plant like 250 daffodil bulbs in your garden. You managed to find time for this or not.
Sarah: No. Yes, we, I found time for it and, but it's probably one of the reasons my back is hurting too, is because of all those bulbs. But you know, it's worth it for this when the spring comes.
Tom: I remember , you were going to send me a picture of your garden. I didn't see it still, ?
Sarah: Oh, I need to do that. Well, I have to find one or from summer. I will find you one. I'm gonna write that down right now. Garden photo. Okay. On the list?
Tom: You see? So now I see you writing something down. It's funny because I just talked , Nancy Borowick some days ago,
Sarah: Yeah.
Tom: By the way, she gives you many greetings.
Sarah: Oh yeah.
Tom: She also had to, write something down and she actually, just like you took a lot of papers , so you are. Not digital in writing things down, Sarah.
Sarah: sometimes, but just from my desk, at my desk, I have like a notebook, you know, I have a notebook and, I like to keep a little list here. That's always, avail is facing me, you know? So if don't remember, you know, I say yes probably too much. You know, I'm kind of like, I like to, I like to do all kinds of things. So somebody ask me to do something, you know, often I'll say Yes. So if I don't write it down. Like right here on my desk where I can see it, I can forget and then somebody will contact me and say, you said you were going to do this. And I'll be ah, you know, so I have to write it down. But I do take some notes when I'm, I'm in a meeting, more of a somebody and I have many meetings with them, like mentoring or something, then I have on you know, I have a Word document on that Word document while we're talking that I can go back and see what we talked about and what we've done, you know? So yeah, Are you entirely digital? Do a paper list?
Tom: No, no, no. I'm not entirely digital. I actually really enjoy holding paper in my hands. Also books. I cannot seem to buy a digital book.
Sarah: Yeah. Oh, I buy digital books like for novels nonfiction books just for reading without photos. I buy digital because I want to spend my money all on photography books. So I mean, the bigger money. Right. so I buy digital books or get them from the library, digital books.
Tom: Hmm. It's funny because well here, at least in Spain for the moment, national Geographic Magazine has like an amazing offer for the next two years. 70% of if you buy their digital subscription. And I'm toying with it, but I'm not sure if it's digital, if I'm going really to enjoy it. So, I don't know. I really like to hold in my hands and go through it.
Sarah: Yes. I get both, you know, I get the print copy, 'cause I agree. I like to, I wanna see also the design of the how know, I meant, 'cause I'm interested, you know, editing. So I like to see the edit and the design, how the, how they put it together. But I also have like a digital subscription. So if I want to look something up, the digital
Tom: Hmm. Okay.
Sarah: you have access to the archives it through subscription. for me it's worth it, you know,
Tom: Yeah. Okay. Mm-hmm.
Sarah: back and look at something a long time ago, you know if I want to.
Tom: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And you can find friends back there inside. Even we will talk about this in a moment.
Sarah: Okay.
Tom: So Sarah East Boot Bay, you've seen a lot of the world. You went for on your assignment years from Africa to Siberia. What's about the pace of life in Maine that keeps you happy?
Sarah: Well, it's, it's a, it's slow. It's, it's the nature. One of the things why I love Maine is the being in nature more. I also love Maine the people. There's a very there's a strong arts and photography community in Maine and has been like for, you know, a couple hundred years. I mean, lots of painters came up here for the summer and painted you know, there's the Wus and Hartley Marsden and I can't even think Rockwell Kent and all these painters who came up here and lived and painted because it's so, you know, it's so beautiful and the summers are so nice. It has this arts tradition. A lot of what they, we call makers, lots of people who come here and they make pottery or they do textiles or, you know, there's, it's a large maker community and it's less you know, there's less big cities, there's less sameness. So, you know, in America we have a lot of we call franchises or chain so like McDonald's and those kind of Dunking Donuts or something, and they're everywhere. So you can fly into St. Louis, Missouri and be presented with all the same things that where you just left, if you know, in America and that. very, there's small, lots, smaller amount of the things. So restaurants, bookstores, everything is like more. Individual, like, you know, there's like a restaurant here in Booth, bay Harbor that we like to go to. That's it. There's just one of them. You know, you're not gonna anywhere, but right here. So there's, I think that is, I like that. I like and where I live, it's very in the woods, but it's still close to like, say the grocery store and things like that. But when you're here, you can feel like you're far away. I mean, I spent like, you know, 15, at least 15 years living in the city, in Washington, DC and then in other larger towns. And so it's nice to just do something entirely different, be somewhere entirely different.
Tom: Sarah, let's walk a bit back. Teenage years, you were at home, the rebel, wearing a miniskirt, or you just did everything your parents told you to do.
Sarah: Oh, Hmm. Good. That's, let me think back. I was more, well, I think I did some of both right. You know, because, my parents. Were pretty strict. But I once I got out of the house, you know, I would, sometimes I would even change my clothes, you know, so I would one thing, have clothes that I wore out, and then change back before I got home. Like I was sneaky, you And but I, the huge e emphasis in our family was on education. That was the thing. And that's where I did what they told me to do, you know, because, it was just expected you would do well in There was no, you know, and study, and you would study. But I liked, I liked it. So, you know, that wasn't me. I loved learning. And love to read. You know, I love making things like in the art classes. I loved history, I love school, you know, and college and everything. I'm, you know, I'm still learning and want to always keep learning, you know, and studying in a way. So that for me. But I was fairly rebellious once I got in college. You know, I sort of had a couple of, few years there before I settled down.
Tom: But then Sarah, you did very well in college because you went to study photojournalism at University of Missouri and 1979 College photographer of the year. Yeah.
Sarah: yeah, you know, I was in my. got a Bachelor of Arts and I in fine art and you know, minored in art history. So I was very interested in art right away. But you know, when I graduated from college, undergraduate, I didn't have any skills where you could get a job. You know, I, was like an artist, you know, so, but I started you know, then with photography a little bit, they got a photography teacher, sort of my second year in the program. And I was doing printmaking and I needed to take some photos 'cause I wanted to transfer prints onto metal plates and mix etchings. So I had to learn some photography. Then we got a photography professor and I going that way I loved it. But, you know, I was doing all kinds of cross processes and made printing and four by five photography, you know, thinking maybe I was gonna be Ansel Adams and, you know, but when I graduated I didn't really know how to do photography professionally. So, I started dating a guy who worked for the local newspaper, who was a photographer for the newspaper, was always in already also in college. And saw, wow, you could have a job doing this. You know, you know, you then, and you can go everywhere and you can have an excuse to talk to anybody and go anywhere because now you're gonna go take pictures. So then I went back to school and in journalism, and then that's when I, you know, the flame burst, you know, in you know, and I. I went to a, they had a thing called the Flying Short course where they would take a group of photographers and they would take a week , and they would go to different cities. So they would go to New York and they would go to Kansas City and they'd go to LA and this group would do a presentation everywhere they landed. And it was like this whirlwind, later, but I went as a student to the one in Kansas City and Eddie Adams was speaking and he said, he was talking about, you know, being a photographer. And said, you know, if you want to be a photographer, you need to ask yourself, how bad do you want this? He says, because you're going to have to give some things up. You might not home for Christmas. know, you might not be there when your children are first taking their steps. You might not have good relationships. You might, you know, b et cetera. So, you know, I sat there and I thought, okay, you know, I want this bad. I'm gonna do whatever it takes, you know, I'm gonna sacrifice if I need to. And that's when I sort of really went for it. You know, a, you know, I wanted to be a real photographer and work as a photojournalist. And those kind of were some turning big turning points for me in terms of like settling down, focusing, committing, learning the skills, and photographing learn, you know, photograph and learning about storytelling and journalism, et cetera.
Tom: Mm-hmm. And that also gave you the internship at National Geographic? No, Sarah. Yeah.
Sarah: Yes. But the University of Missouri School, there was a lot pretty, at the time, fairly many of the National Geographic photographers had, some of 'em had come through that school. Jody Cobb had gone through the school. Allen, Harvey, William Garrett. They had, he who was the chief of the magazine at the time, they had all gone through this program. so sometimes they would come during the pictures of the year contest and they would come for that. So we kind of got to meet them, you know, meet some of the photographers and the editors and it was. A real privilege. I got to know Robert Ilka, who was the director of at the time, and you know I knew that every year they had the contest, the College of Photography, the year contest, and at the time the prize was an internship at the magazine, you know, so for the two years that I was in that program you know, I applied and I got it that, last year in my program, you know, and yeah, that was the beginning of everything for me in
Tom: Of everything. Yeah.
Sarah: yeah. You know, that was a Blessing that I was able to get that opportunity.
Tom: Hmm. Because you even made your first story there, Sarah know, return to Uganda while you were there.
Sarah: Yeah, that was I was a bit of a disaster though when I first went on the, you know, because I had mostly been doing black and white photography, you know, through school, and we like one little course on color. And so, you know, it's all, back then the geographic, it was all transparency slide film. It was Kodachrome, and Kodachrome, well, it was like Kodachrome 64 a SA too, you know? Kodachrome is very fussy, you know, it's like the latitude between a good exposure and a bad exposure is very narrow, you know? And, this really dates me, but when I first went there, I think that was the first year so that's 1979 that Nikon came out with a camera that had a light meter in the camera, right? But we were handheld white meters, you know, and it was, my exposures were terrible. They were just terrible. And they were like, wait a minute. I then, I think Bob said to me, well, you're obviously a good printer because my black and white looked good, you know, for my portfolio. They got, they've got me a Nikon Fe that had a light meter in the camera, which. you know?
Tom: Of course. Yeah.
Sarah: and then, yeah, then I got a magazine assignment, my first magazine assignment to go to Uganda with a family, a husband, wife, and their child. They were Canadian, she was Ugandan, he was Canadian. And they were going back after the end of, I mean, who was the dictator. And he'd been overthrown. And so they were able to go back and they hadn't, she hadn't seen her family in like six or seven years. Jerry and Sarah tis. And so I went with them and boy, I had a lot of tough lessons. Really tough lessons. 'cause, you know, I thought like the big moment, you know, was we were, when they, she saw her family for the first time in seven years. And I was like, okay, this is so important. I have to get this photo, I have to get this photo. and we ended up, we drove from Kenya into Uganda and we ended up not getting out of town. There was all complications. So by the time we got there, it was like night. You know, and the family had been kind of like, you know all day waiting and, you know, we get there and it sucks. The light sucks. It's like terrible. It's like, it's, it's a, I mean, you know, I knew I was not going to get a good photo of this. There was, I, you know, I tried, but you know, with the, with that transparency film, I wasn't prepared to do any flash or anything. Anyway, I was, oh, I cried so bad. I was so unhappy. I thought, oh, I'm ruined now. You know? And I, we were there for two or two and a half months, you know, living an apartment in Kampala. Anyway, it got better. But I learned some lessons, you know, about know, you can't control. What's gonna you know? And you have to the problem solver. Like, it's my job to solve that problem, you know? It's not, you know, I can't go crying to Bob Gilga. at first. I would call him from, if I had a phone, I could get a phone call if I went back to Nairobi. Didn't go that often, but, and Colin, and finally his secretary said, you cannot be calling Mr. Ilka. You know, you talk to your editor. You know, so everything I was just, you know, you know, I was like so inexperienced and all the lessons I learned, well, they helped me, you know,
Tom: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Sarah: the difference between being a student and a professional. I.
Tom: Yeah. But maybe Bob Gilker was, can it be he told you that after the earned internship to find a real job
Sarah: Oh yeah, absolutely.
Tom: he, but he, but he got, but he got you a job. Yeah. At the Topeka Journal.
Sarah: yes he did. He, yeah. 'cause you know, I'm thinking by the end of this assignment, everything like, well, I'm ready, you know, now I'm ready to be a National Geographic photographer. And he had to, you know, gimme a reality check. You know, like, I don't think so, you know, and basically he says, no, you need to go get a job. You know, he said, you there and get a job. 'cause I wasn't quite done with my master's in journalism and I was gonna go back to school. And he says, no, you need to go get a job. And Rich Clark said the Topeka Capital Journal. And they were friends. They had a very robust photo staff for this Kansas newspaper. And they won a lot of contests and stuff like
Tom: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Sarah: and they had just, a photographer or had left and gone on somewhere else. And so he knew there was an opening and he called Rich and, you know got me the job there, you know, and that was really, I was there about two years and that was I think that was where I really became a professional.
Tom: Learned. Yeah.
Sarah: I mean everything, all
Tom: The
Sarah: incredible staff. You had Jim Richardson on done Jim Richardson before and on the and he helped me so much. And Chris Johns, who became chief of the magazine at one point, he's the one who hired me as a photo editor. They were all there. So it was quite a, quite a heck of a staff. And that's where you really learn to. Be a professional, like taking responsibility, figuring it out, doing the work, ideas, pitching ideas. We all pitched ideas. Yeah, it was great. It was tough, but it was great.
Tom: You know, Sarah, I sent an email to Jim and I told him, watch out. I'm going to talk with Sarah Lynn. And I'm going to ask you for the funniest moment you guys had on the newspaper, and he says, fine, go with it. So there you go. Sarah. What was the best moment with Jim Richardson?
Sarah: well, I, not so much that it was funny but I was so Topeka, Kansas is the capital city for Kansas, the state of Kansas. And they,
Tom: Huh.
Sarah: comes and meets for three months of the year and they always assign a photographer to be there full time. For three months of the year, that's all you do is you go up to the Capitol and you cover all the Senate and the house and the, and all the committee meetings and everything. And so Rich decided that I would do it. did this year when I first got there, I got there like in. December or something. And it started in January. And so, and I'm like, what, you know, this is like meetings and meetings and meetings, you know? And I was like, how am I gonna, you know, it's like, this sounds awful. Right? And there a man who had done it burn Ketchum. He was no longer on the staff, but he had done it for several years. And had he put, had put together like a slideshow that he showed, gave to people and he gave it to me because I went and talked to him. He gave it to me to study to look at. I must have looked at that thing 50 times, that slideshow, just put it, I'm sitting home and I'd go through it and I could start to see something like a glimmer of hope. The way he photographed it. It was all about the people you know, and the people in the audience as well as the actual legislators, you know, and he brought so much humanity to it, to the story of, you know. what government looks like. And so I got totally into it, right? I got, I did it two years. I did, I said, oh no, I'm doing it again. You know, I got so into it and I got to know everybody in the legislature, you know, they all knew me and I could go anywhere I wanted and do whatever I wanted. And, it was great. It was really great. . So the first day we went at the legislator, Jim came with me because he they had to have a picture for the front page, right? And they couldn't really trust me yet, like if I could get it, you know, so he came with me to make sure they had something for the paper the next day. 'cause that's a big deal. The legislature opens, you know? So he did that and then which was great, and he gave me a lot of confidence and I can't remember. If they use one of mine or one of his, they probably used some of both of ours for that day. 'cause they did a whole page of pictures. Then I had an assignment or I had to go photograph something at night and I didn't really know how to use lighting at And Jim took his time to get a flash, explain how to use this flash, like off camera, holding it off, bouncing it off walls and stuff like that. We shot a test roll, we processed the test roll, looked at it. I mean, he. He was like my teacher, you know, those first few months. And so helpful, so generous. I will never forget that, you know, how he helped me. You know, he helped me become a professional. Right. You know in terms of the, like, funny or jokes, a lot of stuff happened before I came that were like legends, you know, of the, of the bad boys on the staff doing bad boy stuff and getting in trouble, you know? Yeah,
Tom: Sarah, then a bit quick forwards.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Tom: Then you worked for some year at newspapers.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Tom: You then you change to freelancing, I think because you, like you always wanted to work for National Geographic, you end up making I think, 16 stories for them
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Tom: in that time. And then in 2005, a job position came open.
Sarah: Yeah. Editor position came open. And I had, during that time while I was making, you know, photographs for the magazine, doing magazine stories. While it was amazing, I had some incredible stories that I was got to work on. I was also teaching a workshop. Actually up here in Maine
Tom: Okay.
Sarah: in college And when I was teaching those workshops, I realized how much I liked working with photographers on their projects, you know, editing and helping coach them and stuff like that. So I always thought in the back of my mind, you know, Hmm, maybe someday I'll, I'll be an editor. You know, I might, I might switch to becoming an editor. Because one of the things about me as a photographer was I was very nervous and, you know, always thought like this was a, I had done a terrible job, right? I just thought every story I did, it was terrible. And that was it. And they were never gonna hire me again. And my career was like, done. Well that didn't happen, but, you know, I was like, the. Kind of known for that. You know, it's always like a disaster. So around feeling like that is not the pleasantness feeling, right? It's not feeling to have, feeling like you just weren't good enough and et cetera. , But when I was teaching and I was working with other photographers, with their film, I didn't feel that way. You know, I felt good. I felt like, oh, I can help this person, know, and that, and I felt confident of my ability to edit and sequence and storytelling. I felt good. So that's why I thought about it, you know, as like a possible future. So when the opening came up at the magazine, , I mean, back in those days, nobody left. It was rare editor left and went some someplace else. so I applied. I thought, I'm just gonna apply. I was working on a story at the time, you know, but I thought, oh, I'm just gonna apply, see what Because I knew Chris 'cause from Topeka and the one who was gonna make the decision. I thought, well, if anybody would take a chance on me as an editor, it's gonna be Chris. And so I got the job, know, I finished my story and I started editing and never looked back. And I loved I loved do, still doing it. Still love it. So yeah, I just like, you know, you close one door and another one opens and you just have to be willing to go through it.
Tom: Mm-hmm. Then you worked on numerous magazine features,
Sarah: Yeah.
Tom: says Lynn Johnson, Erica Larson, John Steinmeyer, Joel Sartore, , and again, Jim Richardson and many others.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Tom: How did it feel, Sarah, to represent their work and then to project this to the editor in chief? What's the process there? How you have to defend it.
Sarah: So the way it worked then, and it's not exactly the same now, but the way it worked then, you know, you would be by the director of the department, director of photography, the department. You would be assigned a story and usually the photographer came with it, you know, the
Tom: The story. Hmm.
Sarah: was already chosen for this story. In some cases it wasn't. And then you were welcome to suggest somebody, you know, really liked to do. That was one of the things I wanted to do very badly was work with new photographers because working with the photographers, like Jim, say Jim or Joel Sartore, or you know, the ones that were photographers. When I was a photographer, right. They were like my peers, And all of a sudden, now I'm their editor. And I think that was, that was more difficult than working with new photographers who, you know, I didn't have a previous relationship with them as a photographer, right? I was just
Tom: Hmm. Yeah.
Sarah: I will leaned into working with the newer photographers or suggesting new photographers, and Chris and I had this great relationship so , I would show him photographer's work and say, what do you think about this person? You know, they're, they're doing this project. I think it'd be perfect for us. So I was able to get a lot of new people, and that was, I think that was the best for me, probably the best for those photographers who I didn't knew previously too. But, you know, we, so as the photo editor, you. You know, you're, you're like, everything. You're not just the editor, you're doing research, you're helping, you know, get permissions for the photographers to go do things. If you, if you, that's needed, you know, you're their, you're the person on the phone when they're or lonely or something, you know, you're the person, you're their psychologist, their best friend, their teacher, their boss. You know, you control the budget, you know we make the budget, , so the photographer and I, if they're assigned early at the beginning, then we would make a proposal to the executive committee about, here's the story that we are gonna tell and where we're gonna go, and our proposed budget. it's one trip, two trips, whatever. We felt like it needed. And we'd also, there'd be a whole team, we'd be working, not just me and the photographer to do this, but there's the text editor and the writer and everything. So we'd make a plan and then you know, they would go, they would photograph, they would either, they would send in all their film, everything, all of it. Early on, it was processed in house. they had a whole like dark room, they color process in house. And then that changed later and it was processed outside. And, you know, I would look at every single picture they photograph. That was one of the National Geographics claims to fame was, you know you, if they shot 10,000 images, I look at 10,000 images and edit. But one of the really amazing things about doing that in terms of a photographer is I am in their shoes. see exactly how they move their body. see. When they start, I see When they stop, I see. When they move in when they walk away. Right. And so you can really understand how they're thinking, you know, And then you can see patterns. Like they always kind of, certain compositions, they always go back to, you know, you see repeating patterns and stuff. So it's really, really I love that part of it that I got to see everything, you know? And then I could say to them, you know, I think you stop maybe too soon, stay a little longer. You know? Or I was hoping you would see something that was going on in the background. And then when you did, I was so excited 'cause you went over there and took that photo, you know? And so as a, former photographer, I could really understand. you know, deeply the challenges, you know, the long days, the, you know, everything about it. And so I think that helped me a lot to becoming a good editor, a better editor and So, yeah, it was and then we would show it. We would make a, an edit. They usually do like a halfway look. 'Cause back then, you know, the stories were really long. I mean, you know, you had months, have months. and so you'd make an edit halfway and make a sequence and make a slideshow. And then the executive committee and the writer and the graphics people, and anybody's gonna make a map. Everybody comes together and we would show the work. But that what was key about this was the photographer would sit there and narrate the story. Right. So they would learn. And I think a lot of this was like so great for the photographers 'cause they learned how to talk about their photographs. You know, they learned how to the story with the photos. Which for me as a photographer, you know having gone through the same thing was so helpful and also I think made me eventually a better teacher, you know? 'cause you have to be able the story, the visuals, like what is this photo doing in terms of telling the story and the next one and the next one. And we would practice, you know, we would practice the photographers, especially if they hadn't done it. Very much, you know, that they would practice what they would say because you had to do it in a certain amount of time. You can't just get on one picture and sit there forever going, you know, talking. It has to be like sound bites, you know, because
Tom: Yep. Mm-hmm.
Sarah: 50 photos, you know? And then and I had a my assistant was Elena. And Elena was my person who she always like, you know would be the first one to hear the photographer tell the story. Like, do it, like they would, I would work on it with him, but then I would give them Elena. 'cause Elena doesn't know that much about the story. She doesn't know. And so she would sit with them and be the viewer, know, then give them tips and help them. And so it was like. She was great too. She was fantastic. And everybody was like, Elena Bootcamp. You know, Sarah Bootcamp was the edit, and Elena Bootcamp was the presentation, you know, so it was great, you know, and then we would tell 'em how much money we spent and everything, and then they would go back and we would do the same exact thing at the end, the final show, and then
Tom: There you go.
Sarah: lay. Yeah.
Tom: Now, I was thinking, because we already talked about this, about explaining the pic, but we will do it when we come to, book editing because of course it's, one thing , when the photographer shows you a picture is what he wants you to see. And another thing is really, I guess what really the picture tell.
Sarah: A hundred percent. Yeah. I see. See that? You see that a lot. It's very common you know what it's, you know, and for me it's the difference between this, the photograph speaking in a visual language versus the text, you know? And. So, and speech is like text. So if you're telling me about this photo and you're telling me like a me a, meaning that what this photograph means in terms of the story, me about a bigger idea, but it's not actually in the photo, then I, you know, I like to make the difference. So that's the text or that's the caption which should add information that's not in there. The text should add information, text. It has a very big importance for any like, sort of magazine storytelling for sure. But the picture has to speak, like, I want, I wanna look at the whole thing any text or any explanation and understand what the story is. I should be that's when the pictures are doing, you know, what their And also I will understand it emotionally, not just information. There's, you know, there's emotion and information and not, they're not necessarily the same things. Sometimes they can be, you know, there can be information and text. It's very emotional, but pictures are definitely, you know, speaking in a whole nother language. It's like, it's like hieroglyphics or something. They don't speak the way we speak, they speak different. And you need to understand that language to really tell visual stories, like, what's it doing?
Tom: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I will pick back on this when we talk about your workshops, but then Sarah. 2013, I think you became first female director of Photography, national Geographic.
Sarah: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Tom: Tell me a bit, what's the main difference there between being a senior photo editor and being director of photography?
Sarah: Oh. Well, you don't get to really edit stories anymore, right? You know, a little bit, just a couple, but so now you're, you're the boss of a staff. I probably had when I started out about 30 people, 35 people that were on the staff because I had the yellow Border magazine. I had Traveler Magazine, had the studio photographers all the photo editing staff. And then you have all the freelance photographers, so you know, and the budget, you know, you have to make the budget work. So and then contracts and during the period of time that I was DOP, the society sold the media part of the, of the Geographic to 21st Century Fox, right? So we had new owners, right? that would
Tom: Okay.
Sarah: tv, magazines, books expeditions, trips, commercial trips, et cetera. So that became for-profit and we had been nonprofit. So now we had, you know people who did movies and had television shows. And they had ESPN magazine. And a, B, C. So that was their only, that was their little corner where they had journalism. Right. And so they had very Ideas about like a magazine like ours. and they were thrilled to be part of National Geographic and they were really nice people. But the contracts, it was a lot of transition. You know, we had all new people to work with so that was a little stressful, especially things about contracts. And you know, they didn't really understand editorial photography. It's not commercial photography and there's a big difference. So, you know. I was managing people, you know, you have to write performance reviews. You have to do budget meetings. I was, I had a seat at the top table though, with the editor in chief and everybody, was like, sort of the last word on every story, you know, in terms of quality control and did I like it or do I think things should maybe change? And I had I approved every photographer that was gonna work on a story, you know, so I had a lot of you know, influence that way on who's in the magazine, what the stories look like. That for me was the best part of the job, was that, you know, Help find stories, help bring new people in, even more than when I was an editor. And you know, got, get the quality control and that I was the editor in chief every day, you know, and working with her and coming up with ideas for. Whole issues and stories. And I, you know, in on every story, you know, when the photographers or the photo editor came in to present the idea for the story, you know, I was at that table now. so it was a huge honor, number one, and it was really, that taught me a lot. But one of the things that kind of taught me in the long run was I didn't wanna be a manager. I didn't, it was, it can be very stressful. And I wanted to work with the creative people. I wanted to things and I wanted to edit. I mean, that's where I felt was my strongest skill, was
Tom: Okay. Mm-hmm.
Sarah: with photographers and management was not really my strongest skill. I you know, but then and I feel like you know, we won a lot of awards for the magazines, for photography these National magazine awards. We won , a bunch of awards for photography during that period of time. So we were doing a wonderful job. But then when they transitioned again, where 21st Century Fox was selling to Disney, was gonna be a whole nother thing, you know, a whole nother one of these big changes. I just felt like I don't wanna do it again. I don't wanna do that again. And I was thinking more and more about, you know how I was missing editing, you know, I wanted editor, you know, and I teach, I wanted to do workshops again. I hadn't really been teaching workshops much while I was full-time. I just didn't have the bandwidth. So I started, you know, thinking about a whole new future, you know, and so I did, I left end of 2019 started up a whole new career and freelancing again.
