For FOLK Magazine: Slow Living & Adventure Special Print Issue

Below is a featured artist interview with FOLK Magazine for its Spring 2020 special print issue, Slow Living & Adventure:

Why do you adventure?

Out of necessity to live passionately. I have always had the adventure bug, and as I got older, consciously and subconsciously I created ways to bring adventure more closely to core. Growing up in the valleys of the Great Smoky Mountains without means to have experiences like family vacations, books from the library opened my mind to worlds imaginary and real, the adventurous spirit, empowerment to question the world and seek your own answers, and the dangers and the ecstasy of the path to the unknown.

I spent three years traveling the world in my early twenties and felt more empowered and excited for every day than ever before. When I returned to America and graduated from college, I spent four years working in offices, and I was essentially miserable. The office-in-the-city lifestyle undermined my belief in the work I was doing, even though it was impactful humanitarian aid. I was losing myself. I quit and moved my life to the Pacific Northwest to be close to family in Oregon and Montana and mesmerizing nature in all directions.

My life changed when I left office life and went fully remote with colleagues in Portland and Philadelphia, which coincided with my professional development as a visual creator. It enabled me at first to dip my toes into road life and dirt bagging throughout the Northwest and Northern Rockies, and eventually as I became more comfortable with the lifestyle, commit more fully to a handcrafted adventure lifestyle fueled by creativity. I’ve never looked back.

Why do you explore?

It is part of my personality, honestly. I grew up finding on my own and reading stories by Jules Verne and Robert Luis Stevenson. Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn took me through the American countryside. When I was seventeen, Jack Kerouac opened my mind to the romance of the open road and the spirituality of the mountain. Chris McCandless and a handful of Zen monk poets influenced me to take time off from college to travel West with just a backpack (no car) to test and adapt knowledge to a meaningful endeavor, and grow as a person in the process.

Storytellers cultivated within me a spiritual direction and philosophical touchstone to experience life more deeply, and it was always in inner exploration of oneself through the outer wilds of the Earth that captivated me wholly. I explore because at my best I have a bottomless curiosity, and every time I exercise that curiosity in the natural world, it only deepens. I believe the only thing that is needed for a frontier of any kind to exist is a deeply rooted curiosity of life and an equal passion to truly experience it.

Why take risks in life?

To live is to risk. They are completely synonymous to me. That as well as, to live passionately is to live. I believe there exists a central paradox to memory: that the older we get, the more experiences we have to draw upon, and therefore the more we think we have a handle on the world and our longevity in it—the less we feel a desire or need to take risks. But every passing day brings us closer to its end. Risk becomes more critical to living passionately and deeply. Some believe risk taking is for the young to learn. I believe risk taking is for the young at heart to live.

Where are you from?

I am from Southern Appalachia. I was born in Eastern Kentucky and grew up in the Great Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee, literally across the street from the Park Service boundary line. The National Park Service has always been part of my life.

What is your 9-5?

I consult remotely for medical education companies during the day. Most days, I work from a mobile hotspot wherever I am shooting that week. For convenience, I typically basecamp in one region per business week, and travel on weekends. As of 2019, I also work with outdoor recreation and travel/lifestyle companies as a freelance photographer, and am working to grow my portfolio as a visual creator.

When you were growing up what or who did you want to be?

First, I wanted to be an astronaut. Then when I was six, I had the dinosaur revolution and wanted to be a paleontologist, you know, like Dr. Alan Grant.

Favorite place you've visited

The Arctic. No question about it. I am magnetically drawn North. Many if not most of the photographers I deeply admire share a similar aesthetic and passion. Ultimately, the polar regions are my calling and I am working to position myself to meaningfully answer it.

Place you most desperately want to visit

Antarctica. I fully intend to make this happen as soon as possible.

What is the single greatest moment of human humanity you've experienced while traveling?

When I was twenty-four, I spent a month in a very rural fishing village in southern Sri Lanka, less than two years after their civil war had ended. One morning, after shooting a nearby beach, a neighbor waved at me and we began to talk in very basic English. He lived in a small shack with no roof with his wife and three small children. They were very poor, and subsisted largely on fish freshly caught with rice. He invited me into his home to show me his youngest daughter’s English workbooks he had just bought for her classwork. In Sri Lanka at least in 2011, being proficient in English was almost a de-facto marker of class as a rising European-American tourism destination. He knew this, and invested so much into his youngest daughter. Once his family arrived home, they insisted I stay for lunch, which was rice and fish without utensils. I was so incredibly humbled by their gesture. That day, they taught me the depth of human kindness, true humility, and the value of practicing generosity among strangers.

What has changed about you because of your travels?

Everything. If I had never opted to travel, I would be a fundamentally different person than I am today. I literally cannot conceive who I would be, how I would think, or what I would be doing otherwise.

Who is the most dynamic and thought provoking person you've ever met?

Honestly, there are a lot of interpersonal trade offs that come with living the lifestyle that so many of us create for ourselves and our creative work. One of the perks however, is occasionally meeting people in your travels that leave a real impact in your life. Sometimes you meet someone who has a way of shaking up your plans and expectations. Different in some ways and the same in so many, if you love what you do you have an intuitive way of finding people along your journey who match your unfolding love of life. These are the people to draw close. They are extremely dynamic, and through these relationships they find a way to not only present you to yourself in new ways but illuminate new ways of thinking, being, and imagining the future. They may be a comet in the night or a meaningful human relationship. Either way, they have a lasting impact on your life.

If you could travel with one person in history or in present who would it be and why?

John Muir. Not to experience his words. I came of age reading his words. I would like to experience that curious, childlike mischievous spirit he was known for that came from nature itself.

Must haves for travel

Curiosity, vulnerability, the desire to say yes more than no, a coffee-creating device, and a few good wool blankets.

Travel tips

Always remain open to your surroundings, practice vulnerability, make a plan and then forget about it, be prepared for the unthinkable (e.g., large wildlife close encounters), respect the cosmos, and most importantly, leave no trace.

Give us a story any kind of story from one of your trips that will be impactful to the reader.

I have to say the most transformative experience I have had to date in the field has to be my first time seeing the aurora borealis. I had spent close to ten years following Kp indices in northern latitudes whenever possible in hopes of catching the Northern Lights. My obsession with the North began in Iceland. I first went in Winter with the sole intent of hoping to experience aurora without luck.

Over the years I have spent shoulder seasons in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions of North America looking up. Then, it finally happened. I spent the Summer-into-Fall months of 2019 in the Canadian Rockies. I received an NOAA alert of high geomagnetic activity coming toward Earth. This coincided with a huge storm covering hundreds of miles and blanketing the entire mountain region from Prince George to Whitefish.

I did weather and location research to find a section of the Northern Rocky Mountains with clear skies, and after at least an hour of searching I found a site, hundreds of miles north of Jasper, where I currently was. I packed up and took to winding washed out dirt roads, heading as North as I could go in the high country late in the year. I hiked in, set up bivy camp on top of a mountain summit overlooking a beautiful lake formed by snow runoff from the alpine peaks cradling it. I watched the sun set and as it descended below the horizon, anxious with anticipation marveled at the untouched beauty of this stretch of Rocky Mountains so far off the beaten path from anyone. I tried to sleep but couldn’t. This was going to be the night I had spent nearly a decade waiting for.

Excited, my eyes began to play tricks on me. Faint colors seemed to hover in small patches across the sky. ’Is this it? It’s so faint. Do photographers blow out the light to produce such startling compositions? Even if this is it, it’s still pretty,’ I thought. Finally, it happened. Solar winds began to collide directly above my head. Not knowing what to expect, I imagined curtains would simply illuminate the sky in flashes of light across the night sky. What I did not expect was the geomagnetic celestial magnitude of the winds colliding with the Earth’s atmosphere, cascading over and bending around our planet as quickly and beautifully as it did.

Colorless overhead but appearing as faint grey bursts of particles, the solar winds emanating outward from the sun to open space that we just happen to occupy a small place within immediately brought my awareness into my body and the ground of the Earth, expanding far beyond my sensory observation and toward the greater physical phenomenon of life on our planet. And then, the curtains of light began to dance across the entire sky, mirroring in the lake below beautifully in the still night, showing a full display of light in my entire periphery. Lights flashed and danced across the sky all night. I knew immediately my life would never be the same.

Based on your travels, what is the single most needed improvement for humanity to be stronger?

Humility. The practiced wisdom of exploring life with the true belief that we know nothing.

What would you say to someone who has never travelled before?

 Go. Now. Pack it up. Follow and fulfill your soul’s desire.

What is the single greatest lesson you've learned from someone that is different than you?

That I do not truly understand reality. I merely exist within it, and work to create a meaningful expression of my experience for myself and others while here in this form.

When did you feel you were most out of your comfort zone? What did you learn from that lesson?

About ten years ago, I traveled to Iceland for the first time. It was Winter, and my partner and I had just eaten dinner and were walking around the town we were in. After the sun set, snow began to fall in blizzard capacity. Within minutes, all roads and landmarks were blanketed in uniform white. The temperature dropped well below freezing and winds were howling. The snow was blowing against us and each flake felt like a fresh bee sting on my skin and through my clothes. We could barely keep our eyes open as we went on, desperately looking for our lodging which was indecipherable in the snowstorm. It was the first time I felt for a prolonged timeframe that I might be in trouble. Thankfully, we navigated our way back. What I learned from this was to respect climates and weather patterns I do not have a working knowledge of, and be prepared for situations you wouldn’t expect.

What would you say to your former self?

Never give up. Failure is our most important asset in reaching our true potential. That, and start saving for camera gear. The good stuff’s expensive.

What gives you hope?

The Earth and sky. The light cascading across the expanse before me every dawn and dusk. The refraction of light in ice and snow. Wildlife truly wild in the absence of human intervention. The stars surrounding us in the night. Meaningful human connection. And occasionally, the light that curtains across the heavens from solar winds colliding with our atmosphere.

Where to next?

As far North (or South) as I can go with my -10° sleeping bag and full suite of heavy wool blankets. Honestly, my obsession for the cold only begins in the alpine shoulder seasons. If I have it my way, I will spend my life working in and advocating for our planet’s most fragile and critical spaces: its polar regions.

Is flannel always in season?

ALWAYS. Unless it’s wool and heavy fleece season. But can we just include fleece and wool in the greater flannelsphere?