The Grey NATO - 197 - Watches, Design, And Wartime Photojournalism With Robert Spangle
Published on Thu, 16 Jun 2022 07:00:07 -0400
Synopsis
In this episode, Jason and James interview Robert Spangle - a photographer, photojournalist, product designer, and former Marine. Robert discusses his background, including studying fashion design, doing a tailoring apprenticeship in London, and getting into photojournalism covering conflicts. He talks about his experiences embedded with units in Ukraine for 2.5 months, the gear he brought, and his approach to capturing the human stories amid the conflict. Robert also shares insights on his Observer Collection product line, designed for travelers and inspired by his extensive time on the road. The conversation covers topics like ethical storytelling, maintaining balance between intense experiences, and finding purpose through creative pursuits.
Links
Transcript
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| Jason Heaton | Hello, and welcome to another episode of the great NATO, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 197. And it's proudly brought to you by the ever growing TGN supporter crew. We thank you all so much for your continued support. And if you'd like to support the show, please visit the great NATO comm for more details. Jason, how you doing? I'm doing pretty well. |
| James | We're, uh, we're in kind of a weird week here. We, we recorded, uh, episode one 96, just a couple of days ago. Um, and then since both of us are traveling next week, we, we were holding onto this, this really exciting chat where we're going to be debuting here today. And so now we're just kind of getting around to the, kind of the intro and outro stuff. So, uh, not much new to report, but no, not so much North Carolina. And then you you're off to a little further afield going to Italy. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I'm just gearing up for this trip. I mentioned it on the show that would have gone up yesterday. So, you know, we don't have to belabor this, of course, but, uh, I'm going to Italy with Chopard for, um, kind of the kickoff of Mille Miglia and some other, uh, sort of Italian based adventures, I hope. And then other than that, I'm, I'm kind of getting the cameras and everything ready for a couple of car shows this weekend, uh, here in Toronto. So triple zero and marked are putting on rare shades. This is, I think, rare shade six or seven, if I remember correctly. And it's basically a big collection of paint to sample Porsches, like rare paint to sample Porsches. Very specific. And, uh, yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's, you know, it's kind of like a Skittles thing. Like, you know, there's, it'll be a lot of very similar cars and then just in very nerdy colors and that sort of thing. So it's at the Aga Khan, which is this like incredible award-winning museum and, um, and piece of property in, uh, in Toronto. So that should be pretty fun. And then on, uh, on Sunday, there's a collecting cars, show with, um, the guys from the throttle house, one of my favorite YouTube channels, that's out of Toronto here, uh, all about cars and, uh, they're going to do kind of a big cars and coffee thing in, um, just, just not that far from where I live near, near a spot called Oakville. |
| Unknown | Oh, nice. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. So that that's kind of my weekend. It's a couple of car shows and then probably otherwise just kind of working to keep everything on track for, uh, taking a few days to, to go to Italy and put things together out that way. So we're, uh, Yeah. We're underway, but like you said, not, not a ton more to talk about considering we recorded, you know, just a few days ago. |
| James | Yeah. And this'll be, uh, our little, our weekend plans and even our travel plans will be old news by the time this episode even airs, because it'll be, I think we'll both be back. |
| Jason Heaton | Uh, I'll be honest coming back. I think when this goes up. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So this would be edited in the field somewhere. If, uh, if it sounds a little bit rougher, it's because I did it at 30,000 feet. I hope you'll Give me a little bit of buffer there. Speaking of travel and places we're going to be going in the future, obviously it's the top of the show, so we want to do a quick heads up. We will be attending and exhibiting at Windup Watch Fair in Chicago. That's July 15th, 16th, 17th at Venue West. We would love to see you there. We'll have some merchandise. We'll have some free stuff. We're going to be hanging around for the entirety of the show. happy to hang out, happy to meet, uh, say hi, that sort of thing. We're going to be doing some programming, some live podcasting and stuff like that. So be sure to swing by windupwatchfare.com slash Chicago. It's in the show notes, if that's easier and check out the programming and really a list of really awesome brands that are going to be joining us as a exhibitors in, uh, in July. So if you can make it 15, 16, 17th, uh, venue West, we'll keep saying it until we, uh, run out of time to keep saying it. |
| James | So, yeah, and it's coming up fast. Yeah, I'm excited. A little daunting. I think we have everything in order. We've got a place to stay. We've got some merchandise on order that should be here in time. And, uh, you know, what else to do? I mean, we're, we just show up and, and, and keep caffeinated, I guess. |
| Jason Heaton | I would think so. Yeah. Keep caffeinated, try and get a little bit of sleep. I think it's going to be a really nice time to, to hang out, you know, watch stuff is slowly coming back. You know, kind of stuff in general is kind of coming back, which is nice, but to, uh, to connect on like a TGN level rather than something really fancy, like an SIHH or a Watches and Wonders, that sort of thing. I'm, I'm really pumped. |
| Unknown | Yeah, it's gonna be fun. |
| James | Yeah. Well, we've got a long chat here with, uh, with our main guest here today, so we should probably dive into it. But before we do, how about a quick, uh, wrist check? What are you, what are you wearing? |
| Jason Heaton | I actually just threw on my Seiko Monster. Oh, wow. Uh, it was, it was on my desk and, uh, kind of calling to me. I, I just finished, um, kind of putting together the final touches of a review, which will be live by the time this episode goes up of that Aorus I talked about last week. Yeah. That really weird 36 and a half millimeter, uh, full steel, uh, kind of re-edition, uh, for the Holstein 2022. Um, and, and I wanted something that, that kind of, I don't know, I, I saw it and I've been thinking a lot about dive watches. I, you know, obviously it was a world oceans day, uh, last week and that sort of thing. So I grabbed the monster and that's what I've got on. It's nice, you know, shake and bake and put it on and it just kind of works in the summer as well. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | What are you going to wear to, uh, to Italy? I guess, I guess, what did you wear to Italy? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, that's a good question. I don't really have a plan for what I'll take to Italy, probably either the, the Explorer 2 or the Braymont. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Um, I don't, I don't think it's the kind of one where I'm going to want multiple watches and, and I may very well try and see if I can get something really special from Chopard to borrow for a couple of days and do some photos and that sort of thing. So if that's the case, I might just throw on like the, the gold Seiko, like thin light, something that will stay out of the way for the most part. I mean, it calls for a vintage watch, but I'm currently pretty short on, uh, like dressy vintage watches. They're all out for service still. Yeah. |
| James | Cool. |
| Jason Heaton | How about you? What have you got? |
| James | Yeah, I, I pulled out a watch that I haven't worn for, gosh, it's probably been a couple of years. I've been on a bit of a doxa jag lately. Yeah. We've been having some fun chats. Yeah. Yeah. I've been wearing, you know, I was wearing my, my T graph for a while there. And then I pulled out this the sub 300, this is the, I think they called it the, the tribute to aqualung or something. This was back a couple of years ago. This is the shark hunter variety. I actually have all three. I've got all three of these black lung. limited editions. The Shark Hunter is by far my favorite. I mean, I know it's probably the boring choice in terms of when you stack it up against the Silver Sea Rambler or the Orange Pro, but I don't know. There's something about a Shark Hunter that always calls to me. And this Sub 300 case, I hadn't worn one in, gosh, like I said, a couple of years. And I threw it on a... CWC makes these slightly elastic NATOs, which are really nice. And I always forget that I have this strap and I pulled it out, put it on this watch. It's a dark gray bond striped one. So it's, it's the, you know, it's the black and gray bond stripe, but very subtle and it's stretchy. And I don't know, the watch just kind of looks the business. It's super comfy. Yeah. Yeah. I love this watch. I, I'd forgotten how much I love it. So I'm really happy. They're so good. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Great watch. Uh, I, you know, I have a lot of, a lot of discussions, like I said, you know, with, with it being world oceans day last week, I wrote a story, which you helped me do for, um, for Hodinkee all about kind of what you should know the realities of dive watches versus the marketing side, right? Yeah. And it was, you know, nine things that you should know before you buy your first dive watch. And the, and the point was, it was like very much tuned to someone who actually would like to take their watch diving, which is obviously a pretty esoteric, um, arguably not needed, uh, romance driven decision when it comes to dive gear. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | And you helped me put together a great list of kind of things that I think some people don't even realize, or if you don't dive, you wouldn't even think about until you started. And some of that comes down to just like the design, the bezel, the legibility and stuff like, and it kept coming back to how much I think the Doxa design really feels like something that was made maybe with the only exception of their love of color, which of course disappears as you go deeper. But like, if you look at a Shark Hunter, like that's a watch literally just formed by scuba diving. It's so true. Like they started out with a smooth pebble and they left it on a diver long enough and you ended up like it, like it's so elemental to diving. Right. And, and to its era of diving with that weird bezel, which makes like no sense to most people today. Yeah. Um, but you get this grip that you can hit with a glove, with a bare hand, it kind of conforms to a lot of different wrist shapes. So that means it's great over a wetsuit and that kind of thing. And then you have this instantaneous legibility. I made the, I made the point in the article that loom, traditionally loom when it comes to a dive watch isn't actually about longevity, it's about legibility. You want to be able to see the minute hand and you want to be able to see the pip on the bezel very quickly. You don't want to spend a lot of time trying to figure it out or which hand is which. And of course you get this weird miniature hour hand on a DOCSIS that really leaves nothing up to the imagination when you glance down and you want to see how long you've been underwater. |
| James | It's such an unsung feature. That, that dwarf hour hand is such a, you know, it's, to me, it's, it's a real calling card of Doxa in addition to the bezel, but that teeny little hour hand, it's like, it's, it's overlooked by a lot of people, but I think it's, uh, it was so clever. I mean, they really thought everything through on this watch. And, and this one in particular, I mean, having not worn, you know, having worn the T graph, which is a big, thick, tall watch. I just keep looking at the profile of this watch. The, the, the case band is so thin. It's, it's so fun to wear. |
| Jason Heaton | Mm hmm. Yeah, no, they're, they're, they're sweet thing for sure. And if you can get your hands on one, especially one of these ones from that kind of 2017 run of, uh, of, you know, the original 50th anniversary and then some of these ones they did with the aqualung stuff and that they're, they're, they're really just really charming, great little dive watches. So good pick. I'm glad, I'm glad that you're back on the, on a bit of a doxa frenzy. That's good. That's a, that's good. |
| James | Yeah. Well, without further ado, it's appropriate that you introduce Robert a little bit, and then we'll jump into what I thought was just a fantastic discussion with him. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, same. I'm really excited to, to finally have this one. It's been a long time coming. He's a tough guy to introduce, which is why when in just a moment, you'll get to me telling Robert to kind of introduce himself, but you know, he's got a focus and a grit that he developed during his time in the Marines. Robert has since become something of a Renaissance man. Like when someone says that term to me, I often think of Robert He's a talented photographer and photojournalist, a pretty good writer as well, a product designer, and the man behind one of my favorite brands, the Observer Collection. We were chatting while he was spending a bunch of time in Ukraine on an embed for a photojournalism project, and he was keen to come on the show and talk about everything from product design to his appreciation with watches, his history in the military, his perspective on gear, and even onto things like his perspective on social responsibility. And of course the scenario in Ukraine kind of at large. So, you know, we get into all sorts of stuff in this chat. I really hope you love it. I think, I think this is, this is like deep TGN sort of content. So give it a run. Here's the one and only Robert Spangle. All right, Robert, this has been kind of a long time coming. You and I have been kind of digital buddies for a while. We've, we've touched base in LA. in the past, and it's been a treat always to follow what you've been up to. How are you doing these days? |
| Robert Spangle | Pretty well. I've been home about a week. I just got back from two and a half months in Ukraine, which is about a month and a half longer than I expected to be there. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I remember chatting with you about it, and you were excited to go over there. And obviously, the main role, I guess, was photojournalism. And we'll definitely get to that in this, but I want to start at the basis. You're a man of many, many facets. You're a modern Renaissance man, in my mind. Why don't you tell people in sort of the elevator pitch of what you do and kind of how you see things? |
| Robert Spangle | Well, like you said, I've kind of gone through a lot of different phases and that kind of all informs where I'm at now. My first career was in the Marines as a reconnaissance Marine for about four years, deployed a couple of times doing that. And then I did kind of a 180, studied fashion design, did a tailoring apprenticeship in London, went into industrial design, started my own brand, all kind of while working for a lot of different fashion and like culture magazines. As of 2000, I think it was 2017, I also started doing photojournalism, like conflict assignments, which has been picking up over the last few years. And that's, that's where I'm at today. I do a lot of photography work, almost always involving travel and I also design. |
| Jason Heaton | And so I'm interested if we start kind of at the, at the top of that, because in, I even had some of your background incorrect. I thought that you kind of got into the photography side of it first. When you finished with the military, how did you make the branch into something like fashion and product and that sort of space? |
| Robert Spangle | You're correct. I was into photography kind of as I was getting into fashion. Left the Marines, it was like 2011. I think I got my first camera in 2013. Not intentionally, I wasn't really interested in photography. It was something that like friends got me into essentially started the blog thousand yard style, which was then on Tumblr. She'll tell you how long ago this was really like for the first two years I wasn't doing it as a photographer. This is just a way to try to understand fashion from like a street up perspective. Like what are people wearing on the street and who are these people and how does it interact with what they're wearing? All that time I was studying fashion design. Otis College of Art and Design. And that eventually led me to do a tailoring apprenticeship on Savile Row. And when I was there, like, obviously the caliber of people I was photographing really kicked up several notches over down to LA. And to my total surprise, magazines started contacting me about my work. |
| Jason Heaton | So this is where you first got your footing in like street style photography? |
| Robert Spangle | Yeah, I mean, I had like, I wasn't even, I wasn't aiming for that. I was just getting like emails about my work. and talking to other street photographers that I was running into in London and just kind of a light bulb moment. I was like, you know, I really, I don't really understand what's going on here, but I enjoy it. I enjoy tailoring, but I don't think I can be a street photographer when I'm 50 years old and I can definitely be a tailor when I'm 50 years old. |
| Jason Heaton | Right. What was the experience with the tailoring apprenticeship and which, which outfit did you, did you apprentice with? |
| Robert Spangle | So this was with Maurice Sedwell. |
| Jason Heaton | Okay. |
| Robert Spangle | Not, well, not the biggest name on Salvaro. They had a really nice apprenticeship program there, um, that I went through. I, I, you know, I also, I jumped into that blind. I was kind of interested in fashion tangentially through menswear and Spokane tailoring just seemed like, like the purest approach you could have. It was like, you know, learning about architecture by like building a log cabin kind of approach. |
| Jason Heaton | You go through this process, you're starting to find some footing on the photography, the Tumblr, the sort of aesthetic standpoint of reflecting style in terms of covering it or showing it to others. How does that lead to something like the Observer Collection, where you're doing your own thing, your own products, dealing with all the different levels of all of that? |
| Robert Spangle | I mean, it's almost in the name. I was learning about fashion by observing it. I was studying it at school, but I've never been like a curriculum book guy. It's just not like, it's not how I'm wired. So everything I was learning about fashion, I was learning either from like doing with my hands in an apprenticeship or mostly from like observing people, like what works, what doesn't work? Why do I like this? You know, why, why is this guy successful in wearing this thing and someone else not so much? Um, so a lot of it was like from observation, but a lot of it was also the more I got into photography, the more my life was changing. I suddenly went from when I was living in London, I didn't leave the country for like a year and a half. I barely left London cause I was working so much to traveling like half the year to traveling more than half the year to traveling 35 weeks out of the year. Um, so it was like observation. Then there's also necessity. I was realizing travels an increasing part of my life. It's a fundamental part of like all of my friends life, all of my peers. And there's something of a, there's something of a really, strong cultural shift and like a shift in the way we're living in that. And that's worth addressing through design. |
| Jason Heaton | And that led you to start starting your own, like marketing and thinking of your own products. Yeah. |
| Robert Spangle | I think I was always, I mean, even before, before I was in the military, before I was in fashion, I was always interested in designing things. I just didn't really have the vocabulary to articulate that. When I returned to the U S to finish my degree, I switched to industrial design and I was really fortunate to have mentors in a program there. This is Otis College of Art Design again, where they were less about the fashion approach of just making something look a certain way, then finding like really deep societal answers for things through design. So it was like a process that was really based on studying your user group, finding problems, finding points of friction, and then reaching whatever conclusions and design you needed to. So that kind of shift in the way I was looking at design from something that was just like the physical appearance of something to the way things felt and function in your life and kind of solve problems. That's like really where Observer came from. Observer is like a very deep approach to the problems of people who are essentially like digital nomads or constant travelers, guys who are like on the go. |
| Jason Heaton | How did you find living with that kind of pace? Like Jason and I, you know, I've had it where maybe I traveled probably not even half the year. Sometimes it felt like more than half the year, but let's be honest, it was probably like I was away maybe four or five months of the year. How do you get to the, what does it feel like when you hit the 30 plus weeks a year or, you know, like where you're just, you're out all the time? |
| Robert Spangle | It was rewarding. And like amongst my, like my group of friends, mostly photographers and other people in fashion, like you wanted to be there. And there was a kind of competition to be like the most efficient at packing, like know all of the airport hacks. But I think you can definitely cross the line. It's like very likely you're going to cross a line where like that's no longer experientially rewarding. Like going to Ukraine recently, I realized I'd been there like four years ago and I just couldn't remember it. I couldn't remember anything about it because my life at that point in time was a blur. And the whole point of travel for me was like, I'm getting to learn from experience. I'm getting to experience these other cultures and all that's informing me as a designer. I wasn't really getting that anymore. It was just like jet lag, like six, seven months of my life would go by and I couldn't remember where I'd been. So there's definitely a balance there. And a lot of what made me start thinking about like formulating a collection around this kind of life was the need for balance, the need for like routine and ritual, and the need to find a way to make this kind of life not just like balanced and something that you could pursue, but something that fulfilled your reasons for wanting to live that way in the first place. |
| James | I'm really interested in kind of the perceived, I guess, dissonance or dichotomy between your deployments as a Marine and your work as a photojournalist and then kind of the fashion side of things and style. And it's always a bit jarring when I follow you on Instagram and I see, you know, a photo from Ukraine, a death and destruction. And then you'll say, Oh, I'm looking forward to seeing my buddies at PT Womo, you know, in Italy next month. And how do those play off each other? And does one inform the other or is one kind of therapy for the other? Do you need both equally? |
| Robert Spangle | I think one's like one's definitely either one in the right amount of doses, like a balance to the other, you know, I think in fashion, like the beauty of it and all the art behind it, like that's so, that's such a wonderful thing to live inside of for like a few weeks at a time. And it's such like a beautiful slice of life, but it can also be like quite topical and shallow. And like, it's not necessarily always like a really rewarding system to be inside of. Um, and it, and that really, you know, that's a spectrum of life that really only applies to like very few people on earth. Right. And the other side on the conflict side, um, the purposefulness of that, that gives you in being there. and covering those kinds of stories and trying to come to a greater understanding is like, is really, really high. The people you work with, you're going to get really close to, you get like that feeling of trying to begin, but also it can be emotionally exhausting, physically exhausting. Um, there's a risk of spending too much time in that kind of an environment to the point where you get, you start getting lazy and yeah, it can just be, you know, you need a reset from that every once in a while. |
| James | I think of that famous scene from the movie, The Hurt Locker, where Jeremy Renner's character is in the serial aisle, you know, with all the choices that he's faced with when he's coming back from a deployment. And he, you know, and maybe it's oversimplified or overplayed that sort of aspect of, of his, uh, psyche where he, he feels like he's just not able to kind of get back to that same mental state without being deployed and being, you know, in a high risk situation. But I'd like what you've said about. fashion having so much beauty to it. It really is a nice antidote to, in a sense, we're all after some element of joy in our lives and to counteract the scenes you're seeing in conflict zones must really be a nice counterweight to that. |
| Robert Spangle | One informs the other, right? You're reminded that point of wanting these conflicts to have peaceful resolutions is like the fruits of peace, right? Which is a time where societies can focus on art and science rather than survival, which is a really positive thing as far as having these things. And, you know, also in conflict zones, you're reminded of a lot of like the core existentialist truths of being a human, right? Like you need a tribe, you need a group to belong to, you need purposefulness. And those things are more direct and more apparent in those situations. So personally, those two extremes inform me. It is hard to reconcile them and like put them side by side by side, whether it's like in a magazine or Instagram or whatever. The world is round, but like social media and the internet makes everything flat because everything is just like, you know, directly next to each other. And I don't really know what the answer to that is. to me myself, I just try to accept that like, that's the way the world is. |
| James | Well, I've enjoyed your photos from Ukraine over the past few weeks because you, you add this element that I don't think people, um, could necessarily relate to if they're just looking at, you know, the, the news clips or, you know, the, the New York times or something where, you know, I'm seeing you, you know, with your daily, you know, hotdog, uh, toasts with, with the people you're with or, or, you know, what some guy's wearing or, something, I'm not saying it was all that, but I think to have those types of images and stories peppered in among the scenes that we're probably more accustomed to seeing from that part of the world these days, I think it, it does create a more well-rounded view of what's happening over there. I mean, there are people still, like you said, before we started recording, you know, that they're still taking Apple pay in many places there, and you can still find a good cup of coffee there amidst all of the destruction. |
| Robert Spangle | Yeah. I mean, that's, that's like, Something I thought a lot about is like how you how you present these things. And as a journalist, there's like a gigantic amount of ethics about around this and debate surrounding this. I read a book by Lauren Walsh that's like talks quite a lot about like the problems facing modern conflict photographers and journalists. And, you know, there's more demands placed on us than ever before. We're more susceptible than ever before, more vulnerable. than ever before. And we're less protected by larger magazines, larger publications, larger syndicators. And we're also burdened with more, much more liability than we ever have in the past. But I think that the thing that the industry has kind of missed that I'm trying to embrace is like we also have more tools at our disposal to tell stories. One of the biggest problems with journalism today is like a lot of people have infinite choices in what media they consume daily. And they don't want to look at war. They don't want to look at atrocities because it's sad. It's sad. It's emotional. It's challenging. Yeah. Yeah. So us as journalists, as people, you know, storytelling skill sets, I think it's up to us to find that audience that's capable engaging with news and being informed and making this something that they can engage with. Interestingly enough, like a lot of that, how I'm trying to do that for better for worse comes from what I've learned in storytelling from fashion. How so? Fashion was like the first industry to figure out social media and kind of multi-platform storytelling. That's, you know, that's one side of it. So I think that that puts us a little bit ahead of the curve. On the other side of that, and I think you guys will get this. I'm really of the belief that like the world is headed in the direction where our identities are much more based on the things we're passionate about. than who our parents were, the country we're from, the religion we were baptized under. And like, that's a way to communicate across audiences. It's a way to create, you know, common ground and dialogue. And it's even like a great way just as a journalist to reach out to people on the ground. That's how I made like a lot of my contacts in Ukraine was through like, Oh, you know, these guys from this brand, like I do, you're wearing this hat from this obscure kind of military brand, like, I know those guys. We might not agree on Orthodox faith, but, you know, we're both interested in these same things. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, that's interesting. And it's funny, this is so obvious. And, you know, I never mind sounding like a complete idiot. I do it quite naturally. But I never really put together the Observer Collection just being about you observing the world. But now when you look through that title as sort of the lens that you point, whether it's fashion or at some of the incredible stuff you've done in Afghanistan from like multi levels, not just conflict, but just like even just life in Afghanistan to something like, uh, like your work in Ukraine, it does kind of give a more holistic framework as to why it's not just one type of photo or covering one specific kind of slice of a war or conflict or life in an area, but rather the sort of tapestry of what's going on there, the colors, the choices, the brands, things like that. When you said that, it immediately reframed your work for me. It's an interesting thing. I'm interested in so many things that have got written down here on the sheet, but I'd like to stick with Observer Collection for a moment. Are each of the products the expression of a problem you experienced while doing one of these trips or travels or embeds in an area? |
| Robert Spangle | It's either a problem that I ran into or a common problem that other people ran into. One of the things that industrial design or product design got me out of was it's easier than ever to make a brand about you nowadays. What's more important is how are you represented in a larger user group. Quite a lot of the designs, especially the initial designs, This is something that I've been searching for, never found a happy solution with. And that enables me to put a lot of passion into those designs. But then, especially later on, a lot of the more recent designs are things that people were habitually messaging me about, or I would have powwows with other photographers, and they'd just be like, I've never liked the way X, Y, and Z worked, or I've always wanted the perfect ABC. So it's a little bit of both. my own needs and my own experiences with what I see reflected in like a larger, like the larger user group of like professional travelers that I, that I know. |
| Jason Heaton | For sure. And I know, I know that you have, um, uh, you know, an appreciation for things like luggage and obviously bags. That's a big part of what the observer collection works on. You know, obviously this is the gray NATO. We talk a lot about watches and you, you have some fairly interesting watches and many of them have kind of cool backstories. Do you want to run us through kind of a little history of your, of your time, uh, kind of enjoying and appreciating watches or, or, uh, torture testing them to some extent? |
| Robert Spangle | Oh yeah. It like watches are definitely like a turn point. It sounds really dramatic, but like a turn point in my life, it wasn't something I was ever interested in. And like, this is a running theme in my life where I just went doing 180 degree turns on personal beliefs, but it was never interested in them as the youngest guy in second force recon, which is like a very, senior kind of elite unit within the Marine Corps. I was habitually given kind of like the lower tasks to take care of, making coffee and also doing gear requests. So I wound up having to do all of our gear requests. We had several lines of independent funding that were available to us, but you had to write out really lengthy gear requests on what you needed, why you needed it, why you needed this specific thing versus other things, and then cost analysis. And something that everyone in our unit was adamant about was a new dive watch. Issued with Marathon TSARs, which were having a lot of problems, like the loom falling off. |
| Jason Heaton | The, uh, like the tritium, the little vials. |
| Robert Spangle | Yeah. So this was, a lot of guys were having that issue and they're like spangle, find a replacement. So I, I knew nothing about watches. I did a deep dive and, you know, did a little comparative analysis and found this company called MK2. Ordered a Seafighter. from them and working on putting in a unit order for them to replace what we had, you know, issued prior. And that really just like got me thinking about watches and just their mechanical ingenuity. And that was something that I got sentimentally attached to and kind of from then on and out, I was always pretty interested in watches. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I think that'll be a fascinating thing for the audience to hear that there were folks, you know, in, in an advanced pretty, you know, kind of elite military unit using, a marathon watch, you know, widely considered a pretty tough, ready to go sort of even military adjacent or service adjacent watch. That was then kind of, in some ways you had a plan to swap that out for a pretty deep enthusiast micro brand. We've had Bill on the show before, but you know, we know his watches really well, but I don't, I don't know that they necessarily hit the wide world of, of, you know, issued watches or, or, you know, operators watches or something like that. That's a, uh, I think a turn a lot of people wouldn't necessarily have predicted. Do you still have that C fighter? |
| Robert Spangle | I still have that C fighter. It's way too big for me. It's like 42 millimeters or something. And I am a, I am a lightweight, but I still throw it on for like really abusive, like hiking scenarios or something like that. If I'm out, if I'm going out shooting or something, and it's obviously it was around for a really important period of my life, which is my, my last deployment of my team that I learned a lot from that experience. And that kind of got me into, got me into watches. I've had quite a few since then I've gone through like manic periods of collecting and then kind of more, I guess, esoteric periods of like giving them away to friends. And my collection has kind of gone like that. But I've sort of arrived where I started with just treating them as very sentimental tools and really just holding on to the ones that I know I'm going to use every single week, every single assignment. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I remember the first time we spoke about watches. It was some time ago, but I distinctly remember you talking a little bit about the Seafighter and your history with Mark II. And I found that fascinating, of course. And then you went into talking about your, you had a kind of longstanding window of time in which you really liked the kind of mid-sized Tudor dive watches, right? |
| Robert Spangle | Oh, yeah. The Tudor Mini Sub is still like an absolute favorite of mine. I think I had, I was buying them in Japan. when I was going to Japan really often, um, because they were never sold. I don't think they were ever sold in, in Europe or North America. I believe you could order them in Italy as like a special order, but in Europe at the time it was like a boy's watch. So it was really something you'd only find in Asia. |
| James | Yeah. I remember those watches and then, and you can still pick them up a secondhand, you know, quite cheap because the size, I think there were like 35 or 34 or 35 millimeters, just a really reasonable kind of, throwback size. Um, so, you know, if they work for you, that's such a great alternative to kind of a full size Submariner, you know, it's an unusual watch cause it's quite small. |
| Robert Spangle | Depends on the year you get them. Cause they made them for quite some time, but they've got an oyster back and they have the Rolex crown on the crown from a, you know, a journalist perspective. It's, it's really small. It doesn't grab a lot of attention, but the performance is there. And, Again, like this is something that I just I came across this in the street. Like I'm not really good at going into forums and like geeking out on things in that way. But I saw a guy who was the son of a, I want to say an Indian ambassador in London on the Metro and saw this watch and I'd been dreaming. I'm like, isn't there just a smaller sub out there? And I saw this guy wearing one, struck up a conversation with him. He showed me the watch, allowed me to photograph it. And then I did a little research and waited for my next trip to Japan and went and picked up my first one. There were several ones subsequent to that, but I still absolutely love that watch. |
| Jason Heaton | And these days, what are you wearing? What do you kind of attach to? What did you take to Ukraine, for example? |
| Robert Spangle | That's a really good question. And I'd caveat by saying that prior to going to Ukraine, I was planning on going to Afghanistan. So I had to kind of switch gears. really quickly. Um, I only, and I say only, and to most journalists, this would be like, that's potentially too, too many, but I only ever carry two watches on trips. My biggest Speedmaster and then my MK2 300, the 300 series is like my go-to like hard, hard, hard use watch. It's like an excellent military watch. I couldn't ask for anything more. And then the Speedmaster, A, it's valuable. Like that's something that, in a time when people are walking out of the country might be something that you can pawn off on someone for a ride out of the country. And secondly, dealing with artillery, a chronograph can be useful. |
| Jason Heaton | Like for timing, timing distance that they're shooting for? |
| Robert Spangle | Yeah. So you can time, you can like very, very roughly time the distance away that artillery is. I tried to find like a hard formula for this somewhere and couldn't really do that. But that was sort of what was in my head prior and also just timing events. artillery is like such a huge artillery and artillery rockets are such like a huge part of the we're out there keeping track of those things just to have a sort of a sense of what normalcy is in the front line is really important. And then also trying to figure out the distance of the opposing artillery. |
| James | Yeah. You, um, you've, I've seen that you've come up with a really unique way of attaching the watch to your wrist. Somehow you've adapted the way you affix the strap to the watch using And what do you use a paracord or some kind of a thin fishing line or something? I can't remember. And it looked quite complicated. And I sort of gave up trying to figure it out, but can you tell us a little bit about that? Do you still do that? |
| Robert Spangle | I'll blame my, I'll blame my explainer videos. And also, and also you guys, cause you guys got me on the gray NATO train. That's like all over where creations in gray NATO. James had me cutting off the lower, that lower pass on the NATO. Yeah. I started basically And then sort of doing a loop underneath, like a double loop underneath with this really high, but thin, um, test string. It's like 200 pound test string. You can find it in like a lot of military repair kits. I think it's made out of Kevlar. So you have kind of a second chance of your spring bar breaks, but it's not going to, um, take your arm off with it. I saw a dive accident that revolved around that once. And ever since then, I'm like, you know, I'm not going to do that again. Yeah, you don't want to lose the watch, but you also don't want to lose your, your arm. |
| James | So, yeah, certainly not. Yeah. I'm curious about kind of some of the aspects of your, your clothing designs, for instance, in the observer collection, um, and whether or not they were in some way influenced from, you know, your time in conflict zones, both as a, as a Marine and as a photojournalist, because there's definitely a, let's call it a luxury aspect to it. Um, you know, in terms of, I guess, price and positioning and things like that, but there's also this utility to it. And your jeans, for instance, you make white jeans, but then they have the, the adjustable waistband. Right. Um, so there's this utilitarian aspect of it. I was just actually reading. I actually love, um, much to my wife's chagrin, um, Gurkha style shorts with the kind of overlapping cummerbund buckles at the waist. Uh, yours, your design is different than this, but the same concept of, of the adjustability. Um, but then in white, which defies my sense of like what you'd want to wear somewhere dirty and dusty and whatever else. Anyway, this is becoming a long-winded question. I'm just curious, you know, where these influences come from and how they inform your design sense. |
| Robert Spangle | It's sort of a balanced of all of these things. I think tailoring more than anything else gives you a sense of like, just, just wanting to make things that are flattering on the human body. But there's also like a lot of hidden functionality in there. You're a fan of jerker shorts. I think most people look at those and they just look bizarre. But in fact, you don't have to wear a belt. They're high waist. You have a lot of mobility. They're way more comfortable than any other short out there. And you can wear them more firmly as well. So it's a bit of functionality there. But I think balancing utility and luxury, they seem like they're diametrically opposed, but I actually think they go hand in hand because a part of utility to me is longevity, right? Like if you're using something every day, surely you want it to endure just like a good watch and to be, you know, patina beautifully and kind of, you know, be engendered with this story of your life, right? So to make something last, like you have to use better materials, not just the best manufacturing available, but also sometimes you need the softness of making by hand, because that can give you repairability that can give you stretch and malleability. So it's really, you know, blending all these things together from the military and travel side. I think the idea of uniform is really important because it's simple. There's power in that simplicity. And I think just it helps avoid stress packing, right? Like if I pack the same three outfits anywhere I go in the world and maybe add in some warming layers or some flip flops or whatever, that's so much easier than, you know, every trip. starting at zero and making all of these individual choices again and again. So in uniform there's, you know, there's, there's simplicity. There's also the ability to kind of build up a sense of self in that, right? Like if you're recognizable by your uniform, I think that can be a really, really powerful thing. |
| James | Yeah, that's so true. Your, your collection is, I would call it concise. Can you describe, you know, I mentioned the pants and and then James has one of your bags, which he adores. And then you've been carrying, I think it's called the sea bag. You, you carry that as a, as a camera bag and kind of an all rounder. Yeah. How, how would you sort of describe your, your collection? It's eclectic. I mean, it's small, but eclectic. I mean, you, you, you do, you know, the pants and you do some bags and you do the wallet. What's, what's your overall strategy. It's not a head to toe thing necessarily, is it? |
| Robert Spangle | You know, there's even more oddball stuff in there. There's like the, you know, I did perfume with a titanium container. Like, I don't know. I don't even know what field that belongs in really. When like the first, first, first time I started thinking of design, I was like nine years old and I was thinking of clothes then. And I'm still thinking of clothes now, but the, the industrial design approach really dictates that you start, you start with the basis that really addresses like the core of a problem. So clothing wasn't the place to start. It's something I'm working towards. And I think in the next year, there'll be more of that, but there's like the core collection of bags. We've got four bags. C bag, which is like your weekend bag, your carry-on bag. Super proud of that one. You've got your Tango bag, which is a tote, which James is a fan of and was the first, the very first bag we put out. Love it. It's been through like the most iterations. We've got the Indie bag, which is, I call it a photographer's bag. Yes, it's for cameras, but it's more for the things that a photographer carries every day. And that was very much something that I I wasn't interested in making, but so many people asked for it that put in the time to the iterations. And then you've got the Bravo bag, which is like your very, very some line purpose built briefcase for like going to a meeting, getting your laptop or iPad from, you know, A to B. And then we've got two wallets, Papa passport wallet and the whiskey wallet, which is like a very slim card wallet plus coin wallet. The perfume I mentioned, which is. homesick, worked with Perfumer Will Enrig on the perfume itself for about two years between LA and Paris. Titanium proprietary container for that. Kind of oddball thing for the watch guys out there. We've got the Peacekeeper. |
| Jason Heaton | Peacekeepers, yeah. Been a while since we talked about those, but they're great. |
| Robert Spangle | Yeah. Like that was something that I was just like, you know what? There's a lot of guys out there who love watches. Surely a majority of them use MacBooks and surely those MacBooks are just chewing up their bracelets. So we need a, we need like a built-in mouse pad, right? That's made out of, that's made out of suede. Um, and then most recently team hats and then, uh, the observer denim. I was really wanting to wait to put that out with the rest of the clothes, but people were, people were really eager on it and I had some really good access to manufacturing. So we, we did that. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I think it's a great collection. Obviously, I'm standing here, I've got the Tango next to me, I live in a whiskey, I've used the Papa every time I've traveled since I've gotten it. So it's all really handy, really useful, really nicely made stuff that has lasted a lot longer than other things I've owned in the same category. And on top of that, I do think there's a couple things that I think people won't understand at first glance. And two come to mind. The first thing I'd want you to explain at whatever level you want to, to the audience is what is STA? Which is something that's on some of the hats. |
| Robert Spangle | Straight to airport. It's like the highest form of just like... Like evolved travel? The highest form of like dream consistent travel. And I don't think I'm the person who coined that phrase. But it's, it's like being around amongst people who like consistently travel and it means like straight to airport. So that's like any maneuver where your day starts, wherever it starts and ends at the airport. And you're not like going back to a hotel or more often than not that involves like going out all night with your friends and then in some way of positioning your luggage and then picking that up on your way to like the first flight to Greece in the morning. Sure. And that was a kind of like an inside joke between me and a lot of my photographer and like editor buddies, but I thought it was a really hot, like, you know, at the time, this was really something to aim for. And this was kind of like the highest test of your personal efficiency and like insider airport knowledge. The more I turned the phrase over in my mind, the more it kind of made sense because it's STA, but it's also pronounced stay, like stay for a while. So there's a kind of, there's a duality to it. And I just like, I really, |
| Jason Heaton | I really quite like the phrase. I knew what it stood for. I didn't necessarily know the etymology of the term to that level of depth. So I was curious. And then I think the other one, and I think you're still doing it, is if you want to follow the Observer Collection on Instagram, you basically have to be vetted, correct? Are you still doing that? |
| Robert Spangle | Yeah, you either have to know someone who follows or you have to message the account itself. That's like an ongoing practice in theory or social experiment. I just believe that like a lot of identity and a lot of community going into the future is going to be based around shared passions and kind of, and like nothing else. And I think you have to go to lengths to make sure that you make sure these communities remain like close knit and kind of everyone, everyone knows each other. I think there's like a limit, limit to the rate that they can expand at or in a, you know, a total limit to how many people can be sort of party to something like that. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I believe very strongly, maybe not at an Instagram level, but certainly at a community level, that there is a natural size for any community and they can be too big and they lose focus and they lose power and they lose solidarity and all those sorts of things. So I remember the first time I went to follow you and it was like, you've got to do this. And I was like, well, hey, I didn't really know I had to do like a small job. And it wasn't like a job interview. I'm just joking around. I did think that was something I'd never come across right in my life. I think about how many times people have followed thousands of things, whether it's brands or people specifically or otherwise. And to see that you were more concerned with the sort of focus of the people who were coming to follow the brand than the number that you could say the brand has following it. I thought that was kind of an interesting perspective on social media. |
| Robert Spangle | Some of that comes from like my experience and sort of like the Special Forces community, which is, know the value that there's an automatic value you have in the guys there to like your left and right because they've proven themselves you might know this guy might have just shown up to the unit you don't know him or you might be the new guy but you have a sort of baseline of trust with each other because you've gone through some kind of hoop to get there right so that's like that's one aspect of it like i really like people to be a part of it who are who are passionate and invested in some way um and then the other side of it is like I think the way brands have handled social media is kind of underdeveloped and amateur. Everyone's treated it like advertising 2.0. And I think, wait a minute, why don't you reverse this scenario? You have an interaction directly with your customers. They can give you feedback. And oftentimes, almost always, each one of them is an expert in something that you know nothing about. There's guys who follow Observer who are currency designers, design passports. Probably every tier of special forces in the American military and several non-American militaries. There's all different kinds of pilots, stunt drivers, martial arts guys, podcasters, expert journalists, writers I really admire. And like, rather than just making a quick buck off them, like, why don't you learn something from them? Like that's so much more in the longterm, like it's so much more valuable. I think, you know, like that's yet to develop. And I hope that, you know, technology allows for more of that, but that's the way I see it. |
| Jason Heaton | For sure. Yeah. No, I think it's an interesting way of looking at looking at the, um, uh, maybe something that most people aren't even seeing as a problem, which is attention. Right. Uh, and, and, and frame framing it in a certain way. Yeah. I think the next thing on the list that I wanted to get to is, you know, when it, when it comes to photo journalism, I think it's a job that a lot, and this is, I'm speaking for myself until I got to know a few people who did it. It was a job that I thought I understood. as one aspect, like you go somewhere and you take pictures of it. But it's such a specific thing to do that, like if you don't approach it with like an extreme specificity, whether it's a specificity of subject or of of intent or of outfit or otherwise, it ends up just being kind of photos, right? Like not something that actually allows people to see something they wouldn't see otherwise, or even not just see, but experience something they wouldn't be able to experience otherwise. And I'm wondering how you how you approach photojournalism in general, and maybe how it's changed over the time in your experience, you know, taking up that role. |
| Robert Spangle | Yeah, you know, I think you're right. It seems really simple from the outside, then you get into it. And it's like, really complicated, really internally convoluted. I was I was lucky that, again, like I totally I fell into this, like I wound up photographing the Fighting in Mosul against ISIS because of someone I met at a house party and drunkenly told him that if he was going to go do more reporting, I wanted to go with him. And he drunkenly held me to it. So I got really lucky in that regard, but I had kind of from fashion, I've been working for, I think, five, maybe six years as a photographer at that point. No, like five years. And I was like, you know, I really need to have theories about my work. It's not enough just to like take pretty pictures and go cool places. And I started to look at like men's spiritual relationship to like conflict and confrontation. And that started off in like really controlled ways. This was like matadors, underground fighters, and I think like motorcycle racers. And so when this opportunity to go to Iraq came up, I was like, you know what? This is scary and I'm not really interested in this, but for what I've been working on in the past, like it makes sense. So when I went there and every time it sense, like I started in this baseline of like, well, let's look at the men who are involved in the conflict directly and look at what they're going through spiritually. You know, this can be like amateurs who it's their first time and they're trying to build themselves up to be ready for whatever this inauguration of fire is to the guys who've been doing it for a long time, who have turned this into like, essentially, a lot of them, not all of them, but a lot of them turned into kind of like a spiritual practice. Like this is something that is part of who they are. So I got really lucky going into it and having like a really direct line of questioning that I was following. And it wasn't until probably a year ago and like getting to know other photojournalists are much more established than I am in like understanding like the ones that I'm the ones that I like the ones that I look up to, they have a similar line of questioning that they that they follow. And that's part of what makes their work so cohesive and just like enjoyable to follow along with right because there's a there's a growing dialogue there. There's a there's a narrative spread across the years and continents. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I think that's fascinating. And it must have been a lot of trial by fire, which I think most photography is. Right? Like, it's a little different if you want to shoot watches in the comfort of your own living room. Like, your failure is very private. And really, the stakes couldn't possibly be lower. But I think a lot of photography does require you to put yourself out there in some way. Pick up the camera, walk outside, find something to point it at. And as soon as you're pointing it at people, I think the whole tone kind of changes. And when you're pointing at people who are going through some of the hardest, most terrifying, most kind of perilous moments in their life, It really takes a certain level of experience and a certain type of person to do that and still be able to operate the gear, still be able to put everything together. And, uh, and yeah, I think your, your work kind of stands on its own. It's something I, I always enjoy following new photos that are coming out almost regardless of the subject. Uh, but the work from Ukraine was of course, lovely. We've shared a couple pieces of it over, over the last couple of months as it came out and, uh, and the audience, uh, like the TGN audience was, was very kind of impressed and happy to get a chance to see it and, and to see something that was different than the, the stuff that you're going to see on the cover of CNN or the front page of the BBC or something like that, where there, there was this kind of human element. And oftentimes you're taking a moment. This is the other thing that I think stands out from in my mind for photo journalism is it's not just the photos. There's usually 50 words that goes with it to give the photo a little bit of a context, a little bit of a footing. And often if you go and read a finished article, written by somebody who might be thousands of miles from said event. Um, it's, it's a bunch of data and then some kind of displaced photos that break it up. And, and I think it's a different thing when, when you can show us a, you know, kind of what a day, what a day in your life was like following these folks around in Ukraine and, and fill in some of the blanks that the photo, you know, gives you one slice and then there's some context behind it. |
| Robert Spangle | Yeah, definitely. And I think like, you a lot of like the kind of big agency reports you see are going to be aggregated photos that probably have nothing to do directly with what, what's being written about. And then what's being written about is like, again, kind of aggregated information, you know, that's been like vetted and confirmed, but it's pretty, pretty like wide spectrum. And I think that stuff off the wire. Yeah. It's just like, you know, it's harder for people to get, emotionally invested in that. And I'm really, really interested in trying to find that audience that's capable of being informed on world events, but doesn't want to engage with mainstream media. And I totally understand why. But have a dialogue with them in terms that they'll understand, in terms that they'll engage with, and bring back people to being informed in that way. And I think we've got a lot of new tools and they can be, you know, they can be used well or badly, but if we're just ignoring them, that's not really, it's not really the way to go about it. Um, but it's, it's a balancing act that I'm definitely have and will be again in the future, like slipping up. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I mean, I, I think the big thing in, in my experience and Jason and I talk about this to some extent is like the, the signal to noise on any world event is kind of insane. Oh, it's so difficult to find out the actual data or, or, you know, sometimes it takes weeks. And by the time weeks go by, there's a new thing that everybody wants to talk about and wants to have an opinion about. And it becomes like this weirdly challenging, like you might as like, it's like, it's like trying to get a, uh, uh, uh, you know, a bachelor's degree from home, just keeping up with a topic that you're interested in. And I think it's why in some ways, if I'm honest, why something like watches or cars, like again, where the stakes are pretty low, And the data is quantified at the start, not during an evolving scenario. There's like a weird comfort blanket element to being interested in something that isn't about this nebulous, multifaceted sort of conflict or chain of events. And I think a lot of media has kind of moved towards giving people that sort of data. And that could be what Jason and I do to some extent, but also like like a TMZ or a more mainstream news service to try and give people small pieces that they can kind of digest, but may not even represent like a hundredth of the whole story, right? |
| Robert Spangle | Right. I think like we're going through just a huge period of change where people are adjusting to, you know, the scale and speed of information, but people like information. People love narrative and stories. Like we are, we're storytellers and we'll never be, will never be anything less than that. But you know, the audience out there, people have more options than they've ever had before. And like, I can't, I can't fault them and I can't fault anyone for saying, you know, okay, we've got like war crimes and a celebrity trial on one side. And then on the other side, we've got, you know, watches and like formula one, like I choose watches and formula one. I can't believe the fact because it's, it's stressful to keep up with situations that are changing as constantly as a war. And it's sad and it's depressing. And also like there's this, it can make you feel powerlessness, like really, really just unable to help. I met so many people even inside of Ukraine who didn't have a direct way to contribute. And I found that the people who were like volunteering, working in soup kitchens, volunteering as drivers, they were kind of okay day to day. They're seeing things get blown up. They've lost family members. They're having incredibly close calls. They're working long hours. They're exhausted, but they're like emotionally fine. And then even inside of Ukraine, and especially just like just outside of Ukraine, there's another group of people that like couldn't get involved in a physical way who were just from texting them, like falling apart, like, you know, massive essay texts and having to go to counseling and all these things. I think that has to do with just trying to figure out how do you deal with this information onslaught and how do you balance these things. And I'm fortunate, my solution is if I'm there, I'm being involved and that is consuming and I feel better in that role. But for someone who's evacuated early or has family in Ukraine and can't physically be involved, They're stuck into the 24-7 news cycle. They're stuck into all of the reports and false reports and true reports. They're, you know, they're not in a position where they can even pretend to affect it. So it's really, yeah, it's really stressful. And I think like the world is going to figure this out in a few years, but we're kind of where we are now. It's up in the air. |
| Jason Heaton | I mean, do you have any, and no is of course fine. I don't put this burden on you specifically, but do you have any tools you'd recommend to someone who wants to stay in the know and look at something that they feel like they can trust or that's coming from a trustworthy source or for people who would like to help. Is there an outlet that you're pretty comfortable with that has a difference, whether it's helping refugees coming to your local country, whether that could be Canada, US, whatever, or donating money or something like that. Anything you recommend? |
| Robert Spangle | Right. I mean, for me, now that I'm back, I try to limit how much time I spend looking at news, you know, I check it like 15 minutes in the morning, 15 minutes in the evening. And that's, and that's like really it. I don't even look at really social media in between because it's just, um, you know, you're just kind of, you get sucked into like doom scrolling. And really what you need is those like concise updates. It's really worth looking at like specialized new media. Um, there's one account called like the Dunbass front. That's really good at talking about what's going on in Eastern Ukraine. They've been doing it for a long time. There's also a popular front who got some stories coming out with. It's new media. They do multiple formats. They do podcasts. They do videos. And they're really good at going in-depth on these things over a long period of time without being as generic as mainstream news or as politicized. So that's answer A. As far as people who want to get involved, you really have to decide what's right for you. There's got to be like 100,000 charities trying to help Ukraine right now. The two that I saw on the ground that were actually like, I consistently saw them on the ground doing good and I can verify that like, whatever they say they're doing, the gross product was like there on the front line. The hospitalers, volunteer medical battalion, I saw them like multiple times in the front line like, pulling people out. They're great. Another one would be Project Siren, which I think is actually was founded in Canada. They're really good at like supporting the Ukrainian military with optics. And like I found out about them by asking the Ukrainian special forces guy, where'd you get all this cool stuff? Okay. But there's, you know, there's a lot of stuff in between. And it's also, you know, it's also okay to just say, you know what, this is, this is too much for me to keep up with. I'm not Ukrainian, and I don't need to be if I can't handle this, I don't need to be informed. I don't need to have an opinion. I can just sit this one out. I don't know if that's a popular thing to say, but like, I think a lot of people are stressed that they feel like they're, they're pressured to be involved and they don't have the time or they can't bear, you know, they can't bear dealing with it. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, the, the other, the other stress that I've had along my peer group is like, this isn't the only problem out there that needs people's attention. you know, we're talking about it quite a bit on this one. Cause of course you were just in Ukraine and, and working on it. So there's, there's some specificity there, but I think the big thing is that, yeah, you do have to make that kind of personal decision, both for your conscience and for your scope of ability and, and for what you're willing to, um, to feel connected to. Right. And I think if you follow that, you'll probably also end up with the best outcome for your time, your money, your attention. |
| Robert Spangle | Yeah. And I think, you know, I think, constantly, you know, worrying about other people is not a recipe for making anyone happy, right? Everyone has some like unique gift to offer humanity. And like, I think you can find a way to make the world a better place. But you're probably not going to do that trying to address all the world's problems all the time. Like it might just be local recycling, or mentor some local kids, right? And like, that would be a greater impact on making a better world than like, here's my five bucks to you know, UNICEF Ukraine, right? Right. I think like that's the better, that's the better outlook to have. And like, again, I think the world's going to figure that out. We're just, we're getting like the fire hose of digital information now. And we haven't really rebalanced things yet. |
| Jason Heaton | You know, you mentioned having maybe going somewhere with three outfits and then having, you know, some warmth layers or whatever. What does the gear look like when you go on a, you know, an embed in, in Ukraine? And on top of that, like what, what's a, like once you have your gear sorted, What's a day look like? Walk us through a day that you can remember. |
| Robert Spangle | Yeah, absolutely. And I think you guys know this really well, I'm sure. Every time you're packing for something that you haven't done before, haven't done this exact scenario, it's always a case of on one side you overpack, on the other side you underpack. The situation when I went into Ukraine was totally different than when I left. Going in, Kiev was in the process of getting surrounded and people were walking people were spending five days like walking out on foot with like rolling luggage. So I went in the lightest I think I've ever gone on any kind of like more than a week long assignment. I had my military rucksack and my sea bag on top of that and like that was it. And then I really packed like just as minimally as I could because I was like, you know what, if I'm walking out of here, like there's going to be two categories of things, things, things that I complained about the weight of and things that I chuck on the side of the road. And then when I left, you know, like Kiev had been secured. Russia was basically like on the run in central, you know, central Ukraine. And there's a lot of things I wish I'd packed. |
| Jason Heaton | So it's some specifics. Like obviously you took one camera, two cameras. Do you take a laptop or not necessarily? Can you do most of this from your phone these days? |
| Robert Spangle | Yeah. So three cameras, I would never go into like a conflict zone without carrying like at least three, because a lot of the times I prefer to carry two. |
| Jason Heaton | And is that still the combination of the Leicas and the Nikon? |
| Robert Spangle | Yeah. So like, this is, this is kind of an oddball, but I carry two Leica MDs, like a M9 type version of the MDs, but the MD is screenless. It's got no electronic peripheral controls. And then I carry the latest version of the MD, which is the MD10. I forget the exact specifier, but it's the version of the Leica M10. That's a, that's an MD. So there's no screen on the back. So I carry two of those, one of the 50 millimeter lens, one of the 90. It's a little unusual for photojournalists. Most of them will carry like a 35 millimeter lens or a 35 to 70. I, I've always used Leica MDs on assignments. Like they forced me to be so focused that I, I feel like that's when I do my best work. And I like prime lenses just because that's what I'm used to working with. So I carried those two every single assignment in my backup. So Nikon D850 with a 70 to 200 lens. And I think I also had a 50 as a backup. Um, good thing to have, like if you're doing like really, really late night stuff where the light's terrible, good option to have. And then there's also certain scenarios where I'm like, you know what? We're in trenches. Like I really need as much standoff as possible. So I think there was like two embeds where I pulled out my Nikon and my 70 to 200. Didn't bring my laptop. It's the first trip I've gone without because weight was a concern and also like losing my laptop, even with iCloud and all this stuff would be a huge ordeal. So I use an iPad. I adjusted that really quickly. Like I just recently got an iPad pro and you know, it was great for photo editing. It did everything I needed it to. That was, that was fine. Great battery capacity and it's much lighter than a, than a full size, you know, full size laptop. First personal deal, you've got like all your PPE. That's super important. Um, I'm a big advocate of wearing, you know, front plates and side plates, side plates saved my life. So I'm like paranoid about taking them off when I'm on in beds for near the front, like I'll sleep in that body armor. |
| Jason Heaton | Right. And just for people who don't know, you mean, you mean like bulletproof plates in a vest? Yeah. Yeah. |
| Robert Spangle | Yeah. Sorry. Not your, uh, not your house plates. Um, so you've got like that, that's a baseline. And then for three outfits, I pack like as light as I possibly could. Sure. Also, Granted, you know, it's negative 10 degree weather. So. Two shell jackets from acronym important consideration for those is like you need one that's for like hard weather, like snow. We had snow constantly. Um, so the Gore-Tex pro jacket and on the other side, like waterproof cotton, because if you're in a vehicle, like that vehicle catching fire is a concern. And also people are using Molotov cocktails. So like fire was a big concern going into this. I wanted something that's not like melty. Cotton doesn't melt like Gore-Tex does. Those two jackets, big consideration with those is like, not just pockets, but pockets that work with the body armor you're wearing. Body armor covers most pockets on most jackets. So you've got like a cool jacket, but you can't carry any of your necessities on it. As far as, I have one pair of shoes the entire time. Intermountain lights, which work like a charm. Um, stuff you carry, you know, every single day when you're like on an embedder in the front, I always have a GPS spot messenger from Garmin. That's just, you know, that's important to communicate to your safety network. And we also be able to track where you've been, if you need exact details for photo captions. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh, right. Okay. So that's like an in-reach mini or something like that? |
| Robert Spangle | Yeah, exactly. The in-reach mini. I love that thing, man. Such a game changer. You know, you can link it to your phone and just text off it and track off it. That's great. That power bank |
| Jason Heaton | How big of a power bank do you need to keep the camera batteries, the phone, the iPad, all that kind of stuff alive? Do you get in reach? |
| Robert Spangle | I carried extra batteries for my camera. It's like, that's not really a concern. It's more about my phone and... And MD batteries last forever, to be fair, so... Yeah. No, they really do because you don't have that screen power. It's another thing I love about the MDs. This was just enough to charge my phone a few times and my GPS if I needed to. I had a bigger power bank for like my iPad and that would stay in my, that would stay in my like overnight, bag, which is my C bag back on whatever their base or firm position was. Um, and then always a, a, my shunt light because power is always out in the front and you need, you need a light source, pocket knife and like first aid kit. |
| Jason Heaton | Are you still deep on the, the Chris Reeves knives? |
| Robert Spangle | Oh yeah. That's what I carried the entire time out there. That's actually actually a pretty small, I've got like the sebenza 21. So it's like a smaller knife. Yeah. Every Ukrainian dude you saw had like the biggest knife he could find. Uh, like guys with like bayonets, just like with no sheath, just like stuffed into their vest guys with like, what was clearly something from like the kitchen counter somewhere in there on their equipment. I think it's, I think it's a cultural like point of pride going back to the Cussex. I hadn't brought a fixed blade out there, which I felt very trepidous about, but I was like, you know, uh, checkpoints security. I don't know. Wish I had brought one of those. Uh, but my, Chris trees is more than enough for the MREs that they opened. And then I had two risk compasses, which is good because one basically died halfway through and got demagnetized, but an interesting thing. And I think that like, this is relevant to you guys with your kind of adventure, outdoor mindset and people in general is like, this is the first truly electronic war that's ever happened. So a lot of places I went in embeds. no cell phones, like forget airplane mode. You're going to have it turned off and you have to leave it in whatever your firm base is because people don't trust you. And then secondly, like your GPS is off. All the special forces guys out there are running GPS watches that have stealth mode, which I didn't like know about before. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh, sure. Yeah. We're disables all the radios. |
| Robert Spangle | Yeah. Disables everything on it. That's that capable of protecting a signal. So guys are really serious about that. that takes you back to like compass, pace counter, doing map studies prior. So you really know where you are. Um, there's like a very like back to the basics moment as far as like what a normal embed looks like. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Walk us through, walk us through day. How, like, I assume, let's say you go to sleep one night and you're somewhere, obviously you wake up and what time, what does it start like? |
| Robert Spangle | Almost, almost everything is variable. So I'm just going to kind of blend a couple of different things. Sure. I had in mind and like, you know, if, if people are sleeping, there's patrols that are going out and recce's that are going out and people coming back. So it's kind of a, you know, a 24 hour circus, but normally you'd get out within like 10 kilometers of the front line and you'd come to a bridge or, or some other obstacle that had been put up. So vehicles couldn't pass. The cranes did that, that way Russian armor couldn't advance if they could ever run. So would go out with our driver, Igor. He'd drop us off at like a blown up bridge or some big blockade that had been put up. And then you could either walk in with an escort or there'd be a vehicle that had been on the other side of the bridge when it was blown that they would send out, a unit would send out to pick you up. Um, every time you saw these vehicles, they'd be more messed up. So like there was one, like every time we saw it, another window was out, there was another bullet hole in it. Um, What sort of vehicle is that? Not your ideal end of the world scenario vehicles. One, I'm forgetting the name of it. You had this really terrible Soviet era, just very, very standard civic looking cars. A lot of hatchbacks, but things like Hiluxes or Land Cruisers, forget it. you see those very rarely. And when you do see them, they're in the hands of like special forces guys, people just make do with, you know, make do with what they have with their home cars. Yeah. You know, even, even standard Ukrainian military units, like they have cars that get donated to them and they use them as evacuation platforms. Um, they're really like ad hoc homegrown approach to sourcing things. So getting into an actual, like your first frontline position could take several hours, even a half day, get there, You're generally going to wait for the commander to show up so you can kind of brief you, tell you what's going on. I normally ask them to run me through some maps so I know what they know. That would probably take like the rest of the day. You're going to get settled in and like not a frontline position, but just maybe a kilometer or so back from that and wait for whatever's going to happen the next day. You may go check out a couple of different positions the following day. If you're really lucky, you may get to go out on a a patrol, we got to do like a couple of those. Generally, no one's going to send you out on something that they think is like, really risk adverse. So it's a lot of like, bouncing around and waiting, that waiting allows you to like talk to soldiers that are there, find out what they've been up to find out what their experiences are, what their expectations are. And that would go on for like, the longest we stayed out was like three days, just spend one night at each position, spent most of my time on the west or sorry, east. And those positions were much farther dispersed. If you were on the west of Kiev, Irpin, Bucha, things were more urbanized and closer together. On the east, things were much farther apart and you might be two kilometers position to position. |
| James | Were your movements, um, pretty tightly restricted and controlled and watched? Um, and were you with the same unit kind of embedded with a, with a unit for which you were approved the whole time you were there, or did you move around a bit? |
| Robert Spangle | No, that's a good question. So the first two weeks I was in country, I was with the Territory Defense in Kiev City proper, and we bounced around unit to unit. Spent a little bit more time with one than the other four that we visited, but it was a lot of bouncing around and trying to see how things are developing. The next three weeks I spent with one unit called the Braco Battalion. They're a volunteer battalion, which is a little bit like kind of like the National Guard in the US. They have, I think like upwards of 50 of these volunteer battalions now and it's a normal thing in Ukraine and especially normal thing during a time of war. The Ukraine army proper has not allowed any embeds period. I think in the last week, I've seen two potentially. So maybe things are changing. But these volunteer battalions were much more open to having journalists aboard. because they're self-funded. They want their name out there because like that's the only way that they're going to get, you know, recognition from the regular Ukrainian army and also funding. So I spent three weeks with these guys. Um, they had two separate larger positions and then in, inside of those positions, probably four or five smaller forward positions. Um, they went on to take, they're the first unit to push the Russians outside of the district of Kiev. And they liberated, I think, four towns in the space of about eight days. And I was there with them in the process of taking three of them. |
| Jason Heaton | Fascinating. Well, that's a great recap, Robert. I really appreciate that. And I'm sure there'll be a ton of questions that'll show up in the comments. So I'll be sure to vest any of those to you that might seem like they need some expertise. Look, thank you so much for this. I don't want to take up a ton of your time. I do want to ask, because I think it's another natural question, kind of as a way of Closing out, what's next for you? Where are you headed to next? What are the plans for the next few months? |
| Robert Spangle | I was meant, when I went to Ukraine, I was meant to go to Afghanistan and I had a month bluttered out for that. So I'm going to try to go back to Afghanistan. I don't know when exactly that's going to happen, but I'd like to see what the country looks like at peace. So I'm working on that. I've got a book coming out much later this year, around November. So I've got a lot of work to do on that starting like late July. That's pretty much it. I mean, I'm still figuring out my schedule after sidelining everything for two and a half months. |
| Jason Heaton | For sure. I guess that does change the timeline for pretty much any planning you would have had in place wouldn't have accounted for such a long stay in Ukraine. Yeah, no way. Well, look, Robert, this was great. Thank you so much for the time. We really appreciate it. And the audience was asking to hear from you, especially after I've rambled on so much about various bits of gear and photos you've shot and that kind of stuff. This has been fun, and we really appreciate both the perspective and you taking the time to jump on a mic and chit-chat with us a bit. I hope maybe you can come back on one a little bit closer to the book. That'd be a fun chat as well. |
| Robert Spangle | Yeah, absolutely. And James, Jason, I really appreciate you guys having me on. I listen to the Great NATO all the time, so it's really interesting to be on the inside track of that. |
| James | Well, this was a delight, and we just wish you all the best, and congratulations on so much great work. recently and we'll keep watching you. |
| Jason Heaton | All right, man. Well, thank you so much for this and we'll talk to you soon, I'm sure. |
| Robert Spangle | All right, guys. See you in a bit. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. |
| James | All right. Wow, that was such a great chat. We really both thank Robert Spangl so much for taking the time to come on TGN. As you mentioned at the top, it's been a long time coming. And, uh, you know, I, I think anybody that just listened to that would recognize what, uh, truly the, the, the term Renaissance man does apply to, to Robert and, and we both thank him for his taking the time, first of all, but, you know, just, just his thoughtfulness on all of his answers. He's just such an articulate guy and, uh, just fascinating. And, um, if you want to. Follow him, um, and all of his, uh, various adventures in fashion, photography, war front, uh, you know, bravery. Um, you can follow him on Instagram at thousand yards style. And, uh, it's a really fascinating feed with an interesting mix of stuff. So yeah, thanks. |
| Jason Heaton | And before we get to final notes, I would say that if you've got a question for Robert, something that you think maybe we missed or didn't dig in the right direction on, uh, put it in the show notes. leave a comment and I'll make sure to point Robert in that direction if somebody has a question specifically for him that that he should answer and I'm sure he'd be more than happy to provide an answer either through me or on his own. So let us know in the comments if you had anything else for Robert and I'm already looking forward to, you know, Robert Spangle 2. It'll be fun. |
| James | That was great. Let's get into the final notes here before we finalize this fairly long episode. What have you got today? |
| Jason Heaton | Mine's actually a book. It's one that I read in kind of a flurry. I read about one and a half times recently because we had the author on an upcoming episode of Houdinki Radio, which will be out by the time this episode comes out. But I got a chance to sit down and talk to Tony Fadell, who for me is like a little bit of a hero. And I had to kind of keep that under wraps to try and run a normal interview because he's such a friendly guy. But this is the guy behind the iPod, the iPhone, the Nest thermostat. He's like one of Silicon Valley's kind of big product thinkers and a guy that's changed the way that a lot of us do stuff in terms of smartphones and MP3 players and things like that. So he came on the show because he recently wrote a book, it's called Build. And it's one that I read kind of at first, I thought it was going to be kind of a how-to business book. And I was like, well, I'll read this because I'm going to interview him. But it's called Build, an unorthodox guide to making things worth making. And it turns out I really, really enjoyed the book. It's kind of broken up into bite-sized pieces. So the idea is that it's a little bit like reference. If you need it, you can go find the chapter you need. I read it cover to cover. And there's a lot of interesting stories in there about his time in Silicon Valley and working with everyone from Apple to Google. On top of that, it kind of has this very thoughtful approach to understanding the way in which a leader or a creative or whatever it is, how you see yourself in the work that you do, how it affects all the other aspects of business around you. So it was less businessy than I expected and more like, kind of like mentorship, which I think is the kind of intentional on Tony's part, it's meant to be a reflection of all the mentorship that he had. In short, I really enjoyed the book. I think if you if you go and read a sample of it online and kind of get get an idea of what it is, and like it, I think you'd enjoy the whole thing. I had a great time with it. I really liked some of the background on really early product development and like you know, stuff they made years before it made sense, you know, uh, kind of things like a BlackBerry or an iPhone, but like before mobile networks were, uh, existed, stuff like that. It's just the idea of timing and the creativity and understanding when something's ready to, uh, to kind of hit the world. It was a pretty fascinating read and a really cool chat. |
| James | Wow. Yeah. I remember bumping him, bumping into Tony at one of those, uh, watch event. He was there. Um, cause I believe he's, he's affiliated with, with Hodinke in some respect, or at least a friend of Ben's. He's an investor. Yeah. He, he just seemed like just very disarming, very charming. Um, just a nice down to earth guy, full of enthusiasm. And you know, when you look at the stuff that, that he's done, well, same thing with Robert Spangle for that matter, you, you realize, um, how much can be done if you, if you have the energy and the kind of the drive and enthusiasm for it, you know, like, you know, if you're having a day when you, you start to feel like, you know, geez, I'm, you know, I've got too much to do. I don't know how I'm going to fit this in. Or I just don't feel like getting up this morning and doing this. Like you look at somebody like this and you say, Oh, he did it. Like how it's, it's inspiring. You know? Um, I'll, I'll definitely have to check this out. It sounds like a, it sounds like a good read and not just kind of a dry business book, which, which I like. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And the other thing I like, and I brought this up in the chat, um, on Hodinkee is I've read a lot of these books about like, you know, Steve jobs biography or, or the history of web 2.0 web 1.0, like, Silicon Valley lore, if you will. And so much of it just praises people for their bad behavior, for being kind of antisocial or even rude, but it's all kind of said like, well, they're like this, but look what they did. Yeah. He has like an entirely different perspective on it where he, because he knew some of these people or in his case, it was his reaction. He kind of shows you the thoughtfulness that goes behind some of these decisions that were um, argumentative or, or kind of notorious at one time and later turned out to be correct. And I found that kind of like weirdly refreshing after reading a lot of these books that kind of, you know, put people like some of these CEOs into kind of like sub deity sort of positions. This is a much more realistic take on like what makes someone, um, what makes someone an effective CEO? What makes something like, when do you know when you don't want the CEO anymore? Some of it's very practical, straightforward advice and others, the points are kind of backed up by interesting little tidbits and stories from his experience. Like I said, I really liked it and it's not typically the sort of book I would read. |
| James | Oh, that's great. I'll have to check out that episode of Houdinki Radio next week as well. Cool. And what have you got? So last week, on last week's episode, I mentioned that I had gone to see Top Gun Maverick, which I loved, of course, and I loved the original film from 86. But a friend of mine turned me on to This little known magazine article, although now I think it's better known because of a recent news story. This was from California Magazine in 1983. And it was an article called Top Guns. And it was written by a writer named Ehud Yone. You know, this is early 80s. It was kind of an obscure thing. The fighter weapons school, you know, that everybody knows now as the Top Gun school. And he wrote this article about it. And kind of the scene there and a couple of fighter jocks that he kind of follows and profiles, uh, in the story called top guns. And I hadn't realized this, but this was actually the article that inspired the first movie in 86. And in fact, Paramount pictures bought the. Copyright to that article in order to kind of use its content as an inspiration for the movie. And the reason it's in the news lately is because. Um, with the release of this recent film, I guess the copyright permission had expired in 2020 and the family of Ehud Yone, who has since died, um, is saying that they're owed some, some money, et cetera. So it's, that part's a little unsavory. I'm not sure how that's all going to turn out, but the article itself is quite good. It kind of reminds me of Tom Wolfe's book, the right stuff, which was written in the late seventies, which then of course turned into the great movie in the eighties. Um, Not quite as not quite written with the same flair that Tom Wolfe had. He had a very unique style of writing that I love, but kind of this in the same vein, you know, kind of looking at these larger than life sort of hyper masculine fighter jocks and kind of, you know, what, what the Top Gun school represents and kind of their attitude there. And it's, it's a really interesting article. It's, it's a, it's a good quick read. If you're, if you're into aviation or you just like the movies, give it a go. And then also. Since this story is popping up in the news more lately about this lawsuit, at least you'll kind of be familiar with the article upon which it's based. So yeah, check it out. Putting the link in the show notes, I'm sure it can be found elsewhere as well. This is on a website called topgunbio.com, and it's kind of a reprint of that article from California Magazine. |
| Jason Heaton | This looks fascinating. That's very cool. Yeah. Yeah. Good share. And, you know, good timing too. I'm sure a handful of people saw the movie even since the last episode came out. |
| James | Right. Yeah. All right. Puts the end to a pretty great chat with Robert Spangle. I'm so happy we finally had him on and, you know, we hope everyone out there enjoyed it. And as always, thanks so much for listening. If you want to subscribe to The Gray NATO, get into the comments for each episode or consider supporting the show directly. And of course, picking up a new TGN signed NATO strap, please visit TheGrayNATO.com. Music throughout is Siesta by Jazzar via the Free Music Archive. |
| Jason Heaton | And we leave you with this quote from the famous war photographer James Nactway, who said, For me, the strength of photography lies in its ability to evoke humanity. If war is an attempt to negate humanity, then photography can be perceived as the opposite of war. |