The Grey NATO - Ep 93 - A Chat With Andy Mann
Published on Thu, 07 Nov 2019 07:00:02 -0500
Synopsis
Andy Mann is an award-winning photographer and Emmy-nominated filmmaker who uses his camera to raise awareness for ocean conservation and protection of marine environments and wildlife. He discusses his journey from rock climbing and mountaineering to becoming immersed in ocean photography and videography, working with organizations like National Geographic and Sea Legacy. Andy shares stories of his adventures, such as tagging six-gill sharks from a deep-diving submersible, and his approach to capturing stunning underwater imagery, often through freediving. He also talks about his recent collaboration with Zodiac Watches to design a limited edition dive watch.
As an ambassador for Sony, Andy Mann provides insights into his gear choices and techniques for both stills and video, highlighting the importance of editing to his creative process. Throughout the interview, he emphasizes the thrill of exploration, forming bonds through shared experiences in the field, and the power of visual storytelling to inspire people to care about remote and wild places.
Links
Transcript
| Speaker | |
|---|---|
| Introduction | Hello and welcome to another episode of The Graynado, a Hidinki podcast. It's a loose discussion of travel, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 93, and it features a chat between Jason and Andy Mann. Andy is an award-winning photographer and Emmy-nominated filmmaker. Working with brands like National Geographic and operating as a senior fellow for Sea Legacy, Andy points his camera at the world's oceans to help raise awareness for conservation and protection of marine environments and wildlife. One quick note from me, your editor, this interview was recorded remotely while Andy was on the road and includes some strange audio qualities as a result of the audio equipment available on site. My apologies for the less than incredible audio quality, but we thank you for your patience as we work out a solid solution for recording these remote interviews in dynamic environments. Aside from a huge thanks to Andy and to Zodiac for making this happen, That's all from me. Here's Jason. |
| Jason Heaton | Hi, Andy. Uh, welcome to the gray NATO. Thanks for, for taking the time today to talk to me. |
| Andy Mann | Are you kidding? Thanks, Jason. This is awesome. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. So you're talking to us from Boulder, Colorado, right? |
| Andy Mann | From beautiful Boulder, Colorado. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. What a great place. Um, you know, I read somewhere that Colorado, this was a while ago, boasts more certified scuba divers per capita than any other state. Have you heard that? That sounded so strange to me. |
| Andy Mann | Boulders, it's this bubble. It's like you get more, you know, doctorate degrees, more breweries, more coffee shops, more rock climbers, more scuba divers. And it's, you know, people always tell me, they're like, wow, you're a diver and you live in Boulder, Colorado. How does that work? But the truth is there is a big community here. And I always tell people too, if you spend as much time in the Atlantic as you do the Pacific, You might as well be somewhere in the middle. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, that's a good point. I'm friends with Jonathan Kingston. I don't know if you know Jonathan, but he's a diver as well, and he's based in like Bend, Oregon as well. So it's like, must be something about these middle kind of inland locations for divers. But so, you know, I think speaking of diving and mountains, I think your work, at least recently with Sea Legacy and the Zodiac Partnership, you seem to be probably best known these days for your diving adventures and underwater photography. You actually have quite a background in the mountains as well. Can you kind of tell me maybe what came first or if you have a preference and kind of how all of those came together? |
| Andy Mann | Yeah, you know, climbing came first. So basically the first decade of my career as a filmmaker and photographer was almost exclusively in the rock climbing industry. You know, I grew up in rural Virginia where like the greatest adventure you could have is like as far as you could ride your bike to like the nearest farm pond to go fishing. You know, after I studied fisheries in college and after college, I just moved out West with a group of guys because we'd had enough of Virginia. You know, it was just like be out where the good music was, man, in the, in the outdoors. And so I landed in Boulder and then. Like within a few days, someone took me rock climbing and it just like clicked for me. Just the fact that like, we were just bouldering. You know, which is like, you don't have ropes, you just have like a little pad on the ground and you can literally traverse a boulder from right to left, no more than like 12 inches off the ground. But there's so much, so many challenges in that, just that one set of moves to get from right to left that I remember just beating my head against the boulder and I couldn't figure out why I wasn't strong enough to do it. You know, there'd be like an old man or like a child come through and just like do it effortlessly. Here I was, you know, and I remember when I finally did the route, it felt easy and I was like, wow, I can't believe like I just spent like three weeks of my life literally just like totally tuned into like 10 feet of rock. And I was like, as soon as it clicked for me, I was like, oh, climbing is it like that's what I want to do. And so in order to sort of fulfill that obsession, I picked up a camera. I literally called a friend of mine, Keith Ludzinski, who is now also a National Geographic photographer. And and I was like, man, can you show me the ropes? You know, I had worked with him as a climber and him as a photographer. And I just saw like, wow, you know, spinning his life out with climbers like traveling the world. And so that's what led me to the camera. And then and then I started working for Climbing Magazine. in a rock and ice magazine, an alpinist magazine, and just slowly grinding it through the editorial world up into the commercial aspects, started making films, started doing bigger expeditions to the mountains and to, you know, big walls and Greenland and all these crazy places. And so that was like the first 10 years of my life. And then when I started to really look for purpose in my work, I got my first opportunity with National Geographic. And that was an ocean conservation trip. And that sort of like, again, like flipped the light switch on for me to, to like open a new chapter. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh, okay. So that's when you started diving. How long ago was that? |
| Andy Mann | It was not long ago. Um, 2013. |
| Jason Heaton | Wow. That's amazing. |
| Andy Mann | Yeah. So that was an expedition, uh, with my friend Corey Richards. |
| Jason Heaton | Sure. My, my cohost James just interviewed him for an episode about four episodes ago. So. |
| Andy Mann | Yeah, so Corey and I, we used to live together, we're living together at the time. And he had already sort of cracked open the door at National Geographic. And he invited me on the expedition. And it was to a place called Franz Josef Land, Russia, which is this archipelago of 190 islands up by the North Pole. So it's Russian territory. And, you know, we with ocean, like marine biologists and field scientists, we explored and documented these islands for the first time in like 50 years. And it's 45 days on a boat. It was like, you know, we were brought in because of our experience as storytellers in mountains, in rough conditions, and our ability to be able to tell a story both in stills and motion. It just be one guy. I mean, that's how you got to make it in there when you're hanging with extreme athletes. It's like you don't have the luxury of a big crew or assistance. And so you don't have that luxury on like boats in the Arctic or Antarctic either. So, um, I think that's why we got tapped. And I remember coming back from that expedition and within six months we were winning awards for what we had done. And within the year, Russia declared the largest Arctic national park on the planet around Franz Josef Land in part to the media that we captured on that trip. And so it was incredibly rewarding. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. So, so that was kind of your first foray into ocean stuff, uh, for lack of a better word. And then now you're, you're, you're really in some fine company at, uh, with Sea Legacy. You're one of the sort of fellows, I guess. Um, you have a group of photographers and storytellers that, that focus on ocean conservation through just basically exposure. Isn't that, is that right? Or can, can you expand a little bit on what Sea Legacy is all about? |
| Andy Mann | Definitely. So, you know, Sea Legacy is basically, what's funny is, um, the co-founders are Paul Nicklin and Christina Mittermeier, also National Geographic photographers. And, um, you know, we sat down at Paul's house, like right when he was launching this thing. Um, you know, between Franz Josef Land and me sitting down with Paul was like six years of me spending like 300 days a year on boats. You know, calling up every institution, foundation, college, scientists I could find, just being like, let me go, let me get on board and tell your story. And so by the time, it's funny, the three of us all have a background in fisheries and marine biology. And I think what we were seeing was the impact that a photograph could have. and how quickly we could make change based on visual images, as opposed to data and science, which I'm not discrediting. That is very important. And together, that science and media is what makes Sea Legacy so powerful and impactful. But to be able to use your camera and impact people immediately and right away was sort of the nucleus of how Sea Legacy was born. |
| Jason Heaton | I mean, it's such an ambitious mission you have, but it's also such a simple concept. I think using, you know, largely visual storytelling and really the power of social media to get people to, you know, care about this, you know, this crisis. And I just, you know, I love following all you guys on Instagram, and it really is just such a powerful medium. It's using it for such good that it's just great to see. So would you say that the ocean has kind of pulled you a little away from mountains, or do you still split time? |
| Andy Mann | Well, I still live in Boulder, so I still, like, routine here is mountain-focused. But the ocean is it for me. I mean, for sure. I mean, it's where I'm dedicated at everything at this point. |
| Jason Heaton | And you seem to split time between still photography and video. Is that something that works maybe both sides of your brain or do you find one easier than the other? You know, editing videos just like a whole discipline to itself. I don't know if you do your own editing, but like they're, they're very different disciplines, but you seem to kind of straddle them quite easily. |
| Andy Mann | Yeah. And that came from the rock climbing world. I mean, that came from like, you know, shooting and then editing at night and basically trying to like cut things in a day, little vignettes and, and you know, the, the better editor you are, the better shooter you become. So, um, I was told that early on and it's, it's dead true. And so I always like to edit even now, like if we do a huge expedition and we fill up 200 terabyte drives, I'll still have some kind of rough cut done before I hand the drives off to like a, a bit big editing company or something just so they feel the emotion and sort of the pacing of, of what I designed when I hit the record button. And so that's important to sort of give people that, um, that beginning. So, so editing is a huge, huge asset, uh, to your toolbox. But, and, and the other thing is like, you know, I think I, you know, we realize now that, you know, photography and, and, and short films in motion, it's kind of the only way that like people can have an emotional connection. to a remote and wild place in the planet anymore. Um, and that's what you need to create, you know, empathy for it. And for people to care about it is to take them there. I mean, whenever we can cast our, I mean, Paul says it best, you know, what our job is, is to give a voice to the voiceless. And, and I believe truly that whenever we cast our cameras upon the voiceless, whether it's still or motion, And we can let beauty and grace speak on their behalf, like someone somewhere in the world who like would otherwise never dream of going to a place as remote as Antarctica. We'll dream of it and we'll care about it. We'll be inspired by it. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. That's so true. And you're, you're primarily, I noticed on your website and I've seen some photos, you, you're primarily a Sony shooter now, right? You, you're actually an ambassador for Sony. We have, we have, you know, a number of camera geeks and James and I are kind of camera geeks as well. And I'm just curious if you can give a kind of a, maybe a bit of a rundown on, on the gear you use and maybe what your go-to lens is and, and you know, what you use for underwater housing and that sort of thing. |
| Andy Mann | Yep. So because I do both stills and motion, I bring, um, red camera, AK Red Epic underwater. I put that in a Nauticam housing with a nice glass dome port and wide, wide, wide. underwater. So I'm shooting a 14 to 24 underwater. And that's basically stays in the housing the whole shoot. I'll have a topside red too. Well, I'll work like little compact cine primes, Zeiss cine primes. You know, 35 to 85 is what I really like to shoot with variable NDs and to get that nice look and and then Underwater for stills, I use the Sony A9 in an Autocam housing. And what's nice about all those Sony Alpha bodies is they're built the same as far as the outside of them. So I can actually slip in an A7R III if I'm looking for resolution. I can pop it out. I can put in the A9 if I want speed. And that's nice because in the past, a different camera body requires a completely different underwater housing. So that's been nice and I made the jump from Nikon to Sony like right with the first mirrorless full-frame Alpha series came out literally because of They were a step ahead in the DSLR video function, you know, like yeah, so Knowing I had to do both at any time like moments are so fleeting underwater. So You know, if I have it, if I go down with the Sony and a blue whale comes past me, like I will get frames and I will flip it quick and I'll grab a clip. And that's just how it goes. Um, but I shoot 12 to 24. It's mostly what I do for the stills underwater, but top side, you know, 24 to 72, eight, um, 100 to 400. I have a 400 to eight, which is really great for wildlife and birds. And I use it in the Arctic a lot for polar bears. And then I have like a set of primes, like 35 to 85 that I just keep for like people and travel and portraits and like these sort of moments, you know, it's like, it's, it's something that I've learned as I've matured as a photographer, that, um, wide angle can be such a crutch. Um, I mean, at the geographic, they don't even want you shooting any wider than 35. Really interesting. You can see through that. education of if you just mount a 35 millimeter prime and walk around, the stories that come through your images are so refined. Because I bet if you were walking around and you were shooting everything at 12 mil or 16 mil, if you were to just crop and post crop that to a 35, all your elements of the story will be in there. Landscape is a different thing. If you're out shooting landscapes, go wide. I get that. For everything else, like, really, that's always been my advice is hone yourself from 35, be a good shooter at 35. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, that's a good point. It makes you move as opposed to zooming, you know, you just walk closer to your subject or, you know, it's kind of more closer to what the human eye sees, I suppose, a 35 millimeter focal length, so. And for the underwater stuff, do you primarily shoot on scuba or you do a lot of free diving, right? Because you are working with like oceanic white tips is one of your big subjects and a lot of that work is done on just on breath hold diving. |
| Andy Mann | It is. Yeah. I mean, scuba diving for a lot of the coral reef stuff. But free diving, I would say it's the majority of how I'm approaching the animals I work with. And part of that is because so many of the animals I like to shoot are out in the pelagic zone. They're out in the open ocean where it's 3,000 feet deep, and we're trying all day to find them. And those moments are so fleeting. That's what's amazing about the open ocean is you really never know what you're going to see. So you always have to be prepared. So if you come across a pod of whales or a school of sharks or bait ball or something just wild. You just got to jump in. Like I just live in my wetsuit all day. And I'm just, as soon as there's something, it's just like freedive fins, weight belt, camera, go. You know, it's having that, uh, like mobility and flexibility, but it's also the animals react a lot differently when there's not bubbles and, and your regulators and the noise of the scuba system. And so that's been another, reason that I've kind of like happened to really develop my breath hold is based on the fact that, you know, I'll go down to 60 feet, come nose to nose with the shark that I want to film. And I'll be so hyper focused on getting the shot that I become relaxed, which is like the number one thing you need to do to be a good freediver. And so so I've enjoyed that part of photography and filmmaking as much as I have just that sort of journey in the water itself. It's like you become pretty hyper aware when you're on one breath, you know, a lot of time and moments slip by when you're just casually breathing. But, uh, when you go down there on one breath, I feel like it, you could be down 60 seconds and it feels like three minutes. |
| Jason Heaton | Sure. You know, given your sort of breadth of subject matter and types of adventures that you go on, um, I'm curious if you have any, and time in New York as well, if you have any sort of packing or travel hacks that you can share or any go-to gear that, regardless of where you are, you take with you, whether that's for comfort or productivity or anything like that. |
| Andy Mann | Yeah, you know, I've been keeping like little travel hacks for like, you know, my airport. For anyone flying out of DIA, park in the upper level G row. It's literally I've counted my steps, it's the quickest in to security and it's the quickest out from baggage claim. So that would be walking in door 512, okay? That's only important for the Boulders people, Denver people, but that is one of the biggest hacks I've found. Another hack I found, interestingly enough, is I was booking a flight to Singapore yesterday and, you know, I have upgrades I can use, global international upgrades I can use through United. but you don't know like whether they're granted. You know, it's like it'll just fill up and you're like, wait, I requested. So I got this great guy on the phone and he was walking me through the booking class. He's like, okay. He's like, you know, if you're all one K, whoever gets the upgrade is comes down to qualifying diet dollars. Whoever spent more on that flight of that leg. Okay. So, and I was like, well, aren't we all paying the same? He said, well, it depends on what class you book. I said, what class did everyone else book? He said, everyone else that's in line with you booked in the W class and they all paid $800 for their flight. He's like, he's like, if you book V class, for some reason it was only $820. So it was an extra 20 bucks I spent. And I'm immediately at the top of that list. |
| Jason Heaton | How do you know what class you're booking? I mean, it's the same main cabin, right? Or economy or whatever. |
| Andy Mann | They don't just ask you, like if you, you know, at least on United, if you just, your search homepage, just click advanced search and just say booking class and you pick the one. And, but that was, that was kind of a big win for me. We'll see if it pays off. But, um, after this podcast comes out, maybe everyone will have changed their ticket and I'll be back. Um, but you know, other than that, it's like, I actually designed some camera bags that I travel with, um, with a company called mountain Smith. And they're like a signature series line. One is a camera bag and one is a sort of urban backpack thing, but they're designed to sort of hold every little thing that I have in my kit sort of perfectly. It has its own home in its own place. And you know, I have these big Eagle Creek rolling bags. They're called the ORV36 and they're the biggest, like most durable sort of trunk with wheels that I could find. So, and they're light. So that's the other thing. It's like, you know, if you travel a lot like me, you get three 70 pound bags. A lot of times, a lot of those bags, if you just put them on the scale, they're like 10 to 15 pounds without anything in them. These bags are so light, like three to five pounds, the durable. Um, and they're kind of as big as you can get. Cause I also have to travel by myself. And so, you know, if I can avoid a cart, I will. So like, think about like how you can hook, a strap on a roller handle and how you can stack bags like that because man, as soon as you start moving it to like super rural parts of the world and stuff. And so, um, yeah, you know, there's all kinds of ins and outs of my brain and how the travel hack works. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. Are you, um, what do you do on long flights? Are you a reader or do you watch the movies or do you kind of zone out with the noise canceling headphones or? |
| Andy Mann | I definitely, zone out. Sometimes it's not. I don't use the headphones at all. I write a lot. So I do a lot of freeform writing sort of, you know, you know how they say, and it's true that like you're more emotional on a flight. Like you'll cry all the time. Yeah. And it's true. Like I, I cried the hardest. I remember the first time that hit me, I was watching a Will Ferrell movie elf and the end, I don't know what it was. It was just like falling anyway. Um, if you sort of write, I think you also open that sort of, that sort of mortal, immortal floodgates. And so, so I do a lot of writing. Um, I listened to a lot of music. I try to sleep the most I can. I mean, people always say, you know, for me, I'm like, sometimes I'm traveling to a time zone that's 12 hours difference. I'm getting off the plane, I'm going to work. And so there's all kinds of like hacks. For jet lag, people say, you know, stay up, stay up or sleep or just make yourself sleep. I just sleep when I'm tired. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah, I do too. Yeah. I've, I've given up trying to, trying to do all the other stuff, exercise or get out in the sun. It's like, if I'm tired, I should just sleep because I don't know when I'll get to sleep again. |
| Andy Mann | Right. And so that's it. So, you know, I'll watch movies too. And, um, things like that. But I think writing has been one of the biggest breakthroughs for me as far as using that time efficiently. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Can you maybe describe one of your recent sort of rewarding adventures? I seem to remember you were not long ago involved in a six-gill shark tagging project in Eleuthera, right? |
| Andy Mann | Yeah, I was. Wow. And that was through an organization called OceanX. They have this amazing ship called the Eleuthera. And it has two of these deep diving submersible submarines, which are, they only hold three people very tightly. They're kind of just like this acrylic ball. And with like thrust, like, like holes with like thrusters, and it's amazing. And so they're untethered, they can go down to 3000 feet. But you know, I've been working and I've It's a small group of like shark scientists, especially down in that part of the world. And so I've worked with them all on several projects on different species of sharks, but. And one of the species they've always been interested in was this bluntnose sixgill, which I didn't know a lot about, but it is like the big apex predator shark between like 500 meters and like 2000 meters, which is a lot. They're bigger than great white sharks. they're hard to study because the only way they could study them before is to sort of catch them off the bottom and bring them to the surface to sort of put up like an acoustic tracking device or satellite tag and then to learn more about them. But with that, bringing them to the surface, you, you look, you know, light trauma, you get like temperature trauma, all these things that change in pressure. And they were noticing that their behavior was certainly not right. And they're probably killing the sharks by the time they get back down. These sharks never seen light at all. They live so deep and they only come up to that 500 meter mark at night. So for us, due to time, we wanted to go down, do six hour dives in the sub. So we'd go down, you know, at 10 p.m., we'd come up, you know, around 6 a.m. But there's some travel time on either side to get down and back up. We go down to about 500 meters in this tiny little, I mean, it's the size of a car. There's a pole we sort of fastened to the front of it and we just zip tied like 50 pounds of like tuna heads and like tails and chunks of meat and you just go down there sit on the bottom and shut the lights off and you would literally wait until the sub started violently shaking in which case we turn on these red infrared lights so we could see the shark and sure enough like you know two feet in front of this Dome that you can see out of this. And you can't even tell the domes there, right? Like that goes away. You feel like you're just in the water and there's this like prehistoric beast from 150 million years that like bigger than a great white, just like right there. And so we used, um, these sort of slip tip spear guns where we could fire from the inside with a little laser pointer. And then off that slip tip of the spear would, would insert an acoustic tracking device. And so it was three trips, but on the last dive of the third trip, like any great drama, we got one. So that was groundbreaking for science. And I was lucky enough to log a lot of time in that sub with those sharks. |
| Jason Heaton | Wow, that's amazing. So the tag, because these sharks don't come to the surface, they're not being picked up by satellites through the tag, it would have to detach at some point and float to the surface? |
| Andy Mann | that's it yeah so it'll stay on the shark for six months recording data and then it has this really cool like corrosive link that after six months of exposure to saltwater we know that link will corrode the uh the tag will go to the surface and then at that point start relaying the data to a satellite back to the lab so it's almost like the computers will just come on and then boom all this data will come in come in come in over the course of like a month or two um and that's when they'll learn about the shark. |
| Jason Heaton | Wow. Wow. That's super exciting. What's coming up? You said you booked a trip to Singapore. Is that sort of more of a business admin side of things or are you actually going adventuring somewhere over there? |
| Andy Mann | A big adventure. So I'm going with Paul and Christina and the Sea Legacy crew to a country called Timor-Leste or East Timor. And a lot of people don't know about this country because it's the second youngest country in the world. They only became, a sort of independent democracy in 2004 because they were a conflict country for 25 years before that. And so what happened was NOAA went in there to study the coral reefs recently and published a paper said that they had the most biodiverse coral reef by a factor of like 30% because you know the place was unstudied, it was undeveloped, the reefs were protected. And so I went there last October to see the reefs and see their marine ecosystem, but also to meet like, uh, the president and the prime minister and to talk to them about their plans for protection. So it's really cool because there's such a young country and because they have the most beautiful reef in the world, there's kind of this clean slate to like do things right from the get go. And so what we're going to do, see, like I said, we're going to go down there and create those, those, those assets that the country needs to sort of campaign internally. and internationally to sort of shine a light on what they're doing and show people how beautiful it is down there and why it's so worthy of protection. |
| Jason Heaton | That sounds great. How long will it be gone? A few weeks, I would imagine. |
| Andy Mann | Yeah, two weeks there. And then we hit a little island country called Palau on the way back to sort of also do the same thing, like help with localized campaigning to educate Palauans on marine sanctuaries. |
| Jason Heaton | Wow. Yeah. Well, we'll have to watch out to your social media and I'm sure we'll be seeing Photos pop up there in a couple of weeks. So there's a quote that has been probably wrongfully attributed to Yvon Chouinard that says, it's not an adventure until something goes wrong. And I'm wondering if you can recall any, I don't want to say horror stories, but situations where gear failed or injury in the back country or something, sort of cautionary tales. Or have you been lucky? |
| Andy Mann | Both. Both. That first expedition I did for National Geographic to Franz Josef Land, we were all in the water. And I actually wasn't dive certified at the time, but so I was just sort of snorkeling around, but at a housing and I was in a dry suit. And there was a group of like 15 scientists and filmmakers and we were diving under this iceberg. That was huge, like the size of a city block. And as far as we could tell, it was grounded. which meant it was safe to dive under because they could see tide marks like being etched in the top of the iceberg at which means like it sat there long enough that it's getting tide marks and so but these biologists they want to dive scuba dive down like 80 feet under this thing and take these algae bacteria samples off the iceberg one of the divers had a free flow about 30 minutes into the dive which means it's just you know, out of the regulator in his mouth, it sort of froze open. So it's just purging air at like an unbreathable speed, kind of have to start sucking on the corner of it. It's a non-emergency situation, but still serious. And so what had happened at that point was all the divers down, and I could see what was going on from the surface, all the divers started to come up. And so I sort of free dove down as far as I could to sort of meet them and start filming them coming up. And as soon as we hit the surface, the bird cracked and rolled. What? Yeah. And you could feel like all of us being sucked back under because of the displacement of water and the current. But we're able to grab on the sides of these like zodiac boats and get pulled out of there in the nick of time. And this whole like city block just cracked and turned and regrounded itself upside down, which means if anybody was under there, you know, two minutes later, they probably would have all been killed. And that was all because of a malfunction in the regulator. Um, and everyone's decision to be like, Oh, we'll just follow. His name was Forrest. We'll just all, we'll just all go with Forrest, you know, to make sure he makes it. And so, but you know, that's any number of like misadventures, you know? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. That's like a combination. That's like, that's really like you were lucky, but also something went wrong. |
| Andy Mann | I was going to say that was one of the points in that expedition that, cause that's sort of, You know, they call it expedition, too, because like in climbing, it's like, you know, without mystery, there is no adventure. And so climbers always looking for the first descent, like routes that have never been done. Is it possible? How do we get there? There's so much equations to solve. It's climbing is virgin earth. Like if you're the first person to go up a rock tower, like you're the first human to ever set foot on a lot of that on the summits. And so that's the draw there. And so And it's wild. And those misadventures and those bonds you form in the mountain with your brothers and sisters based on those near misses are like really strong. And so I remember after this Franz Josef land trip, I was forming those same bonds with marine biologists as I was climbers in the mountains, just like unexplored, undocumented near misses. It's field science is like a pretty rowdy Rowdy profession. |
| Jason Heaton | Interesting parallel between the two disciplines, climbing and diving. Did you have any mentors as you were coming along or maybe heroes in the field of outdoor photography or diving or climbing that maybe gave you some advice along the way or from whom you got inspiration? |
| Andy Mann | Yeah. I mean, early on, you know, my sort of brethren of Corey Richards and Keith Ludzinski They were huge mentors for me because remember I decided I wanted to be a professional photographer before I even picked up a camera. I was like, that's the path. And so those guys like fostered me huge. Everything like how to fricking invoice somebody like what's the A button mean? What's aperture mean? What's all that? And so those I wouldn't say that they were like senseis or mentors at the time, but they were they were bringing me along, you know, and, and so, um, but you know, as I sort of grew and expanded my mind within the arts and within like the business of the arts and things like that, I've always been attracted to people that, um, that inspire you and are positive because so much of the stuff I try to capture or the things I try to accomplish feel so far away, you know, And then, you know, there's some people that just like, just go, just do it. You're meant to do it. You got it. We support you. We love you. And it's like, when the sort of the shit's hitting the fan, or I feel like insecure about something like those words come to me, rather than like some kind of artistic advice, you know, I'm just like, just trust your gut and keep going. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I was going to ask if you had any advice to pass on to sort of aspiring adventurers or photographers, but that I think that's good advice in itself is just, just if you believe it, you can do it. It's almost a spin on the fake it till you make it sort of thing. You know, if you, if you're going to be a photographer, you're going to be a photographer and you'll find a way. |
| Andy Mann | That's it. 100%. Yeah. And you know, I've also never had any bars, you know, from like picking up a camera the first time, like I just wanted to take a good picture. And then I just wanted to, like, publish a picture. And then I just wanted to, like, learn filmmaking. And I just wanted to, like, learn editing. And then I wanted to, like, you know, get some views. And then I wanted to, like, get a staff pick. And then I wanted... So I feel like I've always gotten these, like, little accolades that aren't really accolades. But for me, they're like these little mini bars I've, like, slowly just sort of moved up. Like, that grind and that slow growth is what is going to where your talent is going to come from. You just can't, you know, go straight to the top. Like, there's so much growth and learning that needs to happen that don't even worry about anything. But, you know, how do I keep doing this financially? Like, how can I what can I purge from my life? Where are my overheads? How can I just literally keep going month to month? And then eventually, like, it'll sustain itself, you know, and you'll grow. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, that's great. I want to switch gears before we wrap things up and talk a little bit about your relationship with Zodiac. I'm curious if your interest in watches is something more recent or if you've always been into them and kind of how did the relationship with Zodiac come about? |
| Andy Mann | It's interesting. It actually came about, I had directed like a 60 second video spot for them for Fossil. Years back, and I remember talking to all the producers and art directors on that shoot about my work underwater, and they were fascinated by it. And then years go by and Fossil acquires Zodiac, or maybe they've had them as a brand for a long time, but they started being like, let's sort of give a rebirth to the brand because it's so iconic, right? I think the first phone call was like, what do you think about this brand? And I thought it was really great. And they were like, why don't you come on as ambassador and help us with some of the branding. And what was great about the relationship immediately is that I've been down that road as a brand ambassador. I want to do the work. My work's underwater, conserving the ocean. And if you can support that work, if that can be the nucleus of what we do, then this will work. But I'm not a big stunt guy. I don't want to go to the bottom of the ocean. I don't want to do all these things. I want to do the work. Um, and immediately they agreed. And I was also like, that's where we're going to get the best content. So, uh, the first project we did, I made them make all the donations to the foundation I was working for first. And then I was actually on the boat. They were like trying to line up a spring shoot this in like 2019. And I said, well, I'm on the boat. Come, come now. And so they did. So there's always been that sort of like, We kind of set the standard early of how the partnership should work and the work should come first, at least for me. And now we've been like family. It's so cool. Everyone that Fossil put on this brand is exciting. Everything about Zodiac right now is just buzzing in that Fossil building and around. You could feel it. You're like, what a cool opportunity to take such an iconic like historic Swiss made brand and then like go dormant for like a half a century basically. And then just like, right, boom, here we are. Like when we need the voice of the ocean and that the most. Um, so it's been really, really exciting. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, that's really cool. And I remember, you know, right around the time I think you were joining the team as an ambassador, um, you know, was really when the brand was, was taking off and fossil has done a nice job of kind of giving them a long leash to be creative and to kind of dust off some of the great archival designs from the 50s and 60s. And they just have this string of hits these days that is just fantastic. And they're a real darling of the watch world these days. So it's really cool to see that coming together. And your limited edition, I think this week, if not today, I think it launches officially. That's really cool. It's the Super Seawolf 68 saturation. |
| Andy Mann | And what an opportunity that was, honestly, because, you know, I've obviously never designed a watch, but I am a watch guy. Like I love watches. I have an aesthetic for design and I'm a, I'm a total, like I have an engineering part of my brain, right? That like, I'm always like digging into like my camera gears and rewiring my housing and things like that. And so to sort of be able to put that sort of like aesthetic part of my brain and sort of like the hardwiring part of my brain together. And it was amazing. The first thing I was like, okay, I'm going to go to Switzerland and learn how watches are made. |
| Unattributed | Yeah. |
| Andy Mann | And they're like, really? You can't just like work with our designers online. I'm like, no, I don't like it. So I go to BL Switzerland, which is like amazing for all you listeners. Like it's like total foot of the Alps, like old stone village. But it's also where like Rolex and everyone else is. And I started working with third generation watchmakers, like in their shops, like with hand tools that are like patinaed from their grandfather and stuff. It's so cool. Like these things can be machined, but they can build all these elements of this watch, like in a shop, like hand fabricating it. And that's the way that they do a lot of the first samples. And I remember walking in there and at first, I was like not getting the respect which I was I didn't ask for I didn't need that but I was like okay I'm a designer here like let's let's break some rules and the first couple things I suggested were like hard nose I know they have tradition of Swiss watchmaking but I wasn't sort of privy to that before I walked in the workshop and so first thing I was like let's just let's take the date off yeah and they're like wait a minute This is already going to be the most expensive watch the Zodiac's ever made. And you want to take features off of it? I'm like, yeah. And I wanted to put this dorsal fin of a shark at the 12 o'clock indice. And they were like, whoa. Because there's a continuity. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh, yeah. The Swiss watchmaking community is very conservative. |
| Andy Mann | Yeah, everything's got to line up and be perfect. As soon, so I sort of had to call back up the chain to like where someone finally was like, you know what, if Andy wants to do it, like, let's do it. Let's see where we go. Um, and then we can reel it in later. And you could see all, they were like kids in candy stores, like immediately, like as soon as they had permission from the boss, they were doing all kinds of things they've wanted to do for years. Like as soon as we broke through that wall, they were, you know, I was like, let's get rid of this. They're like, let's get rid of it. And so a lot of them are just like, we've never liked that feature. I'm like, what? And so it was a really fun, really fun process. And, um, and I think because of that, you know, it's, it's a unique piece and I, it's, I didn't even realize, I was like, God, what is the watch industry going to think of these, this stuff, because it all happened like in a Swiss workshop, like underground. And we, built it but yeah we hadn't showed anybody and so I was but you know the reception's been like beyond my wildest dreams like everyone loves what we did and so that's all I can ask is that I mean also there's only 182 pieces so I'm like well I could probably appeal to at least that many people so never felt that much pressure with it but |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, it turned out really well. Congratulations. That's a, it's a, it's a really cool piece. I love the, the God light, uh, dial and the, um, you don't see a lot of countdown bezels on them. And I liked that you kind of flipped that. |
| Andy Mann | Yeah. Yeah. That made sense to me. Um, that the 15 minutes you have left in the water are more important than 15 minutes that you start with. Um, yeah. And so that was another thing I was like, why is the bezel that, you know, and so, and then the watch face. to sort of get those God rays which are you know that's the light that comes in from high noon when you're in the deep water like those rays of light that sort of fan out. I wanted to get that in the watch face and how we did it was I already had them work for like months to make this nice gradient of the blue I wanted. So we took this perfectly finished polished dial face and we started machine scarring it enough where like as you sort of tilted it in your hand you could see the light sort of dancing off of it. You know, it's kind of backwards. We like make this perfectly polished doll face. And then by hand, we're like machine scarring it with different grades of like sandpaper and things to sort of get that effect. So it doesn't look scarred, but the light will sort of dance from the 12 o'clock position across the face. |
| Jason Heaton | And very cool. Very cool. Well, congratulations. That's really awesome. I've got a last question, and that's kind of, is there a dream trip that you kind of have on your so-called bucket list that's maybe a little bit out there in terms of accessibility or challenge to you personally that one day you'd like to do? |
| Andy Mann | There is. I mean, I have a little bucket list going, but there's one recently that, like, I've been dying to do, and this is, it's called the Sardine Run in South Africa, and it is kind of an iconic, like, nature event that happens every couple years but it's probably the wildest thing you can photograph in the water and there's these huge bait balls of sardines off the coast of South Africa and some of the roughest waters in the world and there's these gametes and they're dive bombing in and there's whales and there's sharks and there's like marlin and everything's like feeding frenzy feeding on these bait balls but just google sardine run South Africa and you'll see images of like whales like coming up with their mouths open and birds swimming by like flocks of birds like 40 feet underwater like swimming by you and sharks and it's just like mayhem and it's but it's hard it's like unpredictable some years they never see it you're out there in rough seas all day in this little zodiac boat just like waiting for the event to happen and so I've seen so many awards it's like every year in like a big nature photographer of the year award you can line up any event on earth that happens and like if one guy's got the sardine run shot it's just hard to ignore and be like that is the craziest thing like i've ever seen and so that one's on my list oh that'd be awesome yeah i've seen a lot of photos of the sardine run and it's like |
| Jason Heaton | You're right. It's crazy. You get like a bird next to a, like a sailfish and then a shark and then a whale coming up from underneath and dolphins in the background. I mean, it's just insane. Well, um, that's, that's all I've got for today. I really appreciate, you know, we're, we're coming up on a close to an hour and I really appreciate your taking the time to speak with me. And I know that our listeners are going to love this episode. You're kind of fit right in with what, what we're all about. We're, we're sort of an adventure and travel and watch podcasts. So, uh, it's going to be a popular one. So thanks a lot for. for talking to me. |
| Andy Mann | It's my honor, man. I love to talk about this stuff, so I appreciate the opportunity. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, take care and we'll be following your adventures on Instagram. Thanks, Andy. |