Simon Jackson - Grizzly Bears and Nature Labs

07/14/19 • 34 min

Simon Jackson is a storyteller, photographer, filmmaker, speaker, author, and advocate for wildlife and nature. Both a movie and a children’s book have been made based on Simon’s story. At 13 he had a passion for bears and belief that he could change the world. For two decades Simon built the six million-strong Spirit Bear Youth Coalition to help save Canada’s rare Kermode or spirit bear and helped create the largest land protection measure in North American history. Together with his wife Jill Cooper, Simon continues to promote nature literacy among young people through the non-profit Ghost Bear Institute and their latest initiative Nature Labs.

I recorded this episode sitting at a picnic table with Simon in the stunning Mt. Robson Provincial Park in Canada. Simon and Jill lived there in a tent for months as they patiently and meticulously created multimedia content for Nature Labs - a virtual high school textbook for science, art, social studies and English curriculum using nature as a lens. We talk about how Simon became passionate about bears at age seven and why he believes you can’t teach without telling a story. Simon takes us behind the scenes of documenting Mt. Robson’s dominant grizzly bear named Chocolate, who is Nature Labs’ main character and in fact a metaphor for what we have and what we stand to lose.

This is We Are Photographers with Simon Jackson and this is his story.

This is We Are Photographers with Simon Jackson and this is his story.

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Amy Sacka - National Geographic Explorer

Amy Sacka is a documentary photographer based in Detroit, Michigan, who is passionate about celebrating the beauty of people and culture, particularly in Detroit and the Midwest. Her work has been featured in National Geographic, TOPIC, LensCulture, the Guardian and many more. She’s a National Geographic Explorer and a Top 50 Critical Mass photographer. Amy's photography has been exhibited internationally, including at Photoville in Brooklyn, Cortona on the Move in Italy, Brighton Biennial UK, and Arles France just to name a few.

If you’ve ever dreamed of being published by National Geographic, this episode is for you. Amy talks about how a quest to know her father eventually led to two grants. She describes why she drove 10,000 miles around Michigan to meet and photograph ice anglers. We talk about her move back to Detroit to discover what place, home and belonging mean to her, and the surprising reaction to her ‘Roommates After 40’ project. I’m enamored with her month-long 250-mile NYC slow walk, where she photographed along every block from 1st Street to 110th Street on Manhattan’s east side.

This is We Are Photographers with Amy Sacka and this is her story.

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Tyler Babin - Adobe Creative Residency

Tyler Babin is a photographer, videographer & creative director based out of New York City. He’s currently a 2019-2020 Adobe Creative Resident where he’s paid by Adobe to, simply put, create. No clients, just creating. We recorded this episode in person during CreativeLive’s biggest conference of the year - Photoshop Week - where Tyler’s story came full circle. You’ll find out what led him to landing a spot as an Adobe Creative Resident and the ongoing evolution of Behind the Feed, his year-long documentary project pulling the curtain behind the reality of digital influencer culture. We learn why he quit his dream job working for VanyerMedia, where over 3 years earlier on his last day as an intern he’d talked his way into becoming a personal videographer for Gary Vanyerchuk in a 45-min taxi ride. We discuss how this journey all started when Tyler was 18 years old and flew across the country to be a student in Matthew Jordan Smith’s workshop at CreativeLive.

This is We Are Photographers with Tyler Babin and this is his story.

Follow Tyler Babin on tylerbabin.com, IG @babin, YouTube, TW @tyler_babin