SPEAKER_01 0:00

B E H D, the Frequency.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hey, happy Friday. Thanks for joining us on a bonus episode of The Frequency. We're replaying an interview that we recently aired with Andy Mann, a wonderful community member, photographer, musician, conservationist. Andy's playing next week at Chautauqua Community Hall. But that show is sold out. So I'm happy to announce that they added a second show on April 24th at Naiwat Hall. You can still find tickets online on Eventbrite, Andy Mann, M-A-N-N. Enjoy the conversation and try to stay warm today.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Here we go, Boulder Valley Frequency Listeners. I'm very excited today to welcome to the podcast Andy Mann. Andy is an ocean storyteller. He's an Emmy nominated director, 12-time teleaward winner. He is a National Geographic photographer and a co-founder of a production company. We're going to somehow try to talk about all these things, Andy. I hope that's okay. And a founding member of the nonprofit Sea Legacy Collective. But above all, Andy, your stories, they're visually breathtaking and they're telling a really important story for our planet right now. So, oh, and by the way, you're playing Chautauqua next month. It's a long introduction, no way around it. I cannot be more honored to welcome to the show. Andy, welcome.

SPEAKER_02 1:27

Thanks, Jeff. Honor to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

So the question I have to start off with is what did you do today? And by the way, if today was not the most interesting day, pick any other day this week. What project were you working on? How did you choose to spend your time on any given day? Give us a day in the life.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Oh my gosh. You know, I'm I'm sort of a casualty of trying to live all my dreams at once before the clock runs out, which I imagine is like an aspiration for every crazy person that thinks they can do it. Um but just jumping into a day of the life, you know, I have two kids, six and ten. I mean, look, I do big climbing expeditions, deep sea shark dives. There's nothing more difficult than getting your kids out of the door on time to school. That's like the crux of my day. And then it's juggling, doing the nonprofit work. I have many productions going on at once, campaigns, trying to create marine protected areas, trying to stay true to my songwriting and storytelling and sort of musical stuff. And it's always a juggle. But one of the most exciting things about my job is the fact that every day looks different.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

I do think that's something a lot of us aspire to, but you've humanized it by sharing one of those universal challenges, which is taking care of other people too. So very well said. If I follow you on Instagram, and by the way, andyman.com, andyman.com, and on Instagram, two very aspirational storytelling venues for any of your fans. It looks like you're either freshly back from Chile or Iceland. I don't want to spoil any projects that you're not ready to talk about yet, but what was your most recent adventure?

SPEAKER_02 2:58

The most recent adventure was Iceland, which is a really cool project. So this one specifically, and then I can talk about Chile, is kind of where I found myself after over two decades of being a photographer and filmmaker, is this sort of intersection between conservation and music. This is a project where we've brought together eight musicians, like sort of from the jam rock world. The lead singer of the band Goose, and this guy named O'Teal Burbridge from Dead and Company and Allman Brothers, and a band called Dawes, and this guy Eric Krasno from Soul Live, and brought them to Iceland in the middle of the winter to a studio called Floki and giving them an opportunity to create new and record new music inspired by the environment, and also using this big side project and this music to shine a spotlight on conservation issues. And this is sort of the beginning of a multi-year project where we hope to bring musicians together, create these conversations around conservation, but also allow them in their own language, which is music, the universal language, to sort of take all that information and record something beautiful and see the northern lights. And some days you're like, How did I even get here? That it was one of those trips. And released a foot the photos I took from the studio, and it's been like Rolling Stone, everyone just calling, blowing up everybody, being like, wait, what is happening? How how did we not know about this? We're gonna keep kind of teasing it and you know, given this opportunity, it's it's it's really great. And I have a musical background and spend a lot of time with musicians in those sort of intimate spaces, so it's a sacred place, you know, and I sort of know how to behave in that environment and and trusted to sort of be a fly on the wall in some of these really intimate creative moments, and that's something I honor. But I I can also help this project sort of have a voice in the conservation world and really glue into campaigns and really plug them in in the the most creative ways so that we can have an impact.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

You're photo documenting it. You're obviously one of the conservation-minded organizers of this supergroup you've created. It does kind of take me to how did you get into photography in the first place? What drew you to that particular form of art?

SPEAKER_02 5:28

I grew up in rural Virginia. I studied marine biology in college, so I worked on like Chesapeake Bay. And in 2003, I moved with like my three roommates from Richmond, Virginia, to Boulder, Colorado, because we all wanted to get the heck out of the hometown we grew up in. In 2003, like this was the spot. Like at the time, we were way into like bluegrass and the jam grass scene, and this is where yonder was. This is where string cheese was, and the tell you right bluegrass festival and rocky grass and and mountains. And as a young adventury 20-year-old, like this was a Mecca. You know, first job I got was running the kitchen at the sink. One of the waiters there after my first day was like, Hey, I'm going bouldering at Flagstaff Mountain when we get off. Do you want to come? And I was like, I don't even know what that is. He's like, Ah, it's like climbing, but you know, sometimes we go right to left, sometimes it's three moves, sometimes, you know, no ropes, any of that stuff. And I just went up in my tennis shoes, you know, like a total gumby. Fell head over heels for climbing. Like, I mean, obsessed. So that became a passion of mine that just took me when I moved here was climbing, meeting that community and literally just grinding it out in kitchens. That was just a like climb during the day. So much so that I wanted to keep climbing and I was sick of kind of working the restaurant scene. So I'd been traveling around, like doing big rock climbing trips around the country, working with photographers from the athlete side, and just seeing like, man, I have access to all these other amazing athletes and all these other amazing locations. Like, I'm gonna start documenting our climbing adventures. So that led to me quitting my job in the kitchen, taking what savings I had, buying a camera, and then just moving into my truck and kind of dirtbagging around the climbing world for years, working on staff for climbing magazine and outside magazine as like a contributing photographer, and seems like a lifetime ago, but it was mostly just so I could do what I loved. I mean, it it became like a deep, passionate, like introspective art for me now. But at the time, it just kind of showed up at my feet.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Well, I love it, you know, and there's a big part of Boulder in this story, too, with our with our history, with all these great print publications. And the trick for you has been to apply it into the the modern media landscape, which you've done more adeptly than most. So, how did you turn your attention to Nat Geo and and the ocean?

SPEAKER_02 7:51

It sort of came from like building this big production company called Three Strings Productions here in Boulder, making adventure films and documentaries. And Corey and Keith, the other partners, Corey started doing National Geographic expeditions and stories. He was kind of the first of us to sort of break that door down. Uh, climbing Everest and doing like stories from the in the Himalaya. And this was at like at the time where National Geographic was really actually going back to its adventure roots and kind of looking for photographers. So between myself and Jimmy Chin and a guy named Renan Osturk and Corey and Keith and myself, and they sort of took this batch of misfit climbing bum photographers and sort of fostered them in to put them on assignment because we had a sort of a tool set that worked in their changing landscape. You know, we weren't guys like an old guard shooting on film or needed six months on an assignment. We're a guy that can just roll in the worst locations in the world and with a DSLR camera, like make a film, edit a film in the field, shoot the stills, get on location, not complain. So I think in you know, in hindsight, we sort of had that going. We're sort of like a new guard coming in. Um, but for Nat Geo, it was, you know, my work at the time had just been adventure-based. And so the first assignments they put me on were remote polar field science expeditions. So my first assignment was to a place called Franz Joseph Land, Russia, for 45 days, which is like near the North Pole, following a group of polar scientists like around this harsh landscape. And, you know, as a filmmaker and photographer, like documenting both mediums. And so, in some ways, it was like another climbing adventure. Like instead of climbers, it was biologists. And they were just as tough, just as like wild and adventurous as climbers. And so I fit well in that landscape. And um, after that first assignment came back, we learned like six months later that we were being awarded this award called the Crystal Compass Award from the Royal Geographic Society in London for our storytelling efforts that had led to the protection of Franz Joseph Plan to become the largest Arctic national park on the planet. So at that point, I find myself at a crossroads. Um, although I loved inspiring people to go outside up to that point in my career and taking people on these remote climbing adventures, like I was now finding real purpose in the work. Like I saw how the films I made from Franz Joseph Land and the images I took, how just giving and sharing those assets to the marine scientists and you know, the people running those protection campaigns, how much of an asset that was to them. And so that reshaped my career from that point on, basically.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

That's incredible. I mean, when you tell it retrospectively, it just feels like such a cohesive journey. And I'm sure there's so many fits and starts along the way. And most notably that you were comfortable being sent to, you know, the Arctic Circle of Russia for the assignment and didn't flinch and went and did it. I bet few people on this planet have seen the ocean in the way that you have from up close and documented it and change. This is just such a massive question, but what would you share that you've noticed, even in your now, you know, decade plus of being out in the field watching our biggest live and breathing thing changing right before our very eyes?

SPEAKER_02 11:08

It's hard. It's a, you know, it's a grind to stay positive because just in the 10 years I've been working in dedicated ocean space, I've seen so much change, you know, and it's the more I learn about ocean conservation, the more empowered I am, the more I understand the roadmaps to like to legislation and or treaties or conventions or whatever mechanism is sort of bespoke to what area we're trying to protect. Learning that landscape has given me a lot of hope. But it's our oceans are like they're hemorrhaging kind of on the operating table, you know, and and um and I find that strategic storytelling is one way to have quick impact and reach people super fast. And that's part of why Sea Legacy was founded.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

Tell us more about how the Sea Legacy Collective came to be.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

I'm working for National Geographic, they're putting me in the ocean landscape. I meet Paul Nicklin and Christina Midemeyer, who are two big icons at Nat Geo. And we'd sit around one day and we're so frustrated because the magazine's sending us on an assignment to like a critical climate issue. We're getting incredible access from local stakeholders. And all our assets, our images, they're under embargo with the magazine for like a year. So they print. And there's just not enough time. These people need our images so that they can work now. So G Legacy was formed as like a real-time thing where we go in, create the media assets, shine a spotlight, use our following and our network to shine a spotlight on these issues and help them with their media campaigns. You know, if the greatest threat, I think, to our oceans and and our planet is apathy. It's not doing something. And and so that was a chance to like take action and keep moving forward, you know?

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Struck from an insight that the stories are being told, but they're sitting on a shelf and they need to be shared immediately. That's how that's how dire the situation is, right? And then was there anything else on any of your projects or any other moments as you went to all corners of this planet that deepened your commitment to telling marine stories? Is there something that you've experienced that most of us haven't?

SPEAKER_02 13:09

The the natural history moments like are life-changing. You know, be underwater with a baby humpback whale that and mother who's like you spend all day on the water and she's like let you in and photograph her her little baby. And those are just the most cosmic scenarios ever. Like you can only imagine, right? Being face to face with polar bears in the Arctic and things like that, like that ingrained. But what I like to call those deathbed memories, the ones I'll remember the most. Like the real wins for me are the conservation wins. And those have been the things that I've been the most proud of. Working on a campaign to create a big marine protected area around somewhere special in this earth that's just we can leave alone, you know, and let prosper. And and getting to sit with many of these presidents like at their desks when they sign these legislations and being part of those campaigns with political strategists and marine scientists and activists and their governments and and ministries that have all worked together, like that's when those real big moments where I'm like, God, I'm in the right space. I'm I'm gonna do this forever.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

You just see all these roles that you have, above all, being a being a storyteller in multiple formats, but also, you know, working with media brands, directing music videos. A lot of us would say, This is this is the life for me. By the way, at what moment did you realize, wow, I can do this fully? I'm committed to it, I'm deep into it, and and I have to make this my my life's work.

SPEAKER_02 14:39

I think as soon as I feel like I accepted the fact that being a storyteller was just gonna be a way of life that I wanted to commit to and that I believe this with like anything is if you just kick the rock down the road long enough for like the 20 plus years I have, like you're gonna find yourself getting great opportunities, you know, and meeting amazing people. I think being an expedition storyteller requires you to wear all those hats, you know, also like be able to hack this and live here and raise a family and keep the lights on, but also creatively be able to move around and do the different roles that I feel like I'm good at.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

You call it kicking the can down the road. I call it spending a lot of time in the field, meeting all these great people, doing all the work that you've done. That's why you're plugged in right now. You're focused on some areas that just really, really matter. That doesn't mean there's loads of funding. It might mean that you have to go pitch them yourself. Do you have to do that as needed? But other times they're coming to you and you need to be adept in both directions.

SPEAKER_02 15:40

Yeah, it's it's both. I mean, the passion projects are the ones I try to kind of reel the more the commercial money into. But again, it's like, you know, working with political strategists and kind of following the front line of ocean conservation, trying to align myself with campaigns in countries that have political will to create big ocean initiatives and working with the teams that are there, you know, to sort of parachute in and use my platform and and my abilities as a storyteller to help spotlight the work that they're doing. Often there aren't budgets for that, you know. But having worked in the commercial space for so long, I can bring along a camera company or an apparel company or a sunglass company or a watch company into that story because it's authentic, you know. And of course, they would love an adventure story that is aligned with good values.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

It's hard to predict the future, of course, but how do you see the next bunch of years working out? Is it just continuing to find important stories to tell and the places and channels and supporters to tell them?

SPEAKER_02 16:45

Um I actually had a really in-depth conversation with an old friend about this today. I have a feeling like in the age of like bots and AI and everything, that people are going to be investing more in like really authentic experiences that are really human-to-human analog things. Like I wrote this big folk musical called The Helmsman, which is like it's like a live folk musical with through songs and stories and visuals, and we do it in big theaters and and it's like bringing people together and like reminding ourselves like where we're at on this journey and like what connects us all. And I feel like that's really rewarding. I think that's really gonna serve the audience and serve the creative and in so many meaningful ways.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

So, Andy, you're playing at Chautauqua Community House on April 23rd with Reed Fail. How does first of all, how do you find time to be a performing musician and a songwriter? And then second, how does something like this Chautauqua date come together?

SPEAKER_02 17:46

Yeah, I mean, I've always been a a songwriter and like folk musician um ever since I was really young, but some stories are best told through like a single image. Some stories sort of need to speak for themselves in video, and some stories are just better songs, and so I keep journals, you know, that I write in when I'm in remote corners of the world and poems and ideas, and just it's a way for me to express how I myself, you know. I'm kind of come from a camp of like I feel like the story should come through me, not from me. And like I try not to involve any emotion of like when I have a camera, just kind of a vessel. Um but what that can do is sort of back up a lot of thoughts and emotions, and I write those into songs, and and that sort of came from like doing the lecturing tours for National Geographic and this other agency called Changemakers and and going into these big theaters of three to five thousand people and doing my telling my summit to see story, right? My career and saving the planet, and and then as a musician, being like, oh my god, like I'm I'm performing in front of all these people with like just a clicker and images and stories. Uh, is there a way I can sort of work in the music? And it's when I started building this show called The Helmsman, that I took a step back and I started recording and writing and working with folk musicians that I love and putting more effort into like that part of my storytelling. And so um, this is the third year that I've done the the Chautauqua Community House. Um and it's great, it's like you know, it's folk it's sort of folk troubadour tradition. But my stories are about the ocean and the planet and adventures and and the songs are about the things I see there. It's about the you know, the the moon and the stars and what it's like to to be away from your family 200 days a year, and it's you know, it's sort of poetic and and folksy, but it's just like a craft that I love, you know, and it's like the songwriting and the working with musicians is is just another way to express storytelling that feels like you know, more creative for me. It's like something I can create, and it just doesn't pass through my lens. It's like something that I get to like mold and shape. And that room, that community house room, is like beautiful venue and and that audience that is up there creates such a wonderful vibe in that room. And and so I hope people come and read's an icon of folk music for like decades, you know. And so it's really cool to get to share the evening with him.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Tickets are available on the Chautauqua website. We talked about Chulai earlier on in the conversation. If there's anything to share about that very recent endeavor, please do. And if not, that's okay too.

SPEAKER_02 20:31

Yeah, that one's huge. So the last two years, we've been working on a campaign, um, working with the president and minister of environment there to create this huge marine protected area around what's called Robinson Caruso Island, which is part of what's called the Juan Fernandez Islands, which is like a few hundred miles offshore of Chile. It's kind of like another little Galapagos where there's a high percentage of endemic species that only live there. And the lobster fishermen there have been working for years to try to expand the marine protections around the islands to sort of safeguard their resource. And so right now, the president of Chile is in Juan Fernandez Island right now. We hope to get news any day that he's gonna sign the decree. Uh, he leaves office in like a week. And so this is like his last big thing. So this is like another one where it's like blood, sweat, and tears going in to sort of create, you know, a big savings account for our planet. You know, we can't keep withdrawing from the same account, our ocean, and not protect, you know, our greatest asset. And so when this happens, it's gonna be great, like a really reason to celebrate, you know, I think for the whole world. And so, um, and then it'll be on to the next one, you know.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Well, welcome home. And I can't wait to see what the next one is. I think that if you didn't believe that your storytelling could be part of the change we need for for our ocean, for our planet, and that they're entertaining and inspiring and aspirational too, that you wouldn't do it. So I think there's just something very optimistic about all your work, but I always like to. Close these episodes with the question of what is something that's giving you optimism right now?

SPEAKER_02 22:05

I'll just say, you know, from my perspective that for anyone that's listening, that now is the time to be a storyteller. Like now is the time to be a photographer, a filmmaker, a poet, whatever you can bring in your basket to educate and share your perspective of the world is now's the time to do it. You know, it's funny. I had this conversation before Jane Goodall passed away. And I had an hour Zoom call with her. And I asked her this question of like, sometimes I feel like I'm just telling the obituary of the ocean over and over. And like, you know, she was 90, and I was like, Well, how do you get up every day? How do you get out there and keep fighting the good fight? And she's so funny. She said, Andy, gird your loins. I was familiar enough with the term that means like prepare oneself for battle. But what she said is like, you know, we're at the end of a long dark tunnel. It feels like sometimes. But on the other side of that tunnel is a speck of light. And so you can sit in the dark tunnel, you can walk towards the light. And the closer you get to the light, the brighter it gets. And so I feel like anytime I feel down or I'm needing something to inspire me, it's when I take action. It's when I just pick up my camera and go.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

That's perfectly said, Andy. On behalf of our listeners, I cannot thank you enough for joining us today and sharing your stories in this very personal way. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 23:23

Thanks, Jeff.