Florian Wagner has lived a life that most people only dream about. A helicopter pilot, paragliding instructor, and celebrated adventure photographer, his work has appeared in National Geographic, Playboy, and Leica campaigns. From crossing Australia on a motorcycle to photographing Spirit Bears in Canada and flying through the Okavango Delta, Florian’s journey captures what it means to live close to nature.
In this conversation, we explore how he turned risk into art, why he believes adventure is the truest teacher, and how hunting reshaped his connection with the land. Florian shares his experiences photographing for Leica, collaborating with Hornady and Savage Arms, and how self-hypnosis and mindfulness helped him rebuild after personal and physical setbacks.
This episode is a window into the mind of a man who’s seen the world from above, from horseback, and through the lens of purpose.
Learn more about Florian Wagner:
🌍 wagnerphoto.de
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Timestamps
00:00 – Intro: From the Alps to Africa
Meet Florian Wagner, helicopter pilot, paragliding instructor, and adventure photographer for National Geographic, Playboy, and Leica.
01:28 – Escaping the Boarding School Walls
Florian shares how a restrictive childhood sparked his obsession with freedom and flight.
02:40 – Self-Taught Paragliding and the Camera That Started It All
How a forgotten camera and a hunger for the sky began a lifelong creative journey.
04:59 – From Playboy to Pilot: Adventures Behind the Lens
Florian’s unlikely path from photographer to helicopter pilot and adventure storyteller.
06:29 – Wine Tasting by Helicopter — the Playboy Assignment That Changed Everything
How one bold pitch turned into a dream project.
07:56 – Freedom and Risk Management
Florian reflects on what boarding school taught him about independence and why adventure is his true classroom.
08:10 – Riding Through Africa: Healing Through Safari
A moving story of loss, recovery, and rediscovering purpose on horseback in Kenya.
09:56 – The Power of Self-Hypnosis
How Florian used autosuggestion to overcome adversity, rebuild confidence, and enhance creativity.
13:40 – Elk Hunts and Broken Ribs: Stories From the Outback
Florian recalls his Australian motorcycle crash and what it taught him about limits.
16:29 – When the Supermarket Closes
A profound reflection on self-reliance and what it truly means to live close to nature.
19:32 – Learning to Hunt: From Photographer to Provider
How Florian went from capturing wildlife to understanding his place in the natural cycle.
22:01 – Hunting as Connection, Not Competition
Why he never carries both a camera and rifle, and what that choice means.
23:22 – Bridging Old Traditions and Modern Hunting
Florian contrasts European elitism with the hands-on North American model.
24:46 – Using Every Part: The Ethics of Sustainable Hunting
From chamois leather lederhosen to Defender seats — nothing goes to waste.
26:16 – Emotional Storytelling and Authentic Failure
The Norwegian hunt that didn’t go as planned — and why that honesty matters.
31:04 – Showing the Strug
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:12):
He is a helicopter pilot, paraglidinginstructor, and extreme sports adventure,
who's captured the world throughhis lens for National Geographic,
Playboy and Leica, where he is a brandambassador from the Alps to Africa.
His journey has shifted from documentingadventures to living it through hunting
and conservation, telling the modern storyof what it means to live close to nature.
(00:36):
Welcome to the Silver CorpPodcast, my friend Florian Lagner.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm very excited to be here.
Thank you.
Well, I'm excited to have you here.
The last time you and I hung out,we were in Nuremberg and you were
regaling me with stories of adventureand daring, and I just thought if we
(00:56):
can just distill just a fraction ofwhat we were talking about before,
for the Silver Core Podcast audience,this is gonna be a successful episode.
So, uh, I'm, I'm reallystoked to get into this one.
Same here I am kind of curious.
You've lived a pretty adventurouslife and I kind of want to know
(01:17):
the origin story of all of that.
'cause you've chosen a very intentionalpath of doing things that most
people just read about in magazines.
How did this all start?
I started,
uh, I, I, I went to boarding school,Phil, maybe that's, uh, that, that
is the reason why I lived this life.
Uh, and it felt like prison.
(01:38):
Mm. And so when I came out, mm, um, I,the first thing I did, I self-taught
myself paragliding and, uh, and it wasat the very beginning, so yeah, because
there were no schools that we were onlya handful of ski instructors trying to
jump off the hill and see what happens.
And so, um, we, we, uh, and then peoplestarted asking me, uh, you know, how
(02:03):
is it, because I was so fascinated.
You could see it in my eyes.
I was just, I, I looked up this guyall the time and I just, a, anything
I wanted to do was fly, fly, fly.
So, and my, my father has a little,used to have a little woodcarving
storm, so some clients left thecamera and he didn't, he kept it for
a year, but they never came back.
(02:24):
So he.
Didn't know what to do with it.
So he gave it to me and I startedtaking photos out of the paraglider
because I couldn't explain inwords how fascinating it was.
So since nobody did that, I wasable to sell my photos quicker than
if I would've started with fashionor food or any other photography.
(02:44):
So that's, that's how it started.
And uh, I, shortly after that, I went toAustralia for a year and I crossed, um,
I crossed Australia, um, on motorcycle.
I worked as a. Uh, CZE Karoo,which is a Australian cowboy, and
(03:05):
I, um, uh, worked as a paraglidinginstructor and I did a apprenticeship
with a fashion photographer.
So after that I went home and sold allthese stories and this was what actually
started my career.
You're not a professionallytrained photographer, are you?
You, you just taught yourself how totake these pictures and then all of
(03:26):
a sudden you're doing it for NationalGeographic and for Playboy and for
big magazines and publications.
Yeah.
Well, it happened step
by step.
I was very lucky on the way, and infact, uh, the brother of the director
of the school I went to, he was, uh,working for, and uh, his name is Kyle
Foresta and he helped me into it.
(03:46):
We had a deal.
I taught him paragliding andhe wrote the articles for me.
Out of the adventure that I hadjust experienced in Australia
when I worked as a Jackaroo and Icrossed the country on motorcycle.
So that was a very good intro.
And he was very good friendswith the chief editor of Playboy.
Mm.
So they made me their specialistfor adventure stories.
(04:09):
So we.
Hilly skiing in Canada for Playboy.
I did the Spirit Bear for Playboy.
I did, uh, you know, the, the Americangovernment, they capture Mustangs to,
uh, prevent them from being killedand, uh, have inmates to break them
in as a resocialization program.
And I did that for Playboy.
So that was a very strong startbecause, uh, it's been, I know the
(04:34):
reputation is different, but inGermany, the writers and photographers
who were privileged enough to workfor Playboy had a very high standard.
And it was very, it was my, mybest client for a long time.
And still, we are still close.
I mean, uh, this is, uh, Ieven, they even, uh, paid me
(04:54):
to do my helicopter license.
Did they really?
Yeah, they did.
How does that work?
They, they, as I said, youknow, this, this, this chief
editor was a friend and he.
He always wanted me to come inonce a year and tell him what
I do for in the year for him.
So it was free to me.
That's why I did the spirit there.
This is why I did all these stories.
(05:17):
Um, and I, I told him, you know, likeall your readers, like, uh, readers
are male between 20 and 45 or older.
Um, and all men I know.
Wanna know how it is to learnto fly a helicopter, so why
don't I learn it for you?
Yes.
(05:37):
And then I rented, and then I rented ahelicopter in Vannas near Los Angeles and
flew it up to Oregon wine tasting, becausethat's what the Playboy reader wants
too.
Sure, of course.
Well, that's fantastic.
So you just leveraged your lifestyle, theadventurous spirit that you have, and you
(05:58):
use that and distill that for other peopleto enjoy, and, but you've also used that
to further your adventurous lifestyle.
I think
actually this being in a boardingschool for so long, you know, it,
it, it, it, I'm a very, uh, a veryfree spirit and for me it's very hard
to not be able to do what I want.
(06:18):
So this.
Piled up for 10 years.
And so ever since I went like,oh, I want to do a horse safari.
I want to do this.
I wanna, uh, go, uh, through theGrand Canyon and a, and a boat and,
and I just always try to find people.
I try to photograph it in a way thatmoves people so that I find someone
(06:39):
who wants me to do it for him, likestir National Geographic and so on.
Out of all of these adventures that you'vehad both for yourself as well to be able
to share with other people, are there anythat kind of stick out in your mind for
the impact it made on you and your life?
Uh, there's a few, but I
think that one big change in myperception was the first safari I did.
(07:01):
Uh, but the strongest one was, uh, asafari I did in Kenya, um, where we
had a moving camp and we, we, we rodefor eight, five to eight hours a day.
Doing a safari horseback.
And, uh, we filmed that for Leica.
And, uh, it was a great relaunchand a great chance for me to come
(07:24):
back after a rather difficult time.
And it was kind of a, kind of a restart.
So for me,
there is no better way to livean adventure than in Africa.
Ideally on horseback.
If you can't ride, youcan't do it, obviously.
(07:45):
But, uh, uh, it's still cool on motorcycleor four by four or on foot or hunting,
whatever, you know, but, but, uh,preferably I would say a horse picks
far in Africa is pretty much, i, I, Ican't, I can't describe anything better.
When you say that you were comingback off of a difficult time, is that
(08:08):
something you're open to talking about?
Absolutely, yes.
Uh.
Um, I was, I, I had a, I had anaccident, which physically hit me.
Um, mm. I also went, uh, uh, wentthrough a, it's, it wasn't a divorce,
but I don't know the English word, butI, my girlfriend and I separated and,
(08:33):
uh, and that also hit me financially.
Um, and so, so there were like threecolumns out of my system that were
not operating properly anymore.
And, uh, and I went, actually, I, Iwent to get, uh, professional help, uh,
which was the best thing I, I ever did.
(08:53):
And I really, I, I, I think you shoulddo it, uh, uh, uh, in schools as a, as
something every child has to learn about.
You know, you don't need this, uh,personal training, uh, necessarily.
But it's so helpful.
I now use it for creativity, for, uh,you know, if I have a difficult, uh,
(09:19):
nut to crack, then I use it for that.
Um, and it's just sohelpful and it's so healthy.
I've, I've totally tressed and,uh, I'm much more successful
since I did these techniques.
It's, uh, it's about, um, hypnosis,self-hypnosis technique that I was
taught to solve the problems Okay.
(09:40):
In the under unconsciousness.
Um, and so, uh, I'm not sure if youheard about my project African Waters,
where I, I I, I, I charged a helicopterin Johannesburg and flew through 10
African countries to photograph waterthrough a, in a special technique.
Uh.
(10:01):
And, um, and I had so many problemsalong the way with, with, uh, you
know, the, the pilot that I was oobliged to rent with the helicopter.
He couldn't come becausehis wife got sick.
Then the helicopter crashed.
I needed a new helicopter.
So it was like, there were a amillion reasons to stop, but I
(10:23):
didn't because I had learned thistechnique and, and it was so far my
biggest and most successful project.
I'm, I'm curious about thisself hypnosis technique.
Does it go by a certain nameor is there a process that you
follow that you found useful?
'cause it's something that I thinkmyself and the listeners would
probably benefit from as well too.
(10:44):
It's called,
uh, in German, it's, so I wouldsay it's auto suggestion technique.
And, uh, it is, it is something, um.
When you get taught, you havesomeone taking you in un in in your
under conscious mindset setting.
You can compare it with, when you,when you go to sleep, you have this
(11:08):
short period where you go like, oh,ah, I, I must go to the bank tomorrow.
Oh, I forgot this.
Oh, where you let looseof everything else.
And then suddenly all the,you clean up your system.
And that's basically where you guideyourself into, through breathing and
through colors and through techniques.
(11:30):
It's, it's amazing how,how much it does for you.
And, and that's a process thatyou use in order to be able
to be more present, is it?
Yeah.
Well, I use
it in very stressful situations.
I use it before important, uh, meetings.
I use it, uh, uh, for creativity.
If I, you know, if I. Try to figure outa way where I can defer myself from the
(11:52):
millions of photographers out there.
Um, and, and for, for all kinds of things.
It's, uh, just to relax.
You know, if I'm really tired, I do itfor 20 minutes and it feels like you had
slept for three hours.
I just got back froma successful elk hunt.
I was out hunting with a mutual friend ofours with Brad Clock, and, uh, aside from
(12:15):
Brad being a very talented elk caller,he was able to call in a, uh, a beautiful
elk within about, uh, 45 meters or so.
And, uh, stuck around for awhile and we decided, yep,
that's the one we want to take.
Took it.
Um, but in between all of thatwe're chatting and I said, you
know, I got this conversation.
(12:37):
With Florian coming up and, uh, hesays, oh, if you're chatting with
Florian, you should talk to him abouthis motorcycle trip across Australian
Outback where he broke his ribs.
Yeah, that was a tough one
that you have to say that Brett, uh,Brett is, Brett knows a lot about
(12:58):
me because he helped me one day.
I, I did, I did, uh, PR forMike Wiley for a long time.
Mike Wiley Hill Ski.
Okay.
In the Caribou Mountains.
Yeah.
And, uh, Brett helped me to get my team,you know, uh, looked after in Vancouver.
Uh, he, he arranged a bed for us inthe Waterfront Hotel and they took
(13:18):
us out for dinner and it was great.
So he knows a little bit and, um, mm-hmm.
Out of all the adventures, you know, Itry to do, uh, proper risk management as
a hunter, you know, how important that is.
And, uh.
And, uh mm-hmm.
And at that time I was testing, uh, camerabags for Low Pro and I, I helped develop
(13:43):
a vest where you don't have a camera bagbut you carry everything on your body.
Um, and, uh, and we went through the,uh, uh, it was called the canning stock
route, which is a really tough, roughterrain, bull dust, very hard to ride.
And my motorcycle got stuck at about80 Ks and I was like, I was stopped
(14:06):
immediately and I flew, and thisbike stayed, but I had the only
lens I ever owned with a metal frame
hit.
I think it tore, uh, it brokefour ribs and it tore the spleen.
And, uh, and that is very dangerous.
(14:28):
Um, so.
Um, we had to go back.
We couldn't call a helicopter 'cause itwas too far for the helicopter to go.
So we had to drive to the nextvillage for eight hours with four
broken ribs in really hard terrain.
It was not a nice experienceat all whatsoever, and I was
very lucky to survive it.
(14:49):
No kidding.
Well, you know, there was one thing thatkind of, uh, caught my eye in your CV
that you have kind of hidden in there.
You make a statement and you say, at onepoint I realized I present myself and
as an adventure photographer, but whathappens when the supermarket closes?
(15:12):
Can I feed myself?
What's that all about?
I, when I had this difficult time.
A very close friend, uh, and he wasthe painter for, uh, Playboy Magazine.
So they, they had illustrations and,uh, and when I had the hard time,
I, I took out all the stories thatI had made until then and tried
(15:37):
to figure out what am I good at?
Where did I make good money?
Where was it good for the reputation?
Um, and where did I have fun?
And I figured out everything wasmore successful if, if it was
helicopters, mountains, or horses.
I come from a mountain background.
(15:58):
We used to have our ownski lift, my, my family.
So I started skiing at two.
Um, I then flew paraglider and so myfirst career was all about extreme sports.
And um, and somehow people made me the.
Adventurer, you know, like,because I always did these stories.
(16:21):
Um, and then I started to market myself.
So this friend painted a picturewith me riding my horse with me,
uh, with a helicopter on the sideand, uh, and the mountains in the
background with a paraglider and,uh, giraf running through the sunset.
It's a, it's a great picture.
And, uh, and that really,uh, was my new identity.
(16:42):
That's what I wanted to live,that's what it wanted to be.
And then after 15 years of,or 10 years doing that, you
know, it got more and more.
I, I was, uh, in the media quite a bit.
So, um, and then I, I, Irealized that, you know, uh.
I, if I go to my, my heart in themountains, I see the, the signs.
(17:06):
But I don't know, is it a deer or isit a, a, a small deer or is what is it?
You know, I, uh, since I grewup in a boarding school, that's
not what they teach you there.
Right?
Uh, so, um, and, and then, and then I,I just wanted to learn more about it.
And I thought, you know, I, if Imarket myself as a adventurer and the
supermarket closes, and I don't even knowhow to, you know, like it's not about
(17:30):
the shooting, but you have to open it.
You have to know where to cut, what youhave to know how to keep it, freeze it,
uh, uh, a lot of things that I didn'tknow and, and I, I really wanted to do it.
And our friend Marcus, that isa good friend of Brett as well.
Um mm-hmm.
He, he teaches, uh, hunting.
(17:51):
And so I joined his, his course and,uh, and finally did my license in 2015.
Way too late.
Way too late.
It was only 2015.
Holy crow.
And you growing up with Marcus, I figuredyou would've been in it way earlier
than that, than, uh, well, his, his
father is my godfather.
(18:11):
And at you 10 or 11, that's right.
When, when you, uh, and, and what we did,we, we went to the hunting ground and
we were shooting in the shooting range.
And you, like, I had all thechances, but for a long time I
said, my trophy is the picture.
Mm. You know, I, when I did the spiritbear, I would've never wanted to shoot it.
(18:32):
You know, I, I wanted to captureit and my trophy was the image.
But, uh, that changeda lot since, you know.
But, uh, yeah, coming, being so closeto this family is total, total nonsense.
Not Yeah.
From the
very beginning, from birth, youknow, so I, I can respect that a lot.
(18:53):
I can respect that your trophy is apicture, because, you know, whether you're
out shooting animals with a rifle oryou're shooting animals with your camera,
you're experiencing the outdoors in away that's, I think, deeper than what
most people will expose themselves to.
If you're out there with the camera,you're gonna have to be quiet.
(19:14):
You're gonna have to know the animalscycles and the flora and the fauna,
and where you're likely to see one.
And, and you want to be able to capturean animal in its natural environment.
As a hunter, it's the same sort of thing.
And aside from that split second whereyou snap the camera shutter, or you
snap the trigger and the firing pingoes forward and the round goes off.
(19:38):
There's so many similarities now.
Things change a little bit afterthe trigger is pulled and the work
begins and you start processingthe animal, uh, you're going home
with memories, not a photograph,and you're going home with meat.
But, um, 2015, you made that, thatvery conscious kind of changeover.
(20:01):
How has your life been differentsince you've connected with nature
with a rifle as well as a camera?
I decide
before I go what I do for a start.
I, I never take camera and rifle.
Um, but I changed it.
Okay.
Because, because of thisthought that I just mentioned
(20:23):
about the supermarket closing.
And then I have a very closefriend, uh, Michael Arle.
He's a, a great photographer aswell, and he, he was, uh, uh.
I've been befriended with himfor 25 years, ever since I
started working with Leika.
He was, he used to, uh,be there and, um, mm-hmm.
(20:44):
And, and it was a professional decisionbecause I could widen my clientele,
uh, through the, through hunting.
Um, because, uh, in the huntingseason, uh, in the, in the
hunting business, there's notso many very good photographers.
(21:04):
There's a lot of hunters that takephotos, but there's not many very
good photographers who hunt, whohave the license, who can carry a gun
legally, take it to another country.
And, um, and every, and I love, I loveexplaining, you know, uh, in, in Germany
we have a very, um, uh, conservative.
(21:30):
W many people have a veryconservative way of seeing hunting.
It's like old men, uh, verytraditional, very elite in Europe,
you know, it used to be the, the,so the own, the, the, the farmers
could only shoot the little animals.
The, the trophies were allreserved for the king or for
(21:51):
the, for the higher standards.
And, um, mm. And I always liked theway, um, I saw hunting in Canada or,
or in the Amer in the United Statesbecause it is more, like, more hands-on,
um, for living as I imagined it to be.
(22:11):
Mm-hmm.
And, um, and I try, I nowtry to, like, when I started
taking photos of, uh, hunting.
Like all the non-hunting magazineswould be very, uh, reserved about,
uh, bringing a hunting story.
Now, um, I'm not sure if you know, ifyou know Stefan from Hamad, wilt the,
(22:31):
also a friend of Marcus, he, they makesustainable hunting in the Ian and
Bavarian Alps and they utilize everything.
So we, I I I, I like the, that I, Iwas, uh, allowed to hunt on his ground.
I made the lead horse.
I'm going Toto Fest with tomorrow.
(22:52):
Uh, I have a defender limited edition.
And, and, and we use the skins, we usethe deer leather skins for the seed.
So, uh, and, uh, we don'tthrow away anything.
And, um, and that really for meis a good way of hunting and.
Coming into the modern times.
(23:14):
There's also a lot of development thatmakes hunting safer and, uh, which
also makes hunting more precise so thatthe suffering is less so, like the new
bullets that are made, the silencesthat are put on the rifle have all an
effect on how clean and good you hunt.
(23:34):
And, uh, and that I find fascinating.
And, uh, when I did this film thatI talked before about the, uh,
horseback safari in Kenya, um, Ifound out that my, the best I'm at
is to emotionalize technical stuff.
(23:55):
And I also realized that theworst thing I am at is fashion.
I'm, I'm
okay.
I, I did fashion for threeyears and I, I was divorced.
Fashion photographer.
The world, the, the worldhas ever seen, I promise you.
(24:18):
But I made good money at least.
Hey, there's always that, right?
Well, since you've gotten into hunting,uh, you've set up, uh, you, you've got
associations with like Hordy and withSavage and with Polaris, and I've seen
your work on like the Hordy magazines.
You open it up and there, there'syour photographs inside there.
(24:41):
How do you.
Join.
When you talk about that emotional, uh,relation to a technical product, how
to emotionalize it, how do you do that?
I,
I
try.
I, I come from storytelling, soI try to find an emotional story.
Um, so like what I found reallyfun, um, we had this super good
(25:02):
looking hunters from Norway.
Uh, if you see her in a city, youwould not believe she's a hunter.
You know, she's a very long blondehair, very beautiful, and, and, uh,
no prejudice, but it was just notsomeone I would connect to hunting
if I wouldn't met her hunting.
And, uh, and she was an excellenthunter hunters, and, um, and it was
(25:24):
just, uh, a pure joy to see her movethrough the mountains and be like,
everything she did was very quietand very smooth and very elegant.
And so we, we went to the, we didthe story about, uh, we go to Norway
and live what, from what we catch.
And I, I think we were a bitoverconfident, you know, 'cause
(25:47):
I, I've been fishing withMarcus since I was a little kid.
I was, um, I was hunting before I was, uh,we had a very good hunting guide with us.
We, uh, my girlfriend, she's Regina,she knows a lot about berries and,
and mushrooms that you can find.
And, uh, and we didn't get anything.
And, uh, and the, the articleended, uh, with, uh, an, uh, the
(26:11):
sentence we find ourselves in ournatural habitats, the supermarket,
because we, we didn't make it.
We, we just didn't make it.
Fair enough, fair enough.
And so, and so, this is, this is anemotional way, like also failing.
You know, we didn't, we didn't hide it.
We didn't pretend, oh yeah, we made it.
(26:32):
No, we didn't make it.
So let's talk about it.
And, uh, and it was great.
It was a great week.
We had great fun, but we had no success.
We, we, we caught one little fishin after three days for five people.
You know, that's, that's notsufficient if you wanna work
and go hunting in the mountains.
And, uh, and the weather was really bad.
(26:53):
And so, yeah.
So no excuses.
We just failed.
So I try to, to find stories, whichI think is a, a, a, a great story
that I'm about to do now for, uh,Polaris and Hordy is, uh, uh, that
we, um, there's a mountain ground inAustria on a lake, and Kai Maximilian.
(27:16):
So the, the king of Austria, he usedto go hunting there because he didn't
hike into the mountains to get reddeer in Samoa because he could drive
by boat and shoot up the up the hill.
So in order to have fun with ashunting guests, with musicians, and
so he built a house and there werealso ladies brought in from burg.
(27:43):
So it was a house of joy, goodfood, fun party, and it was
the first touristic house.
In Austria and now Austria, notin Austria, in Ro, but Roy now
makes 30, I think 34% of the, uh,of the all over income is tourism.
(28:06):
And the first house was a hunting hut.
Huh.
So this is the story I'm gonna tell.
It's, it's one of the, it's onlake, it's Hanzi is the name.
It's one of the most beautifulplaces I know in, in Austria.
And it's great.
You can go skiing there,paragliding, whatever.
Uh, and also hunting.
And I went there, uh, last year andit was one of the most beautiful
(28:30):
hunting experiences I ever had.
Like the, we went, we started in the snowand then into fog, and then we found the
shawa and, and uh, after the hunt, thesun broke through and the lake came out.
And the morning rise, itwas just unbelievable.
I sent you the photos later.
Yes.
Yeah, that sounds interesting.
(28:50):
So I like, there's shows out therelike Meat Eater in North America
and what struck me about theirapproach was that they would show the
failures as well as the successes.
And quite often they'll have anepisode and nothing gets harvested,
but they're able to tell that story.
And I think, like from an outsider,uh, I was having this conversation
(29:13):
with somebody who works in, in huntingmedia and I said, you know, I think
that's, I think that's the ticket.
I think that's thesolution to broadening the.
Uh, the audience of people who mightbe interested in learning more about
the outdoors, learning more abouthunting and, and self-sufficiency
is to show that struggle andto show the human story of it.
(29:34):
And the fellow said,yeah, I agree with you.
However, the stats don't lie.
And when we look at the shows that we putout that have a kill shot versus the shows
that don't, the kill shot always getsmore attention and it gets more views.
Now, maybe that was the demographicthat this person was dealing with that
(29:56):
they're seeing on, but, uh, I don't knowwhat, what are your thoughts on that?
Are we moving away from the traditionalhunting grip and grin, kill shot
type, uh, story to something that'smaybe a little bit more robust?
Or are we just looking atcompletely different markets?
I think there's still differences in,depending on where you go hunting, you
(30:18):
know, I think hunting in Russia is.
Quite different to hunting in Africaor hunting in Germany or or Canada.
What happened to me?
I can only tell for myself, Inever like to throw away food,
but since I hunt, I hate it.
Um, and that's because first ofall, um, you work hard for it.
(30:45):
You know, you do the, the huntinglicense in Germany, that's quite hard.
Uh, then you go out, you see nothing, yougo out again, you freeze, you see nothing.
You don't sleep as much as youshould because you went out again.
Um, then you finally seesomething, it's the wrong animal.
Then you go out again, you finallyshoot something, then you process
(31:07):
it, and at the end of a very longtime, it comes to your table.
And if then somebody throws it away,
uh, it feels wrong.
And you take a life,you still take a life.
It's not fun, it's not a, Imean, for some people it's fun.
I, I don't wanna comment that,but for me, it's not fun.
(31:29):
I, I, I need a real reason.
I don't shoot for fun, you know?
I don't just do it for, I always use thetrophy because it's always a nice memory,
but I would never shoot for the trophy.
I don't need a trophy for like, youknow, even though I have them all,
but it's not the reason why I should,you know, like sometimes trophies
(31:52):
are not so good to eat, you know?
But I mean, like the very goodtrophies, not, not as good
to eat as for the trophies.
And so, but I still have all thetrophies and I still remember the,
um, every single hunt I went to.
I've always had an interest in theoutdoors and I got into hunting
(32:13):
later in life, like yourself.
And the idea of trophy huntingis thrown around in the media
as a very negative thing.
It says you're just going outthere so you can get a rack or you
can get a mount and mounted up.
But since getting into hunting, I'velearned that there's a very different
perspective on trophy hunting.
It's a much more selective processwhere a person will go out and they
(32:36):
say they're very intentional, they'regonna let a lot of animals go on by,
and it doesn't negate the fact thatthey're still enjoying the meat.
They're still going to useevery part of the animal.
But now they've got something thatwhen they look at it, like a friend
of mine, he says, oh, are you gonnaget that mounted into a trophy?
When I was, um, uh.
(32:56):
Uh, just getting into hunting.
I was like, no, that's, Idon't wanna be a trophy hunter.
I've got no interest in that.
I've got an interest in the meatand I can utilize the, um, the, the
hide for these different things.
But he says, you know, every timeI look at one of my trophies on the
wall, it brings me back to that huntand it connects me back to nature.
And it's, I mean, it'sa part of the animal.
(33:18):
Yes, it costs more.
Yes, there's more timeinvolved in order to be able to
preserve certain parts of it.
I still eat all the meat, but nowI've got something I can look at.
And it brings me back to that hunt.
And he says, each and every one Ican look at and instantaneously have
a memory of what I was doing and whoI was with and what I was feeling.
And that, that put trophy hunting,or the idea of keeping trophies in
(33:41):
a very different perspective forme, one that I can get behind, which
is very different from how, uh, themedia can negatively portray it.
There's also a, there's alsoa very important aspect, uh.
That I just experienced in Africa.
I was, uh, I did a, a horsebacksafari, uh, in, in the OK Vango
Delta, uh, in a camp called Matu.
(34:05):
And they have very, very good guides.
Like, uh, you know, they are,they grew up in the bush.
They ride like hell.
They know everything.
You can ask the manyquestion on, on the planet.
They will have an answer for it.
And I wasn't there the first time.
So I, you know, I, I, and I askedthe guides holes in the stomach.
We say in Germany, you know,I asked all day, every day.
(34:28):
So I said to, to one of theguides, I said, what do you
think about shooting elephant?
You know, because I thinkthey're very smart animals.
They're beautiful animals.
We go there, we pay alot of money to see them.
Uh, they are incredibly beautiful.
They're social.
They have a memory.
(34:49):
Um, it's very hard to decide to shoot anelephant, but, and I'm not sure if this is
the office official version of, uh, safariCamps in, especially in Namibia, but
they have a, a, a cruel overpopulation.
And um, what they do is they selltrophies because a trophy, a strong
(35:13):
trophy, usually is not fertilizing,it's not producing anymore.
They bring a lot of money and the money.
They use for fighting poaching.
I also did a story for Playboyabout poaching, rhino poaching
in, in the Kruger National Park.
And when you see what happens there,it's, it's just, uh, mind blowing.
(35:36):
And it's a, that wouldbe a podcast in itself.
But to make a long story short mm-hmm.
If, if they, and they, theyhave a lot of accidents.
'cause the OB population is so big nowthat the children, they don't have buses.
They have to walk to school and they have,every year they, a number of children die
because they have conflict with elephant.
(35:57):
Um, and once an elephant has learnedto feed itself from a, from a field,
once an elephant has learned to comeinto a town and confront people,
uh, the whole family will learn it.
So you can shoot that elephant,which is, in Germany we call it the.
(36:18):
Problem elephant or a problembear or a problem lion.
Mm.
But that costs you moneyand it's hard to do.
Whereas when you have a professionalguide and the tourist paying a hundred
thousand dollars to get that trophy,and you can build a school with that
(36:39):
for the children that is closer tothe village, you can, they still eat
all the feed, the, the, the meat.
They always take the meat.
Um, and you help the community in manyways by solving a problem, whereas
you can solve the problem yourself.
And, you know, so I'm not againsttrophy hunting, don't get me wrong.
(37:00):
I'm just not, I don't like shootingan animal just for the trophy, but
that's my personal I agree opinion.
You know, I don't, I don'tblame someone for doing it.
There are good reasons why a good trophy.
It is worth shooting andthere's good reasons for it, and
other reasons are not so good.
(37:20):
And then people do it anyways.
Yeah.
Well, I, I've never been to Africa.
Uh, I plan to, that's gonnabe a, uh, a future thing.
Maybe I'm gonna have to come to Africaon, look at the animals from horseback.
That might be, uh, aninteresting adventure.
Uh, I know a, uh, good friend ofmine had some, uh, heart issues
(37:40):
recently and I guess that, uh, heended up in the hospital and it
was, uh, it was ex rather serious.
And he comes out and he says, Trav,I wanna, I wanna hike Kilimanjaro.
He wanna come hike Kilimanjaro with me.
And I'm like, yeah, sure.
Okay, let's do that.
Maybe, uh, are you sure you're up for it?
Right?
He said, oh, no, I'm sure I'm up for it.
Let's do this.
So, um, that's gonna be somethingin our sights in the future to,
(38:03):
uh, to check out Kilimanjaro and,uh, maybe look at doing a bit of a
sightseeing animal tour after that.
But the, the idea of the Africantrophy hunting really kind of, uh, put
things on its head for a lot of people.
'cause on its surface, it sounds terrible.
(38:24):
You bring people in, they're huntingfor a trophy and they're leaving.
But when you look at the alternatives,so the animals will die from starvation,
they'll die from poaching, they'll diefrom, um, there, there's a number of
reasons they could die or they can diein a way that helps sustain the harvest.
That creates an industry where the animalscan now thrive, which helps sustain the
(38:45):
environment around and done correctly.
There's a very solid caseto be made for conservation,
especially in that African model.
I remember looking, uh, I was havingsushi with a friend of mine and,
uh, he's, uh, Zibo background.
(39:05):
Uh, ex British, uh, officerin the military there, and
he gets a text message.
His family ran a large securitycompany and, uh, makes a bit of
a face and puts the phone down.
And I was like, of course, veryattuned, picking up on these
little facial expressions.
I'm like, okay, what was that?
Right?
And he said, oh, there's some poachersover in this one area of Africa and
(39:29):
I don't know where, where it was.
And I was like, okay.
He's like, oh yeah, they found them.
Oh yeah.
He said, well, what doyou mean they found 'em?
He said, oh, well, he shows me the phone.
There's three of them lined updead on a, um, on a fence line.
They just, you're a poacher.
We kill you.
Alright.
Very different attitude towards, um,their conservation, the poaching,
(39:53):
how, how the, how the world works.
And it took me a little bit to kindof get my head shifted around this
North American model that we have.
And try and see it fromthe African's perspective.
And it's, I guess the tough part isnot trying to imply my own values and
my own prejudices on a culture andsociety that's, uh, completely separate.
(40:15):
So that, that was, that was anotherbit of an eyeopening thing for me.
And,
you know, it's
a war, you know, uh, the thing is inthe, in, in the world that there's,
uh, around 35,000 rhinos left.
Um, 15,000 of them are in KrugerNational Park in South Africa.
When I was there, we photographedfor, again, for Playboy,
(40:38):
uh, from Friday till Monday.
In this time, nine rhinoswere poached 500 a year.
Wow.
So you don't have to, you don'thave to be a rocket scientist
to calculate how long this.
Will happen.
Um, and it's all about, it's allabout, uh, Afro It's not about,
you know, the horn does nothing.
(40:59):
It's like chewing your fingernail.
It does nothing.
But in, I think it was in 1987,in 1987, the president of Vietnam
told in television that his conceptwas cured from Rhino Horn Tea.
The year after, the numbers ofthe killings in Kruger National
(41:19):
Park went from 130 to 1,300.
The 10 times more poachers,
totally corrupt.
So, and that's also about money because,uh, rhino horn is more expensive than
cocaine or gold in the Asian market.
Um, 99% goes to Asia becauseno European would ever spend
the cent on, on a fingernail.
(41:42):
Sure.
That's what it is.
You know, you can have it cheaper.
Yeah.
But if they have no rhinos in the park.
They have no visitors in the park.
So it's, they fight them with, withdogs, with, with, uh, machine guns, like
with, uh, the semi-automatic, uh, rifles,camouflage helicopters, you name it.
You know, they don't joke around.
(42:03):
I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I sawthe guys who hunt the poachers.
I wouldn't survive them.
Mm-hmm.
Even if you give me two daysto hide, 20 minutes, I'm done.
Yeah.
Incredible.
Incredible.
Yeah.
They're a different breed, aren't they?
Incredible.
Yeah.
Well, they grew up in the bush,you know, they, they know exactly.
They can read in your footstep.
(42:24):
You know, did you, are you hurt?
Are you tired?
Do you have a sore leg?
Do you wear a backpack?
Do you, uh, drag someone with you?
They see everything.
It's, it's very impressive.
I, I, it was a greatstory to do, to learn.
Mm-hmm.
You know, and, and there's another thingthat I would just like to throw in if you,
if you like, Africa is not Africa, um.
(42:45):
There are places, it's, it's when you goto Africa that there's safaris that you
can spend a lot of money, not so cool.
Others, you don't spend so much money.
Very cool.
Others have better foodand stuff like that.
So make sure before you go, uh, we havea chat because, uh, uh, especially around
Tanzania, there's a, the tourism is,is pretty hot and they just send some
(43:08):
horrible images from caravans of fourby fours that go to the Mara River.
Um, where the, where the wildebeestcrossed, uh, the Crocs wait for them
and they had like a, a chain of, I don'tknow, 104 by fours, just with cameras.
And uh, so the tourism is alsoa big pressure for nature.
(43:29):
So the, the hunting equalizesin a way, the other tourism,
if that makes any sense.
So, um, I changed my mind a lotabout hunting in Africa since I.
Talk to the people.
And, uh, and when I sat on thecampfire at atu, the, the guide
(43:49):
chief said, we have to regulate them.
We want to protect our children.
And I totally go with that.
Yeah, I can see that.
Well, tell me more about thishorseback touring that you do.
I mean, the idea of horseback throughAfrica, looking at the different animals,
(44:10):
some of which can be quite dangerous,seems, uh, perhaps counterintuitive, but
maybe not so, because, you know, I'veread a stat that, uh, out of all the bear
attacks that have ever happened withinNorth America, no one has ever been
attacked by a bear well on horseback.
So I'm wondering if that same sortof, uh, process carries over to some
(44:33):
of the, uh, the creatures in Africa.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, yeah, the, a horse, a se.
Is a pray for a lion.
The humans can are potentially dangerous.
A horse also is potentially dangerous.
Like even if they attack azebra, they, they get bad
(44:56):
bruises from the, from the kicks.
So from the point of alion, same as in a jeep.
You know, like you see often thesepictures when, uh, when the tourists
sit in the jeep at the, at thewalk and, uh, the lion walks by.
Um, you are not typical prey generally.
Um, what what is to be put into mind isthat if you fall off, that can change.
(45:28):
And, uh, you always have exceptions.
I mean, you're in bear country.
If you, if you surprise a motherwith cups, she won't ask questions.
You know, she will charge.
If an elephant charges you, youprobably, if you stay in the saddle.
You, you, you're fine.
Uh, if it, and so, uh, and they,they have very, very good horses.
(45:48):
It's amazing.
Like, uh, I know how our horses, uh,reacted on the first Lama, you know,
and they, these horses, they standin front of an elephant, pull 20
meters and, and don't do anything.
They look at them, okay, they areaware, but they're very cool about it.
So, um, when I did my first tripthrough Australia with a motorcycle, I,
(46:14):
I met a friend who, um, who organizesmotorcycle trips all over the world.
And for 10 years he told methat, um, I must go to Namibia.
And, uh, and there were motorcycletrip with his friend Vanna.
So, uh, I met Vanna now and wedecided to do tours together in
(46:37):
Namibia with his friend who's, uh.
Who's a, who has a beautiful ranchwhere you have a lot of good animals.
But it would be a good starting point.
You know, I think if you wannago riding in the Banco Delta, you
should be a very experienced rider.
Um, but if you go in, in Namibia,you know where the, the desert,
(47:01):
they don't have as many lines and nocrocodiles, or not at Kuma is where
we go and they have a great Westerntrainer preparing them for the ride.
And then you do slow rides and thenyou, you find some antelopes and you
can work yourself into that thing.
Um, for me, the, uh, the OK Delta is,is it's the Garden Eden of Africa.
(47:26):
It's the cover of my book African Waters.
It's just an unbelievable scenery, butso is the, and so I think if you wanna.
If you wanna learn, if you wannado a safari in horseback, you
should actually go step by step.
As I said, you know, some have betterhorses, some have better food, some have
(47:48):
more safety, some are wilder, which is allgood for, you know, I like the wild stuff,
but I don't blame anybody who doesn't.
Um, and so that would besomething I would consider.
You know, there's, uh, uh, wait alittle, they have the big five, but
they have very civilized, uh, horses.
You know, like they verycontrolled and very safe.
(48:08):
Safe, safe.
Yeah.
That's something I wouldrecommend to someone.
To start with maybe, and then workyour ways into wilder and wilder.
And once you've done it,you you're gonna be hooked.
I'm just preparing you.
Don't blame me if you're spent therest of your life on ho picks about
and you cannot go huntingwell, is this something?
(48:31):
There you go.
Is this something that, uh, a, a personwould have to have, uh, a fair bit of
horseback experience before going over?
Or are there ones where as long asyou can kind of stay on the horse,
you can start figuring it out?
I mean, like a friend of mine, uh,once said he bought a sailboat.
(48:52):
I'm like, I didn't know you could sail.
He's like, what do you mean?
It's a boat and it's a sheetand you catch the wind?
I mean, there's gonna be differentdegrees of being able to sail,
but anyone can sail a boat.
And I've always kind of thoughtthe same thing with horses.
Anyone can ride a horse, you canget up on the back of it, keep
your heels down and hold on tight.
And, uh, but there's gonna be adifference between those who can
(49:14):
ride a horse and those who canjust sit on top of these things.
Like if.
If I had come over with minimalhorseback experience, would I
be doing myself a disservice as,
as in hunting?
I, I do have a, a round ofpartners in, in the horse business.
'cause we, uh, my girlfriend and I, wecrossed Ireland on horseback and we,
uh, I did in 2013 I crossed Germanyon horseback for National Geographic.
(49:37):
So we have a, a bunch of partnersand one of them is Quipe and they,
and they connected me with a Westerntrainer, Tom Bele from Pro Balance
is the, is the, is his concept.
And if you would, if you wouldask me, can I go on Safari?
I wouldn't send you anywhere.
(49:58):
I would ask you to train with himintensively until he says good to go.
If that makes any sense.
Like if, if you find a, a honest, goodtrainer who can, who can teach you.
Very much in a very short time, and theypromise you they give you a safe horse,
(50:22):
then it shouldn't be, uh, a problem.
So now that they are offering like threedays training, two days cowboy work and
safari at Kuma is for example, so likethree days real preparation, preparation
until everybody's fit to sit on a horse,even though there might be whatever
(50:44):
lion leopard come around the cornerand be aggressive, which they are not.
You know, it's very unlikely that a lionor a leopard attacks during the day if, if
you don't give him a really good reason.
And they have guidespreventing you from that.
You know, they have not many accidents.
Mm-hmm.
But they will say, but they willsay if they see that you lied, you
(51:07):
know, you have to fill out a form.
And if they, we had a, we had a horsebusiness here in the mountains in
Obama ago, and it was just amazing.
Like 90% of the people either believedthey were better riders than they
were, or they just lied to us.
We just, uh, and it was, that was not,we have, you know, like we had saved
horses and so it was okay, but, uh,it was not so good for our horses.
(51:30):
But, um, but if you do that in Africa,they will, they will just not take
you, you know, they, they will see it.
And, and so it would be better totrain before and be honest about
your skills and then, and then theytake you and then you're hooked and
then you wanna train all day anyway.
Well, how much training do you thinkit would take for somebody to get
a, a certain level of comfort tobe able to go and do one of these?
(51:52):
I
what, what I would do is I would take
lessons ahead.
Uh, if you have a very goodtrainer, um, I would say five
in 10 days bring you to a level.
If you are athletic and not scared.
I mean, it's not, you know, you shouldhave a, a fitness, you should be
able to get up the horse on your own.
(52:14):
Um, you should be like able to roll offif you fall off and not just fall there.
We had one, we had one incident of a,of a, uh, a guest and, uh, we have a
one very peaceful horse and she wasjust walking and the, and she was not so
balanced, so, and she was holding on thesaddle and she, she flipped the saddle
(52:36):
and hang on the belly of the horse.
Still holding off the saddle.
Oh man.
Not,
not so good for safari, maybe.
No, those aren't the pictures you want.
Nope.
Oh, man.
So do you have any dream projects thatyou're, uh, you're working towards?
(52:59):
When I
started African Waters, I, I still, um,I'm still keen to do Worldwide Waters.
Um, African Waters was supersuccessful in the media.
I never had a story published closeto to, to that every big magazine,
newspaper, TV show, everything.
(53:20):
And then COVID hit and thenI started to build it up.
Um, and so I did European waters,um, and, um, I was, I was preparing
and I'm still hoping for AmericanWaters or Canada Canadian waters.
Um, both are equally interesting.
(53:44):
And, uh, at the moment I would actually
prefer Canadian waters.
What's the goal of the Waters project?
I know you started with African Waters.
What was the goal thereand has it expanded?
The idea is, um,
I, I fly with a helicopter.
I need that for the photos.
So, uh, when, when I find the spot agreat, a glacier, a lake, a river, um, we,
(54:11):
we stop the helicopter and we rotate itfor a 360 degree photo, which I take with
the like eyes, which is a medium formatcamera, big sensor so that I stitch.
And so that way you get pictures that aredifferent to all the 2 billion photos that
(54:32):
get uploaded every day in the internet.
And so once I have theattention through this picture.
I go to the ground and I ask thepeople, I ask the park ranger,
the farmer, the scientist.
Um, I've been, I I've been amember of the Explorers Club
since last year in New York.
(54:52):
Um, so they have a, a, aincredible network of scientists.
Um, and so, and they're allvery, it's like a, like, you
know, it's a being in a family.
Once you're a member, they're alwayshelpful with information, with
contacts, with licenses, whatever.
And, um, and so I, uh, what I, I, I,I go to these scientists, whatever,
(55:20):
and tell their story about the water.
It's incredibly exciting.
So, for example, lake Tanika has 17% ofthe world's sweet water reserves, 17%.
And due to overfishing,it is about two tilt.
Um, I, I could tell you 20 stories.
(55:40):
Now, all glacier in Switzerland has been,uh, one of the largest glaciers in Europe.
Uh, will be gone by the end of thecentury, um, with consequences that
are not to be, you know, calculatedyet, but they're gonna be horrific.
Um, so, uh, every country I know,every village, I know every, uh,
(56:05):
everybody you talk tohas a story about water.
Like Venice is thinking.
At the same time, the sea levelsrising because they use too much
fresh water for the tourism.
It's, it's built on, uh,po poles and the poles.
When you take the, the groundwaterout, the pole sinks, so the city
sinks and stories like that.
(56:27):
Uh, don't get me started,that's gonna beano another, but
this is what I'm hoping to do.
I do it wherever I go.
I do it in Africa, I do it, uh, in Europe.
I hope to do it in Canada and the UnitedStates and South America and Asia.
It's always a question of, youknow, do I get the sponsors?
It's quite pricey to do it.
(56:49):
Uh, but also when I have the results, I, Ido, I make a book, I make a film, I make,
uh, multimedia shows all over the world.
Um, do the pr.
So that's something that, uh, thatthe sponsors really like because
they get a lot of media attentionwith the positive, uh, content.
Do you ever get up there in thehelicopter and take a photo only to find
(57:12):
out that you didn't have your settingset right, or it didn't turn out?
It happens, but not very often
because, uh, I, I, I think, uh,you know, every, every minute
counts in the helicopter.
Um, and so I, I, I like tobe professional, especially
in the helicopter.
I don't like things flying around.
(57:34):
I don't like, you know,not knowing what to do.
Oh, I forgot this.
Oh, I didn't put a, oh, I did thisbecause every, like, every mistake
is dangerous and cost a lot of money.
So it happened that.
Thing happens to me on the motorcycleor when I am, you know, all the time.
But in the helicopter, I'ma little bit different.
It's the same like on, on, on, onthe mountain where I come from.
(57:59):
You know, like when we did the Ishapma, the, the 8,000 meter peak, I wasn't
up there, but I was, I went quite far.
So once I get into thissuper, uh, extreme setting,
then I try to be prepared.
So tell me about this Explorers Club.
It kind of sounds like the, what is that?
Sherlock Holmes has got the DIY Club orwhatever that one's called, this exclusive
(58:21):
kind of, uh, uh, ritzy, um, kind of club.
Is that, is that what thisExplorers Club is all about?
Uh, it's very cool actually.
Um, you know, it's, it's very much likethe, uh, national Geographic Society.
It's a similar thing.
Uh, it was founded in 1904.
Um.
(58:42):
And the first on the moon, the firston the North Pole, the first on the
South Pole, they were all explorers.
Flag.
Uh, club flag carriers, um,which many people in Europe don't
know and you can't apply for it.
You have to be applied by someone else.
Um, and I did a multimedia show inCabret in the Dominican Republic, um,
(59:06):
with my friend Susie Mai, who's a prokite surfer, and she organizes ocean
conservation events and, um, and she.
Invited me to do that, uh,and uh, for this conservation.
And I was allowed to speak there and I didmy multimedia show and then one Explorers
Club member suggested me to become,and then you need a second sponsor.
(59:30):
They call it sponsor when the, the, theguy who invite, the person who invite you.
Mm-hmm.
And so, and then I was acceptedand now I'm a fellow member.
I'm very proud.
Um, and I'm very happy and it's very cool'cause it's, it's a New York City and, um.
You walk in and you can see it, you seethe glove from the first guy on the moon.
You see a ice bear that Cheltonbrought home at the boat.
(59:53):
He, uh, the, the sled, he used it.
Holy.
It's, it's so cool.
And, and it's, it's, uh,you can go there, it's free.
You can, you can walk inand, and walk through there.
It's, it's amazingly beautiful.
When, when I was, uh, 19 I wastraveling through Europe and, uh, it's
when I first realized that I don'tbelong in the big cities, I thought
I didn't have a problem with it.
(01:00:15):
But touring around, checking outcity after city, and I just got
this feeling of, uh, unease andbeing completely overwhelmed.
And I ended up sneaking off into theAustrian Alps and spending a week
out under a tarp, just decompressing.
And I'm like, why am I doing this?
Like, what's going on?
I was learning a bit about whatmakes me tick and what doesn't.
(01:00:38):
The idea of going to thisExplorers Club sounds amazing.
The one place, well, not the oneplace, but one of the few places in
the world that I've always had inthe back of my head that I'd probably
just not like, based on the populationsize and the busyness and the noise
and, and all the rest is New York.
But, uh, maybe, maybe I'm gonna haveto adjust Satter a little bit or,
(01:01:02):
um, bite my lip just so I can goover there and check this place out.
I am very much
with you and I, uh, my ex-girlfriendstudied in, in New York, and I never
could stay longer than four days.
It was like pain, you know, like, yeah.
I, I think it's a very cool city,but it's just for, same as with my,
I have a husky, and if she's in thecity, it's just too much information.
(01:01:26):
It's just, she can't handle it.
She's, she's going crazy, you know?
And same, same as me.
Uh, I, I used to work, I, I used to workin the city just because you need the
contact as a photographer to all the.
Uh, editorial, uh,connections and everything.
Um, and I, uh, but then I movedback out, uh, into the country
(01:01:48):
where I come from in no baba ago.
And, uh, and, uh, now I don't understandhow I could manage to be in the city
At an early age, I wasdiagnosed with severe a DH.
Maybe I got it.
Maybe I don't.
Maybe I was a product of my environment.
I, I'm not sure.
Uh, they put me on the highestdosage of Ritalin for the province
on an experimental run betweengrades three and grades seven.
(01:02:10):
I took myself off cold Turkeybefore going into high school.
I, whatever it is in my headthat ticks is just overwhelmed.
And, and I clearly, I don't fit in.
Like when I'm in a citysituation, I'll stick out.
I don't blend in.
I'm not the gray man.
I'm six foot six, 250 pounds and alertto absolutely everything that's going on.
(01:02:36):
It's like, um, Vegas.
I gotta go to a shot show for the, uh,shooting hunting, outdoor trade show.
And I don't look forward to it.
Um, all the lights, all the people,all the stuff that's kind of going on.
And I've wondered if that's due tosort of the, uh, the A DHD diagnosis
or the, uh, the sort of mindset I'm at.
(01:02:58):
And when I look at you, although, youknow, you employ mindfulness techniques,
you employ hypnosis, you ground yourselfin nature, but you're drawn to a lot
of the similar things that I'm drawnto, extreme outdoor type things.
And I'm drawn to that becauseit makes me really present.
If you're in the helicopter, you'represent, you gotta make sure you're
(01:03:21):
professional, you're dialed in, and everylittle movement you make, every piece
of kit that you have is squared away.
And, and you're right there in the moment.
If I'm on a rock face and I'm climbing,I'm thinking about my next handhold,
my next foothold, where I'm puttingprotection in I'm very present.
Same with rafting or paragliding.
Um, I'm wondering, have.
(01:03:41):
You ever been diagnosed or do youthink you come from a background
mentally of, uh, uh, neurodivergency?
Um, I, I, maybe I was very active aswell, but, uh, I, I, I see it differently,
uh, growing up in the mountains,uh, you sharp sharpen your senses.
(01:04:03):
Um, and especially when you likedangerous things, you always go,
like, I always check the wind, always.
It's, sometimes it's annoying forme myself, but I never, you know,
like even when, when I ride, I checkthe wind for the horse, I check the
wind for the where would I fly now?
How would I land now?
Where would be a, so, uh, I think ifyou want to be a good pilot, if you
(01:04:27):
want to be a good, um, hunter, uh,if you want to survive in extreme
alpinism, you have to see everything.
We are limited.
Animals are much better than we are.
But if you don't school that, ifyou don't sharpen your senses,
you're not gonna live very long.
And once the senses are sharp, they sharp.
(01:04:49):
And if you go to a city,it's just too many triggers.
You know, like it's just this, thisnoise here and the sound there and
the smell here, and the animal there,and the guy, uh, watching you here.
And it's just, I don't think, I don'tthink it's a, it's something that I, uh,
that I would connect with the illness.
I would, I would connect it with a, witha special gift that we are not as, uh,
(01:05:15):
hump as many people
have become through civilization.
You know, like if I seepeople moving in nature.
I'm just, I just go like,don't, don't you see this.
Don't, don't you hear this, don't you?
Where are you?
You know, how's the, how'sthe weather on your planet?
(01:05:36):
You know?
Um, and, uh, and it, and, uh, to give youan example, a very good friend of mine,
he's son Hunter, and he, uh, he workedin, in the forest business, and he took
as a social program, he took studentsplanting trees because, um, that's good
(01:05:58):
for the nature, that's good for thekids to learn how to plant the trees.
So he did it every year.
And so, uh, he did it with a famousschool here around the corner.
And then, uh, the, the, the teachersaid, oh, we have some, we have
some exchange students from Asia.
Uh, can we, can, canthey, can we bring them?
Because we don't knowwhat to do with them.
If, if we are all gone and they just sitin the school, they brought them and after
(01:06:22):
10 minutes they walked in the forest.
And after 10 minutes, um.
My friend turned around and hesaid, where, where are the kids?
We are not planting over there.
We, we plant up there.
It's on the mountain.
Mm. And the teacher said that, no,they, they can't walk on this ground.
They've never walked on in a forest.
They, they only know tar.
(01:06:44):
Wow.
And that's the opposite,if you know what I mean.
You know?
Yeah.
That these children, 10, 12, 11 yearsold, they cannot walk in a forest because
they're not used to uneven ground.
And so that's what, when, when I,when we had the horse business, you
could totally tell that the horsesare the first to tell you you're not,
(01:07:07):
you're, you're not good to trust.
You know, and then, and then yousee them and they make a selfie and
they look here and they, everything.
It was just incredible to seehow disconnected a, a big part of
our civilization is with nature.
And that's what I love so much aboutAfrica, because that's pure nature and
(01:07:31):
you have to know what you're doing.
You have to be aware.
You can't walk around blind inthe in, in the, in the dark.
You, you won't, you won't survive it.
And, and on a horsebackit's even more intense.
You, you're not the end ofthe food chain, you know?
And, uh, I mean, you guys knowthat you have bears and grizzly
and, and wolf and, and all that.
Uh, even though the wolf probably attackedless, less than, much less than mm-hmm.
(01:07:55):
People would expect.
But, uh.
You know what I mean?
It's, it's, it's just, uh, theintensity of feeling alive in nature.
That's what triggers me withAfrica and in nature in general.
I love Canada.
I love Bavaria, and there's manynice places, but Africa is a little,
I'm curious about, so the adventurousspirit that you have, you've always
(01:08:17):
been a free spirit, but what is itthat draws you to these, um, more
adrenaline filled adventures, and howis that evolving as you get older?
Um,
it's not getting any better.
(01:08:40):
And,
and, um, I,
I just, I just started like I, um.
I, I want to give my dimy career a new direction.
And, um, I thought about what Ican do and, um, I love safari, but
(01:09:03):
I don't like to be driven around.
Mm.
If that makes any sense.
I don't like to sit in a Jeepand then someone drives you
somewhere and then mm-hmm.
I mean, it's, it's, it's nice, don't getme wrong, but it's not, I wanna be active.
I want to go hunting, I wantto go fishing, I want to go
riding, I want to go whatever.
You know, I don't wanna just sitaround and be, uh, driven around.
(01:09:27):
Yeah.
So, so now I, uh, what I'm gonna do in thefuture is, is uh, try to take my skills
and, and my experiences and my love forphotography into Africa and take people
for bike rides and horseback riding andhelicopter flying and whatever, because
(01:09:48):
you know, the, I love that the old.
The, the, the, the old, like what I usedto make my living from like shooting for
all those magazines has become harder.
And I am not sure what, uh, artificialintelligence will do to it in the future.
Mm-hmm.
And I want to be prepared.
(01:10:09):
I never wanna wait untilsomething is too late to change.
I always try to stay in motion.
So that's why I did the mountains andthen the horses, and then the safaris.
It's, it's, I don't, once I didit five times, you know, I'm okay.
Like, it, it's, it's cool.
But, but what else is there?
(01:10:30):
And so that's gonna be my next stepthat I, that I wanna, that I wanna,
I wanna share all these stories andexperiences that I was privileged to be
able through my clients, to experiencethem and learn how to fly helicopter
and go on safari and photograph it.
I wanna give it, pass it on.
(01:10:51):
Now, you know, I wanna, mm, I wannashare the fascination I have for
Africa in an active way.
Is there anything that we haven't talkedabout that we should be talking about?
For,
for me, it, it's, uh, I'm in this processat the moment, uh, that, you know, it's
almost, I mean, I have these programsand everything that I want to offer, but.
(01:11:13):
I'm still not sure, you know, howI wanna, I have a lot of interviews
in the future, um, for projectsthat don't necessarily have to do
something with what I do at the moment.
Uh, so, um, and I was wondering,I was thinking about how do I want
myself to be seen in the future?
(01:11:34):
Where do I wanna move?
So I say like, you know, when I meetother photographers, I always hear,
oh, this is bad and this is bad.
And, and there's a lotof bad things going on.
Um, but for me, I always try tobe on the side where I'm active
and where I, I'm the hunter.
I'm not hunted.
Mm.
And that,
for me is important.
(01:11:57):
And it's, it's a philosophy for life.
Stay in motion.
You know, like if.
If, if you just sit there and waittill it's over, then it's over soon.
And I, and, and that's, and, and talkingto you today really helped me to find more
precisely where I wanna see myself in thefuture and what I wanna do in the future.
(01:12:21):
And, uh, I, I tested, uh,the first, uh, client.
I'd made a book for him, just for himabout the hill horse safari we did
together in Namibia and in Botswana.
I'm gonna send you some pictures, uh,we took there and then maybe you will
understand why the combination ofhilly horse and, and all this is, it
(01:12:45):
makes it such a different experience.
It's, it's, you know, with every safariI come closer to, to, you know, uh,
when people ask me, why do you do it?
Or what do you do?
There as so many aspects of itand so much fascination about it.
But helicopters and horses as my wholelife as 20 years ago when I had the
(01:13:06):
hard time, they, they always pull me
out the dirt, you know,Florian, I absolutely love that.
I am, I'm gonna put links in thedescription so people can see the work
you've done so they can follow youand see what you're working on next.
And, um, I, uh, I'm reallylooking forward to seeing the
(01:13:27):
photographs that you sent on over.
Thank you so much for beingon the Silver Core Podcast.
Thank you so much for having me.
It was a great
pleasure.
And to see you in Beck or in Canada.
He is a helicopter pilot, paraglidinginstructor, and extreme sports adventure,
who's captured the world throughhis lens for National Geographic,
Playboy and Leica, where he is a brandambassador from the Alps to Africa.
His journey has shifted from documentingadventures to living it through hunting
and conservation, telling the modern storyof what it means to live close to nature.
(00:36):
Welcome to the Silver CorpPodcast, my friend Florian Lagner.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm very excited to be here.
Thank you.
Well, I'm excited to have you here.
The last time you and I hung out,we were in Nuremberg and you were
regaling me with stories of adventureand daring, and I just thought if we
(00:56):
can just distill just a fraction ofwhat we were talking about before,
for the Silver Core Podcast audience,this is gonna be a successful episode.
So, uh, I'm, I'm reallystoked to get into this one.
Same here I am kind of curious.
You've lived a pretty adventurouslife and I kind of want to know
(01:17):
the origin story of all of that.
'cause you've chosen a very intentionalpath of doing things that most
people just read about in magazines.
How did this all start?
I started,
uh, I, I, I went to boarding school,Phil, maybe that's, uh, that, that
is the reason why I lived this life.
Uh, and it felt like prison.
(01:38):
Mm. And so when I came out, mm, um, I,the first thing I did, I self-taught
myself paragliding and, uh, and it wasat the very beginning, so yeah, because
there were no schools that we were onlya handful of ski instructors trying to
jump off the hill and see what happens.
And so, um, we, we, uh, and then peoplestarted asking me, uh, you know, how
(02:03):
is it, because I was so fascinated.
You could see it in my eyes.
I was just, I, I looked up this guyall the time and I just, a, anything
I wanted to do was fly, fly, fly.
So, and my, my father has a little,used to have a little woodcarving
storm, so some clients left thecamera and he didn't, he kept it for
a year, but they never came back.
(02:24):
So he.
Didn't know what to do with it.
So he gave it to me and I startedtaking photos out of the paraglider
because I couldn't explain inwords how fascinating it was.
So since nobody did that, I wasable to sell my photos quicker than
if I would've started with fashionor food or any other photography.
(02:44):
So that's, that's how it started.
And uh, I, shortly after that, I went toAustralia for a year and I crossed, um,
I crossed Australia, um, on motorcycle.
I worked as a. Uh, CZE Karoo,which is a Australian cowboy, and
(03:05):
I, um, uh, worked as a paraglidinginstructor and I did a apprenticeship
with a fashion photographer.
So after that I went home and sold allthese stories and this was what actually
started my career.
You're not a professionallytrained photographer, are you?
You, you just taught yourself how totake these pictures and then all of
(03:26):
a sudden you're doing it for NationalGeographic and for Playboy and for
big magazines and publications.
Yeah.
Well, it happened step
by step.
I was very lucky on the way, and infact, uh, the brother of the director
of the school I went to, he was, uh,working for, and uh, his name is Kyle
Foresta and he helped me into it.
(03:46):
We had a deal.
I taught him paragliding andhe wrote the articles for me.
Out of the adventure that I hadjust experienced in Australia
when I worked as a Jackaroo and Icrossed the country on motorcycle.
So that was a very good intro.
And he was very good friendswith the chief editor of Playboy.
Mm.
So they made me their specialistfor adventure stories.
(04:09):
So we.
Hilly skiing in Canada for Playboy.
I did the Spirit Bear for Playboy.
I did, uh, you know, the, the Americangovernment, they capture Mustangs to,
uh, prevent them from being killedand, uh, have inmates to break them
in as a resocialization program.
And I did that for Playboy.
So that was a very strong startbecause, uh, it's been, I know the
(04:34):
reputation is different, but inGermany, the writers and photographers
who were privileged enough to workfor Playboy had a very high standard.
And it was very, it was my, mybest client for a long time.
And still, we are still close.
I mean, uh, this is, uh, Ieven, they even, uh, paid me
(04:54):
to do my helicopter license.
Did they really?
Yeah, they did.
How does that work?
They, they, as I said, youknow, this, this, this chief
editor was a friend and he.
He always wanted me to come inonce a year and tell him what
I do for in the year for him.
So it was free to me.
That's why I did the spirit there.
This is why I did all these stories.
(05:17):
Um, and I, I told him, you know, likeall your readers, like, uh, readers
are male between 20 and 45 or older.
Um, and all men I know.
Wanna know how it is to learnto fly a helicopter, so why
don't I learn it for you?
Yes.
(05:37):
And then I rented, and then I rented ahelicopter in Vannas near Los Angeles and
flew it up to Oregon wine tasting, becausethat's what the Playboy reader wants
too.
Sure, of course.
Well, that's fantastic.
So you just leveraged your lifestyle, theadventurous spirit that you have, and you
(05:58):
use that and distill that for other peopleto enjoy, and, but you've also used that
to further your adventurous lifestyle.
I think
actually this being in a boardingschool for so long, you know, it,
it, it, it, I'm a very, uh, a veryfree spirit and for me it's very hard
to not be able to do what I want.
(06:18):
So this.
Piled up for 10 years.
And so ever since I went like,oh, I want to do a horse safari.
I want to do this.
I wanna, uh, go, uh, through theGrand Canyon and a, and a boat and,
and I just always try to find people.
I try to photograph it in a way thatmoves people so that I find someone
(06:39):
who wants me to do it for him, likestir National Geographic and so on.
Out of all of these adventures that you'vehad both for yourself as well to be able
to share with other people, are there anythat kind of stick out in your mind for
the impact it made on you and your life?
Uh, there's a few, but I
think that one big change in myperception was the first safari I did.
(07:01):
Uh, but the strongest one was, uh, asafari I did in Kenya, um, where we
had a moving camp and we, we, we rodefor eight, five to eight hours a day.
Doing a safari horseback.
And, uh, we filmed that for Leica.
And, uh, it was a great relaunchand a great chance for me to come
(07:24):
back after a rather difficult time.
And it was kind of a, kind of a restart.
So for me,
there is no better way to livean adventure than in Africa.
Ideally on horseback.
If you can't ride, youcan't do it, obviously.
(07:45):
But, uh, uh, it's still cool on motorcycleor four by four or on foot or hunting,
whatever, you know, but, but, uh,preferably I would say a horse picks
far in Africa is pretty much, i, I, Ican't, I can't describe anything better.
When you say that you were comingback off of a difficult time, is that
(08:08):
something you're open to talking about?
Absolutely, yes.
Uh.
Um, I was, I, I had a, I had anaccident, which physically hit me.
Um, mm. I also went, uh, uh, wentthrough a, it's, it wasn't a divorce,
but I don't know the English word, butI, my girlfriend and I separated and,
(08:33):
uh, and that also hit me financially.
Um, and so, so there were like threecolumns out of my system that were
not operating properly anymore.
And, uh, and I went, actually, I, Iwent to get, uh, professional help, uh,
which was the best thing I, I ever did.
(08:53):
And I really, I, I, I think you shoulddo it, uh, uh, uh, in schools as a, as
something every child has to learn about.
You know, you don't need this, uh,personal training, uh, necessarily.
But it's so helpful.
I now use it for creativity, for, uh,you know, if I have a difficult, uh,
(09:19):
nut to crack, then I use it for that.
Um, and it's just sohelpful and it's so healthy.
I've, I've totally tressed and,uh, I'm much more successful
since I did these techniques.
It's, uh, it's about, um, hypnosis,self-hypnosis technique that I was
taught to solve the problems Okay.
(09:40):
In the under unconsciousness.
Um, and so, uh, I'm not sure if youheard about my project African Waters,
where I, I I, I, I charged a helicopterin Johannesburg and flew through 10
African countries to photograph waterthrough a, in a special technique.
Uh.
(10:01):
And, um, and I had so many problemsalong the way with, with, uh, you
know, the, the pilot that I was oobliged to rent with the helicopter.
He couldn't come becausehis wife got sick.
Then the helicopter crashed.
I needed a new helicopter.
So it was like, there were a amillion reasons to stop, but I
(10:23):
didn't because I had learned thistechnique and, and it was so far my
biggest and most successful project.
I'm, I'm curious about thisself hypnosis technique.
Does it go by a certain nameor is there a process that you
follow that you found useful?
'cause it's something that I thinkmyself and the listeners would
probably benefit from as well too.
(10:44):
It's called,
uh, in German, it's, so I wouldsay it's auto suggestion technique.
And, uh, it is, it is something, um.
When you get taught, you havesomeone taking you in un in in your
under conscious mindset setting.
You can compare it with, when you,when you go to sleep, you have this
(11:08):
short period where you go like, oh,ah, I, I must go to the bank tomorrow.
Oh, I forgot this.
Oh, where you let looseof everything else.
And then suddenly all the,you clean up your system.
And that's basically where you guideyourself into, through breathing and
through colors and through techniques.
(11:30):
It's, it's amazing how,how much it does for you.
And, and that's a process thatyou use in order to be able
to be more present, is it?
Yeah.
Well, I use
it in very stressful situations.
I use it before important, uh, meetings.
I use it, uh, uh, for creativity.
If I, you know, if I. Try to figure outa way where I can defer myself from the
(11:52):
millions of photographers out there.
Um, and, and for, for all kinds of things.
It's, uh, just to relax.
You know, if I'm really tired, I do itfor 20 minutes and it feels like you had
slept for three hours.
I just got back froma successful elk hunt.
I was out hunting with a mutual friend ofours with Brad Clock, and, uh, aside from
(12:15):
Brad being a very talented elk caller,he was able to call in a, uh, a beautiful
elk within about, uh, 45 meters or so.
And, uh, stuck around for awhile and we decided, yep,
that's the one we want to take.
Took it.
Um, but in between all of thatwe're chatting and I said, you
know, I got this conversation.
(12:37):
With Florian coming up and, uh, hesays, oh, if you're chatting with
Florian, you should talk to him abouthis motorcycle trip across Australian
Outback where he broke his ribs.
Yeah, that was a tough one
that you have to say that Brett, uh,Brett is, Brett knows a lot about
(12:58):
me because he helped me one day.
I, I did, I did, uh, PR forMike Wiley for a long time.
Mike Wiley Hill Ski.
Okay.
In the Caribou Mountains.
Yeah.
And, uh, Brett helped me to get my team,you know, uh, looked after in Vancouver.
Uh, he, he arranged a bed for us inthe Waterfront Hotel and they took
(13:18):
us out for dinner and it was great.
So he knows a little bit and, um, mm-hmm.
Out of all the adventures, you know, Itry to do, uh, proper risk management as
a hunter, you know, how important that is.
And, uh.
And, uh mm-hmm.
And at that time I was testing, uh, camerabags for Low Pro and I, I helped develop
(13:43):
a vest where you don't have a camera bagbut you carry everything on your body.
Um, and, uh, and we went through the,uh, uh, it was called the canning stock
route, which is a really tough, roughterrain, bull dust, very hard to ride.
And my motorcycle got stuck at about80 Ks and I was like, I was stopped
(14:06):
immediately and I flew, and thisbike stayed, but I had the only
lens I ever owned with a metal frame
hit.
I think it tore, uh, it brokefour ribs and it tore the spleen.
And, uh, and that is very dangerous.
(14:28):
Um, so.
Um, we had to go back.
We couldn't call a helicopter 'cause itwas too far for the helicopter to go.
So we had to drive to the nextvillage for eight hours with four
broken ribs in really hard terrain.
It was not a nice experienceat all whatsoever, and I was
very lucky to survive it.
(14:49):
No kidding.
Well, you know, there was one thing thatkind of, uh, caught my eye in your CV
that you have kind of hidden in there.
You make a statement and you say, at onepoint I realized I present myself and
as an adventure photographer, but whathappens when the supermarket closes?
(15:12):
Can I feed myself?
What's that all about?
I, when I had this difficult time.
A very close friend, uh, and he wasthe painter for, uh, Playboy Magazine.
So they, they had illustrations and,uh, and when I had the hard time,
I, I took out all the stories thatI had made until then and tried
(15:37):
to figure out what am I good at?
Where did I make good money?
Where was it good for the reputation?
Um, and where did I have fun?
And I figured out everything wasmore successful if, if it was
helicopters, mountains, or horses.
I come from a mountain background.
(15:58):
We used to have our ownski lift, my, my family.
So I started skiing at two.
Um, I then flew paraglider and so myfirst career was all about extreme sports.
And um, and somehow people made me the.
Adventurer, you know, like,because I always did these stories.
(16:21):
Um, and then I started to market myself.
So this friend painted a picturewith me riding my horse with me,
uh, with a helicopter on the sideand, uh, and the mountains in the
background with a paraglider and,uh, giraf running through the sunset.
It's a, it's a great picture.
And, uh, and that really,uh, was my new identity.
(16:42):
That's what I wanted to live,that's what it wanted to be.
And then after 15 years of,or 10 years doing that, you
know, it got more and more.
I, I was, uh, in the media quite a bit.
So, um, and then I, I, Irealized that, you know, uh.
I, if I go to my, my heart in themountains, I see the, the signs.
(17:06):
But I don't know, is it a deer or isit a, a, a small deer or is what is it?
You know, I, uh, since I grewup in a boarding school, that's
not what they teach you there.
Right?
Uh, so, um, and, and then, and then I,I just wanted to learn more about it.
And I thought, you know, I, if Imarket myself as a adventurer and the
supermarket closes, and I don't even knowhow to, you know, like it's not about
(17:30):
the shooting, but you have to open it.
You have to know where to cut, what youhave to know how to keep it, freeze it,
uh, uh, a lot of things that I didn'tknow and, and I, I really wanted to do it.
And our friend Marcus, that isa good friend of Brett as well.
Um mm-hmm.
He, he teaches, uh, hunting.
(17:51):
And so I joined his, his course and,uh, and finally did my license in 2015.
Way too late.
Way too late.
It was only 2015.
Holy crow.
And you growing up with Marcus, I figuredyou would've been in it way earlier
than that, than, uh, well, his, his
father is my godfather.
(18:11):
And at you 10 or 11, that's right.
When, when you, uh, and, and what we did,we, we went to the hunting ground and
we were shooting in the shooting range.
And you, like, I had all thechances, but for a long time I
said, my trophy is the picture.
Mm. You know, I, when I did the spiritbear, I would've never wanted to shoot it.
(18:32):
You know, I, I wanted to captureit and my trophy was the image.
But, uh, that changeda lot since, you know.
But, uh, yeah, coming, being so closeto this family is total, total nonsense.
Not Yeah.
From the
very beginning, from birth, youknow, so I, I can respect that a lot.
(18:53):
I can respect that your trophy is apicture, because, you know, whether you're
out shooting animals with a rifle oryou're shooting animals with your camera,
you're experiencing the outdoors in away that's, I think, deeper than what
most people will expose themselves to.
If you're out there with the camera,you're gonna have to be quiet.
(19:14):
You're gonna have to know the animalscycles and the flora and the fauna,
and where you're likely to see one.
And, and you want to be able to capturean animal in its natural environment.
As a hunter, it's the same sort of thing.
And aside from that split second whereyou snap the camera shutter, or you
snap the trigger and the firing pingoes forward and the round goes off.
(19:38):
There's so many similarities now.
Things change a little bit afterthe trigger is pulled and the work
begins and you start processingthe animal, uh, you're going home
with memories, not a photograph,and you're going home with meat.
But, um, 2015, you made that, thatvery conscious kind of changeover.
(20:01):
How has your life been differentsince you've connected with nature
with a rifle as well as a camera?
I decide
before I go what I do for a start.
I, I never take camera and rifle.
Um, but I changed it.
Okay.
Because, because of thisthought that I just mentioned
(20:23):
about the supermarket closing.
And then I have a very closefriend, uh, Michael Arle.
He's a, a great photographer aswell, and he, he was, uh, uh.
I've been befriended with himfor 25 years, ever since I
started working with Leika.
He was, he used to, uh,be there and, um, mm-hmm.
(20:44):
And, and it was a professional decisionbecause I could widen my clientele,
uh, through the, through hunting.
Um, because, uh, in the huntingseason, uh, in the, in the
hunting business, there's notso many very good photographers.
(21:04):
There's a lot of hunters that takephotos, but there's not many very
good photographers who hunt, whohave the license, who can carry a gun
legally, take it to another country.
And, um, and every, and I love, I loveexplaining, you know, uh, in, in Germany
we have a very, um, uh, conservative.
(21:30):
W many people have a veryconservative way of seeing hunting.
It's like old men, uh, verytraditional, very elite in Europe,
you know, it used to be the, the,so the own, the, the, the farmers
could only shoot the little animals.
The, the trophies were allreserved for the king or for
(21:51):
the, for the higher standards.
And, um, mm. And I always liked theway, um, I saw hunting in Canada or,
or in the Amer in the United Statesbecause it is more, like, more hands-on,
um, for living as I imagined it to be.
(22:11):
Mm-hmm.
And, um, and I try, I nowtry to, like, when I started
taking photos of, uh, hunting.
Like all the non-hunting magazineswould be very, uh, reserved about,
uh, bringing a hunting story.
Now, um, I'm not sure if you know, ifyou know Stefan from Hamad, wilt the,
(22:31):
also a friend of Marcus, he, they makesustainable hunting in the Ian and
Bavarian Alps and they utilize everything.
So we, I I I, I like the, that I, Iwas, uh, allowed to hunt on his ground.
I made the lead horse.
I'm going Toto Fest with tomorrow.
(22:52):
Uh, I have a defender limited edition.
And, and, and we use the skins, we usethe deer leather skins for the seed.
So, uh, and, uh, we don'tthrow away anything.
And, um, and that really for meis a good way of hunting and.
Coming into the modern times.
(23:14):
There's also a lot of development thatmakes hunting safer and, uh, which
also makes hunting more precise so thatthe suffering is less so, like the new
bullets that are made, the silencesthat are put on the rifle have all an
effect on how clean and good you hunt.
(23:34):
And, uh, and that I find fascinating.
And, uh, when I did this film thatI talked before about the, uh,
horseback safari in Kenya, um, Ifound out that my, the best I'm at
is to emotionalize technical stuff.
(23:55):
And I also realized that theworst thing I am at is fashion.
I'm, I'm
okay.
I, I did fashion for threeyears and I, I was divorced.
Fashion photographer.
The world, the, the worldhas ever seen, I promise you.
(24:18):
But I made good money at least.
Hey, there's always that, right?
Well, since you've gotten into hunting,uh, you've set up, uh, you, you've got
associations with like Hordy and withSavage and with Polaris, and I've seen
your work on like the Hordy magazines.
You open it up and there, there'syour photographs inside there.
(24:41):
How do you.
Join.
When you talk about that emotional, uh,relation to a technical product, how
to emotionalize it, how do you do that?
I,
I
try.
I, I come from storytelling, soI try to find an emotional story.
Um, so like what I found reallyfun, um, we had this super good
(25:02):
looking hunters from Norway.
Uh, if you see her in a city, youwould not believe she's a hunter.
You know, she's a very long blondehair, very beautiful, and, and, uh,
no prejudice, but it was just notsomeone I would connect to hunting
if I wouldn't met her hunting.
And, uh, and she was an excellenthunter hunters, and, um, and it was
(25:24):
just, uh, a pure joy to see her movethrough the mountains and be like,
everything she did was very quietand very smooth and very elegant.
And so we, we went to the, we didthe story about, uh, we go to Norway
and live what, from what we catch.
And I, I think we were a bitoverconfident, you know, 'cause
(25:47):
I, I've been fishing withMarcus since I was a little kid.
I was, um, I was hunting before I was, uh,we had a very good hunting guide with us.
We, uh, my girlfriend, she's Regina,she knows a lot about berries and,
and mushrooms that you can find.
And, uh, and we didn't get anything.
And, uh, and the, the articleended, uh, with, uh, an, uh, the
(26:11):
sentence we find ourselves in ournatural habitats, the supermarket,
because we, we didn't make it.
We, we just didn't make it.
Fair enough, fair enough.
And so, and so, this is, this is anemotional way, like also failing.
You know, we didn't, we didn't hide it.
We didn't pretend, oh yeah, we made it.
(26:32):
No, we didn't make it.
So let's talk about it.
And, uh, and it was great.
It was a great week.
We had great fun, but we had no success.
We, we, we caught one little fishin after three days for five people.
You know, that's, that's notsufficient if you wanna work
and go hunting in the mountains.
And, uh, and the weather was really bad.
(26:53):
And so, yeah.
So no excuses.
We just failed.
So I try to, to find stories, whichI think is a, a, a, a great story
that I'm about to do now for, uh,Polaris and Hordy is, uh, uh, that
we, um, there's a mountain ground inAustria on a lake, and Kai Maximilian.
(27:16):
So the, the king of Austria, he usedto go hunting there because he didn't
hike into the mountains to get reddeer in Samoa because he could drive
by boat and shoot up the up the hill.
So in order to have fun with ashunting guests, with musicians, and
so he built a house and there werealso ladies brought in from burg.
(27:43):
So it was a house of joy, goodfood, fun party, and it was
the first touristic house.
In Austria and now Austria, notin Austria, in Ro, but Roy now
makes 30, I think 34% of the, uh,of the all over income is tourism.
(28:06):
And the first house was a hunting hut.
Huh.
So this is the story I'm gonna tell.
It's, it's one of the, it's onlake, it's Hanzi is the name.
It's one of the most beautifulplaces I know in, in Austria.
And it's great.
You can go skiing there,paragliding, whatever.
Uh, and also hunting.
And I went there, uh, last year andit was one of the most beautiful
(28:30):
hunting experiences I ever had.
Like the, we went, we started in the snowand then into fog, and then we found the
shawa and, and uh, after the hunt, thesun broke through and the lake came out.
And the morning rise, itwas just unbelievable.
I sent you the photos later.
Yes.
Yeah, that sounds interesting.
(28:50):
So I like, there's shows out therelike Meat Eater in North America
and what struck me about theirapproach was that they would show the
failures as well as the successes.
And quite often they'll have anepisode and nothing gets harvested,
but they're able to tell that story.
And I think, like from an outsider,uh, I was having this conversation
(29:13):
with somebody who works in, in huntingmedia and I said, you know, I think
that's, I think that's the ticket.
I think that's thesolution to broadening the.
Uh, the audience of people who mightbe interested in learning more about
the outdoors, learning more abouthunting and, and self-sufficiency
is to show that struggle andto show the human story of it.
(29:34):
And the fellow said,yeah, I agree with you.
However, the stats don't lie.
And when we look at the shows that we putout that have a kill shot versus the shows
that don't, the kill shot always getsmore attention and it gets more views.
Now, maybe that was the demographicthat this person was dealing with that
(29:56):
they're seeing on, but, uh, I don't knowwhat, what are your thoughts on that?
Are we moving away from the traditionalhunting grip and grin, kill shot
type, uh, story to something that'smaybe a little bit more robust?
Or are we just looking atcompletely different markets?
I think there's still differences in,depending on where you go hunting, you
(30:18):
know, I think hunting in Russia is.
Quite different to hunting in Africaor hunting in Germany or or Canada.
What happened to me?
I can only tell for myself, Inever like to throw away food,
but since I hunt, I hate it.
Um, and that's because first ofall, um, you work hard for it.
(30:45):
You know, you do the, the huntinglicense in Germany, that's quite hard.
Uh, then you go out, you see nothing, yougo out again, you freeze, you see nothing.
You don't sleep as much as youshould because you went out again.
Um, then you finally seesomething, it's the wrong animal.
Then you go out again, you finallyshoot something, then you process
(31:07):
it, and at the end of a very longtime, it comes to your table.
And if then somebody throws it away,
uh, it feels wrong.
And you take a life,you still take a life.
It's not fun, it's not a, Imean, for some people it's fun.
I, I don't wanna comment that,but for me, it's not fun.
(31:29):
I, I, I need a real reason.
I don't shoot for fun, you know?
I don't just do it for, I always use thetrophy because it's always a nice memory,
but I would never shoot for the trophy.
I don't need a trophy for like, youknow, even though I have them all,
but it's not the reason why I should,you know, like sometimes trophies
(31:52):
are not so good to eat, you know?
But I mean, like the very goodtrophies, not, not as good
to eat as for the trophies.
And so, but I still have all thetrophies and I still remember the,
um, every single hunt I went to.
I've always had an interest in theoutdoors and I got into hunting
(32:13):
later in life, like yourself.
And the idea of trophy huntingis thrown around in the media
as a very negative thing.
It says you're just going outthere so you can get a rack or you
can get a mount and mounted up.
But since getting into hunting, I'velearned that there's a very different
perspective on trophy hunting.
It's a much more selective processwhere a person will go out and they
(32:36):
say they're very intentional, they'regonna let a lot of animals go on by,
and it doesn't negate the fact thatthey're still enjoying the meat.
They're still going to useevery part of the animal.
But now they've got something thatwhen they look at it, like a friend
of mine, he says, oh, are you gonnaget that mounted into a trophy?
When I was, um, uh.
(32:56):
Uh, just getting into hunting.
I was like, no, that's, Idon't wanna be a trophy hunter.
I've got no interest in that.
I've got an interest in the meatand I can utilize the, um, the, the
hide for these different things.
But he says, you know, every timeI look at one of my trophies on the
wall, it brings me back to that huntand it connects me back to nature.
And it's, I mean, it'sa part of the animal.
(33:18):
Yes, it costs more.
Yes, there's more timeinvolved in order to be able to
preserve certain parts of it.
I still eat all the meat, but nowI've got something I can look at.
And it brings me back to that hunt.
And he says, each and every one Ican look at and instantaneously have
a memory of what I was doing and whoI was with and what I was feeling.
And that, that put trophy hunting,or the idea of keeping trophies in
(33:41):
a very different perspective forme, one that I can get behind, which
is very different from how, uh, themedia can negatively portray it.
There's also a, there's alsoa very important aspect, uh.
That I just experienced in Africa.
I was, uh, I did a, a horsebacksafari, uh, in, in the OK Vango
Delta, uh, in a camp called Matu.
(34:05):
And they have very, very good guides.
Like, uh, you know, they are,they grew up in the bush.
They ride like hell.
They know everything.
You can ask the manyquestion on, on the planet.
They will have an answer for it.
And I wasn't there the first time.
So I, you know, I, I, and I askedthe guides holes in the stomach.
We say in Germany, you know,I asked all day, every day.
(34:28):
So I said to, to one of theguides, I said, what do you
think about shooting elephant?
You know, because I thinkthey're very smart animals.
They're beautiful animals.
We go there, we pay alot of money to see them.
Uh, they are incredibly beautiful.
They're social.
They have a memory.
(34:49):
Um, it's very hard to decide to shoot anelephant, but, and I'm not sure if this is
the office official version of, uh, safariCamps in, especially in Namibia, but
they have a, a, a cruel overpopulation.
And um, what they do is they selltrophies because a trophy, a strong
(35:13):
trophy, usually is not fertilizing,it's not producing anymore.
They bring a lot of money and the money.
They use for fighting poaching.
I also did a story for Playboyabout poaching, rhino poaching
in, in the Kruger National Park.
And when you see what happens there,it's, it's just, uh, mind blowing.
(35:36):
And it's a, that wouldbe a podcast in itself.
But to make a long story short mm-hmm.
If, if they, and they, theyhave a lot of accidents.
'cause the OB population is so big nowthat the children, they don't have buses.
They have to walk to school and they have,every year they, a number of children die
because they have conflict with elephant.
(35:57):
Um, and once an elephant has learnedto feed itself from a, from a field,
once an elephant has learned to comeinto a town and confront people,
uh, the whole family will learn it.
So you can shoot that elephant,which is, in Germany we call it the.
(36:18):
Problem elephant or a problembear or a problem lion.
Mm.
But that costs you moneyand it's hard to do.
Whereas when you have a professionalguide and the tourist paying a hundred
thousand dollars to get that trophy,and you can build a school with that
(36:39):
for the children that is closer tothe village, you can, they still eat
all the feed, the, the, the meat.
They always take the meat.
Um, and you help the community in manyways by solving a problem, whereas
you can solve the problem yourself.
And, you know, so I'm not againsttrophy hunting, don't get me wrong.
(37:00):
I'm just not, I don't like shootingan animal just for the trophy, but
that's my personal I agree opinion.
You know, I don't, I don'tblame someone for doing it.
There are good reasons why a good trophy.
It is worth shooting andthere's good reasons for it, and
other reasons are not so good.
(37:20):
And then people do it anyways.
Yeah.
Well, I, I've never been to Africa.
Uh, I plan to, that's gonnabe a, uh, a future thing.
Maybe I'm gonna have to come to Africaon, look at the animals from horseback.
That might be, uh, aninteresting adventure.
Uh, I know a, uh, good friend ofmine had some, uh, heart issues
(37:40):
recently and I guess that, uh, heended up in the hospital and it
was, uh, it was ex rather serious.
And he comes out and he says, Trav,I wanna, I wanna hike Kilimanjaro.
He wanna come hike Kilimanjaro with me.
And I'm like, yeah, sure.
Okay, let's do that.
Maybe, uh, are you sure you're up for it?
Right?
He said, oh, no, I'm sure I'm up for it.
Let's do this.
So, um, that's gonna be somethingin our sights in the future to,
(38:03):
uh, to check out Kilimanjaro and,uh, maybe look at doing a bit of a
sightseeing animal tour after that.
But the, the idea of the Africantrophy hunting really kind of, uh, put
things on its head for a lot of people.
'cause on its surface, it sounds terrible.
(38:24):
You bring people in, they're huntingfor a trophy and they're leaving.
But when you look at the alternatives,so the animals will die from starvation,
they'll die from poaching, they'll diefrom, um, there, there's a number of
reasons they could die or they can diein a way that helps sustain the harvest.
That creates an industry where the animalscan now thrive, which helps sustain the
(38:45):
environment around and done correctly.
There's a very solid caseto be made for conservation,
especially in that African model.
I remember looking, uh, I was havingsushi with a friend of mine and,
uh, he's, uh, Zibo background.
(39:05):
Uh, ex British, uh, officerin the military there, and
he gets a text message.
His family ran a large securitycompany and, uh, makes a bit of
a face and puts the phone down.
And I was like, of course, veryattuned, picking up on these
little facial expressions.
I'm like, okay, what was that?
Right?
And he said, oh, there's some poachersover in this one area of Africa and
(39:29):
I don't know where, where it was.
And I was like, okay.
He's like, oh yeah, they found them.
Oh yeah.
He said, well, what doyou mean they found 'em?
He said, oh, well, he shows me the phone.
There's three of them lined updead on a, um, on a fence line.
They just, you're a poacher.
We kill you.
Alright.
Very different attitude towards, um,their conservation, the poaching,
(39:53):
how, how the, how the world works.
And it took me a little bit to kindof get my head shifted around this
North American model that we have.
And try and see it fromthe African's perspective.
And it's, I guess the tough part isnot trying to imply my own values and
my own prejudices on a culture andsociety that's, uh, completely separate.
(40:15):
So that, that was, that was anotherbit of an eyeopening thing for me.
And,
you know, it's
a war, you know, uh, the thing is inthe, in, in the world that there's,
uh, around 35,000 rhinos left.
Um, 15,000 of them are in KrugerNational Park in South Africa.
When I was there, we photographedfor, again, for Playboy,
(40:38):
uh, from Friday till Monday.
In this time, nine rhinoswere poached 500 a year.
Wow.
So you don't have to, you don'thave to be a rocket scientist
to calculate how long this.
Will happen.
Um, and it's all about, it's allabout, uh, Afro It's not about,
you know, the horn does nothing.
(40:59):
It's like chewing your fingernail.
It does nothing.
But in, I think it was in 1987,in 1987, the president of Vietnam
told in television that his conceptwas cured from Rhino Horn Tea.
The year after, the numbers ofthe killings in Kruger National
(41:19):
Park went from 130 to 1,300.
The 10 times more poachers,
totally corrupt.
So, and that's also about money because,uh, rhino horn is more expensive than
cocaine or gold in the Asian market.
Um, 99% goes to Asia becauseno European would ever spend
the cent on, on a fingernail.
(41:42):
Sure.
That's what it is.
You know, you can have it cheaper.
Yeah.
But if they have no rhinos in the park.
They have no visitors in the park.
So it's, they fight them with, withdogs, with, with, uh, machine guns, like
with, uh, the semi-automatic, uh, rifles,camouflage helicopters, you name it.
You know, they don't joke around.
(42:03):
I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I sawthe guys who hunt the poachers.
I wouldn't survive them.
Mm-hmm.
Even if you give me two daysto hide, 20 minutes, I'm done.
Yeah.
Incredible.
Incredible.
Yeah.
They're a different breed, aren't they?
Incredible.
Yeah.
Well, they grew up in the bush,you know, they, they know exactly.
They can read in your footstep.
(42:24):
You know, did you, are you hurt?
Are you tired?
Do you have a sore leg?
Do you wear a backpack?
Do you, uh, drag someone with you?
They see everything.
It's, it's very impressive.
I, I, it was a greatstory to do, to learn.
Mm-hmm.
You know, and, and there's another thingthat I would just like to throw in if you,
if you like, Africa is not Africa, um.
(42:45):
There are places, it's, it's when you goto Africa that there's safaris that you
can spend a lot of money, not so cool.
Others, you don't spend so much money.
Very cool.
Others have better foodand stuff like that.
So make sure before you go, uh, we havea chat because, uh, uh, especially around
Tanzania, there's a, the tourism is,is pretty hot and they just send some
(43:08):
horrible images from caravans of fourby fours that go to the Mara River.
Um, where the, where the wildebeestcrossed, uh, the Crocs wait for them
and they had like a, a chain of, I don'tknow, 104 by fours, just with cameras.
And uh, so the tourism is alsoa big pressure for nature.
(43:29):
So the, the hunting equalizesin a way, the other tourism,
if that makes any sense.
So, um, I changed my mind a lotabout hunting in Africa since I.
Talk to the people.
And, uh, and when I sat on thecampfire at atu, the, the guide
(43:49):
chief said, we have to regulate them.
We want to protect our children.
And I totally go with that.
Yeah, I can see that.
Well, tell me more about thishorseback touring that you do.
I mean, the idea of horseback throughAfrica, looking at the different animals,
(44:10):
some of which can be quite dangerous,seems, uh, perhaps counterintuitive, but
maybe not so, because, you know, I'veread a stat that, uh, out of all the bear
attacks that have ever happened withinNorth America, no one has ever been
attacked by a bear well on horseback.
So I'm wondering if that same sortof, uh, process carries over to some
(44:33):
of the, uh, the creatures in Africa.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, yeah, the, a horse, a se.
Is a pray for a lion.
The humans can are potentially dangerous.
A horse also is potentially dangerous.
Like even if they attack azebra, they, they get bad
(44:56):
bruises from the, from the kicks.
So from the point of alion, same as in a jeep.
You know, like you see often thesepictures when, uh, when the tourists
sit in the jeep at the, at thewalk and, uh, the lion walks by.
Um, you are not typical prey generally.
Um, what what is to be put into mind isthat if you fall off, that can change.
(45:28):
And, uh, you always have exceptions.
I mean, you're in bear country.
If you, if you surprise a motherwith cups, she won't ask questions.
You know, she will charge.
If an elephant charges you, youprobably, if you stay in the saddle.
You, you, you're fine.
Uh, if it, and so, uh, and they,they have very, very good horses.
(45:48):
It's amazing.
Like, uh, I know how our horses, uh,reacted on the first Lama, you know,
and they, these horses, they standin front of an elephant, pull 20
meters and, and don't do anything.
They look at them, okay, they areaware, but they're very cool about it.
So, um, when I did my first tripthrough Australia with a motorcycle, I,
(46:14):
I met a friend who, um, who organizesmotorcycle trips all over the world.
And for 10 years he told methat, um, I must go to Namibia.
And, uh, and there were motorcycletrip with his friend Vanna.
So, uh, I met Vanna now and wedecided to do tours together in
(46:37):
Namibia with his friend who's, uh.
Who's a, who has a beautiful ranchwhere you have a lot of good animals.
But it would be a good starting point.
You know, I think if you wannago riding in the Banco Delta, you
should be a very experienced rider.
Um, but if you go in, in Namibia,you know where the, the desert,
(47:01):
they don't have as many lines and nocrocodiles, or not at Kuma is where
we go and they have a great Westerntrainer preparing them for the ride.
And then you do slow rides and thenyou, you find some antelopes and you
can work yourself into that thing.
Um, for me, the, uh, the OK Delta is,is it's the Garden Eden of Africa.
(47:26):
It's the cover of my book African Waters.
It's just an unbelievable scenery, butso is the, and so I think if you wanna.
If you wanna learn, if you wannado a safari in horseback, you
should actually go step by step.
As I said, you know, some have betterhorses, some have better food, some have
(47:48):
more safety, some are wilder, which is allgood for, you know, I like the wild stuff,
but I don't blame anybody who doesn't.
Um, and so that would besomething I would consider.
You know, there's, uh, uh, wait alittle, they have the big five, but
they have very civilized, uh, horses.
You know, like they verycontrolled and very safe.
(48:08):
Safe, safe.
Yeah.
That's something I wouldrecommend to someone.
To start with maybe, and then workyour ways into wilder and wilder.
And once you've done it,you you're gonna be hooked.
I'm just preparing you.
Don't blame me if you're spent therest of your life on ho picks about
and you cannot go huntingwell, is this something?
(48:31):
There you go.
Is this something that, uh, a, a personwould have to have, uh, a fair bit of
horseback experience before going over?
Or are there ones where as long asyou can kind of stay on the horse,
you can start figuring it out?
I mean, like a friend of mine, uh,once said he bought a sailboat.
(48:52):
I'm like, I didn't know you could sail.
He's like, what do you mean?
It's a boat and it's a sheetand you catch the wind?
I mean, there's gonna be differentdegrees of being able to sail,
but anyone can sail a boat.
And I've always kind of thoughtthe same thing with horses.
Anyone can ride a horse, you canget up on the back of it, keep
your heels down and hold on tight.
And, uh, but there's gonna be adifference between those who can
(49:14):
ride a horse and those who canjust sit on top of these things.
Like if.
If I had come over with minimalhorseback experience, would I
be doing myself a disservice as,
as in hunting?
I, I do have a, a round ofpartners in, in the horse business.
'cause we, uh, my girlfriend and I, wecrossed Ireland on horseback and we,
uh, I did in 2013 I crossed Germanyon horseback for National Geographic.
(49:37):
So we have a, a bunch of partnersand one of them is Quipe and they,
and they connected me with a Westerntrainer, Tom Bele from Pro Balance
is the, is the, is his concept.
And if you would, if you wouldask me, can I go on Safari?
I wouldn't send you anywhere.
(49:58):
I would ask you to train with himintensively until he says good to go.
If that makes any sense.
Like if, if you find a, a honest, goodtrainer who can, who can teach you.
Very much in a very short time, and theypromise you they give you a safe horse,
(50:22):
then it shouldn't be, uh, a problem.
So now that they are offering like threedays training, two days cowboy work and
safari at Kuma is for example, so likethree days real preparation, preparation
until everybody's fit to sit on a horse,even though there might be whatever
(50:44):
lion leopard come around the cornerand be aggressive, which they are not.
You know, it's very unlikely that a lionor a leopard attacks during the day if, if
you don't give him a really good reason.
And they have guidespreventing you from that.
You know, they have not many accidents.
Mm-hmm.
But they will say, but they willsay if they see that you lied, you
(51:07):
know, you have to fill out a form.
And if they, we had a, we had a horsebusiness here in the mountains in
Obama ago, and it was just amazing.
Like 90% of the people either believedthey were better riders than they
were, or they just lied to us.
We just, uh, and it was, that was not,we have, you know, like we had saved
horses and so it was okay, but, uh,it was not so good for our horses.
(51:30):
But, um, but if you do that in Africa,they will, they will just not take
you, you know, they, they will see it.
And, and so it would be better totrain before and be honest about
your skills and then, and then theytake you and then you're hooked and
then you wanna train all day anyway.
Well, how much training do you thinkit would take for somebody to get
a, a certain level of comfort tobe able to go and do one of these?
(51:52):
I
what, what I would do is I would take
lessons ahead.
Uh, if you have a very goodtrainer, um, I would say five
in 10 days bring you to a level.
If you are athletic and not scared.
I mean, it's not, you know, you shouldhave a, a fitness, you should be
able to get up the horse on your own.
(52:14):
Um, you should be like able to roll offif you fall off and not just fall there.
We had one, we had one incident of a,of a, uh, a guest and, uh, we have a
one very peaceful horse and she wasjust walking and the, and she was not so
balanced, so, and she was holding on thesaddle and she, she flipped the saddle
(52:36):
and hang on the belly of the horse.
Still holding off the saddle.
Oh man.
Not,
not so good for safari, maybe.
No, those aren't the pictures you want.
Nope.
Oh, man.
So do you have any dream projects thatyou're, uh, you're working towards?
(52:59):
When I
started African Waters, I, I still, um,I'm still keen to do Worldwide Waters.
Um, African Waters was supersuccessful in the media.
I never had a story published closeto to, to that every big magazine,
newspaper, TV show, everything.
(53:20):
And then COVID hit and thenI started to build it up.
Um, and so I did European waters,um, and, um, I was, I was preparing
and I'm still hoping for AmericanWaters or Canada Canadian waters.
Um, both are equally interesting.
(53:44):
And, uh, at the moment I would actually
prefer Canadian waters.
What's the goal of the Waters project?
I know you started with African Waters.
What was the goal thereand has it expanded?
The idea is, um,
I, I fly with a helicopter.
I need that for the photos.
So, uh, when, when I find the spot agreat, a glacier, a lake, a river, um, we,
(54:11):
we stop the helicopter and we rotate itfor a 360 degree photo, which I take with
the like eyes, which is a medium formatcamera, big sensor so that I stitch.
And so that way you get pictures that aredifferent to all the 2 billion photos that
(54:32):
get uploaded every day in the internet.
And so once I have theattention through this picture.
I go to the ground and I ask thepeople, I ask the park ranger,
the farmer, the scientist.
Um, I've been, I I've been amember of the Explorers Club
since last year in New York.
(54:52):
Um, so they have a, a, aincredible network of scientists.
Um, and so, and they're allvery, it's like a, like, you
know, it's a being in a family.
Once you're a member, they're alwayshelpful with information, with
contacts, with licenses, whatever.
And, um, and so I, uh, what I, I, I,I go to these scientists, whatever,
(55:20):
and tell their story about the water.
It's incredibly exciting.
So, for example, lake Tanika has 17% ofthe world's sweet water reserves, 17%.
And due to overfishing,it is about two tilt.
Um, I, I could tell you 20 stories.
(55:40):
Now, all glacier in Switzerland has been,uh, one of the largest glaciers in Europe.
Uh, will be gone by the end of thecentury, um, with consequences that
are not to be, you know, calculatedyet, but they're gonna be horrific.
Um, so, uh, every country I know,every village, I know every, uh,
(56:05):
everybody you talk tohas a story about water.
Like Venice is thinking.
At the same time, the sea levelsrising because they use too much
fresh water for the tourism.
It's, it's built on, uh,po poles and the poles.
When you take the, the groundwaterout, the pole sinks, so the city
sinks and stories like that.
(56:27):
Uh, don't get me started,that's gonna beano another, but
this is what I'm hoping to do.
I do it wherever I go.
I do it in Africa, I do it, uh, in Europe.
I hope to do it in Canada and the UnitedStates and South America and Asia.
It's always a question of, youknow, do I get the sponsors?
It's quite pricey to do it.
(56:49):
Uh, but also when I have the results, I, Ido, I make a book, I make a film, I make,
uh, multimedia shows all over the world.
Um, do the pr.
So that's something that, uh, thatthe sponsors really like because
they get a lot of media attentionwith the positive, uh, content.
Do you ever get up there in thehelicopter and take a photo only to find
(57:12):
out that you didn't have your settingset right, or it didn't turn out?
It happens, but not very often
because, uh, I, I, I think, uh,you know, every, every minute
counts in the helicopter.
Um, and so I, I, I like tobe professional, especially
in the helicopter.
I don't like things flying around.
(57:34):
I don't like, you know,not knowing what to do.
Oh, I forgot this.
Oh, I didn't put a, oh, I did thisbecause every, like, every mistake
is dangerous and cost a lot of money.
So it happened that.
Thing happens to me on the motorcycleor when I am, you know, all the time.
But in the helicopter, I'ma little bit different.
It's the same like on, on, on, onthe mountain where I come from.
(57:59):
You know, like when we did the Ishapma, the, the 8,000 meter peak, I wasn't
up there, but I was, I went quite far.
So once I get into thissuper, uh, extreme setting,
then I try to be prepared.
So tell me about this Explorers Club.
It kind of sounds like the, what is that?
Sherlock Holmes has got the DIY Club orwhatever that one's called, this exclusive
(58:21):
kind of, uh, uh, ritzy, um, kind of club.
Is that, is that what thisExplorers Club is all about?
Uh, it's very cool actually.
Um, you know, it's, it's very much likethe, uh, national Geographic Society.
It's a similar thing.
Uh, it was founded in 1904.
Um.
(58:42):
And the first on the moon, the firston the North Pole, the first on the
South Pole, they were all explorers.
Flag.
Uh, club flag carriers, um,which many people in Europe don't
know and you can't apply for it.
You have to be applied by someone else.
Um, and I did a multimedia show inCabret in the Dominican Republic, um,
(59:06):
with my friend Susie Mai, who's a prokite surfer, and she organizes ocean
conservation events and, um, and she.
Invited me to do that, uh,and uh, for this conservation.
And I was allowed to speak there and I didmy multimedia show and then one Explorers
Club member suggested me to become,and then you need a second sponsor.
(59:30):
They call it sponsor when the, the, theguy who invite, the person who invite you.
Mm-hmm.
And so, and then I was acceptedand now I'm a fellow member.
I'm very proud.
Um, and I'm very happy and it's very cool'cause it's, it's a New York City and, um.
You walk in and you can see it, you seethe glove from the first guy on the moon.
You see a ice bear that Cheltonbrought home at the boat.
(59:53):
He, uh, the, the sled, he used it.
Holy.
It's, it's so cool.
And, and it's, it's, uh,you can go there, it's free.
You can, you can walk inand, and walk through there.
It's, it's amazingly beautiful.
When, when I was, uh, 19 I wastraveling through Europe and, uh, it's
when I first realized that I don'tbelong in the big cities, I thought
I didn't have a problem with it.
(01:00:15):
But touring around, checking outcity after city, and I just got
this feeling of, uh, unease andbeing completely overwhelmed.
And I ended up sneaking off into theAustrian Alps and spending a week
out under a tarp, just decompressing.
And I'm like, why am I doing this?
Like, what's going on?
I was learning a bit about whatmakes me tick and what doesn't.
(01:00:38):
The idea of going to thisExplorers Club sounds amazing.
The one place, well, not the oneplace, but one of the few places in
the world that I've always had inthe back of my head that I'd probably
just not like, based on the populationsize and the busyness and the noise
and, and all the rest is New York.
But, uh, maybe, maybe I'm gonna haveto adjust Satter a little bit or,
(01:01:02):
um, bite my lip just so I can goover there and check this place out.
I am very much
with you and I, uh, my ex-girlfriendstudied in, in New York, and I never
could stay longer than four days.
It was like pain, you know, like, yeah.
I, I think it's a very cool city,but it's just for, same as with my,
I have a husky, and if she's in thecity, it's just too much information.
(01:01:26):
It's just, she can't handle it.
She's, she's going crazy, you know?
And same, same as me.
Uh, I, I used to work, I, I used to workin the city just because you need the
contact as a photographer to all the.
Uh, editorial, uh,connections and everything.
Um, and I, uh, but then I movedback out, uh, into the country
(01:01:48):
where I come from in no baba ago.
And, uh, and, uh, now I don't understandhow I could manage to be in the city
At an early age, I wasdiagnosed with severe a DH.
Maybe I got it.
Maybe I don't.
Maybe I was a product of my environment.
I, I'm not sure.
Uh, they put me on the highestdosage of Ritalin for the province
on an experimental run betweengrades three and grades seven.
(01:02:10):
I took myself off cold Turkeybefore going into high school.
I, whatever it is in my headthat ticks is just overwhelmed.
And, and I clearly, I don't fit in.
Like when I'm in a citysituation, I'll stick out.
I don't blend in.
I'm not the gray man.
I'm six foot six, 250 pounds and alertto absolutely everything that's going on.
(01:02:36):
It's like, um, Vegas.
I gotta go to a shot show for the, uh,shooting hunting, outdoor trade show.
And I don't look forward to it.
Um, all the lights, all the people,all the stuff that's kind of going on.
And I've wondered if that's due tosort of the, uh, the A DHD diagnosis
or the, uh, the sort of mindset I'm at.
(01:02:58):
And when I look at you, although, youknow, you employ mindfulness techniques,
you employ hypnosis, you ground yourselfin nature, but you're drawn to a lot
of the similar things that I'm drawnto, extreme outdoor type things.
And I'm drawn to that becauseit makes me really present.
If you're in the helicopter, you'represent, you gotta make sure you're
(01:03:21):
professional, you're dialed in, and everylittle movement you make, every piece
of kit that you have is squared away.
And, and you're right there in the moment.
If I'm on a rock face and I'm climbing,I'm thinking about my next handhold,
my next foothold, where I'm puttingprotection in I'm very present.
Same with rafting or paragliding.
Um, I'm wondering, have.
(01:03:41):
You ever been diagnosed or do youthink you come from a background
mentally of, uh, uh, neurodivergency?
Um, I, I, maybe I was very active aswell, but, uh, I, I, I see it differently,
uh, growing up in the mountains,uh, you sharp sharpen your senses.
(01:04:03):
Um, and especially when you likedangerous things, you always go,
like, I always check the wind, always.
It's, sometimes it's annoying forme myself, but I never, you know,
like even when, when I ride, I checkthe wind for the horse, I check the
wind for the where would I fly now?
How would I land now?
Where would be a, so, uh, I think ifyou want to be a good pilot, if you
(01:04:27):
want to be a good, um, hunter, uh,if you want to survive in extreme
alpinism, you have to see everything.
We are limited.
Animals are much better than we are.
But if you don't school that, ifyou don't sharpen your senses,
you're not gonna live very long.
And once the senses are sharp, they sharp.
(01:04:49):
And if you go to a city,it's just too many triggers.
You know, like it's just this, thisnoise here and the sound there and
the smell here, and the animal there,and the guy, uh, watching you here.
And it's just, I don't think, I don'tthink it's a, it's something that I, uh,
that I would connect with the illness.
I would, I would connect it with a, witha special gift that we are not as, uh,
(01:05:15):
hump as many people
have become through civilization.
You know, like if I seepeople moving in nature.
I'm just, I just go like,don't, don't you see this.
Don't, don't you hear this, don't you?
Where are you?
You know, how's the, how'sthe weather on your planet?
(01:05:36):
You know?
Um, and, uh, and it, and, uh, to give youan example, a very good friend of mine,
he's son Hunter, and he, uh, he workedin, in the forest business, and he took
as a social program, he took studentsplanting trees because, um, that's good
(01:05:58):
for the nature, that's good for thekids to learn how to plant the trees.
So he did it every year.
And so, uh, he did it with a famousschool here around the corner.
And then, uh, the, the, the teachersaid, oh, we have some, we have
some exchange students from Asia.
Uh, can we, can, canthey, can we bring them?
Because we don't knowwhat to do with them.
If, if we are all gone and they just sitin the school, they brought them and after
(01:06:22):
10 minutes they walked in the forest.
And after 10 minutes, um.
My friend turned around and hesaid, where, where are the kids?
We are not planting over there.
We, we plant up there.
It's on the mountain.
Mm. And the teacher said that, no,they, they can't walk on this ground.
They've never walked on in a forest.
They, they only know tar.
(01:06:44):
Wow.
And that's the opposite,if you know what I mean.
You know?
Yeah.
That these children, 10, 12, 11 yearsold, they cannot walk in a forest because
they're not used to uneven ground.
And so that's what, when, when I,when we had the horse business, you
could totally tell that the horsesare the first to tell you you're not,
(01:07:07):
you're, you're not good to trust.
You know, and then, and then yousee them and they make a selfie and
they look here and they, everything.
It was just incredible to seehow disconnected a, a big part of
our civilization is with nature.
And that's what I love so much aboutAfrica, because that's pure nature and
(01:07:31):
you have to know what you're doing.
You have to be aware.
You can't walk around blind inthe in, in the, in the dark.
You, you won't, you won't survive it.
And, and on a horsebackit's even more intense.
You, you're not the end ofthe food chain, you know?
And, uh, I mean, you guys knowthat you have bears and grizzly
and, and wolf and, and all that.
Uh, even though the wolf probably attackedless, less than, much less than mm-hmm.
(01:07:55):
People would expect.
But, uh.
You know what I mean?
It's, it's, it's just, uh, theintensity of feeling alive in nature.
That's what triggers me withAfrica and in nature in general.
I love Canada.
I love Bavaria, and there's manynice places, but Africa is a little,
I'm curious about, so the adventurousspirit that you have, you've always
(01:08:17):
been a free spirit, but what is itthat draws you to these, um, more
adrenaline filled adventures, and howis that evolving as you get older?
Um,
it's not getting any better.
(01:08:40):
And,
and, um, I,
I just, I just started like I, um.
I, I want to give my dimy career a new direction.
And, um, I thought about what Ican do and, um, I love safari, but
(01:09:03):
I don't like to be driven around.
Mm.
If that makes any sense.
I don't like to sit in a Jeepand then someone drives you
somewhere and then mm-hmm.
I mean, it's, it's, it's nice, don't getme wrong, but it's not, I wanna be active.
I want to go hunting, I wantto go fishing, I want to go
riding, I want to go whatever.
You know, I don't wanna just sitaround and be, uh, driven around.
(01:09:27):
Yeah.
So, so now I, uh, what I'm gonna do in thefuture is, is uh, try to take my skills
and, and my experiences and my love forphotography into Africa and take people
for bike rides and horseback riding andhelicopter flying and whatever, because
(01:09:48):
you know, the, I love that the old.
The, the, the, the old, like what I usedto make my living from like shooting for
all those magazines has become harder.
And I am not sure what, uh, artificialintelligence will do to it in the future.
Mm-hmm.
And I want to be prepared.
(01:10:09):
I never wanna wait untilsomething is too late to change.
I always try to stay in motion.
So that's why I did the mountains andthen the horses, and then the safaris.
It's, it's, I don't, once I didit five times, you know, I'm okay.
Like, it, it's, it's cool.
But, but what else is there?
(01:10:30):
And so that's gonna be my next stepthat I, that I wanna, that I wanna,
I wanna share all these stories andexperiences that I was privileged to be
able through my clients, to experiencethem and learn how to fly helicopter
and go on safari and photograph it.
I wanna give it, pass it on.
(01:10:51):
Now, you know, I wanna, mm, I wannashare the fascination I have for
Africa in an active way.
Is there anything that we haven't talkedabout that we should be talking about?
For,
for me, it, it's, uh, I'm in this processat the moment, uh, that, you know, it's
almost, I mean, I have these programsand everything that I want to offer, but.
(01:11:13):
I'm still not sure, you know, howI wanna, I have a lot of interviews
in the future, um, for projectsthat don't necessarily have to do
something with what I do at the moment.
Uh, so, um, and I was wondering,I was thinking about how do I want
myself to be seen in the future?
(01:11:34):
Where do I wanna move?
So I say like, you know, when I meetother photographers, I always hear,
oh, this is bad and this is bad.
And, and there's a lotof bad things going on.
Um, but for me, I always try tobe on the side where I'm active
and where I, I'm the hunter.
I'm not hunted.
Mm.
And that,
for me is important.
(01:11:57):
And it's, it's a philosophy for life.
Stay in motion.
You know, like if.
If, if you just sit there and waittill it's over, then it's over soon.
And I, and, and that's, and, and talkingto you today really helped me to find more
precisely where I wanna see myself in thefuture and what I wanna do in the future.
(01:12:21):
And, uh, I, I tested, uh,the first, uh, client.
I'd made a book for him, just for himabout the hill horse safari we did
together in Namibia and in Botswana.
I'm gonna send you some pictures, uh,we took there and then maybe you will
understand why the combination ofhilly horse and, and all this is, it
(01:12:45):
makes it such a different experience.
It's, it's, you know, with every safariI come closer to, to, you know, uh,
when people ask me, why do you do it?
Or what do you do?
There as so many aspects of itand so much fascination about it.
But helicopters and horses as my wholelife as 20 years ago when I had the
(01:13:06):
hard time, they, they always pull me
out the dirt, you know,Florian, I absolutely love that.
I am, I'm gonna put links in thedescription so people can see the work
you've done so they can follow youand see what you're working on next.
And, um, I, uh, I'm reallylooking forward to seeing the
(01:13:27):
photographs that you sent on over.
Thank you so much for beingon the Silver Core Podcast.
Thank you so much for having me.
It was a great
pleasure.
And to see you in Beck or in Canada.
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Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.