S6 E70: Building Your Creative Career with Travel Photographer Pam Voth

Get the show’s transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

“PV: Try to surround yourself with people who are doing something at least aligned, or similar, and then just make connections. I think connections are the number one thing to do. Yeah, be ready. Always keep practicing your art, your craft of photography as well, so that you're ready to show up and be ready when the opportunity shows up.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:22] YD: Welcome to the Travel Media Lab Podcast. I'm your host, Yulia Denisyuk, an award-winning travel photographer and writer, entrepreneur, community builder and a firm believer that every one of us can go after the stories we've always wanted to tell, with the right support, encouragement and structure. I'm on a mission to help women storytellers everywhere break into and thrive in the travel media space. If you're ready to ditch your fears to the side, grow your knowledge and confidence and publish your travel stories. You're in the right place. Let's go.

On the podcast today, we're talking with Pam Voth, a travel photographer and award-winning cinematographer, whose work explores a connection to the natural world. Pam has been published in the New York Times, Condé Nast Traveler, Travel + Leisure, National Geographic and many more. She's also Head of Creator Relations for Sloika, the curated photography NFT platform.

I actually met Pam in the NFT space, and I was immediately drawn to the way she sees the world, her passion for travel and her stories of quitting her corporate job to pursue her passion, which of course, resonated with me a lot.

On this episode, we cover a range of topics from getting a multi-year gig of working with the Montana Tourism Board as their official photographer, to getting an assignment with the New York Times and creating photo safaris around the world. We also talk about NFTs and whether or not women photographers have a place in that community. Of course, you may already know where I stand on this. I believe that they and us absolutely do have a space there. If the topic of NFTs intrigues you, be sure to check out two other episodes I did about them. That's Episode 51, A Beginner's Guide to NFT Photography, and Episode 56, An Update on My NFT Photography Journey. We'll be sure to link to both of those episodes in the show notes as well.

This episode you're about to hear, and truly, most episodes of this podcast are brought to you by The Circle. The Circle is our membership for creators in travel media, like writers and photographers who want to publish their stories. Here's why you might want to look at The Circle more closely. This October, I'm so excited about this. This October, we're going to be running a series of lectures inside The Circle on improving your travel writing skills.

On this podcast and in our platform, we talk a lot about pitches and the mechanics of breaking into and thriving in the travel media industry. Now, we're also bringing you content that's going to help you become a better writer, a better pitch writer, creating better pitches, coming up with ideas and everything that comes to get your stories out there and work with publications that you want. We have an incredible, incredible travel writer come and do a series of workshops for us this October, and they're going to be free. These workshops are going to be free for our Circle members. I will be announcing more details about this as we get closer to October.

f becoming a more skilled writer of pitches and writer of stories is one of your goals, definitely look into becoming our Circle member this fall, because this workshop is going to be so, so great. The great thing is that you can join us at three different levels, starting at just $27 a month. You can pay $27 a month and get access to this amazing content that one of the most successful travel writers in the industry is going to come and teach for us. That's a really great deal. Yeah, we'll be talking more about it soon, but I wanted to mention it to you now and you can get more information about The Circle ads, travelmedialab.com/circle. All right, now on to this episode with Pam.

[INTERVIEW]

[00:04:36] YD: All right. Today on the podcast, we have the wonderful Pam Voth. I am just so, so, so excited to welcome you, Pam, on the podcast. I can't wait to talk to you. We've been having so many great conversations on Twitter, in our NFT journey together. I'm just so glad that that journey crossed over into the podcast. Now, I get to come and talk to you here and interview you and learn more about your story.  Welcome.

[00:05:03] PV: Thank you. Thank you. It's great to be here, Yulia. I'm super excited to be here, too.

[00:05:06] YD: Me, too. Me, too, Pam. Yeah, guys. Just so you know, the background of me knowing Pam, how do I know Pam? I know Pam from the NFTs. Again, I know, I've promised to you guys before that this podcast is not about NFTs. It's not. We're still talking about travel media. However, the lines are blurring, because now I am in that space. I'm active in that space. That's where I met Pam. I absolutely loved all of her stories. That's why today we're chatting with Pam. Your image from Romania, of this wonderful man with a hat looking on as cars are crossing the roads is such a excellent example of travel photography, because it takes you right in there, right? It takes you right in the scene. It situates you right there. It's in the moment and I just love it so much. For our listeners, we're going to link to it in the show notes, so definitely check it out, as Pam is talking about it. But what do you love about this work?

[00:06:05] PV: Well, this is one of my favorite shots, both for the way it turned out visually, because it really encompasses my style of, I love the human nature connection. I love animals. I love people and animals, but this one also brings in so much of that sense of place of this little town in Romania. I feel like it's a really good travel shot, because it really puts you in the place right then and there. It's unusual that this isn't an Instagrammable spot. I feel like, I actually found this location, because I was – we had driven into this little village the day before, at sunset. We had to stop, because there were all these cows in the road. I'm like, “This is so charming.” 

First of all, my mom and I were traveling together and we decided to just travel off the beaten path. We wanted to go see rural Romania. We were in the Maramures area of Romania. We just really wanted to focus in on rural life. With all these cows in the road, it took us a while to get through that cow traffic jam, but then it got my wheels spinning, because I was like, “They're going to do this again in the morning.” Because cows do the thing in the morning and that thing in the evening, and that's how cows are. So that evening, I was like, “Okay, I'm going to figure out where these cows go.” Of course, the way you figure out where they go is you look on the road, and you can see where they've been, right? 

There I am. I'm like, “I'm going to track them down.” I'm an animal tracker. I love wildlife photography. I am in tune with what animals do. I can figure out where they were. In the morning, before sunrise, I was following again, the trail and I know, they've gone down that way, and they're going to come back up this way. I found my spot where I figured I could get a pretty good shot. I think I nailed it.

[00:07:51] YD: You did. You absolutely did it. Yeah. I love that man is there just looking on, because it also adds that really great human element. Definitely check it out you guys. We’re linking to this image in the show notes. You mentioned that you love wildlife photography and a lot of your work is centered around wildlife. I'm just wondering, how did you first knew, or how did you first became involved in animal photography, wildlife photography? How did you know that this is what you wanted to do?

[00:08:19] PV: Oh, wow. That's a really good question. I do remember the very first shot I ever took, as a little kid. I lived at Kansas and I knew that the Kansas State animal was the buffalo, right? The bison, but I also knew that there were no bison in Kansas. They've been eradicated, right? There's no wild bison at Kansas. But we went on this vacation, family vacation to South Dakota. In South Dakota, there is a herd of wild bison. Of course, my parents didn't know any of this. They were just like, “We're going to South Dakota, to the Badlands.” Right? 

Yet in the distance, I saw tiny little dots and they were wild bison, out there on the horizon. I just remember as a little kid standing with my back to my mom and I just reached my hand up in the air to reach for the camera. We had one of those little tiny chocolate bar cameras, you're just like, put the cartridges and then click it like that. I just remember putting it to my eye and taking a picture, somehow capture the idea. There are bison in this world and they are out there just being wild bison. Somehow, they just really, really – that was important to me. I took the photo to capture that and hang on to it. That just sticks with me, that it was really important for me to see that and to connect these dots. Also, have this question about, why is it our state animal and it doesn't live here in Kansas? Here I am in California where the state animal is the grizzly bear, and it doesn't live here either. 

I don't know, I have a little bit of this storytelling of people and animals. But to me, I'm always oriented to the way I feel when I'm photographing animals. I feel so present. People say, “How do you have so much patience to take a picture of an animal?” I'm like, “Well, patience to me implies that you're waiting for something and that you got something else you got to do and like let's get on with it.” Right? So that's being patient, like, I’m okay. Whenever it happens. To me, I'm not being patient. I'm just being. I'm just there in my – I am just like being present with whatever happens next and being ready for it. 

I always say that wildlife photography requires, first of all, infinite patience and lightning-fast reflexes, right? I never tried to make an animal do something, or look at me. I never interact with the animal and to change its behavior. Unless it's a dog, and then I'm like, “Sit.” But with wildlife, I always just love the feeling that I get when I'm photographing them. I’ve been told that I often photograph when other people wouldn't click the shutter, because it'll be a funny expression, or a really beautiful interaction and gesture. I always look for those things that are a crystallized story in a moment. As photographers that's what we do. We try to tell the whole story in one instant.

[00:11:11] YD: I love how you brought this whole storytelling aspect into it, because I think that that's really important. I consider myself a storyteller first, and photographer, writer, and podcaster, whatever, second, right? It's so cool for me to hear that as a little girl, you were already looking for those stories and connecting the dots as you put it. That's really cool. That's really special.

[00:11:34] PV: Yeah, yeah. I love wildlife photography. It’s something I would just do every day, whether or not it was for sale. It's just the thing I love to do the most, but with that being said, I did try to turn it into something that could be a revenue stream for me, where I was setting up wildlife photo safaris to take other people with me and to have that feeling together. We want to get good images, but it's that feeling together and that creating stories that then they could take home and spread throughout their connections. I'm like, okay, with my little spark, we can get lots of people to love the wildlife. For that reason, some people like this lightning-fast reflexes aspect of it, of knowing your camera really well and being able to get the shot. I realized that I needed to train some people how to use their camera a little bit better, because you get so amped up when you're in front of a tiger, or there's the elephant or something. 

I devised this workshop that I taught, and I called it the Barnyard Safari. We would go to barnyards and to interesting farm in situations in Montana. I would work with people to photograph animals that are going to be there all day long. They're in a corral. There may be a cow or chicken. We could pretend the cow is a giraffe, or we could pretend the chicken is a peacock, right? Photographing with animals that'll stay in place, so that's how I ended up on an Emu farm, photographing this beautiful shot. That's another one of my really favorite shots, but it's called The Hatchling. I was able to watch an Emu hatching in an incubator as part of my barnyard Safari scouting. I didn't end up taking people to the Emu farm, because Emu’s are quite dangerous. As it turns out, they're really funny looking and interesting, but you don't want to get too close to them. Different than cows.

[00:13:24] YD: We’ll link to this image that you're mentioning as well. It's called The Hatchling. It's now an NFT as well. We will talk about NFTs in a little bit as well, but speaking of revenue streams and speaking of commercialization and workshops and all of this, you have an amazing portfolio of work, and you've been published at the New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, Travel + Leisure, National Geographic, many other places. I'm curious, because I'm cheating a little bit, because I already know the backstory of this, from our time on Twitter together. I'm curious, how did that journey unfold for you? Because you didn't start from, I want to be a photographer, I want to be a wildlife photographer to next day, working with the magazine, or working even with a tourism board. 

I know that you've been working with a Montana Tourism Board, which is a really cool gig. Let's talk about that as well. How did that journey unfold for you? Because a lot of our listeners, they’re perhaps interested in taking that steps. They're definitely interested in travel. They're definitely interested in storytelling. How do you marry those things, your passions, because I know you're very passionate about those things. How do you marry them and say, “No, you know what? I'm actually going to turn this into a career for me.” I'd love to hear that story.

[00:14:41] PV: Yeah, yeah. Well, I think, I've done it my way. I'll just tell you how I did it, but maybe there's some little pieces that would work for some people. I was in a corporate job. I worked in advertising agencies.

[00:14:55] YD: Because that’s the path we all take, right? We all take that path at first. We all take the same paths, because that's what we know, right? Oh, it's so funny. 

[00:15:04] YD: Well, I loved the day-to-day working with creative people. I was on the relationship management, account management. I was a senior account manager at a big agency. I got to work with creative people all day long. In this instance, I found myself on the client side working with the brand itself and working with agencies as the client. It was a job that I was just like, “Oh, my gosh. I'm not sure I'm fitting in with this very well.” I was wearing my corporate suit. I was showing up for the corporate meetings, but I was driving a 1970 Volkswagen bus, guys. 

I was not in it, of the way. I did find myself with this conflict and I would be sitting like, I didn't really want to go into the office. I tried to make it as easy as possible. I go get myself a really good latte from the local place. I drive to the beach. This was in San Francisco. I would drive to Ocean Beach and watch the surfers in the fog, and drink my latte in my Volkswagen bus and be like, “Okay, I got to make the left turn and go down to the corporate campus.” Right? I just like, “How long am I going to do this?”

[00:16:08] YD: Just a quick sidebar that, that is how I knew that I had to talk to Pam, because, guys, this was exactly my story as well. I would have these – I was flying to LA from New York. I was on the brand side. I was the person that you were interacting with on the other side. I would fly to LA for the ad agency meetings. Before the meeting, because I was dreading my day. I was dreading that this is my life. I would go and get a coffee from a local shop. I would drive down to Santa Monica Beach and look at the surfers on the pier. When I heard Pam telling that story, I'm like, “Oh, my God. This is crazy.” Because that was exactly what was happening to me, too.

[00:16:47] PV: Yeah. I don't know what it is about surfers, but they're in tune with nature. They're like, not thinking about anything else, right?

[00:16:54] YD: I mean, they're surfing 9 in the morning when we are going to our corporate jobs. That's the freedom. I think, that's what – actually, I think, that's what it was. We were looking for that freedom to say no, at 9 AM, I'm going to go surfing, instead of that meeting that I'm dreading.

[00:17:07] PV: Right, right. It was during those years, during that timeframe. My mom came to visit me and she asked this – She was on the plane. I was taking her to the airport, it was back when we could sit at the gate with them. You could go into the gate and sit until they walk onto their plane. That was a while ago, we all know. We were just sitting there waiting for the plane to load and she was like, “What do you want to be doing in 10 years?” I'm like, “Oh, no. If I continue down this path that I'm on, in 10 years, I'm going to be Vice President of nothing. I'm going to be like this corporate, horrible, soul sucking.” I was like, right then and there, this answer just bubbled up from inside of me. 

I want to be a wildlife filmmaker, because that's what I want to do. She asked me, “What do you want to be doing?” I'm like, “That's what I want to be doing.” I put things in motion to go that route. This was again, a while ago. I was like, “How do you become a wildlife filmmaker?” Because I was just like, I'm this corporate person over here, but there are people who do this other thing. How do you do that? I found that there are wildlife film festivals. I'm like, “Well, I'm an awesome networker. I'm going to just go network my way into this job.” Right? I have this idea, like you can do anything. I'm like, “Well, I'm just going to go do that.” 

Here I am. I've been working in advertising. I've been making 30-second movies called commercials. How hard could it be to make an hour-long movie called a wildlife movie? I mean, I have the skills. I have the protection. I know how things go. I know how to tell stories. I understand teams working together. I'm like, surely this will just be like, “I'll just go do this.” Well, so I did go to Wildlife Film Festival in 1999. Then I did meet a lot of awesome people, but then they told me, there's this other film festival you should go to in Missoula, Montana, that happens in the springtime. 

In between summer of ’99 and spring of 2000, we had New Year's Eve Y2K, right? Then Y2K, this was when the whole world was going to melt down and the computers were going to blow up, because no one knew that to put in four digits for the date and all this stuff. I found myself in Death Valley with three friends, because we were all artists and we all wanted to be as far away from computers, as we could. During that time in Death Valley at New Year's Eve, we were all setting our intentions. I'm like, “Well, I'm going to go be this Wildlife filmmaker. I'm going to quit my corporate job, and I'm just going to go do this. 

I thought, okay. I knew that the film festival was in the spring, so I had a few months to get my plan in place. I didn't have my own car. This Volkswagen bus was like, belong to me and my boyfriend. I'm like, “I’m going to need a getaway pod.” I'm going to have to get one of those. I’m going to need some cash. I was saving up. All my expense checks would go into my savings. I was getting some money together, because I knew I was going to need a little bit of a runway, as we say. I did start cutting down all my expenses, saving all my money. I did sign up for a course at this Wildlife Film Festival about how to become a wildlife filmmaker. I'm like, “See, there's even a class for it.” You can go – it's that's tongue in cheek, because of course, it takes a lifetime to actually be able to get really deep into the industry. 

Here was this entry point. Someone who is teaching me like, here's the things you need to do, the people you need to know, how you make the connections like what you're doing with travel media. Here's some roadmaps for you to try. I got a car loan and I bought myself a Jeep Wrangler, because I knew I was going to quit my job, and they weren't going to give me a car loan without a job. I got my escape pod. I went to this film festival in March. Oh, I quit my corporate job. Yeah. I went in. I gave them two weeks’ notice. I said, “I'm going to go be a Wildlife filmmaker.” This is when the Senior VP called me into his office. He's like, “Pam, how are you going to eat?” I said, “You've never called me into your office before. We've never had a conversation. What do you care? You don't even know me?” 

I was just like, “I got this.” I'm going to go to this wildlife Film Festival. I'm going to make my way in. That's how I did it. I did. I quit my job. People around me were just astounded. They're like, I wish I could do that, but I have a kid. I have a mortgage. I'm afraid of dusts. I'm afraid of – how do you do this? I'm just like, this is so – I just really need to do this. Well, as it turns out at this film festival during my class, someone came in and said, “Well, I'm starting this wildlife film production company, and we're looking for people to hire.” I'm like, “Well, go figure.” I have just manifested this, right? He was interviewing a lot of people. The question was, what would you say if I asked you to carry 95 pounds, 13 miles uphill? What would you say? I said, “Well, give me enough time, water and Clif Bars and I'll do it.” Because I knew my limitations and I know I needed some fuel, but I had no other questions. I was like, “I'm doing it, if this is what it requires, this is what I'm going to do.” 

I have that commitment to be like, I'm going to do whatever it takes. I had this like, I already had a lot of independence. I already had this a lot of, didn't seem very many roadblocks, I guess. I was hired, because other people were asking, well, how much does it pay? Where do I take a shower? You know, different things. Well, so I called my mom and I'm like, “I got this job.” Her first question was, “Do they pay insurance?” I'm like, “I don't know. I don't know. Well, I just said yes.” I was required to be back in Montana doing this job in two weeks. That was an interesting drive back to San Francisco to pack up my life to then be back in Montana.

[00:22:38] YD: Yeah. I just want to just pause here real quick, because you said so many important things there that I want to just pull out for our listeners as well. That's listen, you sometimes don't even need to know how this will all work out, because when you're entering a new industry and this is not just about wildlife photography or filmmaking, it's not just about travel media. It's with any new endeavor. If you want to be, I don't know, an acupuncturist, let's say, although maybe that's a bad example, because you probably need to go to acupuncturist school. 

What I'm saying is, if you're entering a new space that you don't know nothing about, you need to start aligning yourself with people, with events, you need to start getting yourself involved in the things happening in that industry. That's how little steps by steps you take these steps and you take one step, the next step appears. You take the next step, the next step appears. It's never going to be that you take one step and the whole path is like, everything is in great vision in front of you. What I'm seeing from your story, Pam, is that you took that first step. You went to that first film festival. You took that second step, they told you, “Hey, there is another festival you should be at.” 

You went there, you took the class. You started talking to people, and eventually, you got hired by this company and that was your way into the industry, which is just such a beautiful story for me, because that's exactly how this happens, right? That's how it happened to me as well. I had nothing. I had no idea how I'm going to be a travel photographer. I didn't know anybody in the industry. I didn't know any magazines. I did know nothing. But I started going to events. I started going to conferences. I started talking to people, exactly the same, right? You have to start showing up, basically. Start showing up in the places where these people, these conversations happen, that's how you get into it.

[00:24:26] PV: Exactly, exactly. You also start telling people what it is you want to do. I remember I was at a Farmers Market and there was this person with a booth and they have these horses. It's like, you can ride horseback into the wilderness.  I was like, “Okay, here's what I want to do.” I don't know how to ride horses, but what I want to do is ride horses in the wilderness with my camera. She's like, “You can do that, come over here.” For the next six years, I was with this Equestrian Club that was teaching women how to ride Tennessee Walkers horses into the wilderness. I became this photographer. I was already the photographer, but I became a skilled enough at riding a horse that I could actually shoot photos from my horse. That gave me an amazing entry into different types of Western Montana kinds of activities I could do. 

Again, I just showed up, and I just said, told this person, here's what I want to do. I think that's another thing is like, don't think that something is impossible. I mean, you just have to speak it and you have to let people know, like you said, show up where those cool things are happening, those people are. People love to help you create bridges, I find. I love doing that for people. I'm like, “Oh, you should know this person.” Some people say that I can see the matrix. They’re like, “You can just see how this goes together.” I'm like, “Yeah, but I can't find a restaurant.” If you're like, “What restaurant should we go to?” I’m like, “I don't know. Let's just walk that way. There probably be one.”

[00:25:53] YD: I love that. I love that so much. You eventually started working with Montana Tourism Board. It was an ongoing relationship that you had. I believe you said, you were working with them for several years. How did that conversation happen, or how did – You're working on this wildlife production company. You're working with the Equestrian Club. How did that transition to Montana Tourism Board happened for you?

[00:26:19] PV: Yeah. Well, Montana is not a very big state. At the time I was there, there were fewer than a million people, as far as population. It's very big in space. I was working as a freelancer for the smaller Convention and Visitor's Bureau for Missoula, Montana. I was a freelance photographer for them. I got a contract to shoot summer. Actually, it was a contract through their ad agency. They had a local ad agency. 

[00:26:46] YD: Your adding into background was helpful probably to you, because you could start off conversations with those agencies easily, probably.

[00:26:54] PV: Yeah. Well, because I have this idea. I want to do travel photography, because I, well, I just love taking pictures that I'd like. That's the cool job. Yeah, I found the ad agency for the local Convention of Visitor's Bureau. They have the short contract. We need you to go out for four days and photograph summer. What they said was, “We want travel photos.” Travel photos have to have people in them. I'm like, “Oh, I've never heard this before. I’m just taking flowers, and animals, and landscapes, and things that I think are pretty about the place.” 

They say, “No, travel photography. This has to be travel photos. In every place you have to have a person in there, because we're going to use these photos to sell Montana and people need to see themselves in that place. They need to see themselves in a canoe, or at the farmers market, or riding a horse, or these things.” I was like, “Oh, okay. This is different.” I shot for them. I did really good. Then I got the fall contract. Then I got the spring contract. Then because of that connection, they knew the person who was putting out the RFP for the Western – it was called Glacier Country. 

Montana is divided up into different tourism areas. Glacier Country is basically Western Montana, from Glacier down through the bottom of Missoula County. Yeah. I had to put together a pitch of an RFP. I had to say, here are my qualifications as a photographer. Here's my portfolio. I already shoot these types of things. I already shoot people doing cool, fun activities, eating, drinking, staying in cool places, hanging out with their family doing all these sorts of travel photo types of things, and here's my rates. I'm insured. Here's my gear that I have. I showed up as a business person, like a freelance photographer and I got the contract. I was very, very excited. That was one of the best days ever. 

That ramped up my photography a little bit more, because the way they would do their photo shoots is like, we have two full days and we're dividing it up into from sunrise to 9 AM, we're going to be shooting this. Then from 9:30, we're going to shoot this. From 10:30, we're going to shoot this. We're completely schedule out the day. I was like, “Wow, this is like, that I remember from my advertising agencies time. This is a production day. It's not fun and games. It's like, we got to move. We got to get the shot. We got to get with the client wants, because this is my client now. That was a relationship that went on for several years. My photos were used in their travel brochure. Like you feel like, I want to go to Montana. They would send you this Glacier Country Brochure and I had my photos all through it and everything. Yeah, so that's how that came about.

[00:29:33] YD: I love that. I love that story. Yeah, sounds like your background. That's what I always say that everything that we do in life prepares us for the next step. A lot of people that I interview on the podcast, they're all converters of some sort, right? From corporate jobs to something else from, from something else to photography, from something else to writing, but everything you do in life, you bring all those skills and all that experience and knowledge with you. I love seeing that with you. You also mentioned something interesting, which is, “It's not fun and games. It's a production day. It's a lot of work.” The question I have for you is, what would you say are some of the biggest misconceptions, or some of the biggest misunderstood parts of being a travel photographer?

[00:30:20] PV: Well, I would say. Well, when you're working with a client like this, with a tourism bureau, if you're on set with them and in this case, they lined up the red convertible we were going to drive through Glacier. They lined up the Ranger who was going to be with us. They did a lot of that production work, because they had all the connections, and because they're the clients and they're selling the boat rides at the park and all these things. They were able to line all this up. What they needed me to do was tell them what to do. I'm so much of a, I shoot what's there, like on my own. I shoot what I see. I go looking for it. I get intrigued by it. I go follow it. I had to switch it and be like, okay, what would I hope to encounter? Then set it up. 

The idea of shooting in this way, it's not just like, go shoot it on your own time. We have a schedule here. So that, to me, was really relied on my skills of being able to know my gear, know my camera, know what lens I'm going to be putting on my camera right now. I always had a backup camera in my vehicle, because you have to be ultra-prepared. You have to have all your batteries charged. I mean, they were there to help me with all the other stuff, but that I was the only – I didn't have an assistant with my photography part. What I realized about myself is, I do a lot of talking while I'm shooting that they're going, “What do you need?” I'm like, “Oh, I don't need you to do anything. I'm just telling myself, okay, watch this.” I should keep my voices in my head instead of speaking out loud.

What I was finding was, something I needed to work on was to be able to direct the scene and to direct exactly what I want to see in this frame, because I could, because they're like, “What do you need? What wardrobe do you want? Where should the car be driving and all this? The thing was to keep your mind, your goal on what it is we're selling. We're not selling the fashion of the woman wearing the shawl, we're selling the destination. So back up, show the scene. The person in the scene is a smaller part of what the story is, but it's really important punctuation point, so you have to put them in the right place. You have to think about how is this image going to be used in the double page spread, how's it going to be used on the cover, understand where these images are going to be used. 

A lot of them were just going to be a, “Oh, we're going to use it in a small little inset PR thing.” Shooting a broad range. All of these things are going on through my head. I guess, the number one thing is to know what the client wants and have a really open conversation about that, about what they're looking for. Then realize all the money that they're pouring into setting all these things up and go, “Oh, this must be important, we better make sure that this is in the scene.” Again, it's very different than just being freelance telling your own story, you tell their story. 

[00:33:19] YD: Yeah. I think it's interesting. It's great to have both of those skills, right? Because you never know what project comes about, where that's going to be required. I'm resonating a lot with what you're saying, because for most of my work, it's the latter. It's the one where I go and follow and I shoot what's there. I'm not directing anything, but there were a couple of occasions where I had to become that creative director and say, “No, turn this way, or go here or do that.” It's definitely a different type of skill that I think to be a well-rounded photographer you need to have both of those, so that's really important. 

Let's talk a little bit about some of the work that you've published in some of these amazing magazines, because that's the other part that I know, our listeners are always interested in as well. You're working with a tourism board. You have all these other projects. How did you figure out – were you pitching editors at magazines, or how did you figure out that relationship?

[00:34:14] PV: Well, for some of them, well, for example the M le Magazine du Monde, that's a French magazine that they had for summary, there's some interesting Montana connection that they figured out that I'm this Montana photographer. They contacted me and actually asked me to go shoot for them. It was shooting – actually, a Western author who is a – he writes these western novels. He was like this really Montana character. I was assigned to go. They said, “Well, we've got someone to do his portrait. You don't have to shoot the author, but that he writes about Montana. We want you to go to the place where he writes about and shoot Montana,” They had seen my Montana photography before. 

In that instance, it was a commission deal where they sent me out on assignment. Of course, I hadn't read any of his novels. I didn't have time between getting the assignment and reading a few of these western novels, but I was like, “Okay.” But I knew the bar he hung out in. They told me what bar he hung out in. I went there. I asked people like, “What should I show about this place? Where are the cool places?” Bars are a really good place to find local information about wildlife and about what's happening locally. People will give you give insight, I think, when you're in this place where you can just have a conversation and meet the locals, as it were. In that instance, it came about as an assignment, a commissioned assignment. 

Some of the other work I was covering either some Montana happening, that they knew I was a photographer there, like in The New York Times. There was this big story with Canada wanting to run a lot of oil rigging gear through Montana up to Canada. We were like, “No, we don't like that.” I went and I photographed Annick Smith. She's the producer of A River Runs Through It, and many other films. She's someone that I knew locally. Again, you hang around the people that are the movers and shakers, if you can find them. I was sent on assignment to photograph her in different places in Montana for the New York Times story. 

Some of the other work, because I was shooting for a Glacier Country in Montana, and because it was shooting for this luxury ranch resort, a lot of the photos I shot for them, they would use as PR pieces in Conde Nast and Travel + Leisure and some of these other places. By nature of working with a client, my work ended up there and was credited, in many cases, it was credited. Sometimes when they're using PR photos, they will give you a photo byline. They were not really used as advertising per se and in which case usually when your photos are in advertising, you don't get credit. You get just the licensing for that. 

[00:36:50] YD: It's important that you have established a really strong niche for yourself. People knew you as the Montana photographer. Whenever they needed Montana photos, they came to you and that's so important. I always talk about that as well on the podcast that figure out what you're – like for me, for example, this is happening with the Middle East. People are coming to me, because they know me as the Middle East person, they know me, I have a lot of work in Jordan. Whenever somebody needs Jordan, they come to me, right. It's really important that you build up that niche. Sometimes it happens by chance that you end up photographing a lot of something in this specific destination, but sometimes you can be more intentional about that and say, “This is what I want to be known for. Like, my portfolio can be broad, right? I can have many skills, but this is what I want to be known for.” That's really, really important as well. Let's talk a little bit about where you are today, because you're not in Montana. You’re in California.

You have an incredible career, an incredible portfolio of work. As we mentioned at the beginning of today's conversation, I know you through NFTs. I would love to know, what has drawn you into the NFT space? Here's why I'm asking, because a lot of the people I'm talking on Instagram, in real life events and conferences, specifically women, a lot of women are curious, but they feel like they don't see themselves in NFT space. They feel like they don't belong. 

In fact, just recently, I posted – I'm going to run, I'm going to have, actually, I think when this episode comes out, the workshop will already be over, but I'm running a NFT workshop this August. I posted about it on Instagram. I've gotten a lot of messages of people saying, “I'm going to unfollow you, because you are encouraging other photographers to get into NFT space. NFT space is a horrible space. It's a Ponzi scheme. Why are you doing this? I'm very disappointed in you.” These were women that wrote this to me, women photographers that I know. I see this. Some of them are curious, but they don't think that they belong. Some of them are not curious and they think it's a horrible place. I would love to hear your thoughts on what drew you to the NFT space in the first place and how do you find it? Is it a Ponzi scheme? 

[00:39:16] PV: Well, that's a really – so how I got here and it was in the days of clubhouse. What was it, last year? February, March or something. I was invited to Clubhouse by the head of marketing for Nestle, because I was in some webinar with her. She was like, da-da-da-da, only by invite, send me a DM. I was like, I didn't know what she was talking about, but I was like, I'm going to just see what that is. Yeah, so that was back when it was invite only. I don't know if it still is or not. I was just like, “This is the coolest thing ever.” I could just spend hours listening to people talk about creative ideas and cool things and stuff. I found this group of photographers there on Clubhouse who were all talking. 

Then I kept seeing these spaces showing up with NFT, NFT. I was like, “What is that? I'm staying away from that. I’m staying away from that.” Then I'm like, “Well, it’s everywhere. So maybe I should check it out.” I'm like, “What is this? Okay.” Because I'm always curious and I don't – I'm not super FOMO on things, but I'm always like, “Well, something's going on. What's over there? What's that like?” 

I didn't listen to the NFT spaces on Clubhouse. What I did is, I went and I Googled it. I found, I'm sure a million people have watched this video from Lindsay Adler and put out by Adorama. She's was a photographer that I always liked. I'm not a fashion photographer, but I love the way she teaches lighting. I love the way she just is powerful, successful woman photographer. I'm just like, yeah. I was like, okay. I can trust her, because I've heard her teaching before. So I'm like, surely she's looked into this, so now I'm going to just – so she had this, three part video series that was published by Adorama. She just explained very clearly what it was. 

She’s like, when we sell prints in the real world, you might have a limited-edition print. This is the only type of print that's on this paper at this size. There's like one of 10 and you can buy one of 10. Then maybe you will print that image in another way. Maybe you'll put it on a poster, right? A poster you can get 4,000 posters, but it's a poster. It's definitely not printed on fancy paper over here. She's like, NFTs can be thought of as the same way. It's another format of your image being out there and available for sale. The cool thing about an NFT is, because it's on the blockchain, it has provenance, right? You know exactly that it was minted. It was put on the blockchain by the exact artist who made it. Then when it's traded or sold, all of that information is recorded on the blockchain. 

It's like back in the days when the masters were selling paintings. It’s like, who has the painting? Well, there are some painters who would say, on the back of their painting, I sold this to so and so. Then when that painting got sold, again, on the back of that painting, it said, well, now it has been sold to so. The provenance is recorded on that physical painting. Well, in this case, the provenance of that image is recorded on the blockchain and you can track it, and it's public information. I was like, “Okay, all of that makes sense to me, because I knew about licensing images.” I knew about when I say someone can use my image, I never ever sold my copyright, I never. I always maintain copyright. 

Maybe I give you full use of the image forever and ever and you can do whatever you want with it, yeah, great, but I still own the copyright. So that was always really important to me. In NFTs you can decide what rights you're actually giving, selling away with that, because it's recorded in the smart contract on the blockchain. I was like, “All of this makes perfect sense to me.” If there are people who are art collectors, who wants to collect my work as art, because I've had that happen before, I used to be part of a artist gallery and people would buy my pictures to hang on their wall, those kinds of pictures, not the travel photos, but those finery pictures.

I was like, okay, this seems something I can understand as a photographer and I feel protected as a photographer, because I know that it's all about I'm still in control of my images. I just watched that series of videos over and over again. That was back when Eth was $1,900. Now it's actually zoomed up to over 4,000, now it's back up to $1,900 again. Yeah, there's that volatility with the actual currency that is used to buy and sell these NFTs. Yeah, so I got into it – I educated myself quite a bit before I went into it, but what I saw is another revenue stream for my images. I was like, I'm a photographer that likes a lot of revenue streams. 

Also, just a real quick note about it being a real deal in terms of collecting art, there is an NFT gallery in Chicago called imnotArt. I had a piece in their gallery for a bit and for one of their exhibitions. I got to talk with the gallery owner for a bit it. He said that NFTs are seen as this new form of art. Art collectors really consider this, because of all those things provenance and ownership and this provability and rarity and scarcity, that it's a real piece of art. They told me about this woman, who an 80-year-old woman had come into the gallery, who had been a lifelong art collector. 

She, of course, as an art collector, you always want to know the new stuff. Your mind is already set. Like, “What's going on out there. Tell me.” They're at the edges. They're at the fringes in the front edges of what's coming next. Even though she was 80, she had been doing that her whole life. She came in, she goes, “I've heard about these NFTs on television. I want to know all about them.” The folks at imnotArt in Chicago, they're all about helping people understand and be educated about this new art form, too. They let her know all about it. She saw on the wall, and she was like, “Okay, got it.” To me, that just speaks to the art collector personality that's out there. So that's why I think it's not a Ponzi scheme. This is a new form of collecting art. 

There are people who do it for different reasons. There are people who do it, because they want to find something rare and then flip it, sell it for more. There are people who just like, really, really connect with the artist and want to own a piece of that person's story and have that personal connection. There's so much art that I have in my home that I bought it from the artist on the street, or the artist at the shop, or I know who made it. To me, that's really important. That's the type of art I like to collect. I'm not spending a ton of money on it, but it's the texture of my life. It's like how I feel, I want to go through this world is be connected to artists.

[00:45:51] YD: I love how you said it. It's the texture of my life. By the way, you guys, Pam has collected one of my editions. That was such an awesome surprise and so beautiful to see. Thank you, Pam, so much. Do women have a space in the NFT space?

[00:46:06] PV: Absolutely, absolutely. I think we've noticed as being women out in the space that there's the bro culture that's going on out there.

[00:46:15] YD: That's, by the way, and I think that's what's really, what's repelling a lot of women who don't know all the intricate details, right? They just see the big board apes and the bro culture. They're like, “I want nothing to do with that.” But what me and you are here today to tell loud and clear that that's not everything about the NFT space. There are people like us in there who are incredible. Like Pam. I love Pam. Pam is so amazing and there's so many other women in there who are just incredible artists. We absolutely have a space, right?

[00:46:46] PV: Yes, yes. We might have to realize that when we travel, you can go and you could see, “Oh, there's the Eiffel Tower. Great. Well, maybe there's more interesting things over there.” Like anyone can see the Eiffel Tower. If you're in NFT Twitter, and you're on Twitter spaces, and you're like, “Oh, there's this page with 400 people in it.” That's like, there's the Eiffel Tower. Okay. Maybe that's where the baseline love. That's where you're going to find stuff that's not necessarily targeted for you. It's going to be like trying to just attract a lot of energy around it. That's maybe where people are running into like, “Oh, this seems really icky.” It seems like a souvenir, as opposed to a genuine experience. How we can find those things. I would say, just maybe join smaller spaces. Because in Twitter spaces, of course, what we're talking about where you can join in as this is the Twitter's version of Clubhouse. 

I'm not in Clubhouse anymore, but this is like audio chat rooms where you can go in and you can have a chance to just listen, or you can in some cases, have a chance to talk and ask questions, or introduce yourself, or talk about your art. There's different spaces for different purposes, but there are lots and lots of women out there who are trying to bring up other women. Yulia, you are one of them. I applaud you for that, because I mean with your spotlighting women, in your Twitter spaces, and in your newsletter. I guess, being this beacon of – you're searching for women who are amazing and then you're elevating them. 

I think, if we just keep doing more of that, there are a lot of women out there who are educating women about crypto and about how to do the financial side of things. How to keep yourself secure. Because in Web3, you're in charge of your own security. That's also some of the scary stories that are out there that getting hacked, or getting scammed and these kinds of things. It is the Wild West in a way. That you are in charge of your own safety, and you're in charge of your own actions, and you are also in charge of your own integrity, which is why when people like, “Can't you just right-click save that image?” I'm like, “Yeah.” But then everyone will know that you did that, because they can see in public that you don't own that thing. You're just setting yourself up to be not part of the Web3 mentality of being transparent, showing up and being with your own integrity intact and being a real person.

[00:49:20] YD: Yeah. Oh, I love that so much. Obviously, you and I are on the same page, Pam, because we're both debating in the NFT community. I again, we're going to link – because I haven't seen that video series you mentioned from Adorama and Lindsay Adler. We're going to link to that, so hopefully, more people can check that out. Yeah, I mean, I'm just echoing everything you said. I have found the most incredible community of people inside the NFT space that cares so much about art in general, photography in general, but also my art, and my photography, and about supporting each other. I haven't seen that in a long time. I don't see it on Instagram, for sure. Instagram only cares about reels.

People want to buy each other stuff. Of course, there's more intricate like, there's more – we have two episodes on NFTs already. We'll link to those as well, you guys. You can check those out. Again, please check it out. We don't want people, but especially women to be left behind, because crypto is the way of the future, to be honest. We need more women participating in the technology. Maybe you're not entering as an NFT artist, but at least be aware of this is what's happening, so that you don't get left behind. I think that's really important.

[00:50:38] PV: Yeah. It is really important. It's important to really educate yourself through reliable sources. People that you can trust, sources that you can trust, that don't be afraid of it. It is the way of the future. I think it's really important that women are not left behind, like you said. This is a huge economic section of the economy. That sounded really crazy, but no. This is a really big important piece of the economy and we do not want to be left behind. We are every bit as creative as other artists who are not women. We are every bit as creative and we deserve a place in this world. 

Yeah, just educate yourself, I think, would be the number one thing. But don't be afraid of it. Listen to both sides. If you're hearing a lot of scam stuff, okay, maybe there's some of that going on, but if you're also hearing a lot of like what you're just saying, I mean, my daily life is working and listening and talking to photographers all day long, who are amazing people, who have beautiful work that's very personal, that's very amazing. They're incredibly talented photographers. My job is to help them onboard in the NFT space. This might be their very first time with NFTs, so I'm helping them understand the way in. 

Some of them come in, and they're already hot shots in the NFT world. That's really exciting, too, because I can show them what we can do for them that's different than other places and stuff. But yeah, and just the amount of connections that I see between human beings who are artistic is really heartwarming. That's really what my daily life is all about right now is getting to experience that and making that happen. Sometimes we talk about art. Sometimes we talk about other crazy stuff like travel stories, which those are good days, too.

[00:52:39] YD: Definitely. What Pam is mentioning there is her work with a platform in the NFT world that's specifically dedicated to photography and that platform is called Sloika. It's a really beautiful platform. They do a lot for photographers. I've mentioned it before, and we'll link to it again here so definitely check it out. Pam is Head of Creator Relations on Sloika, that's why she gets to meet and onboard a lot of amazing artists in this space, so that's really wonderful. We've covered a lot of ground today. As always, I always feel like the hour is almost over and we barely scratched the surface, because there's just so many more things that I wanted to ask you, but we're going to be wrapping up from now. I wanted to ask you, what are you most excited about, working on right now? What brings you the most joy right now?

[00:53:32] PV: Well, to be honest, we're planning this trip in September to go live in Lisbon, Portugal for a month. My mom loves to do travel photography, too. She and I love to travel together. My husband and her and me, we're going to go live in a flat in Lisbon for a month. She’s been to Lisbon many times and just one of our favorite cities. Because my job with Sloika is a remote job, I'm able to work from anywhere. I've really loved that aspect of remote working. It's like, you don't have to ask for a month off a vacation, you can just go work from someplace else. What I need to do is a lot more research about what cool things I can do in Lisbon. 

She knows a lot of the cool things to do. I know I'm going to be looking into museums and food and music and where the photo op places, but then also where are the off the beaten path things that I can do and explore on my own. I am excited about my research that I'm doing right now into Lisbon. I'm at the very beginning stages of that. Yeah, I would say that that's something I'm really looking forward to, because I'm going to go there with my camera, and I'm going to do my photos. I'm not doing an assignment or anything. I'm just going to go follow my nose down a crazy backstreet and see what I see. 

[00:54:48] YD: I love that. I love that. That's so beautiful. What advice would you give to someone who's maybe thinking about starting down this path, right, of travel photography of working with magazines, brands, tourism boards, just following their passion and their desire for travel, for storytelling? What would you say to them?

[00:55:08] PV: I would say, I think that the networking aspect is really important. Finding either people who – I think that if you find people who are doing that and then learning from how they did it, if they're willing to share in the Web2 area like Instagram area, people who are like, “I'm not going to tell you where I was or any of that. As we're going into Web3, there's so much more of everyone has a place and everyone has something to contribute. There's no reason to hoard resources, per se. There's this openness of sharing information. I would specifically, I would just say, try to make connections with people who are doing something similar to what you're trying to do, or what you think you want to do. 

The biggest piece of advice I've ever given myself that I go by is that I always give myself permission to change my mind, because I've done a couple of jobs where I'm like, “I want to be doing this.” Then I'll get into it. I'm like, “What? I didn’t know that part was part of it.” I'm like, “All right, change directions.” So yeah, try to surround yourself with people who are doing something at least aligned, or similar, then just make connections. I think connections are the number one thing to do. Yeah, be ready. Always keep practicing your art, your craft of photography as well, so that you're ready to show up and be ready when the opportunity shows up.

[00:56:36] YD: Oh, I love it. That's so beautiful, and so well said. Finally, I always close with this question. It's a bit of a big question, but how would you start thinking about what does it mean to be a woman in travel who is stepping into her brilliance today?

[00:56:55] PV: One thing I realized frequently, I was sitting in an airport in Mexico City flight on my way flying home, but I just thought this time when I'm traveling, I have no stress at all. My flight’s delayed, fine. I'm sitting here, I'm traveling, I'm being here. In my day-to-day life I felt like, it’s like, I'm not doing things fast enough. I'm not doing enough things. When you're traveling and all you need to do is do the next thing, that's when I find that I'm in flow. I'm just like, have no stress. I'm like, it's all good. I think just coming to that realization of what are those times that I feel most like that. Then make those happen as often as possible.

[00:57:46] YD: Oh, I love that. I love that so much, Pam. I think it's a beautiful, beautiful sentiment to close our conversation on today. Thank you so much for coming. I love having you on and we'll have to do a repeat one day.

[00:58:00] PV: Sounds good. Well, thank you so much. It's been a joy. 

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[00:58:03] YD: Thank you so much for listening today. I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Pam. If so, I want to ask you to please take a minute right now to support our show. You can do that by leaving us a rating, or review on the Apple podcast app or by sharing this episode with your friends, or posting about it on social media. It really helps us to get discovered by more listeners that will find our show helpful. It means so, so much to me. I read every single review we get and I take them very seriously, because I want to create a great show for you.

If you've been inspired by something you heard today, in our conversation with Pam or in any other episodes of our show, please take just a minute to support it by leaving us your rating, or review. That is one of the really best ways you can help us out. I want to remind you that this October, we're going to have an amazing series of workshops for our Circle members, run by a talented travel writer who is going to help our members develop their craft. I can't say more right now and we'll release more details soon. For now, go check out The Circle to see how our membership is structured and how we support our members.

If you're looking for support, opportunities, and community in the travel media space, consider joining us in The Circle, where we have conversations on a variety of topics relating to travel media on a regular basis. Visit travelmedialab.com/circle to learn more.

All right, thanks again for listening today. Stay tuned for next week.

[END]