Speaker 1: 0:15

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Son of a Blitch podcast. I'm your host, George Blitch, and I just wrapped up a wonderful conversation with Jody Horton For those who don't know him. I just wrapped up a wonderful conversation with Jody Horton For those who don't know him. He is a wonderful photographer. You just kind of look above me here. There's a few books that he's been a part of. You know, I first learned about him when I picked up Jesse Griffith's Field Cookbook, which was the first cookbook that Jody was a photographer for.

Speaker 1: 0:40

Obviously, jesse and him have, you know, been doing some other work together on the Hog Book and most recently the Turkey Book. We kind of go into that discussion in great detail and both of those two books the Hog Book and the Turkey Book, are under St John Press, which is an arm of Jody's publications. He also has St John's Studio there in Austin, texas, working with a lot of different types of know, corporate clients and things too, a lot of food and beverage type focus things, I mean, and I think to date now he's done like 18 or 19 different cookbooks. He holds two James Beard awards for cookbooks. He's got another one coming out with Big Mo pretty recent I think it's probably I think it's a May drop there too. That too, um, that's been one of his recent projects and you know he's been involved in so many wonderful things Uh, we kind of talk about. You know a little bit of his history, some of the things he's been, uh you know, working on recently. You know his studio and what it took to kind of get that up and running and you know just a lot of the things that he loves. Jody is an absolute wonderful person. He's got a heart of gold and he is a very creative genius and just takes some of the best you know photographs that I know he's one of my favorite photographers out there and, just like I said, heck of a good guy. Had a wonderful chat with him and I think you guys are going to learn a lot of great things about him. I highly encourage you to go check out all the notes in the description, the links to all the things he's involved in. Go follow them and, you know, check out these books.

Speaker 1: 2:08

If you guys have not ordered a copy of the most recent, the turkey book, the Jesse and Jody, and also Sam Everett he's another photographer with that If you've not ordered your copy, I highly suggest you do, and when you do, make sure you get the bundle with the National Wild Turkey Federation. There's a bundle where you can kind of save a little bit and get an annual membership. I just got mine, and NWTF sent out a magazine. You kind of annual subscription is really cool, so highly encourage you to do that, and there's some really cool gear there too. Uh, you got the hats and there's some shirts as well. So make sure you go over to the wild bookscom, place your orders, check that out and, without further ado, here is the podcast interview with Jody Horton.

Speaker 1: 2:52

Y'all enjoy. Hey, jody, how are you doing today, man? Hey, I'm great. Thanks for having me here. Oh, man, it's my pleasure. I man. We got so many wonderful things to chat about. I figure kind of the hot topic right now that's going on is the Turkey book, and you know St John Press, you guys put this book out. You were one of the photographers, as well as Sam Everett on this. This is your third book with Jesse Griffiths. Let's talk about the Turkey book and, you know, then we'll kind of dive into some of the other projects you've done with him and the other projects you got going on, since there's so many. So maybe tell me a little bit about when this idea of the Turkey book came about and your involvement in it and you know from you know being a photographer and to then getting it ready for the press and now it's, you know, shipping out. It's an exciting time. So yeah, just lay it on me, man.

Speaker 2: 3:37

Sure, yeah, you know, I just did a write-up of this and sent a newsletter out. I don't know if you got it, but so it's always nice to have thought a little bit about something you're going to speak about. But this book unlike the last project, which was the hog book, which took 10 years all came together in like less than a year. So Jesse really approached me at the beginning, you know, of 2023, and was like, hey, I really want to do this book. Actually, it was in a couple of different directions at the time. It was like I might want to do this kind of book, this book. I'm not going to mention the other possible topics because maybe that's next Right. But you know, we kind of talked around for a while. I didn't really believe him that he wanted to make this happen actually within a year. He'd sort of set once. Once we locked into Turkey, you know, he made an argument for it and then he started planning and this must've been. It must've been January or February. I don't think we really started any production in earnest until at least February. Um, well, maybe not even until March, cause I don't think we would have had any birds. You know, all the first first times, um and it, it, it just like started really quickly. And then suddenly there are all these other dates and at one point we're going to get help from another um kind of sponsor that was going to go and shoot the outdoor stuff and because it was so rapidly approaching, I was like I guess, okay, I guess let's do that. Because I was already covered up on a couple of the dates that Jesse threw out, because once he set his mind to it he was like, well, this is going to happen. And he started reaching out to the different states and setting up different hun hunts. And then suddenly they were known and I was like, well, hell, I've got to go to my cousin's wedding for this one and I've got a job scheduled for this one.

Speaker 2: 5:35

So we kind of scrambled around for a while and and um, and ben o'brien actually recommended sam, who was awesome, like totally great, frankly, probably better than me with doing field shots. He's done a lot of that type of work. So he, he was able to to plug in on those dates and we kind of organized it from the front end of like all right, who's going to cover what dates for the, for the four tours? And then really we're like rocking and rolling with that and in between those uh, you know, hunting slash photo shoots, uh, we would have production back at St John's studios, at my studio. So we were, you know, after each round we'd we'd have a couple of rounds of recipes, and that's all pretty fluid with Jesse. It's.

Speaker 2: 6:23

Sometimes you do those types of projects and you know they're very uh, you know they're overly organized. In some case, uh, with jesse and I, since we've done so many things together, it can be very shorthand. He'll usually just show up with a massive cooler of stuff and we'll like bang through like a unusual number of recipes in a day, pull in a couple people to help. But all of it went really quickly. I think by the maybe by October, we were, you know, starting to to get the design in a pretty good order. All of those things happened in like really rapid succession. So we had to lean on, like our our, you know contract help, our outside of office help, our designer, our editors, our copy editor, our indexer and all of that stuff. Once the content is all there and completed just has to kind of fall into place. Our designer, Blair, is someone I can't say enough about. She's pretty brilliant and always helps to do a lot more than just design. So she really helped give the book more shape and then did finish the design out and then it's at the printer.

Speaker 2: 7:44

I was actually we're talking about um northeastern earlier and I had, I had, this bad father moment where I was listening to the presentation at northeastern but also sending, like the last comments, um, that had to be included in the design because it was getting ready to go to press.

Speaker 2: 8:06

You know, while I was sitting up there in Boston, we had like a couple of these oh hell moments that always happen, where you're like, oh man, we forgot to say thank you to this person or we forgot to include this person's contact. So I was I was actually doing some of that up until the you know the last moment it could be shipped off. So luckily it all, it all worked and it came back um early. I can't remember what day it landed Officially, it was right in the middle of a bunch of production at the studio, but it was a week or week or two ago, and so it's taken us a while to get back through the backlog and now we're kind of rolling it on pace and it feels normal as much as normal can have, when you're having thousands and thousands of books and packing into shipping and I mean it's.

Speaker 1: 8:52

Yeah, I've always I've published books, but on a smaller scale than that, and I know how much work goes into it. Once it's, it finally hits the table, and to turn something around in a year from scratch to finish is quite remarkable. I mean, I've never heard of anybody doing that before.

Speaker 2: 9:12

It doesn't happen for a good reason, I'd say it's because it's pretty painful to make it happen. Yeah Well, I mean, jesse and I both have a lot of jobs, you know, um and all, as do the people who were helping us out for this, so it was like a lot of energy to put into sort of a side hustle for that.

Speaker 1: 9:34

You know, for that short of a timeline, yeah, well, I was kind of, you know, I was thinking about that when you were mentioning like y'all would do some of the filming of some of the cooking you know, back at the studio, and I'm sure that there was some that y'all were doing while you're at these, at the events, because you did the Texas dates and then also in Connecticut, there too as well. So you kind of bookended the trip and so I know that there's dishes that were made there. You know, definitely there was kind of a you know an end of of the event era, uh kind of. Uh, you know everyone's sitting down in Connecticut and there's a quite a feast there with some amazing folks and, um, kind of a wrap up, if you will. And so I know you're doing those, you know where, which kind of may be more of a static shot there, but you also did some in the field shooting and I'd like to talk to you about that and ask, like, what is that like for you?

Speaker 1: 10:24

You know turkey hunting. You know, for, for those who may not be familiar with those who are, to the eyesight of Turkey and their sound ability to, you know, tell, a, locate exactly where something came from, and you knock a call. They know within like kind of a five foot radius exactly where that that call came from and their eyesight is so amazing that you have to be so stealth. Uh, you know, as a hunter. And then it kind of made me. As I'm reading the book, I'm looking at some of these pictures, I was like, man, that's really cool. You got some shots where, like the turkeys there and the hunter which is like those are some tough ones to do I was curious about what it was like for you being in the field doing the photography where there's some challenges. I mean, I assume there had to be some and how did you go about it? Where were? What was your setup Like? What was that experience like for you? And just kind of walk me through that. Sure, yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:12

Well, I'll start off by saying that Sam did a much better job than me for the, for the field shots, and that's the truth. Um, and I'll say too that I was like totally green, going in for a turkey hunt, so I didn't know what I was up against and I didn't know exactly how sensitive the turkeys would be, honestly. So I really I probably erred on the side of too much, on the side of caution. By the end of the experience I came to realize that I could actually be more visible than I realized that I could be.

Speaker 2: 11:49

I think I started off thinking I would almost have to be in like a full ghillie suit or like in some blind situation where even then I would have been concerned about like the lens, like refracting light or something reflecting light in the. Yeah um, but I you know it's all very circumstantial where you happen to be right, because sometimes if someone's calling in a bird, you think you're in the position to be like behind the shooter and the bird's going to be coming in from that way, but they might circle around and then suddenly they're coming and you know, and you're between the gun and the bird. So that can happen too, and that did happen in a couple of instances. I think the shots that I got of of turkeys were mostly with them being partially obscured by um, by some sort of foliage in front.

Speaker 1: 12:44

You know a bunch of weeds or something in the forest or whatever it may be.

Speaker 2: 12:47

Yeah, but what's cool about that, in a way, is that that's pretty much what the hunter sees. You know the hunter is seeing like you know this figure. Sometimes it's a clear, open shot, yes, but a lot of times you've got a lot of brush in between you and you can see it coming through. Those are always really difficult things to focus on. You know, if you, by default, in a situation like that that's pretty dynamic, I would be I would be automatic focusing, yeah, and you've got a longer lens too, so the focusing is pretty critical. You've got a longer lens too, so the the focusing is pretty critical. But when you've got a, you know, like 20 feet or more of brush in front of you at all at different depths and you've got a turkey that's kind of moving through there, you, you have to go to a manual focus cause you can't find the turkey. The camera is not smart enough to pick it out. You know it's a little silhouette, so. So that was a. That was a challenge for me. I think I got a couple of decent shots. The turkey the camera is not smart enough to pick it out. You know it's a little silhouette, yeah, so that was a. That was a challenge for me. I think I got a couple of decent shots like that.

Speaker 2: 13:50

Again, sam did a much finer job, or had had also some luck of being in a good situation, um, but uh, yeah, the at the beginning you, I was told to make sure that your hands were covered, because the hands are a dead giveaway. So you know, obviously, bring the camera up to your face. You've got your hands there. Yeah, have to have gloves. And then I was given some first light sort of illy top and I had an old hat and then I like I think I did some sort of paint. Oh, I just, maybe I just did like a first light.

Speaker 2: 14:25

Um, yeah, little neck gator things you can kind of pull up yeah, I think maybe I put like paint, paint on my my face at some point as well, but that's the thing. And I taped, taped up the camera with some camo tape I bought off of Amazon, you know, just to like have something. Yeah, yeah, and uh, it worked pretty well, there's's I'll. I'll share with you a shot. At some point I like took a picture of myself, cause it looks so ridiculous in a reflection of a of a deer blind at one point, uh, I think during the Texas hunt, uh, so I'll share that with you offline. Nice, nice, anyway, it was. It was pretty fun. It was definitely a learning experience for me.

Speaker 2: 15:04

You know, if you think about the, the distinction between that sort of dynamic environment and, like doing something that's more controlled. Now, this is not to say that I, I both, but you know you've got a lot of variables in a hunt and I'm pretty adept at that and have a good rhythm with with Jesse pretty adept at that and have a good rhythm with um with Jesse. But the near far kind of equation of wanting to like get what's going on around you in terms of like usually a couple of guys kind of moving around in blinds and stuff, makes you want to pull close, but then you know, more often than not, to reach out to the bird and get a meaningful shot, you're, you're like far zoomed, so you know you're really kind of pushing the ends of the range, um, which presents a challenge.

Speaker 1: 15:51

So well, I can imagine too in that sense too, because there is definitely a lot of distance and depth that you're covering. And I was curious too, cause, you know, I'm by no means a professional photographer, um, you know, definitely novice but interested. And so you know I'm I'm by no means a professional photographer, um, you know, definitely novice but interested. And so you know, like I'm, I have like a 200 to 600, you know, and or there's different lenses that I've used the different times. Sometimes I'll put it on, I'm like, oh crap, that's way too much. And then there's times where it's like you know the actions right in front of me, or and I'm like, oh man, or further out, I wish I could get a little more zoom.

Speaker 1: 16:23

So I have, you know, different lenses that I'm carrying around with me for whatever may happen, and a lot of times I come on a deer, blind or something like that to where I can kind of fumble around and do things. But I was kind of curious as far as, are you carrying, you know, one kind of do it all lens that can kind of have, you know, different levels of depth? There Do you have two and you're moving around. I was kind of curious how you're carrying it and what that was like when you were in the field.

Speaker 2: 16:50

If you can kind of maybe walk me through a little bit of the equipment talk, sure, I'll say on this at the intro of this that I probably would do it differently if I went back and had another round at these. I think on the first go round I actually had two cameras in the first Texas go round and it was for the same reason I'm talking about now and that what you're speaking to is like well, you want to be able to cover all this, all this range. So I had one kind of like a wedding photographer, like one that's a wide angle range, I think it was a 24 to 70. And then another that was like a 70 to 200 on another camera body and then I had like a multiplier I can't remember if it was the 1.4 or 2, which is basically it's a multiplying effect to that zoom lens. So if you want to get that much further 40 percent or 100 percent further then you can. You can adapt that between the lens and the body. Now I I frankly, you know, if someone were more in the vein of doing this all the time, I would totally get it. I would have a different rig. It would be like more of a. I don't think there's like a 35 to 300 within the Canon world. I'd probably, probably would have been in like a Sony system, since they have like internal stabilization and bodies and stuff, um, so do the digital uh cannons as well. But, um, I think that Sony seemed to be kind of you know, furthest out right now in terms of a lightweight and have long lens ranges. So whatever I'll tell you is what I cobbled together. I guess is what I'm saying, rather than maybe what is the ideal setup. So no one should think oh yeah, this is exactly.

Speaker 2: 18:38

Later I stripped that down, like when we went to Connecticut. I didn't want to carry so much gear, so I was just swapping lenses out. I mean, it's pretty standard to have a like a 24 to 70 is probably the most common lens out there. Um, that's a zoom, and then, uh, and then 70 to 200 to follow that. Um, and I think I did have the 200 for that book or, excuse me, the 2X teleconverter, because I remember in that hunt that there was one moment when this is kind of cool actually. So we were hunting with this real character, vinny, that we connected with, and we found ourselves like with this really really long view. This is difficult to describe, but we could see like far in this field, probably 200 yards to like a cover situation, and then probably another hundred or more yards to where there were these turkeys maybe four of them, I can't recall that were like on parade and we're like, oh man, how do we get there without, you know, revealing ourselves? So so we're.

Speaker 2: 19:48

I got these cool shots of Jesse I think there's one in the book like, like, basically just you know, crawling on his belly for this long, long crawl. It was pretty, pretty strenuous, honestly, I'm like dragging on my camera gear. At some point I left summit and came back, but for that one I recall, because it was such a long shot that I had put on the, the, uh, the teleconverter and and those were at you know, 400 millimeters. So, um, anyway, that that at least, that that in the end basically made you know a frame like this and I'm I'm holding my hand up to be basically like a four by six or something. It still meant that you know that the Turkey was still quite small because it was still relatively far away. It wasn't like I was filling the frame with it, right, right, at least you could tell that you know, see the, the definition of the feathers on the on the Turkey.

Speaker 1: 20:43

So that see the, the definition of the feathers on the on the turkey. So that's really cool, man, that I, I, I loved all the pictures that are in that book. I mean I just I love the texture of the, the feel of it. It's such a great book. There's so much amazing information and, you know, for those who don't have it in their hands yet, not only uh did did jesse include so many amazing mouthwatering recipes, but a lot of his friends too. There's Chef Jean-Paul Bourgeois, there's Brad Leone, there's Elias Cairo with the Olympian Provisions but they got the book up here as well, yeah, on that side. And there's a host of other friends. Ben O'Brien obviously writes a great forward in that, and so it's a collection of a lot of really amazing people.

Speaker 1: 21:24

The stories that Jesse put together in this book, just I felt like it was an elevated, you know, style of his writing I've always liked his writing before but really walks through those adventures and hunts and, you know, working with everybody along the way, and it was just phenomenal. I mean, I love it as much as even though it's a separate you know kind of thing as the Hog Book, because that Hog Book was a revolutionary book, I think, for a lot of people and I'd like to take a minute if we can dive back into that. As far as I know, you know you and Jesse first worked on a field together and put that out, and that was James Beard nomination. And then the Hog Book won James Beard award, one of two of which I believe you hold and I'd like for you to maybe talk about. If you want to jump into a field a little bit, you can, but, you know, maybe that kind of is a good segue to when it.

Speaker 1: 22:14

What was it about you guys wanting to put out the Hog Book in and of itself on your own and be able to create a, you know, st John Press and put it out yourself, and and I kind of wanted to maybe, if you can walk through that and then we'll jump into some other projects and things have been involved in too. I don't want to have it too centric on this, but I think it's important because this is not just you as a photographer. Now you're, uh, you know, putting these books out and under your umbrella of St John press, which I think is a remarkable thing you guys have done.

Speaker 2: 22:41

Yeah, have done. Yeah, well, thanks. So the, the hog book was following a field by like 10 years, right, so there was quite a lull there. But I think I mentioned, when we spoke once before and we've we've said this previously is that originally, when Jesse and I started speaking with each other, we we just could really the sense, um, that we should do something together, right, that we wanted to do some sort of project and we'd worked on, I'd shot some images for his website and this type of stuff. I think I helped him build his first, uh, supper club and and, um, in a restaurant website and whatnot. I guess it was back before he had a restaurant. So, um, and you know, I'd attended some of his dinners and stuff and was really impressed with his, you know, capabilities and stuff. So we, we were like, yeah, let's, let's get together, let's do something. I think I came to the table I can't even remember where we met, but we, we sat down and had kind of like an official meeting, like let's do something, and I I came to that, you know, and I think I was trying to sell him on it.

Speaker 2: 23:57

Now, granted, all I had was like the idea that that would be cool, um, and I did not by any means possess any expertise. I just was aware of the fact that, um, you know, there's this really shocking disparity of people paying people to fly around in helicopters with sharpshooters to go kill hogs in the field and leave them there to rot. That's happening on one side of things. Simultaneously, someone might be paying $75 or more for some small portion of wild hog which was taken, maybe from the ranch next door, you know, and shipped to New York and served in a fancy Italian restaurant or something, and so I was like there's something doesn't work about that. That's too, that's too strange. How is there this, this resource, which is being completely wasted in one iteration and the other is being celebrated, but it's the same thing? So at the time, honestly, I don't think Jesse had the expertise to do that book either, certainly not in the way that it was ultimately done.

Speaker 2: 25:06

I think he had sort of a beginning knowledge of wild hogs, but it took him over the course of the next 10 years to really become really probably the foremost authority on how to handle a dead, feral hog of all sorts of sizes, what to do with it, why you do this and you wouldn't do that what's going to work best. So he was also, at the time, really keen on exploring more than just one subject. Right, and he was. He was using it in some ways as an excuse as we all do with work to go have fun. And he was thinking oh, you know, I kind of want to, I kind of want to do a bunch of things, like, I want to do a lot of hunting and fishing. Some of that was was, uh, the places that were familiar to him, methods that were familiar to him. Others were ones, uh, that it was a, a learning curve for him and a way to hone his own skill, maybe for the first time in. Maybe it was even hunting turkey I can't remember what the things were that were absolutely new to him but he didn't necessarily possess as he often says. He's like, as he says, with the turkey book, actually he's like look, I'm not an expert in this. What I'm amazing at is being able to to cook all of this and so, like, come along with me on this adventure where we you know we had this experience and shares it through the, through the writing and through photos, and in the end, has some just knockout recipes that could, you know, change the whole way that you you think about food, so, um, so that's what. That's what a field uh became. Was this much broader hunting and fishing, um, mission and um, through that experience I know I'm kind of rattling on here, but through that experience that was the first experience that I had with a publisher. That was my first cookbook, jesse's first cookbook.

Speaker 2: 27:18

In between a field and the hog book, I think I had done maybe 16 or 17 cookbooks or something like that, maybe 16 or 17 cookbooks or something like that and became aware of the fact that most often publishers want to have a certain amount of control of things. For books that I cared more about, that had like stronger relationships with the authors. I was certainly much more involved with them. I moved out of the lane of just being the photographer that shows up and takes pictures of whatever they are told to take pictures of and instead functioned really like a creative partner for them. And within that process it was often a lot of pushback and finding that you cared a lot more about the project maybe than the publisher did in my experience.

Speaker 2: 28:09

And so when we came to the Hogg book and it was such a very different type of book and a pretty gory book, to put it one way, pretty explicit, you know, sort of imagery that was required for butchery demonstrations and this sort of thing. We're like, look, they're going to have a problem with this. And we, you know, by now you know we'd kind of gotten about halfway through the project, or in the last few years of the project we're thinking like, how do we approach this, how do we do this? And it became clear at some point you know what we know, we know that we're here, you know we need to get here and and like as our as the knowledge of, like, what it would really require to get all the way to, to self publishing something, or boutique publishing, as I like to say, we just had a few little gaps of knowledge. And so in the last you know, months of finishing that book, I just worked hard to understand what those little gaps were and make connections to, to where it felt like we had a real plan to, you know, design it, produce it, print it, ship it, produce it, print it, ship it. You know, district, self-distribute it. And, and that was for sure the best, the best path for the hog book from a creative standpoint, cause we, we really didn't need any outside help with it. Creative approval Right, and we didn't have to have, yeah, that sort of approval. And then that that's what started.

Speaker 2: 29:50

St John Press was like, well, if we're going to have blazed this trail and done all this groundwork, then surely other projects will follow. And we knew that would be Jesse's projects. And I thought, well, you know, in the future maybe they're projects with other people as well, you know. So that's why. So most recently, we've split. The Hog Book and the Turkey Book are now found under the wildbookscom, with the idea that things within, you know, jesse's series would be in the wild books and ultimately that would become an imprint of St John Press, with the hope that, you know, in years, in the future, there'll be one or two projects, book projects, that that I do, and it could definitely be something I could continue into, you know, like your imagined retirement aid, you know days and that sort of stuff.

Speaker 1: 30:43

Um so, do you have any idea? Uh, I mean, let me rewind that you kind of wanted to start out being a writer and, um, obviously there was some, a lot of different projects you did, where you did some writing and some photography, um, and you know some abroad and you know we can dive in those a little bit. But I my my question is more pointed towards the idea of, like, have you thought about writing a book? And also, maybe you know, I mean, you're a visual storyteller with your images and they say so much and it is such you know rich, uh, you know beautiful imagery and I was.

Speaker 1: 31:20

I'm I'm sure there could be a book of just a lot of your things there where you're threading that needle through all your experiences being a part of you know almost you know two dozen. You know different cookbooks in your time and being, you know, uh, involved in all the other studio things you've been in and all the corporate things that you've been involved in. I mean, there's been so much you've done. Is there a part of you that thinks that one day you might have your own book there out of, uh, you know, st John press? That's kind of your own imprint and your own design.

Speaker 2: 31:56

Well, maybe I wouldn't rule it out, I guess. I mean, it seems like kind of one of those projects.

Speaker 2: 31:58

We're talking before you press record about um, about music you know, about like writing songs and stuff. I kind of put it in that category of like hey, that's probably not going to be a central focus of what I'm going to do the next years, but but I definitely have a have a thought like maybe, maybe I'll come come to that at some point. I don't know what that book would be about. I feel like it it's uh, I think I've told you this before, but part of the appeal of um, of taking photos, is that you get to skip the word part, you know, but you can still tell a story. Sure, sure, I enjoy writing to some degree, like sometimes I can get in the groove of it. But that newsletter that I just referred to a minute ago, I mean that took me forever. That was like I don't even know how many words. That was like 250 words or something. It probably took me like two and a half days. It just like at that pace it would be like, you know, it would have to be another 10 year book project to get, you know, even a small thin book out. So, um, if there were something like a topic that I felt like I'm the person to tell it, or like some of the projects you've done, where you're like you serve as a conduit, you know, um, then I can, I can more easily see those um sorts of projects or imagine what those could be.

Speaker 2: 33:18

Um, but that's also kind of the role, uh, that I imagine playing in being a publisher. You know is like if I see someone, I'm like, hey look, I don't have to, I don't have to be the person that writes this necessarily either, but if I can like pair you with someone that's maybe a good writer and then help to give some structure and purpose to something and that kind of gives some form to a project and um, and then like helps it just come into being, if you will, yeah, so probably, if I'm choosing where my energy goes in the next years, it's more likely in that capacity, um, it doesn't have to even be me taking the photos, even though I enjoy that part a lot, um, but but I I think that it's kind of nice, it's almost like it's it's, I guess, a pleasure in a lot of ways in life to be like, hey, you should know this person and you guys can do this. I like to kind of piece together things like that and things to happen.

Speaker 2: 34:25

So, um it's, it's an another expression of that same impulse, to some degree, um, and it's gratifying, certainly, to see an idea manifest itself as a, as a book. You know something as tangible as a book. So that's what kind of hooks you, I think you know.

Speaker 1: 34:46

Sure, no, and I mean I I do want to talk about because you've got another cookbook that you were part of with Big Mo, um, and, and I want to get into that one in a second, but I just had a thought that that kind of captured me in the idea of you know, you mentioned that was your first book field with Jesse.

Speaker 1: 35:02

That was your first cookbook to work on, and given that you've done 16, 17, 18, whatever it is in between those and what you're working on now, um, I was curious. Did people then come to you and say, hey, I want you to be the principal photographer on this cookbook, or was that something that maybe you kind of opened up and put your energy, like you wanted to work on cookbooks because you liked that type of project and, um, you know, the side benefits of all the amazing meals, right, but the idea of like was it you know it's like kind of which came first there? It was that something that, um, that you were always drawn to. Uh, you know food and what encompasses, like, you know, bringing together all the people in that community vibe and everything there too. I'm just kind of curious about that because you've done so many. I was just wondering how that thread started.

Speaker 2: 35:57

Yeah, that's a good question. I'm not sure exactly. It's probably from like a multiplicity of pathways. You know, I think that it's at once maybe. I mean maybe to back up when I started to do food work in you know, I think a field came out and I can't remember now 2010, let's say maybe 2011.

Speaker 2: 36:19

Yeah, and I'd only been doing um, really concentrating on food work for a couple of years, but I was, I believe I told you the story once before and we're chatting, but at the time I was kind of figuring out what, what direction I was going to take, you know, in career and ultimately it was like you know what I really miss those, those stories that I would get to to write and photograph when I was in grad school. Get to write and photograph when I was in grad school and and I in retrospect really appreciated these the series of stories that I'd done for a little magazine called La Cosenita and I was like you know, I feel like I'm pretty good at that, like I and I like I like how passionate people are about food. I love that food has this sustainability angle at the time, like 2009 or so, that we're really kind of on the leading edge of like local sustainability in food movement. You know, yeah, yeah, that was all kind of, you know, fueled my interest in doing food in the first place is partly because of the sustainability angle, which is why I would have connected with jesse in the first place. But this to say is like it's almost hard to imagine the context of then versus now.

Speaker 2: 37:40

And I'll tell you the difference in this story, which is, uh, once I had enough material to begin to cobble together a website which it was not even finished at the begin, to cobble together a website which was not even finished at the time, I went and saw a couple of different magazines. One I had a personal connection to someone at, garden and Gun, and they're located in Charleston and I was visiting my family there and I met with them and that was my first real magazine, you know, bigger national magazine that I spoke with and got to do some work for them. And then the second one was Texas Monthly. And at the time when I met with Texas Monthly, they said to me oh my gosh, we have been looking for a food photographer. Oh my gosh, we have been looking for a food photographer which is almost impossible to imagine now, just because there are there must be, within Austin alone, you know, 50 food photographers, 50 people who do food photography right.

Speaker 2: 38:40

So early within that span, following a field, if someone wanted to do a cookbook, there would have only been so many people they might realistically imagine to be able to turn to. You know, so early on I'd be like, oh well, gosh, this person does food photography. It would have been like one in a short list, to be quite honest, and then, over time, having had that experience with more, and over time, having had that experience with more, you know bigger names and stuff like that within cookbooks. I think that probably builds some credibility. And then it was often the case that people might begin imagining their cookbook and they're like, hey, how does this work exactly? Because I've gone, you know, through the cycle a couple of times. How does this work exactly? Because I'd gone, you know, through the cycle a couple of times? And then I've always been, as I was saying before, like a person that's happy to share information and and that type of thing. And so I think in that for that reason, just because I'd done it and they they presumably liked the work that they saw online, they're like, hey, this this person has has a work that we like and they they know something about what it takes to create a cookbook. So they're kind of like a two in one, like a you know, free consultant and a photographer. I wouldn't get one free Right. Those projects are kind of cool in that within the.

Speaker 2: 40:09

I guess one way I think about them is, so often you're in commercial photography you're going in for a day or two or, you know, sometimes you have a three day shoot. It's rare to have something much longer than, say, a five day shoot and that there's a lot of energy on the. On the front end productions you know are a lot of energy and you've got some post-production, but that's still a real relatively short arc, if you will Um. So and more often it's like one day shoot or two day shoot. So you're you're really in and out of there and I'll say it's it's like being a? Um, a special forces person. You're going there, you kill some people, you get out of there, and I'll say it's like being a special forces person you go in there, you kill some people, you get out of there, and that's good in some ways right.

Speaker 2: 40:54

But it's also really gratifying to have these really long projects that you get to think about a little bit. They kind of evolve a little bit more naturally. Even the Turkey Book, which was wildly fast, that still was probably a 20, you know, 20 or more shoot days over the course of a year, um, and then lots of grappling with the, with the work on the other side as well, um. So this to say, it's certainly just a different kind of animal no pun intended of um, you know of a project and it's a nice uh, counter to the, the kind of you know, kill them all and get out of there, quit approach. That is often the case with, with, with day-to-day work, if you will.

Speaker 1: 41:45

Yeah, yeah, well, I, I, I definitely wanted to come back into the idea that you know you got another cookbook, that it's it's being published, I think. You said it comes out in May. Is that right? I think that's right.

Speaker 2: 41:57

You know what I don't think I've looked it up since we we chatted.

Speaker 1: 42:00

It's coming up soon though I mean, and you guys are, there's a lot of cool work that you've done. That. That's a national geographic associated book. It's pit master big Mo Cason and that'd be big, big Mo's big book a barbecue. And I just kind of wanted to, you know, hear about how you guys did this, because there was some stuff that you did here in Austin, and then you're also going out there and you're filming one of these you know amazing barbecue contests there that he's a part of, and maybe you can just give me a little bit of idea about how you got involved, what this is going to be like and what your involvement was in it.

Speaker 2: 42:35

Sure, yeah, so it is for National Geographic Books. I guess it's a division of National Geographic. It's the first time I ever worked with them, so I wasn't sure exactly what to expect. Obviously, I'm impressed by the name National Geographic and honored to get to work with them. But despite the fact that they're, you know, such a big name and so revered, it was still like the production itself was still relatively freeform, at least on the front and back end. So they were great about just saying like, hey, you can kind of take the lead, almost in a way.

Speaker 2: 43:19

Um, there, the the first shoot that we did was, I think, a four or five day shoot in des moines, and we scheduled it just a couple of weeks out from when we're doing the shoot. So there wasn't a whole lot of like planning per se groundwork. It was very similar to the way that I might work with Jesse. Now, jesse's actually very meticulous. Uh, though he seems pretty easy going, he's got like a run of show. This is like very, very nailed down, but in that the fluidity of it was, you know, pretty casual. Mo is a super laid back guy, so so we were just like how do we use this time? Um, I feel like. It's always important to me.

Speaker 2: 44:03

Part of the experience that I enjoy about doing photography work is you get to you, get to yourself understand what the story is. So you're, so I'm, I'm always asking a lot of questions. I did not know who Moe Kaysan was before you know the, the shoot, and I really got to know him over the course of the of the time we spent together on the project, which is really, particularly when the person is such a fine person like he is, is really part of the, the great one of the great parts of the, the great one of the great parts of the job, I guess. But so I'm, I'm really like trying to understand what he does, who he is, where he spends time, spending time with his family. So all of the shooting that we did in Des Moines were kind of inspired by the answers to those questions, kind of like where do you live, you know, where do you, where do you like kind of really live like in a day-to-day basis and who who do you enjoy connecting with and what are the things that? How do you want to like, show yourself, you know to, in a way, and then down into the details of, of food, of course it's like what's special about the way you do this and help me to take the picture of food. Of course is like what's special about the way you do this and help me to take the picture that's going to be descriptive of this thing. That's, you know, very dear to your heart, you know. So it's very much a collaboration and that's how that shot, that shoot, began.

Speaker 2: 45:31

And then it went to the next, somewhat more formal, set of like shooting recipes in studio. So that's a general, you know formula. Like you do your infield shots, very literal, like in the turkey book, and then you do your more controlled environment, have all the surfaces and props and stuff available and at your disposal, and that's done at the studio. And then, when we were at the at the studio and we were, I think, taking some of the um pictures of Mo for the cover and stuff, we we came to realize that the last um big barbecue competition that was within the year cycle within which we were in basically in production, was going to happen like the last shoot day that we had planned for the for the recipes at the studio, and it was going to be in Memphis and it's one of the top three is called Memphis in May. So we were like, man, we, we got to get, we got to go out there. You there, you know he's a competition barbecue guy. That's core identity. He's been like a celebrity and all that, but that's core identity. So we're like we've got to go. So we powered through recipes and, like you know, stacked them up in the first four days or whatever it was, so that we could get free on the last day, and then finished the the project by shooting um mo and his amazing crew in memphis in may.

Speaker 2: 47:01

It was rainy, it was, you know, dramatic, uh, terrible weather. It was cold, even though it was, you know, you know, memphis uh and um. But they produced probably the best, I mean certainly the best pork shoulder I've I've ever eaten. I think at the time I wasn't even eating pork and I ate like five portions of pork, cause it was like something you could not stop eating. It was crazy Um and uh. And then he took away one of the prizes. I can't remember what it was, but he was. He had a big trophy.

Speaker 1: 47:35

So that's really fun, man. It's neat to be a part of that project and then see him in that element. Right, I mean, you can't not do that. Yeah, you got to go and check that out and to be able to, you know, not only witness that, but I'm sure, uh, you know, getting to see that in the element and then have some of that food there fresh off the you know grill and being able to see that competition, that's, that's exciting. So talk to me a little bit about you know your studio. When did you decide, okay, it's time to build an in-house studio? How'd you go about finding this space and you know kind of? Talk to me about kind of what you know aside from cookbooks, which you know, and you know food photography. Talk to me about some of the other types of projects, companies you may work with. You know corporations and kind of what happens in studio in-house that you're involved with on a more you know kind of week to week basis, like that.

Speaker 2: 48:28

Yeah, okay, so the studio was let's see, I'll start with that part so that that project began of making an old warehouse into a studio in 2014. It was about a two year process, um, and I had spent probably three and a half years of of looking really, really hard. I mean, I think almost everyone, regardless of where you live, has probably heard about the Austin real estate market and it was certainly crazy then. You know, it was like a real challenge to try to find something. I'm going to always give you too long of an answer, but the real challenge was trying to find a space that had good light orientation, because the natural light aspect of what I do is like that's the core for what I like to do. I certainly use lights a lot as well, but I prefer working with natural light if I can light as well, but I I prefer working with natural light if I can. So being able to be in a space that has unobstructed natural light that's, you know, likely to not be obstructed by a you know apartment complex two years later was like kind of within the design parameters of what, what and where this can be. And, um, I'd gone through maybe three or four real estate agents actually, and I thought I was starting to kind of give up and I'd hired a and I was like no, I've got to keep doing this, because with each week or month I would have another occurrence of how I felt like my career was being impeded by the fact that I didn't have a studio, whether it was trying to do a shoot in, like my, above the garage place in my previous house and, like you know, my children are screaming or something's happening, you have to leave or it was kind of like well, this is just not a professional work environment and it felt limiting. And so I was like I've got, I've got to find a studio and I would at one point I hired someone to go like, as we said, go bird dog properties, which meant that they would go find, they would actually listen to the criteria that I was kind of lining out in terms of orientation and like characteristics of a building, and then they're like taking photos and then notating those things and then writing to the owners and trying to solicit properties that were not for sale. Did that for a while? Nothing came back, really.

Speaker 2: 51:21

Then I was driving myself by the studio and I saw this old dusty sign that was still up and I was like that sign couldn't possibly still be active, like that must've just been left up for some reason. And anyway, I ended up calling it. My good friend, sean, was at the time a real estate agent and he became my real estate agent but ended up touring it. They were like, of course, this place is a teardown, um, when the agent told me, I was like, yeah, I could see how you would come to that conclusion, cause it was a total wreck, you know, um. But I was like there's something I like about it. I really would like to try to preserve it.

Speaker 2: 52:02

So then began a very long process, having purchased it, of trying to kind of get it safe and secure and shore it up. And it's still not done, and maybe I'll die before it's done. But, and so it seems sometimes. But but, uh, in 2016, we had our first shoot there, um and the. I remember that we got the wiring for the studio completed at about 9 PM the night before they were. They were supposed to be there at like seven 30 the next morning and we had a five day shoot, um, so it's been a lot like that sense of just just barely staying ahead of things, you know, and like getting getting the next thing finished and, um, so it's been, it's been exciting, um, so now you know almost 10 years since since purchasing it, and you know eight since it's been operational or so something like that.

Speaker 2: 53:06

And so it's been cool and it's it serves the type of work that I do really well. It's it's most often, you know, food and beverage stuff, bigger brands, you know that's I mean not it's the way that you can be paid well for your efforts. You know, and the different facets within the studio have been really cool. Know, more often than not, you've studios are like white boxes within which you build environments whole wholly. You know. But there's kind of a cool in between nature of the studio and that it's got all these little kind of different built-in vignettes so you can, without so much effort, kind of create these little scenes and scapes within it. So it's kind of like having one location that might be four locations in a day, you know.

Speaker 2: 54:10

And then, that's efficient, to kind of move through. So in the last years I've done a lot of work for different spirit brands and beer brands and stuff like that. There tends to be a pattern of need which is similar. We certainly do a lot of different brands associated with grills or meats and stuff like that as well, which is in my wheelhouse for sure. I love like smoke and fire shooting and we have. We've actually just recently had to thin out the number of grills that were like corralled over in one part of the grounds because we had like eight of them.

Speaker 2: 54:50

But that, you know, having some covered outdoor space and the kind of has like a, it kind of feels like an old barbecue joint, really the whole property. So having that kind of rustic feel is conducive to that whole world that's conjured when you would think about grilling, for instance. So that's that's the main shape of of what we do, but but I enjoy all sorts of work. You know sometimes it's that's the main shape of of what we do, but but I enjoy all sorts of work. You know, sometimes it's sometimes it's relatively on on kind of uninteresting, like packaging shots or stuff like that, and those times it's like you're shooting something for a to fit into a space you know not, not anything that you're going to like tell your kids about or anything, but it's, I don't know, getting a job done for somebody has its own sense of gratification right there.

Speaker 2: 55:45

If someone's like that's exactly what we wanted and you don't have to talk for forever to get there and just like, I think this will work. Uh, I like, I like being that guy in someone else's life Cause I want that person, uh myself. It's like let's, let's do it this way, but that's great, I like it. Uh, so, even with those simple sorts of projects, uh, those can be pretty, pretty cool.

Speaker 1: 56:08

So, yeah, well, I absolutely and I mean the list of of different companies you've worked with and then people, um, you know it's I know that I was reading about there was some photo shoots you've done one with James Carville and one with, uh, the bushes, the seniors, I mean you, you've you've met some interesting people along the way, worked with some very interesting companies and, um, you know, it's just a myriad of wonderful experiences that that are fun to be able to tell your kids about, right, and like of wonderful experiences that that are fun to be able to tell your kids about, right, and like that's, it's, it's a really cool thing and that only continues to build.

Speaker 1: 56:41

Um, you know, when you were talking about all the different barbecue you know different types of grills and things too it made me curious. Like, um, you know, being in that you have spent so much time in and around food and I mean, I know too you. We talked before about your time at like Texas co-op and you're writing about like Fredericksburg and like the family and the peaches and this different like there's so much involvement I've I've heard you talk about around food. I was curious, like, are you cooking a whole lot? What are some of the go-tos that you like to cook? Um, is there a specialty dish that you have?

Speaker 2: 57:14

Hmm, yeah, um, well, I I don't know if I have a specialty dish. I I I'll tell you like, generally categorically, I love cooking with fire and that's probably something that I latched hold of um many years ago, not too long after a field. I got to do a book with um now a great friend of mine, tim Byers, who, uh, created smoke, and it was the same name as really amazing restaurant that was in the Belmont Hotel in Dallas for many years, had a great, great long run and I'd been interested in, you know, cooking. Certainly I've done a lot of grilling, but but like, seeing what Tim did, really, like he really takes it to another level, like he's you know the subtitle, that was like new firewood cooking or something like that, but it was really so many different methods of approaching it and it crystallized in me the, the, the love of cooking over over wood.

Speaker 2: 58:21

So here at the house, I ran home here because there's so much stuff going on at the studios, just couldn't hear anything. There's like tape guns and someone sawing something next door. So I was like I've got to get the hell out of here. But here at the house I have a grill in the backyard. It's this old, repurposed kind of reconfigured PK grill, which I love, those and I end up. This sounds kind of random, I guess, but I have a pretty big backyard that goes back to the creek here and there's just more wood than I can really ever burn. So I never buy charcoal and I'll often just make beds of uh, you know, of cooking coals just from like little little twigs and stuff, yeah. But I get a lot of gratification. We're like well, I'm going to clean up, clean out the yard and also, you know, cook dinner for the family. So if I'm not cooking back there, if it's like hot months, then if it's cool months that I'm inside and my good friend Dave Eberhardt he runs Texas Oven Company. He's like a master brick layer oven builder. He's brought one of these to the studio in the last months and is now a permanent fixture there. But he helped to rework and design our chimney here at the house and put in it this really small but functional it's probably like a less than three feet in diameter earth oven and like a pizza oven style.

Speaker 2: 1:00:01

Yeah, and it is so fun. I mean it's ever more fun like when it's cool out, you know so, since you're kind of getting the additional gratification from the warmth of the fire, but it's like it's an everything oven and like since we've lived here, which has been, I think, 2016, I believe that's been like a constant pleasure, you know. So it's a you can. You can hard cook, you know steaks in there, you can make pizzas, of course, you can bake in there. You can like use the door to like give something more smoke. You know like basically simultaneously shut off the oxygen and like pull a, like a, like a bunch of smoke, hold it in, and it's like you're regulating everything just with this little pitch door. It's, it's the most fun, like whatever you're cooking, just the dynamics of, of cooking with fire makes it really, really interesting to me. So, whatever it is over fire, I guess, is my answer.

Speaker 1: 1:01:03

Dude, that's a great answer. I mean, it reminds me too of like whenever we were at the ranch in South Texas and we got mesquite everywhere, right, I mean it's like that's what we cooked with, and I didn't know people cooked with other types of woods. Growing up I thought everything was mesquite. Man and you know, especially my grandma would be like go clean this area. You know, this is where we're parking, you know, and all these mesquite branches that fall and, starting at little tiny twigs, man toothpick size, you build on up and it's like you build your fire and you clean that space. So I know that gratification well and I think maybe I wasn't as excited about it when I was a kid and I was being told to do it, but now it's like we've got.

Speaker 1: 1:01:41

When you know people like, do I need to bring me firewood, I was like there are 300 acres of firewood, we are fine there, and you just go over there, oh, there's a cedar that's down. Okay, we're cooking with cedar tonight. Whatever, it is so much fun being around a fire pit. When you take that next level up to being around fire and cooking, there's it. I'm with you, man, I'm with you. There's not, there's not, many things that I enjoy more than that, and just being able to work with fire it's it's a lot of fun, and maybe that my pyrotechnic you know tendencies from when I was a kid are coming back into play in constructive ways now.

Speaker 2: 1:02:15

Yeah, it's good it's. It's really compelling for some reason. Obviously, there's a bunch of people out there who feel the same, right out there who feel the same, right it's, it's deep, you know, it's like just a primordial thing, right? Yeah, I I'll actually fall asleep many nights thinking about different ways, you know, different cookers and stuff that one could make and and it's ridiculous because they're everyone has made almost every type of grill you could possibly imagine, but nevertheless, I don't know why. Maybe it's like a little, just a little fun project just to think about fire and how it might be used differently, but I'll find myself often like designing little tweaks of things as I'm falling asleep.

Speaker 1: 1:03:00

You better be careful, you might have one of those other stones that's going to be, you know, moving up now here with the next project. Well, well, and I was going to mention this too, you, you love doing some woodworking too, right, is that correct?

Speaker 2: 1:03:12

I do. You know that this is kind of like. This is actually exactly like writing, where, uh, I like it, but I'm probably within like the math that one does to determine what they should be doing on a given day. If you're trying to find like your highest and best use rarely is it woodworking like I enjoy it sometimes if I have to get really like personally into something because it's something I'm going to see every day, then I'll go screw around with it.

Speaker 2: 1:03:44

Um, still, I mean, I used to do like all of the you know, all of the work, or most of the work in my house, but now, like that, you know, there are a couple of guys at the studio that can help with that, so I can be more like in a designer role. It's still really gratifying to put your hands on it. But if you're like picking the wood for the particular application and you know kind of determining the design, that's good enough. Um, so that you're not, you know, bankrupting yourself by, um, not being able to pay all the other people doing stuff, um, that that's going to be in the same category as as music. You know, when I'm in some retirement state, then I would love to have, you know a shop where I could, I could really play around for my own gratification, but um, for now it's. It's fairly low on the actionable items list, so I, I know that well, I, I plan.

Speaker 1: 1:04:41

There's so many things I have planned for my retirement. Woodworking is one of them. Something about that. You know building and welding together some types of smokers too. So your man, after my own heart with those kinds of things too we just gotta find the time that's right. We just gotta get super rich real fast, listen to these projects and then retire, man, that's all right it seems like a good yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:05:04

Hopefully it's not too far out, right, right.

Speaker 1: 1:05:08

Well, you know, as as kind of as wrapping this up, there's a question I ask everybody, uh, that I've interviewed, and that's one about legacy. And you know, we've talked about so many different projects you've been a part of. There's so many things that you've touched, you've been a part of what your photography things that are. You know, people can hold the cookbooks, you know. And then, obviously, all the different things that you've done, uh, that may be online or people can point out it was part of that project or this commercial or whatever.

Speaker 1: 1:05:34

And you know, I was thinking about this as wanting to know, on a professional level and that aspect, some of the ways we've just talked about but also on a personal, what is it that you think about your legacy? Is this something you've thought about a lot? And, if so, or even if not, um, what are kind of the ways that you view of how you'd like to be able to leave an imprint on this world and be remembered? Uh, you know, as far as the things that you've been involved in and family and things like that. So, if you can just maybe touch on that, I'd love to hear about what you have to say.

Speaker 2: 1:06:03

sure, that's a lot of ground to cover. But, um, yeah, you know you did ask me this and I and I've thought about it a little bit more, I think that there's, there's something of course, legacy, um suggest you're, you're, you've already passed, obviously, but but I think I have a couple of goals of of um, like, even the studio space to me feels like it's kind of like has an old austin feel and in the context of an austin that's changing so dramatically, um, I feel like you know, frankly, a lot of the event things there. They're not like a huge revenue driver, but a lot of just having that space open and welcoming what people are doing there. Same friend, dave, just had his birthday party over the weekend, for instance, and was cooking pizzas and stuff and was cooking pizzas and stuff having having a place that people really enjoy being and, particularly given again that dynamic of like hey, this kind of feels like old austin within a rapidly changing austin. Sure, that's like that could live on, that that space could live on and be something like past my lifetime but at the very least like while you know, while I'm aware of it, while it's operating, I, I like the fact that that can be an experience for a lot of people and bring a lot of people joy or be just like oh man, I really have enjoyed being here, you know. Um, so that's like a legacy type of thing, or could very well be a legacy thing.

Speaker 2: 1:07:45

I think that you're right. The books are, are like a tangible and enduring thing and I see myself doing, you know, point in life, to be working with people that they really care about, that they doing projects and work. That would itself be like an embodiment of legacy, would be within books themselves. So you know, if from now, let's say, I'm lucky enough to live till I'm 80, I don't know, you know, if I'm able to live till I'm 80 and I have many, many books ahead of me, I live till I'm 80 and I and I have many, many books ahead of me, then I have, however many books those are, I might have, you know, those relationships that are formed and creating them, the stories that I think are important enough to want to devote that time to, to create them, and that feels like that would be a pretty cool legacy from a professional standpoint and a personal one, because those are all personal connections too, and of course, there's your family.

Speaker 2: 1:09:09

One can't, you know, miss your family. So I don't know, the legacy would be really like it becomes embodied. I have two boys, 15 and 17, and they hopefully, but God willing, you will be living past me and will carry on with them. You know some. You know they will be my living legacy. So if they're, you know, good people and doing cool things in the world, that's as much as you can do as a parent, I think that's very true, man.

Speaker 1: 1:09:47

And hey, if you don't mind me saying, they got a hell of a cool dad. You, you're in, you've been in part of so many amazing projects. You're doing so much, you're creating so much. Um, I think that it can only be inspirational for them to follow their passions and their dreams and pursue them to the nth degree and being able to figure out that balance of you know family life, work life, you know your personal fulfillment, your desires and some of those little side projects and things too, that you got to get in as well in life. Cause I really want to do that, I want to check that box and you know you've done such an incredible job with with all that. I admire your work, your, your ethic and just your, your good heart, man. So it's a it's really a pleasure to connect with you. It's been a joy to have you on here and, to you know, have our beginning stages of our friendships. You know we've got some some cooking and some music and some woodworking to do together, maybe one of these days here soon, and I look forward to that.

Speaker 1: 1:10:41

You know, for those who who maybe aren't familiar or or you know some of the websites and kind of handles of of, you know, socials. Why don't you just lay them out there? Um, you know, obviously you kind of mentioned a few of them earlier. They were like the wild bookscom, but let's go ahead and lay that out where people can follow your journey. Um, you know, online, and if they wanted to contact you and maybe they got an idea, they want to pitch you to do some photography, how they can get ahold of you.

Speaker 2: 1:11:04

Sure Well, thank you for all you said. I really appreciate it. So the places to reach out to me would be jodyhortoncom, that's J-O-D-Y-H-O-R-T-O-Ncom, that's my principal website for photography. For the studio, the website is St John studios, a T X like Austin, Texas, so St John studios, ATX and that's what the ST John studios. And then for the, for the Turkey book and for the things that are partnership with with Jesse, that's the wild books and that's all together the wild bookscom and we've got the more information on the hog book as well as the Turkey book there, A lot of cool bundles and stuff. And the, including our promotion with the national wild Turkey Federation which is I got.

Speaker 1: 1:12:02

I got my my membership in the mail two days ago I'm so glad that's.

Speaker 2: 1:12:06

That's pretty cool yeah put a really nice um, uh publication there, um and uh, let's see, the last one would be saint john press, but at the moment saint john press is is really just a hey, hey, drop us a line, type of um of thing. I think. I thing, I think I think it's St John press atxcom as well. So all of those things, and I think any one of those sites probably leads you to another. I believe that the Jody Hortoncom has at least a link to the studio site, but that's a way to to uh, to reach out and and um certainly grateful for your time and time, and I think we're at the beginning of a of a great friendship too. You have a lot of cool projects that I'd love to to help with, and, and I think this is just just the start for sure.

Speaker 1: 1:12:55

So, thank you so much Cheers, man. I agree fully and I think this is just the first of many times we'll get together and record and share what we got going on, the projects we're working on together. So I definitely look forward to future chats and, once again, everyone in the show notes. I'll have everything down below for you to go check out direct links to all the sites we just talked about. So go look those up. Definitely follow Jody and all the amazing things that he's got going on. And, yeah, until next time. Thank you once again, jody.

Speaker 2: 1:13:30

You have a very great rest of the week. My friend, you too. Thanks so much, cheers.