A Career in Science Communication for Manta Rays with Jasmine Corbett

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I wonder if there's a way that I can combine the creative passions

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from land and then sort of bring it underwater. I did

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so many sort of fill-in jobs after

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graduating to actually make it to this point. So

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kind of working in more commercial underwater photography.

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I did a lot of photography for tourist boats, did

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a lot of dive instructing. I spend a lot of time underwater in

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other roles. How and why I've always just been really interested in

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the visual media because I know that it can have such

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an impact in a way that not other

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formats necessarily can. I kind of think that's really important for

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people to know so that people can understand You

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might not have all of the skills that the job

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Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the

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Beyond Jaws podcast. We have a special one for you today. You just saw some

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of the clips from our interview with Jasmine Corbett, who

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is the media and communications manager for

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the Manta Trust. Great organization. We've had Guy Stevens on

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the podcast before. Now we have Jasmine Corbett. She's here

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to talk to us all about communication, science communication, how she got

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into the field. And it's not your traditional way

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as usual. It's not your traditional way that you normally think. But I am your co-host, Andrew

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I'm doing great, Andrew. I'm really looking forward to this

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interview today with Jasmine. I've been wanting to have her on the show for a while. She,

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as you mentioned, she's a science communications director for the Manta Trust. And

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I had an opportunity to work with her in the field with

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Guy and with Michelle Guerrero, who has

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the Ecuador Manta Trust there as well. And

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they're wonderful people. You can check out the episodes with

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Guy and Michelle from last year. But I was really super

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happy to have Jasmine on there. And as you said, she has

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an interesting story, journey to how she ended

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up in the position she was in. And I think everyone

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listening today, our audience is going to really enjoy hearing how she

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came to be the Science Communications Director for

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And I think this is another story where it follows a

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passion, right? She had a passion for diving. She had a

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passion for taking underwater videos, underwater photographs,

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got into it, went to school for that, then went back to school for

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science and marine biology. And then just

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the way she tells her story of how she ended up with the Manitou Trust is not your

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normal way of applying to a job and hopefully getting an interview and

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then moving forward from there. She actually had some working experience with them and

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we're gonna find out in this interview So check out the interview and

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we'll talk to you after. Hey Jasmine. Welcome to the beyond jaws podcast

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I'm very excited Well, I want to welcome everybody

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to the beyond jaws podcast where we have a super special guest today

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We have the fabulous Jasmine Corbett who's a passionate media

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and communication specialist marine biologist and an award-winning underwater

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photographer as our guest today. Jasmine is a passionate media

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and communications specialist, a marine biologist, and as I

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mentioned, award-winning photographer. She plays a pivotal role in promoting the conservation efforts

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and research initiatives for the Manta Trust. Jasmine has a

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background in marine and natural history photography and has spent

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the past decade immersed in marine conservation and research initiatives

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in South and Southeast Asia. Her experience includes managing marine

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conservation projects, working in underwater photography and

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teaching scuba diving. During her time as a marine biologist in

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Baa Atoll in the Maldives, she had a transformative experience witnessing

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cyclone feeding mantas in Hanafru Bay, sparking

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an enduring passion for working with these majestic creatures. She's

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worked seamlessly to combine her passions with manta ray research and

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conservation with compelling storytelling and content creation, effectively

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raising awareness about the critical need to safeguard manta rays and

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their marine environments. I've personally had the opportunity to work with Jasmine

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Thefield, and I can confirm she's an exceptionally passionate person, especially

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with storytelling, and an outstanding photographer, and I strongly encourage

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you to go check out her work. Jasmine did her schooling at

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Falmouth University in Cornwall, and her

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current position is the Bantitrust Media and Communications Manager.

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Hi, thank you. Thanks for

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Good. Well, we ask, as we always start off, we ask our guests,

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so how did you get interested in photography and the marine environment?

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Yeah, good question. So I grew up in a very creative

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family. My mum is an artist and a photographer. And I

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always had this idea that I wanted to go to university

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and study photography. But in my head, it was kind of,

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I could only do something that's commercial, like wedding photography or

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press photography. So I kind of

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just imagined myself going into that terrestrial world and

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I did a bit of traveling before I went to university and

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I tried scuba diving for the first time and like many

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people I was absolutely hooked and my

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whole game plan changed. I knew that I needed to do something

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in the underwater world somehow and

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so I kind of thought to myself I wonder if there's a way that I can combine

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the creative passions from land and then sort of bring it underwater and

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I stumbled across this university degree at Falmouth

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University called Marine and Natural History Photography

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which is essentially a science communication and wildlife media

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degree and I just knew that was what I needed to do.

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So yeah I went to study marine and natural history photography, I

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specialised in underwater and my

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final project was I focused on

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the effects of overfishing and that kind of really

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sparked an interest for me, understanding our

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relationship with fishing around the world and the impact that

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has on the environment but also the livelihoods that

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fishing creates like there's this whole amazing complexity

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to fishing that I've always found really fascinating and I'm

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sure you can relate Dave as well it's like it can give us such a great insight into

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the species you can discover and the species you can research. So

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that's kind of how I got into this world and

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Although I'm very lucky in my job to actually photograph a

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lot of live creatures, I still absolutely

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love doing fish market photography and kind of documenting

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the world around fish markets and the

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things you can find there, the people that you meet, the fishermen stories. So

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that's always kind of maintained this real passion in

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me. So yeah, that's kind of where I ended up

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Did you before you you pursue decided to pursue

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like the the national history angle when you're before you actually got

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into went to university? Did you? We did you do much? Just

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did you just pick up a camera start doing some early photographing at

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Yeah so before university I studied photography at

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college but the kind of photography that I was doing

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was quite traditional. It was like analog and

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darkroom photography. I would spend like

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all my evenings in the darkroom just hidden away developing

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prints. I absolutely loved it and it was quite experimental. I

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did a lot of fine art photography Which I still

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love, I kind of always when I was doing fine art photography nature

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was still my inspiration and that would kind of feed into all of

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my creative work. And

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I never really thought at that stage that I would be able to go

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into underwater because it was still this kind of far

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away inaccessible world that I didn't really know

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existed or like I didn't know how you could get into this world so

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It was it was quite lucky and kind of by chance that I stumbled across

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that degree course which is at the time when

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I studied about 10 years ago it was still in its very early stages. Now

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it's kind of grown in popularity and there's a lot more students in

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each year's cohorts and there's in the UK

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especially there's a couple of wildlife filmmaking master's

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degrees that are available. But yeah, I think sort of

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like 10, 20 years ago, that just wasn't something you could specialize

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in for your academic pursuits. So yeah,

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You mentioned you worked in the darkroom. So when you started this, were you still doing

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developing film, I assume, by that phrase? You

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were developing, so you weren't doing all digital. You were

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Mm-hmm. Yeah, working with film. I was doing that more

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than digital at the beginning. So yeah, I miss it.

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So I've got to ask you, because since some

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of us grew up during the film age and knew a

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little bit about some of that stuff, you were in more of that transitional where

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you went from both working film to digital. I'm

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just curious what your thoughts are on both, say,

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Yeah so I think with film photography you

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always get this kind of It's

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like this nostalgic feel in the photograph. There's

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a certain quality to film photography that

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you just can't replicate with digital photography. It's

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really hard to kind of pin down exactly what it is, but there's just the

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look of it. It's so crisp and you

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can just feel the nostalgia when you look at a film photograph. I

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think one of the really wonderful things about film photography is Because

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when you start your shoot, you know you've got, say, a

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maximum of 36 images. So every

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image you take, you really think about the composition. You really consider

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the lighting. There's so much thought that goes into that

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one shot that I think we often lose that

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way of thinking with digital photography. Because you can

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just take 10,000 photos in a shoot and pick 10 of them. So

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I really like the care that goes into each shot with film photography

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and I definitely think it makes you a better photographer if

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you dip your toes in that world and sort

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of start to experience the ways of photography like

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When you started doing underwater photography, did you do much film with

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No, sadly not. I've never actually shot film underwater. I

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know there are a few photographers that are still doing

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underwater film, but it's quite

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a challenge, yeah. I think to get

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your hands on underwater housings that shoot film nowadays, it's

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Yeah, I would imagine. Well, as someone, I started out on

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a Nikon is three for doing underwater photography to

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give you age myself a lot there. But, um, so when

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you talk about the composition and you have 36, you have 36 like

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shots to take and you're, you want to make sure like

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they count each one of them. And then you get to a situation if

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you're dying, if you're on your first dive of say you're doing a couple of dives, you

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don't want to finish off with like 33 shots and you got like three left.

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And it's like, because you're going to, when you get up, you're going to have to change the roll of film because

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you don't want to go back down with three shots. You want to have 36. So, uh,

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little things to deal with, but yeah, if he ever has fun times, yeah,

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I try. trying to use a Nikonas, one of those old Nikonas ones, which at

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the time were super cool. But now it's just, these

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Well, plus you have the addition of

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going back to other software and using

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algorithms and sort of these different predetermined

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sort of buttons to augment the photograph and bring

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the colors out or change the background or change the colors. in

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depth now. Was that a big step

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from going from film to learning all of these different

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tools that you can use in post-processing in

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that time or was it something that just for you because you use film it

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That's a good question. For me it was quite easy because

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in the first year of university we were still using film photography

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and then slowly sort of moving on to digital

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and post-production and I guess I was just really

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lucky to have some great tutors and great

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supervision at university that really helped with understanding

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the post-processing techniques. Since I've

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graduated I'm at the stage now where I feel like I'm probably quite

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behind people because it's always updating and it can

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be quite hard to keep up with the new techniques and

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like updated softwares and all the algorithms. So

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it's definitely something that I still feel like I'm

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constantly learning, just to stay up to date with modern

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day photography. But that makes it really fun at the same time, like

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So when you're going back to when you were at university, kind

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of in your career trajectory, at what point did you Go

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start diving and realize like, wow, there's this whole world underwater. I want

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to start. I want to capture on film. Was it during your university or

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So I started diving when I was 18 and

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that was on a gap year before university. I went and did

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a course in Thailand and although I'd always

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loved the ocean, I'd always loved swimming and snorkeling, I

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didn't even know that I could do scuba diving at a

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younger age than 18. I just thought it was something that you

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reach 18 and that's the point when you can learn. It's like a tattoo. Yeah exactly

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and now I'm a scuba instructor now and I'm

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like oh I wish I'd picked it up when I was like 12 or

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10 and like got into it from a really early age. But

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yeah, I mean, I tried it when I was 18, absolutely fell

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in love with it and went on to do my advanced course

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in the same travels in that trip. And during

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my degree, I went on to sort of do my rescue course

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and my dive master course. And after graduating, I

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was sort of waiting to get into this science communication world full

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time. So I went and did my instructor course and taught

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scuba diving in a few places around the world. because it was a really good

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way to improve my dive experience and

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get in the water as much as possible and I

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think having now as a sort

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of dive professional I think that's also improved my Photographic

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techniques underwater as well because I'm very self-reliant It's

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helped my buoyancy kind of be spot-on which is so important

238
00:16:07,773 --> 00:16:11,375
for videography underwater. It's like Maintaining that neutral

239
00:16:11,395 --> 00:16:14,497
buoyancy is it's really tough when you have a camera in

240
00:16:14,517 --> 00:16:18,399
your hands I don't think people realize how difficult

241
00:16:21,441 --> 00:16:24,683
I mean you have you know, you have these animals that

242
00:16:24,723 --> 00:16:28,185
are moving at their proper speed, and so some of them are faster, some

243
00:16:28,225 --> 00:16:31,387
of them are slower. You are moving, you're trying to stay buoyant, you're

244
00:16:31,427 --> 00:16:34,609
trying to look out for everything, because you're still scuba diving, so you still

245
00:16:34,649 --> 00:16:38,091
need to maintain, like, your safety and things like that, and

246
00:16:38,131 --> 00:16:41,193
look around, but then you just have to get that shot. We did it,

247
00:16:41,353 --> 00:16:44,535
I remember when I worked for the government here in Canada, We

248
00:16:44,575 --> 00:16:47,917
used to do these training activities in the fall. Our field team would

249
00:16:47,977 --> 00:16:51,359
offer these open sort of, it was like an open

250
00:16:51,459 --> 00:16:54,641
way of like if you were a scuba diver, you can go and practice your scuba diving. They

251
00:16:54,661 --> 00:16:58,083
would bring out instruments and they would let us, so it was like field instruments

252
00:16:58,123 --> 00:17:01,845
and one was a video camera. This is in a 10-foot deep

253
00:17:01,905 --> 00:17:05,107
pool where you had to maintain your buoyancy in 10 feet

254
00:17:05,147 --> 00:17:08,388
of water, which is very difficult because your body just wants to pop up

255
00:17:08,428 --> 00:17:11,770
to the top all the time. And you had to stay still to get the

256
00:17:11,810 --> 00:17:15,431
shot. It was so difficult. I did not expect

257
00:17:15,511 --> 00:17:19,693
that. How long did it take you to go from diving

258
00:17:19,993 --> 00:17:23,614
with a camera, whether it be photography or videography, to

259
00:17:24,094 --> 00:17:27,796
really, in your opinion, get to the point where you're like, OK, these

260
00:17:27,836 --> 00:17:30,937
are proper professional products that I

261
00:17:33,194 --> 00:17:36,737
Yeah, I mean it really took some time. I think when you, you

262
00:17:36,757 --> 00:17:40,181
can be a really comfortable diver and say you get up to your dive master

263
00:17:40,301 --> 00:17:43,704
and you feel great, your buoyancy is great, your trim in the water,

264
00:17:43,845 --> 00:17:47,028
everything feels super comfortable. You throw a camera in the mix and it's

265
00:17:47,068 --> 00:17:50,491
like you're a beginner diver again. So you

266
00:17:50,531 --> 00:17:54,175
really have to go back to the first point and

267
00:17:54,695 --> 00:17:57,817
like feel very humbled and kind of

268
00:17:57,877 --> 00:18:02,779
just accept that you know it's going to take some time. I mean

269
00:18:02,820 --> 00:18:06,701
I'm still, I still feel like I'm learning but because

270
00:18:06,741 --> 00:18:10,927
I kind of, I went from the point where I was in

271
00:18:10,967 --> 00:18:14,228
my job scuba diving and doing videography and

272
00:18:14,268 --> 00:18:17,490
then in a lot of locations we didn't

273
00:18:17,530 --> 00:18:21,651
have access to scuba so then you're free diving and doing videography which

274
00:18:21,731 --> 00:18:25,393
is like a whole another ball game it's like

275
00:18:25,473 --> 00:18:28,754
you know doing everything that you're used to on

276
00:18:28,954 --> 00:18:32,316
one breath and popping up and like getting that shot again popping

277
00:18:32,356 --> 00:18:37,318
up to the surface kind of getting your breath back and going down again But

278
00:18:37,358 --> 00:18:40,621
I think, I'd say it probably took sort

279
00:18:40,641 --> 00:18:45,284
of like five years to feel truly comfortable. And

280
00:18:45,304 --> 00:18:48,667
then another thing to throw into the mix is every time you upgrade your gear to

281
00:18:48,707 --> 00:18:52,290
something bigger, then that's the next challenge. There's

282
00:18:52,330 --> 00:18:56,773
more settings. It's like a bigger, heavier setup, which

283
00:18:56,813 --> 00:19:00,456
has more drag in the water. Then you get tempted to buy some cool

284
00:19:05,840 --> 00:19:09,542
That's really funny because I was watching a video, this

285
00:19:10,402 --> 00:19:14,764
woman I had on my other podcast, Aaliyah, she is part of the Finstitute in

286
00:19:14,924 --> 00:19:18,486
Australia and she's an underwater photographer and videographer

287
00:19:18,506 --> 00:19:21,847
and she was talking about how normally she just goes down with a

288
00:19:21,907 --> 00:19:25,591
regular camera with very small, I guess, housing.

289
00:19:25,751 --> 00:19:29,415
And then she said, and here's like my bigger gear, which is like, and

290
00:19:29,455 --> 00:19:32,638
then she put the strobes on and she was talking about how difficult it

291
00:19:32,698 --> 00:19:36,142
was to maneuver and stabilize. And it was just like, every

292
00:19:36,182 --> 00:19:40,365
time she added something, it was more and more difficult. That's

293
00:19:40,405 --> 00:19:43,566
like a professional thing around, across everybody, right?

294
00:19:43,606 --> 00:19:47,026
Where it's like, the bigger the gear that you see in like National

295
00:19:47,066 --> 00:19:50,667
Geographic and things like that, that is, you're getting into advanced and

296
00:19:50,927 --> 00:19:54,187
difficulties that we can't even comprehend here

297
00:19:55,828 --> 00:19:59,008
Yeah. Oh, totally. All part of the

298
00:19:59,568 --> 00:20:02,809
I love that challenge. Yeah, for sure. You mentioned

299
00:20:02,829 --> 00:20:05,949
you took like a year, when you really started getting into it, you took a gap year

300
00:20:05,969 --> 00:20:09,930
and went to like Thailand, Southeast Asia. Just

301
00:20:10,011 --> 00:20:14,100
out of curiosity, why did you happen to decide, like, I'm going to go to Thailand out

302
00:20:17,998 --> 00:20:21,100
Why did you happen to go there? Good question. I kind of,

303
00:20:22,600 --> 00:20:25,802
at the age of 18, I think it was quite, I mean, I'm sure it's still

304
00:20:25,822 --> 00:20:29,804
quite a typical route for people to do, but there's this kind of standard Southeast

305
00:20:29,904 --> 00:20:34,187
Asia backpacker route. Thailand, Laos,

306
00:20:34,547 --> 00:20:37,609
Cambodia, Vietnam. So I was kind of

307
00:20:37,669 --> 00:20:40,870
just, you know, jumping on the bandwagon and wanted to

308
00:20:40,890 --> 00:20:44,112
do a bit of backpacking. and hadn't really even

309
00:20:44,212 --> 00:20:47,595
considered, oh on this trip I'm going to try scuba diving and

310
00:20:47,715 --> 00:20:50,917
fall in love with it. It was just something that I thought I'd give a

311
00:20:50,937 --> 00:20:54,399
go and that kind of like changed the whole perspective of

312
00:20:54,600 --> 00:20:57,842
my travels and all the travels that followed on

313
00:20:57,882 --> 00:21:01,144
from that. I think every trip I've really ever done has just always been

314
00:21:02,685 --> 00:21:06,110
Diving and what marine animals I could see so yeah, it's

315
00:21:06,190 --> 00:21:10,116
amazing to think that something that you came up with during a backpacking trip

316
00:21:10,957 --> 00:21:14,202
Sort of sporadically and just said, okay I'm just gonna try this and see

317
00:21:14,242 --> 00:21:17,827
how it goes and it's all of a sudden has changed the way you you

318
00:21:17,867 --> 00:21:21,008
live now. It's your profession. It's

319
00:21:21,028 --> 00:21:24,969
like you said, every trip you take, what can I see and where do I go? It's

320
00:21:25,009 --> 00:21:28,190
amazing how that sporadic thought where like, okay, I'm going

321
00:21:28,230 --> 00:21:31,471
to try scuba diving on this backpacking trip when I'm 18 and

322
00:21:31,531 --> 00:21:34,772
it's going to change life. You mentioned that you did

323
00:21:34,812 --> 00:21:38,793
that while you're waiting to get a job in science communication. You

324
00:21:38,813 --> 00:21:41,935
have a degree that is really focused in on

325
00:21:42,015 --> 00:21:45,277
science communication. How many, like I guess did a lot of your

326
00:21:46,057 --> 00:21:49,579
fellow students get jobs within a similar

327
00:21:49,619 --> 00:21:53,341
industry like wildlife and communications or

328
00:21:53,421 --> 00:21:56,978
was it did they go to like you know, National Geographic or

329
00:21:57,018 --> 00:22:00,443
BBC, or like, what was the path that, like, obviously,

330
00:22:00,463 --> 00:22:03,648
we know your path we're going to talk about with the Manitrust, but what were

331
00:22:03,668 --> 00:22:06,893
the paths of the other students that you may have known or kept in touch

332
00:22:08,961 --> 00:22:12,703
Yeah, that's a good question. It's a real mixture, so

333
00:22:12,983 --> 00:22:16,444
some go to sort of like more blue chip

334
00:22:16,764 --> 00:22:19,966
style media, so work on

335
00:22:20,066 --> 00:22:23,928
big productions with BBC or

336
00:22:24,268 --> 00:22:28,089
Nat Geo or Disney and

337
00:22:28,350 --> 00:22:31,832
others go into the kind of route that I went down, so

338
00:22:31,872 --> 00:22:36,577
charity communications or conservation communications, but

339
00:22:36,657 --> 00:22:41,241
really it's quite a competitive industry,

340
00:22:42,222 --> 00:22:45,886
science communication. It certainly

341
00:22:45,926 --> 00:22:49,868
took me quite a long time to finally actually get here, And

342
00:22:49,888 --> 00:22:53,071
I know that like wildlife media at the moment, it's

343
00:22:53,192 --> 00:22:56,655
such a saturated market. And there's

344
00:22:56,675 --> 00:23:00,379
a lot of productions that are kind of slowing down. And I think during

345
00:23:00,419 --> 00:23:04,163
COVID, there were so many big natural history productions

346
00:23:04,183 --> 00:23:07,486
because it was what people wanted. People were at home looking for

347
00:23:07,526 --> 00:23:10,764
something to watch. Then after COVID, people were able

348
00:23:10,804 --> 00:23:14,206
to travel more and they weren't kind of like sat down in front of their TVs

349
00:23:14,266 --> 00:23:17,587
as much and they were able to get out in nature. And so

350
00:23:17,687 --> 00:23:20,909
there's a real sort of slowdown in the industry. And it's I mean, it's really

351
00:23:20,949 --> 00:23:24,311
tough because there's all of these people that have got

352
00:23:24,631 --> 00:23:27,993
amazing qualifications, amazing skills, tons

353
00:23:28,033 --> 00:23:31,335
of dive experience. And there's just not quite

354
00:23:32,255 --> 00:23:35,596
a lot on offer right now. Yeah. So I feel I

355
00:23:35,616 --> 00:23:39,038
feel really, really lucky that I'm able to do this role full

356
00:23:39,078 --> 00:23:42,339
time. It certainly was like it took a really long

357
00:23:42,359 --> 00:23:45,620
time to get here. So I'm really grateful to finally be here.

358
00:23:46,220 --> 00:23:49,361
And I did so many did so many sort of

359
00:23:49,421 --> 00:23:53,183
fill in jobs after graduating to

360
00:23:53,483 --> 00:23:57,184
actually make it to this point. So kind of working in more

361
00:23:57,624 --> 00:24:01,286
commercial underwater photography, I did a lot of of photography for

362
00:24:01,326 --> 00:24:04,928
tourist boats, did a lot of dive instructing, so spent

363
00:24:04,968 --> 00:24:08,109
a lot of time underwater in other roles before I could

364
00:24:11,691 --> 00:24:15,393
So when you were moving along in your thing, did you, at

365
00:24:15,433 --> 00:24:18,795
what point did you decide, or was it early on you decided the whole

366
00:24:19,715 --> 00:24:23,117
science communication and the photography, you

367
00:24:23,157 --> 00:24:26,679
wanted to kind of wed those two passions of yours? At

368
00:24:26,719 --> 00:24:30,154
what point did you think like, hey, this is the direction I

369
00:24:30,194 --> 00:24:34,137
want to go with it, because some people do more like just the science communication,

370
00:24:34,657 --> 00:24:37,979
others just really stick into the photography, and then of course some like

371
00:24:38,019 --> 00:24:41,280
you kind of marry the two. At what point did

372
00:24:41,320 --> 00:24:44,722
you think you could pull those two, do you want to pull them together, or

373
00:24:50,786 --> 00:24:53,967
Yeah, so I think while I was studying, while I was doing my

374
00:24:54,007 --> 00:24:57,736
degree, that already sort of formulated the

375
00:24:57,836 --> 00:25:01,341
idea for me because the big focus

376
00:25:01,401 --> 00:25:04,866
on the course was to be documenting not only

377
00:25:04,926 --> 00:25:08,130
the wildlife but the threats that the wildlife are facing and

378
00:25:08,230 --> 00:25:11,895
finding creative ways to communicate this

379
00:25:12,115 --> 00:25:16,078
that were engaging but also accessible

380
00:25:16,298 --> 00:25:20,260
to everybody like that's always been such a big priority

381
00:25:20,320 --> 00:25:23,742
for me is making information as accessible and

382
00:25:23,882 --> 00:25:27,363
digestible as possible. So I think even

383
00:25:27,484 --> 00:25:30,865
during my degree I'd always known I want to be involved in

384
00:25:31,525 --> 00:25:35,027
communicating things in a really visual and engaging way because

385
00:25:35,647 --> 00:25:38,809
I mean visual media has such an impact on people I think

386
00:25:39,935 --> 00:25:43,516
compared to, I mean scientific publications are so important,

387
00:25:43,696 --> 00:25:47,157
they're so essential, but they are really kind of, they

388
00:25:47,177 --> 00:25:51,478
can only really be interpreted by the academic brain and

389
00:25:51,859 --> 00:25:55,079
so it means that a lot of really important information is shut off from the

390
00:25:55,120 --> 00:25:58,601
world because it's in this format that a lot of people just

391
00:25:59,281 --> 00:26:03,782
haven't had the opportunity to learn to interpret. So

392
00:26:03,802 --> 00:26:07,663
I think that's one of the really amazing things about visual media is

393
00:26:08,423 --> 00:26:11,544
it kind of transcends language barriers, it

394
00:26:11,664 --> 00:26:14,985
transcends academic barriers as well.

395
00:26:15,105 --> 00:26:18,626
It's a way to kind of connect people very quickly

396
00:26:18,886 --> 00:26:22,927
to wildlife and the threats that they're facing without necessarily

397
00:26:22,987 --> 00:26:26,315
having to be written or

398
00:26:26,735 --> 00:26:29,916
read. It's just images that people see and they can

399
00:26:30,036 --> 00:26:33,678
start to understand like this is what's happening. So

400
00:26:33,698 --> 00:26:37,360
that's kind of how and why I've always just been really interested

401
00:26:37,420 --> 00:26:40,601
in the visual media because I just I know that it can have

402
00:26:40,642 --> 00:26:43,863
such an impact in a way that not

403
00:26:45,444 --> 00:26:48,665
I think it's really interesting too the way

404
00:26:48,705 --> 00:26:52,247
you've approached it from a visual media perspective. You know the underwater

405
00:26:52,267 --> 00:26:55,571
photography, the videography, A lot of, and you

406
00:26:55,611 --> 00:26:59,093
know, you're a science communicator, you're a science communication manager for

407
00:26:59,113 --> 00:27:02,976
the Manitrust. And Manitrust has been known to produce these amazing

408
00:27:03,056 --> 00:27:06,399
photos and these amazing videos just as you're producing them. And

409
00:27:07,460 --> 00:27:10,882
we've seen many of those and we'll talk about those in just a moment that

410
00:27:10,902 --> 00:27:14,065
some three to five minute videos you guys have been

411
00:27:14,105 --> 00:27:17,607
releasing on Instagram and social media and so forth

412
00:27:17,908 --> 00:27:21,763
and YouTube. But a lot of the time, science

413
00:27:21,803 --> 00:27:25,628
communication roles don't call for visual media

414
00:27:25,828 --> 00:27:29,773
expertise or experience. They require media

415
00:27:29,813 --> 00:27:33,657
relations and social media savviness, but

416
00:27:33,697 --> 00:27:37,802
also internal and external communication

417
00:27:37,943 --> 00:27:42,069
experience and things like that. From your experience, and

418
00:27:42,889 --> 00:27:46,932
did you find that that is mana is the manitrust unique

419
00:27:47,113 --> 00:27:50,435
in that aspect where it requires one the visual media, but

420
00:27:50,475 --> 00:27:53,838
does it also require the other experience that I just mentioned

421
00:27:53,878 --> 00:27:57,000
that traditional or other science, I shouldn't say traditional, because it's all

422
00:27:59,958 --> 00:28:04,262
Yeah, so the role that I'm doing is really diverse. As

423
00:28:04,282 --> 00:28:07,464
you said, it's kind of like I do the visual media, the

424
00:28:07,504 --> 00:28:10,707
photography and the videography, but I also do

425
00:28:10,727 --> 00:28:14,270
the press relations and the website design and

426
00:28:14,290 --> 00:28:17,893
maintenance and the kind of graphic design. Social media,

427
00:28:17,973 --> 00:28:21,414
luckily I have an amazing assistant who helps out with the social media

428
00:28:21,454 --> 00:28:25,156
and other comms elements. So, I mean, it's

429
00:28:25,196 --> 00:28:28,518
such a diverse role that I didn't actually have all

430
00:28:28,538 --> 00:28:32,280
of the experience of before starting the role. And

431
00:28:32,820 --> 00:28:35,902
so there was a lot of learning on the job. There was definitely a lot of

432
00:28:35,962 --> 00:28:39,223
YouTubing. I'll be totally honest about

433
00:28:39,263 --> 00:28:44,767
that. There was a lot of YouTubing, how to do my job. But

434
00:28:44,807 --> 00:28:48,111
I think that's, I kind of think that's really important for people to know

435
00:28:48,811 --> 00:28:52,034
so that people can understand like you might

436
00:28:52,075 --> 00:28:55,478
not have all of the skills that the job listing

437
00:28:55,538 --> 00:28:58,981
requires and a lot of it you do need to learn on the job. Like I'd

438
00:28:59,061 --> 00:29:02,648
never, even though I'd done photographic jobs

439
00:29:02,708 --> 00:29:06,613
before. I hadn't really ever had experience in press relations before

440
00:29:06,653 --> 00:29:09,957
starting the role. I wasn't a graphic designer and

441
00:29:10,238 --> 00:29:13,602
that was very much like starting from the ground and

442
00:29:13,662 --> 00:29:17,086
working up very quickly. But it

443
00:29:17,106 --> 00:29:20,690
was the best way to learn. I learnt really fast. Had

444
00:29:20,730 --> 00:29:24,253
a lot of challenges, yeah. Had a lot of challenges at

445
00:29:24,273 --> 00:29:27,516
the beginning but I'm also really grateful to have such

446
00:29:27,536 --> 00:29:31,019
a diverse role because then I can kind of understand

447
00:29:31,219 --> 00:29:34,803
all aspects of the comms and kind of interlink them and interweave

448
00:29:34,843 --> 00:29:38,306
them really nicely in the charity which is great. And I

449
00:29:38,326 --> 00:29:42,269
would say the charity, the Manchester Trust, is really supportive of

450
00:29:42,329 --> 00:29:45,452
learning on the job. They knew that when I took this role that I

451
00:29:46,332 --> 00:29:50,216
didn't have press relation experience or marketing experience

452
00:29:50,316 --> 00:29:54,039
and they were really supportive of me learning as I go. So I've

453
00:29:54,059 --> 00:29:57,862
been really lucky with that. I think other charities, depending

454
00:29:57,902 --> 00:30:00,986
on the size of the charity, If they're a

455
00:30:01,006 --> 00:30:04,550
much bigger charity, they'd probably have one person allocated to

456
00:30:04,670 --> 00:30:08,454
the content creation and the visual media, and then another person that's just

457
00:30:08,494 --> 00:30:11,998
for press liaison and marketing, and

458
00:30:12,018 --> 00:30:16,403
then another person for the web and graphic design. But

459
00:30:16,443 --> 00:30:20,548
smaller charities like ourselves are very much... all

460
00:30:20,608 --> 00:30:23,795
elbows in, all hands on deck, you know, everyone gets involved in

461
00:30:33,439 --> 00:30:37,182
Yeah that's a good question. So I was working

462
00:30:37,202 --> 00:30:40,325
as a marine biologist in Bar Atoll in the

463
00:30:40,365 --> 00:30:44,929
Maldives for an organisation called Reefscapers and

464
00:30:44,969 --> 00:30:48,332
they focus a lot on coral

465
00:30:48,352 --> 00:30:52,296
restoration and coral propagation and sea turtle rehabilitation

466
00:30:52,316 --> 00:30:55,879
and our headquarters was actually shared with

467
00:30:55,919 --> 00:30:59,261
the Manta Trust team And I kind of, on my

468
00:30:59,482 --> 00:31:02,965
days off, I would sometimes help out on the Manchester Trust research boat

469
00:31:03,065 --> 00:31:06,287
and we'd go to Hanifaru Bay, which for anyone that

470
00:31:06,307 --> 00:31:09,490
doesn't know, is essentially where the

471
00:31:09,570 --> 00:31:12,672
largest aggregation of reef manta rays gather in

472
00:31:12,712 --> 00:31:15,895
the world. So it's this incredible hotspot for

473
00:31:15,955 --> 00:31:19,218
reef mantas. it's just an

474
00:31:19,278 --> 00:31:23,340
insane place there's not really anywhere like it you get cyclone

475
00:31:23,500 --> 00:31:27,143
feeding manta rays that were feasting on this

476
00:31:27,263 --> 00:31:30,345
plankton soup that you're swimming in

477
00:31:30,605 --> 00:31:33,948
and it's it's just incredible and after spending

478
00:31:33,988 --> 00:31:37,590
some time there i just knew like okay i'm obsessed

479
00:31:37,670 --> 00:31:41,953
with mantas i need to work with them and just

480
00:31:42,013 --> 00:31:45,355
from being spending so much time with the team I

481
00:31:45,375 --> 00:31:48,556
just really respected the Manta Trust's ethos and

482
00:31:48,576 --> 00:31:52,038
their ways of working and the

483
00:31:52,058 --> 00:31:55,419
kind of focus that they had in mind. I

484
00:31:55,739 --> 00:31:59,120
just got really close with them, got to know them, and luckily for

485
00:31:59,160 --> 00:32:02,542
me I then got offered a position with them to manage

486
00:32:02,622 --> 00:32:07,684
one of their research bases in Lamo Atoll, so that's south-central

487
00:32:07,904 --> 00:32:11,445
Maldives. and I worked there

488
00:32:11,545 --> 00:32:14,926
for a couple of years managing one

489
00:32:14,966 --> 00:32:18,707
of the research projects but at the same time I was doing

490
00:32:18,847 --> 00:32:22,708
photography and videography for fun because I had an underwater camera. I

491
00:32:22,728 --> 00:32:26,049
was using it also a lot for the research elements because a

492
00:32:26,289 --> 00:32:30,953
lot of our research projects use photography

493
00:32:31,153 --> 00:32:34,776
like imagery for the data so it's really cool I got to I was

494
00:32:35,216 --> 00:32:39,040
very much involved in the science but all of our all

495
00:32:39,060 --> 00:32:42,383
of our research equipment involved cameras in some way

496
00:32:42,563 --> 00:32:45,686
so I loved that but

497
00:32:45,726 --> 00:32:49,590
because I was doing a lot of photography and videography for fun and

498
00:32:50,110 --> 00:32:53,333
making short form content about the

499
00:32:53,373 --> 00:32:56,816
charity When the previous media

500
00:32:56,856 --> 00:33:00,279
and communications manager was leaving the role, the

501
00:33:00,379 --> 00:33:03,682
charity founder and my now boss had seen some

502
00:33:03,702 --> 00:33:07,225
of the content I created and they were like, huh, Jazz, you do photography,

503
00:33:07,285 --> 00:33:10,668
right? Would you want to switch over to the comms side? So it

504
00:33:10,708 --> 00:33:14,151
was all kind of quite organic. I didn't really

505
00:33:14,272 --> 00:33:17,875
necessarily ever before working with reef scapers think

506
00:33:18,076 --> 00:33:21,199
oh there's this organization the Manta Trust that I really want

507
00:33:21,219 --> 00:33:24,483
to get a job with it was just kind of quite natural got to

508
00:33:24,523 --> 00:33:27,707
know them in the field and was like wow this the work they're

509
00:33:27,727 --> 00:33:31,071
doing is incredible and I really respect their ways

510
00:33:31,131 --> 00:33:34,554
of working. And also never

511
00:33:34,594 --> 00:33:37,796
really thought I want to be doing the media for them and never thought

512
00:33:37,816 --> 00:33:41,737
I'd have that opportunity and it just kind of organically flowed

513
00:33:41,877 --> 00:33:45,458
to that point. So I'm very lucky that those opportunities came

514
00:33:45,518 --> 00:33:48,619
about because I didn't really ever imagine I would get to

515
00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:53,401
So was this an opportunity that you applied for or that you just discussed just

516
00:33:58,002 --> 00:34:01,405
So the media and comms role I didn't

517
00:34:01,465 --> 00:34:04,848
apply for because for

518
00:34:05,008 --> 00:34:08,531
people that are working internally already with the charity, if

519
00:34:08,571 --> 00:34:12,135
they have the right skill set, there's the possibility to

520
00:34:12,195 --> 00:34:16,719
move on to different roles in the charity. I'd

521
00:34:16,759 --> 00:34:20,740
always known that I wanted to get

522
00:34:20,840 --> 00:34:24,263
back into conservation communications in some

523
00:34:24,343 --> 00:34:27,746
way, but didn't

524
00:34:27,806 --> 00:34:31,089
really go out searching for that. So it was kind of just when

525
00:34:31,129 --> 00:34:34,472
I got offered the opportunity, I was like, sweet, I can get back into

526
00:34:34,512 --> 00:34:38,455
science communication. And I'm really excited about that. And

527
00:34:38,935 --> 00:34:42,298
I think I was really lucky to have worked in the research side

528
00:34:42,398 --> 00:34:45,961
as well, because now that's really informed all

529
00:34:45,981 --> 00:34:49,910
of the work that I do today, I have a much better understanding of kind

530
00:34:49,950 --> 00:34:53,611
of the backbone to a lot of the projects and like the complexities of

531
00:34:53,711 --> 00:34:57,072
working in manta ray conservation that maybe

532
00:34:57,112 --> 00:35:01,473
I wouldn't have experienced

533
00:35:01,513 --> 00:35:05,575
so much if I wasn't working in the research role with them before. So it's been

534
00:35:05,595 --> 00:35:08,956
a really nice way to kind of have the experience of two

535
00:35:10,656 --> 00:35:14,400
Just getting back to your sort

536
00:35:14,420 --> 00:35:17,902
of dual, like doing photography for art and photography

537
00:35:17,922 --> 00:35:21,063
for science. How different is that when

538
00:35:21,103 --> 00:35:24,544
you're using a camera for science compared to trying to

539
00:35:24,604 --> 00:35:28,346
make the most beautiful image ever? Like how, from

540
00:35:28,366 --> 00:35:31,707
your perspective, learning it from an art perspective, now using it for science,

541
00:35:33,568 --> 00:35:36,769
Yeah, I mean, it's totally different. So just

542
00:35:36,809 --> 00:35:40,271
to give you an idea of when I would do a research dive in

543
00:35:40,511 --> 00:35:43,811
Lamu Atoll, when I would drop down in the water I

544
00:35:43,851 --> 00:35:47,178
would have like 10 pieces of equipment strapped to my body

545
00:35:47,198 --> 00:35:51,347
and that would include like a few um like

546
00:35:51,958 --> 00:35:55,779
we would call them RUV cameras, remote underwater vehicles essentially,

547
00:35:55,879 --> 00:35:59,300
so like we would be putting loads of GoPros down

548
00:35:59,340 --> 00:36:02,821
on the reef and either doing time-lapse photography or

549
00:36:02,941 --> 00:36:06,241
just running videos and that was, we'd put those cameras down

550
00:36:06,301 --> 00:36:09,842
on a manta ray cleaning station and the idea is that the manta passes

551
00:36:09,902 --> 00:36:13,404
by and we hopefully capture a

552
00:36:13,464 --> 00:36:17,268
shot of their belly spots so they're identifying features

553
00:36:17,468 --> 00:36:21,552
essentially but aside from that we were also measuring

554
00:36:21,632 --> 00:36:25,236
the wingspans of manta rays using a device

555
00:36:25,316 --> 00:36:28,879
called a stereo video photogrammetry device

556
00:36:29,400 --> 00:36:32,883
which is a super cool thing it's basically this bar with

557
00:36:33,104 --> 00:36:36,466
a gopro either end slightly angled in towards each

558
00:36:36,546 --> 00:36:39,988
other and it's calibrated to measure

559
00:36:40,048 --> 00:36:43,469
the wingspan of a manta when you're swimming behind it. So

560
00:36:43,509 --> 00:36:46,891
it's just recording this imagery that can transfer into

561
00:36:46,931 --> 00:36:50,353
this insanely different data than just taking like

562
00:36:50,393 --> 00:36:54,055
a beautiful image of a manta ray. And then

563
00:36:54,115 --> 00:36:57,418
another piece of equipment we had was this

564
00:36:57,598 --> 00:37:01,122
contactless underwater ultrasound scanner, which

565
00:37:01,162 --> 00:37:04,765
was so cool. We were basically using water

566
00:37:05,165 --> 00:37:08,288
as the transmission medium between an ultrasound scanner and the

567
00:37:08,328 --> 00:37:11,811
manta ray's body. and essentially it would

568
00:37:11,911 --> 00:37:16,355
feed through to an iPhone. So you're looking at like a screen

569
00:37:16,515 --> 00:37:20,478
underwater and you're receiving the live sonogram. So

570
00:37:20,498 --> 00:37:24,241
that was another way that we were using imagery and visual media

571
00:37:24,801 --> 00:37:28,024
underwater for research. So it was like, it was crazy. It was like we had

572
00:37:28,084 --> 00:37:32,183
all of these different cameras with all of these different functions. But

573
00:37:32,203 --> 00:37:36,307
they were there to collect research imagery.

574
00:37:36,407 --> 00:37:40,051
So you weren't ever thinking like, OK, how's the composition of this ultrasound?

575
00:37:43,714 --> 00:37:47,498
With that, you're trained

576
00:37:47,558 --> 00:37:50,681
to share this media with the

577
00:37:50,741 --> 00:37:54,265
world and showing all these wonderful images

578
00:37:54,325 --> 00:37:57,528
and what the ocean world brings. When you're doing this type

579
00:37:57,568 --> 00:38:00,750
of research, I guess there's a

580
00:38:00,790 --> 00:38:04,132
lot of pressure for people saying, hey, scientists, when they gather fieldwork, they

581
00:38:04,152 --> 00:38:07,514
should share their data. Now, some people don't want to share their data

582
00:38:07,574 --> 00:38:10,696
if it has to do with scientific research until they publish and

583
00:38:10,736 --> 00:38:14,018
so forth. Was that ever an issue to

584
00:38:14,098 --> 00:38:17,719
share? Like, as you say, you got these images from an ultrasound, would

585
00:38:17,759 --> 00:38:21,060
you feel like, oh, we should share these? And was

586
00:38:21,080 --> 00:38:24,561
there ever like, maybe we should wait until we publish on

587
00:38:24,601 --> 00:38:27,861
this in case, you know, who knows, right? So like, was

588
00:38:27,881 --> 00:38:31,002
there pressure to like, hey, let's, let's share this, let's show people what we

589
00:38:31,022 --> 00:38:34,783
can do? Or was it just more of like, let's keep it down until

590
00:38:38,169 --> 00:38:41,330
Yeah, that's a really good question. We try and be

591
00:38:41,410 --> 00:38:45,152
as open with our data as possible at the time. Some

592
00:38:45,572 --> 00:38:49,333
data that we were collecting would be for someone's like PhD

593
00:38:49,593 --> 00:38:52,875
or an upcoming publication. So in those instances, we

594
00:38:52,895 --> 00:38:56,856
knew like, okay, we can't quite put this imagery

595
00:38:56,896 --> 00:39:01,218
live until it's formed into a proper publication. But anything

596
00:39:01,238 --> 00:39:04,799
that was not sort of like locked by publication, we

597
00:39:04,819 --> 00:39:09,241
share as much as possible because I think it's It's so important

598
00:39:09,422 --> 00:39:12,924
to show your followers and show the world what you're currently up

599
00:39:12,984 --> 00:39:17,067
to. I've always just thought it seems so sad to have

600
00:39:17,187 --> 00:39:20,630
this amazing resource of data and have all this amazing

601
00:39:20,670 --> 00:39:24,392
information just locked away on a hard drive. how

602
00:39:24,432 --> 00:39:27,596
can that make an impact? So yeah I

603
00:39:27,656 --> 00:39:30,879
mean in one instance we're sharing a lot as we're

604
00:39:30,899 --> 00:39:34,463
going along in the field but something else that we've really focused

605
00:39:34,523 --> 00:39:38,027
on in the last year with our publications is

606
00:39:39,213 --> 00:39:43,056
Like, we've always thought it's a bit of a shame to have publications

607
00:39:43,416 --> 00:39:47,179
locked away in journals that have a paywall

608
00:39:47,259 --> 00:39:51,583
and we always try and make our publications

609
00:39:51,683 --> 00:39:54,865
open access, but for ones that are not able

610
00:39:54,905 --> 00:39:58,408
to be open access, we basically recently created

611
00:39:58,428 --> 00:40:02,050
a managed trust research portal where we've put all

612
00:40:02,090 --> 00:40:05,391
of our publications in this one directory of

613
00:40:05,451 --> 00:40:08,752
resources. And even for the publications that are

614
00:40:08,792 --> 00:40:12,052
behind a paywall, like we include a summary of the publication and

615
00:40:12,072 --> 00:40:16,253
an abstract and all the key figures and kind of like related

616
00:40:16,533 --> 00:40:19,774
press or media and it's very visual. So we try as

617
00:40:19,834 --> 00:40:23,615
much as possible to present that information in a really accessible

618
00:40:24,115 --> 00:40:27,435
Do you have a thing on like ResearchGate or anything for

619
00:40:27,475 --> 00:40:31,268
your scientific publications? Because you can go The

620
00:40:31,328 --> 00:40:35,172
ones that are behind paywalls, you can go on there and request. If

621
00:40:35,192 --> 00:40:38,274
you don't know somebody, if you know somebody, you can email them. But if you you go on

622
00:40:38,295 --> 00:40:41,958
there and you can request a publication, you can directly send

623
00:40:41,998 --> 00:40:45,301
it to them. I don't know. And I

624
00:40:51,570 --> 00:40:55,132
Yeah, so we do have a research gate. Something

625
00:40:55,212 --> 00:40:58,393
that, I mean, in a way, the inspiration of

626
00:40:58,533 --> 00:41:02,155
the ManchTrust Research Portal was to create our

627
00:41:02,255 --> 00:41:06,097
own ManchTrust Research Gate, have it completely

628
00:41:06,337 --> 00:41:09,659
open to the public. So we've kind of, yeah, it's like a little

629
00:41:09,819 --> 00:41:13,881
equivalent manta ray version of it. I'd

630
00:41:13,901 --> 00:41:17,723
highly recommend to everyone listening, search the ManchTrust Research Portal.

631
00:41:17,903 --> 00:41:21,745
It's It's such a great Manta

632
00:41:21,785 --> 00:41:25,006
Ray Research Directory resource. It's really

633
00:41:25,046 --> 00:41:28,668
wonderful. So yeah, highly recommend checking

634
00:41:29,709 --> 00:41:32,991
You can find all of our publications on there. We'll post links to

635
00:41:33,031 --> 00:41:36,313
that with this episode. We'll post links there so people can go there and click on the link

636
00:41:36,333 --> 00:41:39,614
to bring it right there. Perfect. Because I know people in the field, that's a great...

637
00:41:40,275 --> 00:41:43,577
I haven't been there myself, but that sounds like it would be a great

638
00:41:43,637 --> 00:41:47,453
resource to be able to go there and get all that type of information. in

639
00:41:47,473 --> 00:41:52,395
a place like that. Now,

640
00:41:52,415 --> 00:41:55,916
you guys do these photo identifications with

641
00:41:55,936 --> 00:41:59,357
the manta rays so you can identify them. You

642
00:42:06,582 --> 00:42:09,865
So I'm not involved. I mean, I was when

643
00:42:09,906 --> 00:42:13,249
I was in the research role, not

644
00:42:13,289 --> 00:42:16,752
as much in the media role, but we have an entire database team

645
00:42:17,413 --> 00:42:21,337
that are managing our global database. And they,

646
00:42:21,417 --> 00:42:24,660
I mean, they do an incredible job. There is an

647
00:42:24,720 --> 00:42:28,304
insane amount of submissions that we receive through

648
00:42:28,324 --> 00:42:31,727
our ID the Manta platform, which

649
00:42:31,747 --> 00:42:34,930
you can also find on the Manta Trust website. And as of

650
00:42:35,030 --> 00:42:38,354
yet, they have all been all of the ID

651
00:42:38,634 --> 00:42:42,678
photographs that we have from around the world. have been manually identified

652
00:42:42,738 --> 00:42:46,120
by our team, so it's an insane amount. Just

653
00:42:46,180 --> 00:42:49,883
to give you an example, in the Maldives alone, the

654
00:42:49,903 --> 00:42:54,187
database of reef manta rays is more than 6,000 individuals, and

655
00:42:54,207 --> 00:42:59,431
the oceanic mantas is over 1,000 individuals, and those

656
00:42:59,711 --> 00:43:04,815
individuals have been identified from over 80,000 photographs. so

657
00:43:04,895 --> 00:43:08,577
and that's just one small country so our global database

658
00:43:08,697 --> 00:43:12,358
is massive but something really exciting that

659
00:43:12,378 --> 00:43:15,699
we're working on that will hopefully be ready early next year

660
00:43:16,060 --> 00:43:19,841
is an automated software that is identifying

661
00:43:20,141 --> 00:43:23,422
these spot patterns for us because that's going to save our

662
00:43:23,462 --> 00:43:27,824
database team a huge amount of time And

663
00:43:27,844 --> 00:43:31,171
the really cool thing about this platform is that people, instead

664
00:43:31,191 --> 00:43:34,897
of sending their images directly to the global database team,

665
00:43:35,828 --> 00:43:39,171
They can have a profile on our new platform where they

666
00:43:39,311 --> 00:43:43,054
submit their own images. They can kind of be in like a leaderboard

667
00:43:43,114 --> 00:43:46,257
so you can see like, okay, I'm the top submitter of this week.

668
00:43:46,277 --> 00:43:49,539
Gamified. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. It's the

669
00:43:49,619 --> 00:43:53,022
best way to motivate people and it's the best way to get people

670
00:43:53,082 --> 00:43:56,485
involved in citizen science is like showing them like, you

671
00:43:56,525 --> 00:44:00,368
have your own page, you can see all the mantas you've identified. I

672
00:44:00,768 --> 00:44:04,470
mean, it's so nice when you can make science fun for

673
00:44:04,650 --> 00:44:07,812
people that aren't necessarily scientists, but say there's

674
00:44:07,832 --> 00:44:11,193
like scuba divers or snorkelers that go on holiday. Yeah, such

675
00:44:11,213 --> 00:44:14,635
a cool way to get involved. So yeah,

676
00:44:16,176 --> 00:44:19,277
Yeah, and that's great. It gives them the opportunity to

677
00:44:19,297 --> 00:44:23,319
be like, I've contributed to this. I've contributed to identifying individuals

678
00:44:23,499 --> 00:44:27,061
or continuing to track individuals and probably discover,

679
00:44:27,081 --> 00:44:31,367
I'm sure, from the database and the identification, you discovered distribution

680
00:44:31,408 --> 00:44:34,790
patterns a little bit better or understood distribution patterns a

681
00:44:34,830 --> 00:44:38,072
little bit better. The software, the recognition software, is that similar to

682
00:44:38,092 --> 00:44:41,355
the one, I know there's recognition software that was used to

683
00:44:41,395 --> 00:44:45,417
identify whale sharks because of their patterns near

684
00:44:45,457 --> 00:44:48,880
their dorsal fins or on the dorsal side. And then I think the

685
00:44:48,940 --> 00:44:52,304
same pattern or very similar algorithm was used to do the

686
00:44:52,344 --> 00:44:56,068
same thing. I think it was on six gill sharks on the side of

687
00:44:56,108 --> 00:44:59,271
their gills. Is it a similar software to that or is this

688
00:45:02,723 --> 00:45:06,848
It's a brand new algorithm that we're using but it's a similar concept to

689
00:45:06,989 --> 00:45:10,613
like the whale shark spot pattern. It's a similar concept

690
00:45:10,633 --> 00:45:13,857
that we've got with the manta ray spot pattern but there are

691
00:45:14,117 --> 00:45:17,601
a lot more challenges involved with the manta ray spot pattern

692
00:45:17,741 --> 00:45:20,864
because obviously When you're photographing a

693
00:45:20,904 --> 00:45:24,186
manta ray it's on its belly, so you're usually underneath and

694
00:45:24,246 --> 00:45:28,308
it's like this big shadow above you. So

695
00:45:28,348 --> 00:45:32,170
the spots are often very hard to actually

696
00:45:32,270 --> 00:45:35,691
see in a photograph, especially if you don't have strobes or

697
00:45:35,731 --> 00:45:39,254
a flash. and usually if a manta ray is feeding

698
00:45:39,314 --> 00:45:43,957
it's in this kind of plankton soup so often the plankton inconveniently

699
00:45:43,997 --> 00:45:47,540
looks like spots on the belly so yeah

700
00:45:47,660 --> 00:45:50,822
it's been it's definitely been quite a challenge not

701
00:45:50,883 --> 00:45:54,105
saying that whale shark researchers have it way easier because they

702
00:45:54,125 --> 00:45:58,428
still they've still got a lot of whale sharks to identify but the

703
00:45:58,448 --> 00:46:01,691
whale shark pattern next to the gills is

704
00:46:02,551 --> 00:46:05,715
super defined you can in in the software that you

705
00:46:05,755 --> 00:46:09,360
use for the whale shark ID you can kind of like trace the lines and

706
00:46:09,380 --> 00:46:13,224
then the spots So it's a little bit easier to

707
00:46:13,284 --> 00:46:17,169
identify them whereas with mantas sometimes they can have like

708
00:46:17,189 --> 00:46:20,413
a really clearly defined spot and then they'll have a splodge and then

709
00:46:20,473 --> 00:46:23,656
lots of teeny tiny spots and Yeah, so it's taken us

710
00:46:24,036 --> 00:46:27,418
many, many years to develop that algorithm and

711
00:46:27,458 --> 00:46:30,700
get it to be reliable. And it's

712
00:46:32,882 --> 00:46:36,184
And even the photographs, do you

713
00:46:36,204 --> 00:46:39,306
put on workshops or instructional videos for some of

714
00:46:39,326 --> 00:46:42,648
the divers and some of those photographers to get the

715
00:46:46,923 --> 00:46:50,266
Yeah, so on our ID the Manta page on the Manta Trust

716
00:46:50,306 --> 00:46:53,648
website, we've got a clear sort of guide on

717
00:46:53,688 --> 00:46:57,991
that page on how to get the best ID shot, what kind of area people

718
00:46:58,031 --> 00:47:01,313
should be looking for. We're super lucky because

719
00:47:01,373 --> 00:47:04,655
we received some really incredible submissions as well.

720
00:47:05,216 --> 00:47:08,598
When you get that perfect ID shot, it's like, yes, thank you.

721
00:47:10,139 --> 00:47:13,602
It's great. And sort of like moving

722
00:47:13,662 --> 00:47:17,205
back to what you were saying previously, we're so lucky because

723
00:47:17,685 --> 00:47:21,288
so much of the data that we have from around the world isn't

724
00:47:21,549 --> 00:47:24,611
actually from our researchers. It's like so much of

725
00:47:24,671 --> 00:47:28,294
that information is from just keen divers,

726
00:47:28,354 --> 00:47:32,898
people that work on liverboards, just keen snorkelers. It's

727
00:47:33,199 --> 00:47:36,543
such a vast amount of information that we've got that

728
00:47:36,583 --> 00:47:40,208
we wouldn't be able to have if it was only our researchers

729
00:47:40,248 --> 00:47:44,113
in the field. Our database would be so limited. So

730
00:47:48,427 --> 00:47:51,569
That's amazing. That's awesome. Now, you know, what's what's interesting with a lot of

731
00:47:51,589 --> 00:47:55,051
the research, you have a lot going on at the Manitou Trust. There's there's research

732
00:47:55,091 --> 00:47:58,693
that's going on. There's this community feel with

733
00:47:58,833 --> 00:48:02,315
getting people engaged. But there's some complex

734
00:48:02,335 --> 00:48:05,757
information out there through your portal, you know, for the research and

735
00:48:05,797 --> 00:48:09,479
so forth. And it's your job and your team's job to tell the stories of

736
00:48:09,539 --> 00:48:13,021
those. Do you do you look at each study

737
00:48:13,061 --> 00:48:16,222
that's being done and be like, Okay, where's the storyline here? How

738
00:48:16,262 --> 00:48:19,688
can I get people our fan

739
00:48:19,708 --> 00:48:23,512
base, our constituents, they may not be all scientists. They're

740
00:48:23,532 --> 00:48:26,775
divers, they're tourist operators, they're

741
00:48:26,795 --> 00:48:29,919
people who are just interested in manitrust in general. How do I

742
00:48:29,959 --> 00:48:33,562
get the storyline out there and put it in such a visual

743
00:48:33,603 --> 00:48:38,229
way as you've done with these videos that you've released recently? How

744
00:48:38,249 --> 00:48:41,812
do you go about getting that storyline and pulling that out of that research?

745
00:48:41,833 --> 00:48:45,216
Because the research is supposed to be boring in a way for

746
00:48:45,236 --> 00:48:48,879
a lot of people as they read through it, right? How do you pull that storyline

747
00:48:50,075 --> 00:48:53,577
Yeah, that's a really good question. I mean, with every

748
00:48:54,157 --> 00:48:57,258
project or publication or thing that

749
00:48:57,278 --> 00:49:00,440
we need to communicate, we always come up with like a

750
00:49:00,540 --> 00:49:04,042
communications campaign or like, we

751
00:49:04,082 --> 00:49:07,323
kind of think about who's our audience and what do we want

752
00:49:07,623 --> 00:49:10,925
our outputs to be? And then we take a step back

753
00:49:10,965 --> 00:49:14,306
from that and then think, okay, best ways to communicate it. But

754
00:49:14,346 --> 00:49:17,868
I think with everything that we communicate, I

755
00:49:17,928 --> 00:49:21,349
still think it's quite good to keep it quite simple, like have

756
00:49:21,389 --> 00:49:24,731
a beginning, a middle and an end to a story in every

757
00:49:24,771 --> 00:49:27,932
campaign we do. So our beginning, say we're making like

758
00:49:27,972 --> 00:49:31,753
a promotional video about a project, the

759
00:49:31,773 --> 00:49:36,155
beginning is explaining the full context. Who

760
00:49:36,195 --> 00:49:39,436
are the people involved? Who are the communities involved? Why is

761
00:49:39,496 --> 00:49:43,258
this so important? Your middle is kind of like

762
00:49:43,898 --> 00:49:47,081
the threats that this animal is facing or like

763
00:49:47,141 --> 00:49:50,465
the issue at hand and then always trying

764
00:49:50,485 --> 00:49:54,068
to end it quite positively so like okay telling

765
00:49:54,088 --> 00:49:57,311
people what's the solution how can you as

766
00:49:57,351 --> 00:50:01,315
an individual contribute like how can you be involved in this and

767
00:50:01,335 --> 00:50:04,797
I think those three sections always kind of guide every video

768
00:50:04,877 --> 00:50:08,018
or every campaign we do is you know like we

769
00:50:08,038 --> 00:50:11,179
have to show people what's the ways that you can get

770
00:50:11,219 --> 00:50:14,681
involved and make a change because otherwise if if

771
00:50:15,241 --> 00:50:18,803
I mean a lot of manta ray conservation in reality

772
00:50:18,983 --> 00:50:22,144
is quite depressing because a lot of

773
00:50:22,204 --> 00:50:25,601
the a lot of the manta ray projects that we work with

774
00:50:26,322 --> 00:50:30,005
are fisheries projects where manta rays are being hunted and targeted for

775
00:50:30,485 --> 00:50:33,668
their gill plates or even their meats and I

776
00:50:34,489 --> 00:50:37,732
mean they're super slow to reproduce and it's

777
00:50:39,373 --> 00:50:43,195
kind of the way we present it is it can be quite challenging because in

778
00:50:43,235 --> 00:50:47,138
reality it's a massive issue to tackle and

779
00:50:47,158 --> 00:50:50,399
I think if we just show people the really depressing side of

780
00:50:50,440 --> 00:50:53,801
things and show that there's not much hope then

781
00:50:53,841 --> 00:50:57,203
we're not getting anywhere so we always have to show people there is an element of

782
00:50:57,263 --> 00:51:00,665
hope and there is a way that you can be involved so that

783
00:51:03,971 --> 00:51:07,132
Now last week we had World Man Today, I think

784
00:51:07,152 --> 00:51:10,532
it was on the 17th of September, which is an annual

785
00:51:10,572 --> 00:51:14,073
thing, and you guys had quite a big event at the Natural History Museum

786
00:51:14,253 --> 00:51:17,414
in London, which if I can just say, if you're ever in

787
00:51:17,454 --> 00:51:20,794
London, if there's something you have to do is go to the Natural History Museum. It's

788
00:51:20,834 --> 00:51:23,995
one of the most awesome places I've ever been, and I've been to a lot

789
00:51:24,015 --> 00:51:27,535
of museums there, but it's pretty impressive. Jasmine,

790
00:51:33,322 --> 00:51:36,483
Sure, so we were super lucky to

791
00:51:36,523 --> 00:51:40,084
be able to host, yeah, World Man Today at the Natural History Museum.

792
00:51:40,284 --> 00:51:43,745
Something I never thought we would be able to say because it is

793
00:51:43,825 --> 00:51:47,086
just the most incredible venue. Somewhere that I,

794
00:51:47,426 --> 00:51:50,567
as a kid, I would just walk around there and

795
00:51:50,607 --> 00:51:53,988
be like, I need to be involved in this world somehow, this place

796
00:51:54,068 --> 00:51:57,689
is insane. So we, I

797
00:51:57,709 --> 00:52:00,850
mean, this year's World Man Today, the theme was the

798
00:52:00,870 --> 00:52:04,251
power of storytelling. And as the media and comms

799
00:52:04,291 --> 00:52:07,492
manager, you can imagine, I was super excited about that theme. I was

800
00:52:07,512 --> 00:52:10,733
like, this is my thing. I really cannot wait to promote this

801
00:52:10,773 --> 00:52:13,934
theme. And this was kind of based on

802
00:52:14,794 --> 00:52:18,256
recent conversations we've been having about how visual media

803
00:52:18,336 --> 00:52:21,859
is so important and storytelling is so important in conservation and

804
00:52:22,479 --> 00:52:26,102
how it's really integral to

805
00:52:26,122 --> 00:52:29,746
making change and changing perspectives around

806
00:52:29,786 --> 00:52:33,128
the world. So yeah, that's kind of why we decided that this year's theme

807
00:52:33,168 --> 00:52:36,831
was going to be focused all on that. And initially we thought we're

808
00:52:36,851 --> 00:52:40,414
going to just do like a small event, maybe show some films, show

809
00:52:40,454 --> 00:52:43,836
some media, do an exhibition. And we were really

810
00:52:43,876 --> 00:52:47,098
lucky to have support from one

811
00:52:47,138 --> 00:52:50,981
of our partners focused on nature, who are

812
00:52:51,101 --> 00:52:54,283
also partnered with the Natural History Museum. So

813
00:52:54,323 --> 00:52:57,426
they suggested let's do an event there. And we jumped at

814
00:52:57,446 --> 00:53:01,007
the chance, as you can imagine. and the

815
00:53:01,208 --> 00:53:04,729
founder of Focused on Nature is Prince Hussain Aga Khan

816
00:53:04,929 --> 00:53:08,430
who is a really passionate underwater photographer and

817
00:53:08,530 --> 00:53:12,051
conservation storyteller. So we did a big exhibition

818
00:53:12,111 --> 00:53:15,272
of his prints and also sort of like

819
00:53:15,492 --> 00:53:19,253
an educational exhibition of all of the work of the Manta Trust. and

820
00:53:19,293 --> 00:53:22,675
we were super lucky to have our patron Steve

821
00:53:22,715 --> 00:53:26,696
Backshall who's an incredible wildlife TV presenter,

822
00:53:27,056 --> 00:53:30,578
again another amazing conservation storyteller. He

823
00:53:30,618 --> 00:53:34,119
and Prince Hussein were our keynote speakers for the night so it

824
00:53:34,139 --> 00:53:37,661
was just a really incredible evening where we spent

825
00:53:38,041 --> 00:53:41,520
the whole time celebrating storytelling and

826
00:53:41,600 --> 00:53:44,807
visual media and it was just so much fun because as

827
00:53:44,847 --> 00:53:48,375
I sort of said before it's such a great way to connect

828
00:53:48,756 --> 00:53:52,571
an audience to your goals and

829
00:53:52,591 --> 00:53:56,053
your ethos and what you want to achieve is by

830
00:53:56,093 --> 00:53:59,255
presenting them incredible imagery and people can

831
00:53:59,275 --> 00:54:02,377
just connect to that a lot more easily. So yeah, it

832
00:54:02,417 --> 00:54:05,619
was, it was pretty special. I'm still kind of, when I think about

833
00:54:09,802 --> 00:54:13,124
Yeah. And also you were a, you were,

834
00:54:13,164 --> 00:54:17,215
you were a finalist for this ocean photographer of the year. that

835
00:54:17,235 --> 00:54:20,436
just have also right around just before or just right

836
00:54:20,456 --> 00:54:24,177
around the same thing. Can you share a little more about that? That

837
00:54:26,217 --> 00:54:29,478
Sure. Yeah. So I mean, I

838
00:54:29,558 --> 00:54:34,179
never really enter photography competitions. And

839
00:54:34,219 --> 00:54:37,320
I know I should do more. But I think it is a

840
00:54:37,340 --> 00:54:40,621
bit of a self-confidence thing. I think I'm not going to enter. You know,

841
00:54:40,681 --> 00:54:45,122
there's like way, way better photographers. There's not much point. But

842
00:54:45,162 --> 00:54:48,363
I saw that in this year's Ocean Photographer of the Year

843
00:54:48,443 --> 00:54:52,904
Awards, they had a newly introduced conservation

844
00:54:53,104 --> 00:54:56,365
impact category. And I

845
00:54:56,405 --> 00:55:00,006
thought, OK, maybe I'm going to submit some of my fisheries

846
00:55:00,226 --> 00:55:03,907
imagery, because as I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, I've always

847
00:55:03,947 --> 00:55:07,908
been really, really interested in documenting fish markets, particularly

848
00:55:08,249 --> 00:55:11,549
shark and ray fisheries. And I was

849
00:55:11,930 --> 00:55:15,131
out in the field earlier this year with one

850
00:55:15,171 --> 00:55:18,592
of our affiliate projects, the Mobula Project Indonesia, who

851
00:55:18,652 --> 00:55:22,173
are based in Java. And they're doing really

852
00:55:22,213 --> 00:55:25,994
incredible work in the region to try and mitigate shark

853
00:55:26,014 --> 00:55:29,775
and ray fisheries. And they've been there for about 10 years. They

854
00:55:29,795 --> 00:55:34,497
work really closely with the fisher community. And

855
00:55:34,537 --> 00:55:38,798
they've created a new project called the Sustainable Seafood Network. and

856
00:55:38,818 --> 00:55:43,322
what they want to do is partner up fishers with

857
00:55:43,923 --> 00:55:47,486
resorts and hotels in Bali that will pay a premium

858
00:55:47,546 --> 00:55:50,728
price for sustainably caught fish which

859
00:55:50,768 --> 00:55:55,492
will then help the fishers to reduce

860
00:55:55,512 --> 00:55:58,995
their dependency on the shark and ray fishing trade,

861
00:56:00,036 --> 00:56:03,379
which for anyone listening to this podcast that doesn't really know why

862
00:56:03,419 --> 00:56:07,102
this is occurring, most of it is feeding into the Asian medicine

863
00:56:07,122 --> 00:56:10,905
trade, which is hugely detrimental to

864
00:56:10,965 --> 00:56:14,248
shark and ray populations. So

865
00:56:14,368 --> 00:56:17,631
sharks, for example, they're targeted for their fins, which

866
00:56:17,751 --> 00:56:21,014
are used in a shark fin soup. Manta rays are targeted for

867
00:56:21,054 --> 00:56:24,296
their gill plates, which are used in a tonic. And

868
00:56:24,316 --> 00:56:27,778
its supposed medicinal benefits are

869
00:56:27,838 --> 00:56:31,499
not. There's no backing, no

870
00:56:31,559 --> 00:56:34,661
scientific backing whatsoever. So it's all a pseudoscience. It's

871
00:56:34,681 --> 00:56:38,542
hugely detrimental to shark and ray populations. But unfortunately,

872
00:56:38,762 --> 00:56:42,424
with commercial fish stocks depleting, a lot

873
00:56:42,444 --> 00:56:45,725
of these fishes resort to this other trade, the

874
00:56:45,905 --> 00:56:50,307
shark and ray trade. And so Java where

875
00:56:50,347 --> 00:56:53,828
they work in East Java is one of the biggest shark

876
00:56:53,868 --> 00:56:58,350
and ray landing sites in the country. I was

877
00:56:58,390 --> 00:57:01,931
on assignment documenting their projects and doing a lot of interviews

878
00:57:01,971 --> 00:57:05,212
with the fishers to understand the complexities to

879
00:57:05,232 --> 00:57:08,553
the trade, the fact that they really have no other

880
00:57:08,633 --> 00:57:12,235
options currently. I mean it's a struggle

881
00:57:12,395 --> 00:57:15,657
being a Sharp and Ray Fisher. Their life is hard. They

882
00:57:15,677 --> 00:57:18,778
receive pennies and it's the middleman and the people at the top of

883
00:57:18,798 --> 00:57:22,000
the trade that receive the big bucks. And so a big part of

884
00:57:22,040 --> 00:57:27,038
that project was really trying to show people how

885
00:57:27,558 --> 00:57:31,063
yeah how complicated the trade is because I think it is it's very

886
00:57:31,223 --> 00:57:34,346
easy to if you don't really understand how the

887
00:57:34,386 --> 00:57:37,710
trade works it's so easy to vilify the fishers and

888
00:57:37,750 --> 00:57:40,874
think that they're the demons and you know they're causing all

889
00:57:40,894 --> 00:57:44,098
the problems because they're the one catching sharks and

890
00:57:44,138 --> 00:57:47,701
rays, whereas it's far more complicated than that and

891
00:57:48,122 --> 00:57:51,465
a lot of them don't want to be doing it. They'd much rather be

892
00:57:51,925 --> 00:57:55,629
catching commercial fish, receiving a fair income, not

893
00:57:55,669 --> 00:57:58,992
having to fish late at night and

894
00:57:59,472 --> 00:58:03,176
catch relatively dangerous shark species far

895
00:58:03,256 --> 00:58:06,839
out at sea, so a big part of the project was documenting

896
00:58:06,879 --> 00:58:10,801
that. But the image that I shot that

897
00:58:10,841 --> 00:58:14,022
made it to the finals was an image of

898
00:58:14,082 --> 00:58:19,363
shark fins drying on a roof in Java. Luckily,

899
00:58:19,423 --> 00:58:22,944
I had access to the location because of the Mobula Project Indonesia

900
00:58:22,964 --> 00:58:26,365
team. If I was just a photographer in the area, I would no

901
00:58:26,405 --> 00:58:30,267
way have that access. It could be dangerous. Yeah,

902
00:58:30,407 --> 00:58:33,710
totally. I mean because it's such a complex trade and

903
00:58:33,730 --> 00:58:36,972
it is technically illegal in lots of places, a

904
00:58:37,012 --> 00:58:40,455
lot of the trade is mafia run and there's so many middlemen and

905
00:58:41,195 --> 00:58:44,598
it's just it's so complex to understand as a scientist how

906
00:58:44,618 --> 00:58:48,521
this all works and so it's very hush-hush. But

907
00:58:48,541 --> 00:58:51,603
I was really lucky because of the trust between the Fishers and the

908
00:58:51,643 --> 00:58:55,225
Mobula Project Indonesia to be able to go and photograph this

909
00:58:55,305 --> 00:58:58,528
scene. So I entered that

910
00:58:58,588 --> 00:59:02,070
image into the conservation impact category and

911
00:59:02,090 --> 00:59:05,512
I was so lucky to make it to the finals because

912
00:59:05,953 --> 00:59:09,455
at the event they showed all this imagery on the Piccadilly

913
00:59:09,495 --> 00:59:12,837
lights in London. You can

914
00:59:12,977 --> 00:59:17,020
take this really complex

915
00:59:17,060 --> 00:59:20,463
and impactful image and then take it to the streets of London in

916
00:59:20,523 --> 00:59:24,326
one of the busiest places in the world and introduce some

917
00:59:24,386 --> 00:59:30,510
people in the city of London to the shark and ray trade.

918
00:59:30,990 --> 00:59:34,273
One of the really big complexities with fisheries for me is

919
00:59:34,793 --> 00:59:38,458
so many people have such a detachment from

920
00:59:38,779 --> 00:59:42,106
the ocean it's out of sight out of mind so a lot

921
00:59:42,126 --> 00:59:45,653
of the issues with fisheries is people in

922
00:59:45,973 --> 00:59:49,620
big cities getting fish from a can in

923
00:59:49,640 --> 00:59:54,001
a supermarket, they have no idea of the roots that

924
00:59:54,041 --> 00:59:58,302
that fish has come from. Yeah,

925
00:59:58,362 --> 01:00:01,682
totally. And it's not really necessarily the

926
01:00:01,742 --> 01:00:04,903
fault of the consumer, unless they're educated of these

927
01:00:04,943 --> 01:00:08,104
things, they don't know the impact of the fish that

928
01:00:09,644 --> 01:00:12,964
And it's hard to explain too, like when you talk about,

929
01:00:13,104 --> 01:00:16,937
I was just in Indonesia, but I've been to other places like you have, It's

930
01:00:16,977 --> 01:00:20,780
hard to explain to somebody like in London or in California what

931
01:00:20,820 --> 01:00:24,122
it's like when you're in Indonesia, what people really go through

932
01:00:24,222 --> 01:00:27,424
trying to get a little bit of money for the fish they

933
01:00:27,464 --> 01:00:30,907
catch. As you said, as it goes up the chain, the middle guys and

934
01:00:30,927 --> 01:00:34,509
the higher up, those guys are making more of the money than the actual fishers

935
01:00:35,330 --> 01:00:38,872
are. They're just kind of getting by. And as you say, you're

936
01:00:38,892 --> 01:00:42,635
in London, you just go pick up a tin can of fish and open

937
01:00:42,655 --> 01:00:46,278
it up. way you go so it's it's uh that

938
01:00:46,338 --> 01:00:50,103
that's a whole story really in itself to just show the fish

939
01:00:50,123 --> 01:00:53,206
being caught and then track it all the way to where it

940
01:00:53,247 --> 01:00:56,751
ends up on your grocery store that that would be that

941
01:01:01,267 --> 01:01:04,929
Yeah, totally. I mean it's something that I would love to document because

942
01:01:05,189 --> 01:01:08,630
it's really cool with those kind of things you can show not

943
01:01:08,730 --> 01:01:12,172
only the impact on the marine life but the human impact as

944
01:01:12,232 --> 01:01:15,313
well because I think with a lot of

945
01:01:15,353 --> 01:01:19,175
these big commercial fishing boats that are far out of sea, because

946
01:01:19,215 --> 01:01:22,977
of it being out of sight and out of mind, like human rights violations

947
01:01:23,337 --> 01:01:26,758
are insane in the high seas and that's

948
01:01:26,798 --> 01:01:30,039
something that I guess growing up as a kid when

949
01:01:30,639 --> 01:01:33,940
I was eating fish like freely I never

950
01:01:34,040 --> 01:01:37,341
really would have considered because for

951
01:01:37,381 --> 01:01:40,561
good reason people hide this information from you they don't want you to

952
01:01:40,621 --> 01:01:43,842
know that you know there's like insane amounts of human rights

953
01:01:43,882 --> 01:01:48,104
violations going on on fishing boats from

954
01:01:48,184 --> 01:01:51,546
the fish that you're eating from the supermarkets. It's still going on today.

955
01:01:51,686 --> 01:01:55,529
It's not as if it's stopped. It's very hard to control. Yeah,

956
01:01:57,231 --> 01:02:00,613
Yeah, that'd be a fascinating story. Yeah, that's good.

957
01:02:01,674 --> 01:02:04,817
Jasmine, this has been an amazing interview with you. I could probably go

958
01:02:04,877 --> 01:02:08,199
on for another at least hour, but we don't want to keep you too long

959
01:02:08,279 --> 01:02:15,317
here. What advice would you have? Well, we'll have you back on the show. Talk

960
01:02:15,337 --> 01:02:18,559
some more but particularly about some of this story we just talked about

961
01:02:18,579 --> 01:02:21,702
that with fishing and everything and sort of the chain of

962
01:02:21,962 --> 01:02:25,265
trade on these things, but for now, what

963
01:02:25,285 --> 01:02:28,448
advice would you have for some person starting out in the field is kind of

964
01:02:28,488 --> 01:02:31,931
interested in Becoming like a wildlife photographer doing

965
01:02:37,665 --> 01:02:40,807
Yeah so I would say I mean if

966
01:02:40,847 --> 01:02:44,509
you can go and study a degree course that specializes

967
01:02:44,549 --> 01:02:47,970
in something like this because it can give you so many different

968
01:02:48,330 --> 01:02:52,015
aspects of experience that you need for the field. But

969
01:02:52,035 --> 01:02:55,318
then at the same time, I would say that you don't have to go down

970
01:02:55,358 --> 01:02:59,201
the academic route. There's so many incredible wildlife

971
01:02:59,221 --> 01:03:03,204
photographers that I know that haven't studied this academically.

972
01:03:04,545 --> 01:03:07,867
There are so many resources for being self-taught. Like,

973
01:03:08,227 --> 01:03:11,470
as I sort of said earlier on the podcast, a lot of what I've learned

974
01:03:11,510 --> 01:03:14,752
is from YouTube. And there's so much great stuff on

975
01:03:14,772 --> 01:03:18,395
YouTube on, you know, how to shoot underwater and

976
01:03:18,675 --> 01:03:22,058
camera settings and the equipment that you need. But

977
01:03:22,098 --> 01:03:25,779
if you are wanting to get into underwater, getting your

978
01:03:25,899 --> 01:03:29,381
dive skills spot on is super important because it's

979
01:03:29,461 --> 01:03:32,642
really, really challenging otherwise. But

980
01:03:32,702 --> 01:03:36,024
even if you're not a scuba diver, but you're interested in

981
01:03:36,104 --> 01:03:39,345
documenting ocean conservation, there's so many ways

982
01:03:39,365 --> 01:03:43,847
you can do it from land as well, which is really cool. Because a

983
01:03:43,887 --> 01:03:47,349
lot of science and conservation happens above

984
01:03:47,369 --> 01:03:51,791
the water, even though it's like ocean focused. But

985
01:03:51,831 --> 01:03:55,675
I would say it's really important to kind of find your

986
01:03:56,135 --> 01:03:59,578
niche, like find something that you're really passionate about

987
01:04:00,438 --> 01:04:04,702
and learn as much as you can about it. Because

988
01:04:04,802 --> 01:04:08,305
with every conservation project or every conservation issue,

989
01:04:08,565 --> 01:04:11,668
there are so many complexities. You

990
01:04:12,128 --> 01:04:15,671
really want to learn from all of the researchers involved, all of the communities involved.

991
01:04:16,251 --> 01:04:19,334
Find a way to learn from everyone that's involved in the

992
01:04:19,374 --> 01:04:22,538
thing that you're interested in and then that will make you a

993
01:04:22,618 --> 01:04:26,441
better storyteller. I think it really improves

994
01:04:26,541 --> 01:04:29,665
the quality of your storytelling is when

995
01:04:29,685 --> 01:04:33,048
you're listening to the people that are from that

996
01:04:33,088 --> 01:04:36,731
place and working in that field. Because

997
01:04:36,771 --> 01:04:40,013
yeah, conservation is so complex. You

998
01:04:40,053 --> 01:04:44,055
really have to understand all the

999
01:04:44,095 --> 01:04:47,656
layers to it. But

1000
01:04:47,696 --> 01:04:51,218
I think one other thing I would say is a

1001
01:04:51,979 --> 01:04:55,260
way to stand out is to kind of have your own style, and it does take

1002
01:04:55,340 --> 01:04:58,482
time to develop. But one of the best ways to do that is,

1003
01:04:59,102 --> 01:05:02,183
say you want to

1004
01:05:02,203 --> 01:05:06,406
be like a journalist, like a science communication journalist. you've

1005
01:05:06,446 --> 01:05:09,669
been reading, I don't know, amazing Nat Geo articles all your

1006
01:05:09,709 --> 01:05:12,933
life, is finding those writers that you're like, I really like

1007
01:05:13,273 --> 01:05:16,437
their style, I like what they're doing, and pick up on what

1008
01:05:16,457 --> 01:05:19,897
they're doing and try and replicate that but also develop

1009
01:05:19,937 --> 01:05:24,060
it into your own and it's the same with videography like if

1010
01:05:24,100 --> 01:05:27,822
you've seen a video that you know has been really impactful

1011
01:05:27,882 --> 01:05:31,184
to you have a good think about what it is that that

1012
01:05:31,224 --> 01:05:34,446
videographer is doing and how it's impacted you and then

1013
01:05:34,506 --> 01:05:39,389
try and kind of emulate that in your own work. It

1014
01:05:39,409 --> 01:05:42,651
takes time to figure out your own style and something that makes you

1015
01:05:43,032 --> 01:05:46,194
unique from the crowd But I think as

1016
01:05:46,294 --> 01:05:50,016
long as you're documenting

1017
01:05:50,076 --> 01:05:53,458
and communicating about something that you're really passionate, then

1018
01:05:53,518 --> 01:05:57,220
your style just kind of comes, it starts to shine through,

1019
01:05:58,301 --> 01:06:01,943
Absolutely. Okay, well

1020
01:06:01,963 --> 01:06:05,445
thank you so much Jazza for coming on the show. Good

1021
01:06:05,485 --> 01:06:08,726
luck on your future endeavors, and we'll definitely have

1022
01:06:08,766 --> 01:06:11,927
you back on. If you have something exciting come up, let us know. We'd definitely like to have

1023
01:06:15,088 --> 01:06:18,269
Awesome. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for having me. It's

1024
01:06:18,309 --> 01:06:21,570
been a pleasure. I love the podcast, so it's

1025
01:06:24,891 --> 01:06:28,032
You bet. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jazz, for joining us

1026
01:06:28,132 --> 01:06:32,274
here on the Beyond Jaws podcast. It

1027
01:06:32,314 --> 01:06:36,015
was such a great interview. It was so interesting to see how

1028
01:06:36,215 --> 01:06:39,876
people go into sort of shark and ray, and

1029
01:06:39,936 --> 01:06:43,457
in this case, manta ray conservation, in very different ways from

1030
01:06:43,537 --> 01:06:46,898
very different passionate backgrounds. Photography and

1031
01:06:46,918 --> 01:06:51,039
underwater videography is like an art form, especially underwater.

1032
01:06:51,059 --> 01:06:54,080
It's a very difficult thing to do. It takes a lot of practice. It takes a

1033
01:06:54,120 --> 01:06:57,222
lot of patience. And then getting a science background to be

1034
01:06:57,262 --> 01:07:00,544
able to tell a story from a different perspective, I think is

1035
01:07:00,584 --> 01:07:03,906
a really important thing to have when you're

1036
01:07:03,946 --> 01:07:07,329
working with an organization like the Manitou Trust, right?

1037
01:07:07,349 --> 01:07:11,732
Like how do you feel about that kind of communication? Like you

1038
01:07:11,972 --> 01:07:15,195
grew up old school scientist, like that kind of stuff, but you're very big into

1039
01:07:15,215 --> 01:07:19,117
the communication. When it comes to this type of artwork and

1040
01:07:23,136 --> 01:07:26,758
I think it's, I think it's great because, you know, obviously, you know, today it's just

1041
01:07:26,798 --> 01:07:30,099
a different era now where you have a lot more avenues to do this type of

1042
01:07:30,139 --> 01:07:33,340
stuff. Whereas when I was coming up, there really is very limited in what

1043
01:07:33,380 --> 01:07:36,862
you could do. Um, you know, just even the camera equipment stuff,

1044
01:07:36,882 --> 01:07:40,123
the diving, uh, it was just to even get these, to

1045
01:07:40,143 --> 01:07:43,324
get the videos, let alone try to tell a story in it. Um, but

1046
01:07:43,364 --> 01:07:46,626
no, I'm, I'm very much in favor of this. I think she has a, has a

1047
01:07:46,726 --> 01:07:50,267
terrific story. She, as you said, she went back, she got some, uh, she's, uh,

1048
01:07:50,307 --> 01:07:53,639
get some background in the marine science. She learned, had the

1049
01:07:53,779 --> 01:07:57,021
background in photography and filming and she was able to kind

1050
01:07:57,082 --> 01:08:00,284
of marry those two passions of hers. And then it

1051
01:08:00,304 --> 01:08:03,987
was just like a lot of, a lot of stories we hear, Andrew, it's like, she

1052
01:08:04,027 --> 01:08:07,649
didn't have any kind of a grand plan to wind up

1053
01:08:07,669 --> 01:08:11,172
as science communication director at the Manta Trust, but it was just, it

1054
01:08:11,192 --> 01:08:14,895
was just kind of circumstances and happened to know somebody and having

1055
01:08:14,915 --> 01:08:18,478
an opportunity to go volunteer and do some trips with them. And, and

1056
01:08:18,498 --> 01:08:22,318
then when a position came up, she, managed to get that position. And

1057
01:08:23,358 --> 01:08:26,820
it's a great story. And as I say, it's one we hear over and over again

1058
01:08:27,440 --> 01:08:30,861
from people. And that thing we comment on too is like, it's

1059
01:08:30,901 --> 01:08:34,363
never a straight line. That's the thing, a message to relate

1060
01:08:34,383 --> 01:08:37,624
to young people is it's never like, oh, I'm going to go here, go do

1061
01:08:37,644 --> 01:08:41,046
this, do that. And then I'm going to get this great job I've always wanted. There's always

1062
01:08:41,086 --> 01:08:44,407
some kind of windy road everyone has to take.

1063
01:08:44,983 --> 01:08:48,493
Yeah. And go off in some different directions to get, but, you know, just staying focused

1064
01:08:51,061 --> 01:08:54,662
Absolutely, and I think what was unique about this story for Jasmine

1065
01:08:54,722 --> 01:08:58,143
is the fact that she didn't necessarily have all

1066
01:08:58,163 --> 01:09:02,345
of the skill sets required for the media and communications manager,

1067
01:09:02,505 --> 01:09:05,866
right? She had a lot of the artistic aspects, so the

1068
01:09:05,906 --> 01:09:09,087
videography, the underwater photography. She had that experience and

1069
01:09:09,147 --> 01:09:12,448
great experience at that because she didn't go right into the science

1070
01:09:12,468 --> 01:09:15,829
world after she graduated. She did a number of different projects for different

1071
01:09:15,849 --> 01:09:19,451
people, so more commercial tourism, that type of stuff. Then, you

1072
01:09:19,471 --> 01:09:22,775
know, when she had the opportunity to work with the manager, she

1073
01:09:22,835 --> 01:09:25,858
learned on the job a lot of the times. And that takes a

1074
01:09:25,918 --> 01:09:29,202
lot of patience, a great work ethic to be able

1075
01:09:29,242 --> 01:09:32,465
to say, hey, you know what, I've got one half of the job. I may not

1076
01:09:32,525 --> 01:09:36,089
have a lot of writing experience or PR management or

1077
01:09:36,470 --> 01:09:39,833
the connections you would normally have. As this and she even admits

1078
01:09:39,873 --> 01:09:42,894
it in the interview. She's like I had to learn it was a big learning curve But I

1079
01:09:42,934 --> 01:09:46,356
had to take the time to learn that aspect and then she got better

1080
01:09:46,416 --> 01:09:49,838
and better and better She continues to get better all the way through and now, you

1081
01:09:49,858 --> 01:09:53,100
know, she's a rock star in in the industry, right? and so not only does

1082
01:09:53,140 --> 01:09:56,522
she have the underwater background, but she also has that

1083
01:09:56,902 --> 01:10:00,425
community all around communication strategy and you know, PR

1084
01:10:00,465 --> 01:10:03,730
strategy, all that type of background, because she learned it on the job. And

1085
01:10:03,890 --> 01:10:07,235
I find that a lot of us, we look at job ads,

1086
01:10:07,575 --> 01:10:10,760
and we look at what's required, and we go out and we look to get

1087
01:10:10,800 --> 01:10:14,545
that experience, but sometimes you don't have to have everything. on

1088
01:10:14,846 --> 01:10:18,411
the job ad. Sometimes you may have a connection or you may have a working relationship

1089
01:10:18,451 --> 01:10:21,655
with one of the people who work there who are empowered to hire and then they're willing

1090
01:10:21,695 --> 01:10:25,420
to take a chance on you. She just put herself in the position

1091
01:10:25,861 --> 01:10:29,045
for people to take the chance on her. She volunteered with them because they

1092
01:10:29,065 --> 01:10:32,408
worked in the same building. As well as her I don't remember where

1093
01:10:32,428 --> 01:10:35,609
she was working before that but they worked in the same building She's like, yeah, I'll go out with you

1094
01:10:35,949 --> 01:10:39,290
I'll go I'll do an underwater dive or scientific dive because she had the experience

1095
01:10:39,330 --> 01:10:42,471
and she gained more and then like hey We've got this position coming up. Do you

1096
01:10:42,511 --> 01:10:45,992
want to do you want to try it? And she's like, yeah, like for

1097
01:10:46,032 --> 01:10:49,334
sure and jump at the opportunity now She's been working for you

1098
01:10:49,354 --> 01:10:52,975
know, I forget how long but it's definitely almost a decade or even more and

1099
01:10:53,075 --> 01:10:56,196
she's working with the manitrust like traveled all around the world and to

1100
01:10:59,335 --> 01:11:03,137
Yeah. And I think the other thing too, is that, you know, she, um, she, she has opportunities,

1101
01:11:03,197 --> 01:11:06,698
but also I think the, the, the math from the man of trust perspective, like

1102
01:11:06,718 --> 01:11:10,299
with, like with a lot of employers or potential employers, they

1103
01:11:10,339 --> 01:11:13,401
had a chance to work with her in the field. So they kind of know what she was like to

1104
01:11:13,441 --> 01:11:16,482
work in the field. Cause that's, that's one big thing when you go for any kind of a

1105
01:11:16,542 --> 01:11:20,203
job interview is how are you going to fit into their, into their ecosystem? How

1106
01:11:20,223 --> 01:11:23,425
are you going to fit in with the group there? And so she, the fact that

1107
01:11:23,445 --> 01:11:27,414
they'd had that opportunity to work with her, um, I

1108
01:11:27,434 --> 01:11:30,837
think was probably huge. And I think most job positions, if

1109
01:11:30,897 --> 01:11:34,299
somebody's had a chance to work with you in the past, they have some idea

1110
01:11:34,319 --> 01:11:37,762
of what, what, what they're getting into by hiring you. And that's, you know,

1111
01:11:37,862 --> 01:11:41,324
fortunately, unfortunately, not everyone always has that opportunity, but she,

1112
01:11:41,424 --> 01:11:44,647
Jasmine has an opportunity and she made the most of it. And, you

1113
01:11:44,687 --> 01:11:48,850
know, again, something to, something to keep in mind that, you know, we have that opportunity, you

1114
01:11:50,370 --> 01:11:53,611
Yeah, absolutely. And let's not get twisted like that was it's not an easy

1115
01:11:53,651 --> 01:11:56,953
thing to do to get caught up and to learn on the job like

1116
01:11:56,993 --> 01:12:00,294
that, because you have your regular, you know, job responsibilities. And

1117
01:12:00,334 --> 01:12:04,115
then you have the extra things that you have to learn to include in your overall

1118
01:12:04,235 --> 01:12:07,436
responsibilities. And there's it's a quick pace, type

1119
01:12:07,476 --> 01:12:10,657
of learning situation is probably high pressured. And so

1120
01:12:10,737 --> 01:12:13,879
she had to learn that on her own, try and figure it out. I'm sure some

1121
01:12:13,899 --> 01:12:17,180
of the colleagues helped her out. But She did that all on her own. I think that's

1122
01:12:17,240 --> 01:12:20,622
a great testament to the work ethic that she has and we see

1123
01:12:21,063 --> 01:12:25,465
in her work with the Manitrust and in her photography

1124
01:12:25,505 --> 01:12:29,107
and underwater videography. So it was great to be able to have Jasmine on.

1125
01:12:29,588 --> 01:12:32,770
Loved having her. Can't wait to have her back on and be able to watch her work. If you want

1126
01:12:32,830 --> 01:12:37,672
to connect with her, we're going to put all of her Twitter

1127
01:12:38,072 --> 01:12:41,414
and social media sites on there and

1128
01:12:42,074 --> 01:12:45,615
you'll be able to get access to that as soon

1129
01:12:45,655 --> 01:12:48,956
as you watch this video and click on it. And then Dave, if people want to watch

1130
01:12:52,317 --> 01:12:55,998
The best way is Lost Shark Guy on Instagram. You can

1131
01:12:56,078 --> 01:12:59,640
also find me on Facebook at Lost Sharks and then on the other usual

1132
01:12:59,680 --> 01:13:03,797
platforms. X and LinkedIn.

1133
01:13:03,957 --> 01:13:07,019
It's either it's Lost Shark Guy or Dave Ebert. You can find me on any

1134
01:13:07,099 --> 01:13:11,102
of those ones, but Instagram's the best one to connect with me. And

1135
01:13:11,402 --> 01:13:14,764
I just also want to mention out to people too that, you know, we just went

1136
01:13:14,804 --> 01:13:18,486
over 500 subscribers on our YouTube channel and we hope that

1137
01:13:18,566 --> 01:13:22,009
you're listening to the show. Thank you. If anyone listening

1138
01:13:22,029 --> 01:13:25,391
out there, please encourage your friends, family, everyone to go on

1139
01:13:25,451 --> 01:13:29,015
and subscribe and We really appreciate your

1140
01:13:29,616 --> 01:13:32,919
Absolutely. Yeah. Go on there. We'll put the links in the show notes and you can probably get

1141
01:13:32,939 --> 01:13:36,202
it on this video. But yes, thank you guys so much.

1142
01:13:36,262 --> 01:13:39,806
If you wanted to follow us on on Instagram, it's Beyond Jaws

1143
01:13:39,866 --> 01:13:43,389
Pod. But thank you so much for joining us on today's episode

1144
01:13:43,669 --> 01:13:47,092
of the Beyond Jaws podcast. Thank you again to Jasmine. And thank

1145
01:13:47,132 --> 01:13:50,434
you, Dave, for joining me again. It's always a pleasure to be able to talk

1146
01:13:50,474 --> 01:13:54,236
with you about sharks and shark science and careers. And

1147
01:13:54,256 --> 01:13:57,498
we want to thank you guys for listening. So thanks a lot. This has been a great

1148
01:13:57,538 --> 01:14:01,040
episode. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time. And happy conservation.