에피소드 35: Brian Aghajani

And a bunch of the other clubs. But I think it was mostly the San Jose club. So I want to say, if you don't know where it is, probably it was 2000. I think so. I was in the sport for about six months. And I was training at Menlo Park Schutzen Club. Okay. And you had a seminar at South County. And AJ Singh told me about you being there. And I didn't know who you were. I was very new in the sport. I didn't know anybody. I knew nothing beyond the horizon of that club that I was training at. And the people that were training there was the full extent of my knowledge of the sport. And we went to that seminar and I was massively influenced. And I remember walking on the field and being rigid and really serious. And you're looking at me and you said, Brian, Brian, stop. Stop. Play with your dog. I'm like, what? What? I saw everyone. I was trying to mimic when I saw people walking out with a stick up their backside and being rigid and formal. And I had no idea what was going on. And no feel or anything. And no relationship. I loved the dog, but it had no relationship. And you said, play with your dog. I'm like, what? And that was the beginning. I had been to many of your seminars at that point. I think a handful of seminars after that. But we did train some at South County. You were there on, I think, Sundays or Saturdays. And then you moved. And I had just become enamored with the whole philosophy of your training. And you moved. I was heartbroken. I remember writing you a letter and saying, just when I get a taste of this and now you're moving. What do I do? Yeah. And you said, thank you for the kind words. Probably don't remember, but over the course of the journey, some people come in and have a big influence on you. And you certainly did for me. I saw many different styles of training. And some of them, they didn't make me feel good, but I liked the results. I didn't know better. And then you came along and the training was fun. And it was intelligent. And it was intuitive and natural development and shaping of the dog. And I had never seen that. I mean, I've seen variations of that since. But that was the first impression I had. I had never seen it. And then the fun stuff where you climbed a tree and you're doing a hold of bark from up in a tree and hanging down from a tree. Or you ran in behind a bunch of people. And the dog sent the dog. And I thought that was just crazy. And at the very beginning, we were sitting around talking. And I was really green. And you said, have you done helper work? And I said, no. And he said, put on the sleeve. And you had a dog named Cindy.

And he said, run down the field and hold the arm out. That was Ken's mom. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, shit. I'm going to get bit. But I said, I've got to do it. Because I've got to do it. So I was sure I was going to get bit. And I ran as fast as I probably ever ran in my whole life thinking I'm going to get bit in my butt. But I hang in the sleeve off. And I caught him, turned around. I didn't really catch him. He caught me, spun me around. And then I slipped. And he said, that was really good. You need to think about helper work. And then, of course, shortly after that. Yeah, yeah. I remember this. I really do. That was Cindy was Kenny's mom. The one that I won the world championships with. And I remember me taking her just to get some fun bites so she doesn't lose her mind there. That was the time when we also, I don't know why and how that tradition, but everybody started to bring all sorts of alcohol every single training sessions to where we ended up with like these two big, huge barrels of alcohol. It was so much fun. And the music and the hard lemonade. And it was just a very fun time. I think the hook was sunk in me at that point for dog sport. It became a passion. More than a sport, more than a hobby, it became my passion. So wild. So where are you guys now? We're in Houston, Texas. Yeah, yeah. How long have you been there? I've been here for eight years. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So the journey, I've traveled a lot over the course of my life, different places. Before the age of eight, I had lived in three countries, in four cities. And then at the age of 14, I moved back to the United States. And we settled in Northern California. And I stayed there for 20 years. I was born in San Francisco. And then we moved to Reno, Nevada. And then we moved to, my parents split. I moved to Dublin, Ireland. I lived in Dublin. Yeah. My mom's Irish. And so we lived, that's the, Brian is really my name. So I lived in Dublin. And then I lived in Tehran, Iran for a year. Then came back to the United States. Then went back to Tehran. I lived there for three years. And this takes us up to, I get back and forth between these countries. So I was a mid-teenager. And then I lived in Northern California and grew up there. Lived there and developed a number of my career, the work that I do, and then racing and things of that sort. And in 2010, I moved to Los Angeles with my, the work, my day job, my business work. And I've been with this company. And we'll, I'm sure we'll probably get into that topic because it's all interrelated. The photography, the dog sport, it's a, it's a, it's a braid, a tapestry.

But I lived in Los Angeles and then I got promoted to a higher position within the company. And that was in Houston, never been to Texas. And we moved out here. And, and. I mean, if you're staying that long, you must like it. Uh, yeah, well, I, you know, I wouldn't stay that long if I, if I had questions. Uh, well, there's a lot to it. There's a lot to it. So with, with work, it, the work that I do, it's, it's, uh, it's immersive. I, I'm very engaged in it. So that keeps me busy. And then I travel a lot. So I could be stationed in anywhere and it wouldn't make much difference because between the local area that I work and then my travel. Or photography, um, I could be anywhere. So this is home base. Gotcha. Uh, and it's relative to California. It's much more reasonable to live. So the standards of living are, are nicer because it's much cheaper than living in California. What about the, like, I don't want to go deep into politics, but I'm, I'm definitely really curious. Just my curiosity. Uh, how, how easy or is it even possible to go back to Tehran, to Iran or, or how is, how is that? Like, I've never, I've never been back. So, um, yeah, that's, that's a tough one. So, um, but do people find ways to go back and forth? Yeah. Oh yeah. Sure. Sure. Um, I, I don't know much about it cause I've never done it, but, um, it can go very wrong very quickly. So I, I'm not a, an expert on, on Iranian politics and the laws, but I do know that when I left, my father got stuck there and couldn't leave. And, uh, that was a, a pretty traumatic period in our life for 20 years. He couldn't leave that country. So I wouldn't go back now because something could, I'd be curious to go. And, and, uh, I, interestingly on the social media platform for photography, I have quite a few people from Iran that message, they see the name and they're into dog sport. And I had no idea because when I've always loved dogs and when I lived there, I, I'd rescue dogs. I've always had, before I got my first working dog, I had rescue dogs, always rescue dogs. And I rescued three dogs and, and just coincidentally, they would all disappear. My grandmother didn't agree with the dogs being at the house. And so I'd come home from school and she's, oh, he, he got away. And so I'd go rescue another one and that one would get away. So, um, yeah, that's where we have quite a bit of similarities like you and I would, with the way we grew up. How about, uh, I know it's going to come back at me, but have you guys done like you and Jessica, any, any interesting van trips lately?

I'm going, I'm going to California for, uh, mid March, giving, uh, like a little workshop and presentation thing. And that would be the, like really the first time, I mean, you, you, we see each other with the vans at competition and stuff, but that will be really the first time that we're going to go cross country. And then the plan is either before or after the workshop, like Utah comes to mind. Cause it, I mean, they're all on the way, right? They're all on the way, but I think it's going to be Utah probably like a week or so. Well, we should probably share with your audience what we're talking about. The, the van life experience, the, the, uh, the, the romance of, of the road in a van and living simply out of a van with, with as few things as possible, where every inch of space, um, matters. And, and you have to plan so that you can, you can, you can live on the road out of a van. And so we, we have a short wheelbase, one 44 sprinter van, uh, high top with a four wheel drive. And it's got, uh, uh, modular interior. So it's not a mobile home. It's, we can take the bed out and we can take the chairs out and I could put motorcycles in it and I can take it out and put some crates and so forth. And, uh, we've taken a few road trips, not as many as I'd like. Um, uh, the goal here is after, after I get the editing done for the AWMA and USCA, which I'm almost done with, I've got a break before AWDF next, next April. And we've got some, some, some, uh, free time to enjoy and travel, but it actually came out of necessity because gradually our pack of dogs has grown. We had, when, when I was, uh, before I met Jessica, I had a couple of old working dogs and, um, they had retired and, and then gradually I lost each of them and, um, we didn't have dogs. And so I flew at every event and there was a time I was flying to every, I did every regional, every national and, and I was doing worlds and I was rarely home. I was working and then I was traveling. And if I wasn't doing that, I'm in this room, which is an editing studio. And that's all I was doing. Then I met Jessica and she had a dog and then, um, she had two dogs. And then I rescued a dog that was on the freeway and we had three dogs. And then I got a dog. We had four dogs. And then we took two, uh, kill shelter rescues on their final hour. And now we have those that were fostering right now. Um, and temporary foster, I keep saying, but, but it's impractical to give these, all these dogs to people when we travel. So, um, so we end up traveling with the dogs. It makes it easier just to, just to go with the dogs.

And then, um, and the big bird, not forgetting. Oh yeah, that's right. We have a parrot. The parrot comes with us and, and, and talks the whole way. It keeps us company. So it's a pack and we, and we travel well, we've got it figured out. We travel well. We've got a bed in the camper. Well, it's like the van and, uh, hour and heat. Um, but it's very, uh, uh, rustic. I mean, it's not, it's, it's not luxury living. It's, it's just living on the road. Like a, like a, oh, it's just like a, a nomad. I know. I love it. The idea. It's, it's awesome feeling waking up and you're on the road. It's super cool. I love it. Exactly. And, and as long as we have some good coffee in the morning, right. It's still good. That's all. Yeah. You have the coffee. I have a, I have a pour over setup that I do with, uh, with the Haro, uh, coffee pour over and the perfectly 16 grams of coffee with 300 grams of water at 212 degrees. And it's poured over three minutes. I I've got this routine to make two minutes of Zen in the morning. And then I've got a, I've got a table in the, in the, the van that I can edit. I've got a commercial grade wifi in there so I can upload the photos so I can work while we're on the road. I can't actually, I can't edit. I can do selections when we're driving because it's too bumpy. I can't, and the adjustments are too fine, but I can do selections and tagging and get a lot done. And it's just, it's, it's living the experience of, of, uh, traveling photographer, uh, at the extreme. And it's, it's awesome. We like it. I feel like one of the downsides, downsides will be on, on, on our trips. Cause we also gonna most likely take at least three, if not four dogs. We have the space of course, but it's the, like, I know that their food will take more space and, and we're gonna suffer to make sure that they have their food all stocked up and everything. Well, we pull a trailer. So a dog trailer and it's self-contained. I got a dog shower in there. I got food. I got a big five gallon, um, uh, survival containers of water. Um, so it's all self-contained for them. And then we live inside and if it gets really hot, which has happened a few times in travel, um, we'll bring them in. I have, I have a way to set up to have the dogs inside, but generally they're, they're in the dog trailer, it's a, a WT trailer. Man. We'll see what happens. I'll let you know. I'm gonna be, I'll be calling you. I'll be like, Oh, this fuse, the fan is not working. What do I do? Yeah. Yeah. Our next, the next planned road trip is Indiana from Houston up to Indiana for, um, WDC nationals. Yeah. So my thought came back.

It was, uh, you know, I did the podcast with Louis Donald and I listened to it. It was great. And I got the book and, but I, I didn't know that you had so many pictures in it and it was so cool. Like all of us, I mean, they all came as a surprise as I was just taking a very quick look through everything. And I'm like, Oh, I'm just gonna take a look at the book for like, just briefly the next thing, you know, I'm like half an hour deep into looking at stuff. Yeah. And, and then I saw so many cool pictures. So that was very cool that, uh, he reached out because it's impossible to do something like this all by yourself. And, and I think it was very cool to like, you have this thing, like we have talked about this, that, uh, you know, as a photographer, you have the opportunity and the eye to present what we do to people that are not involved in this crazy sport, right? And, and when we talk about public relations and all these bands and all these things, and when you really think about it, pictures are very valuable in this whole conversation. And, and man, like when was the, like the, I I'm sure you still get nervous when you're taking pictures or, or, or, right? Oh God. Yeah. Oh yeah. So, cause there is weather, there is just so many factors that everything has to function and you have to make the pictures because probably now it's even like how I remember when I first started to compete and nobody cared. They were all going to take beers and whatever. And I, I had the field on my own and I can screw up and nobody, you know, now it's so hard. And everybody has to watch and everybody has to nitpick and, and I'm sure we do now. If somebody wants pictures from you, it's like, they, they think that it's guaranteed that they will have some amazing pictures and you, you have to be under more pressure now than before to make sure that you deliver. Right? Yeah, that's true. And I don't want to think that, but, but it's true. So, so, I mean, if I think that way I'll choke, right? Um, so, so that's, I think what separates just like a hobby photographer from someone that's professional of any sport. Right. So there's a technical aspect of knowing how to use the camera and how to make an image. So for, for sure, you couldn't do this unless you understood the basics of action photography and, and how to, how to use the camera exposures and, and how to, how to capture an image. And then there's the, the movement, the muscle memory of how to pan and be smooth so that you can fill a frame and keep the subject within the frame. And I mean, at this point I probably shot four or 5 million photos.

Um, so you get a lot of, through a lot of repetition and in mistakes you learn. Right. So that's, that's the basics. Um, and I, I hope we get to speak through the, the pathway of how, how we got to this place where I'm at now with photography, but it started in a whole different area of photography, but that was, that was profoundly influential to where I'm at now. Um, no, no, no, definitely can go right away because I'm curious for sure. Okay. So, so it's, um, it, it, it's, it's not been a consistent linear path. It, there was a interruption, but that interruption had an influence on how I do my, my photography now. So it started when I was 18, I got my first DSLR and actually going before that, when I lived with my father, he had a DSLRs and, and, and video cameras. And I used to pick them up and play with them, but it was very expensive and I, I, it was, I couldn't afford it. Um, but I loved it. The concept, the idea of a camera and, and, and looking through the viewfinder, just the experience of capturing was, was, um, very compelling for me. And then in junior college, after high school, I attended classes and I did black and white photography and, and I did portraiture and I really loved it. So, but at minimal level, cause I had a kit camera, inexpensive. And that was way before digital stuff. Oh yeah. No, we're talking, this is when it was still film. Yeah. Yeah. This is still film. And then, um, I was doing that. I got into motorcycles when I was a late teen and, and that took over a huge part of my life. It became, I was riding bikes on the, on the street. And somebody said, I was up in the mountains, riding very fast, like a lunatic. And I passed a bunch of racers. And one of the guys came up when we stopped and said, are you a racer? And I said, no, they, they said, you need to get on the track. You're like, you need to go. So I'm like, I'm a young kid. I have no idea. They said, bring your bike over and we'll set it up for racing. We'll, we'll, we'll die. And we'll get you to the track. You need to be on the track. And that was like, just happened to be at the right place at the right time. And these guys were racers. They set my bike up. Then I went out racing. And for the next 10 years, I raced. And through that, I got immersed massively into racing. There was nothing else. That level of passion was, was huge. And the only reason I speak to that is, um, for anyone that's been completely engulfed in pursuit of passion and trying to achieve something, um, it pushes a lot of things out and you go deep, deep, deep into the mind, right?

And, uh, and I did that for 10 years and, and, and, and at some point I thought, I don't want to do it anymore. I started to get a little bit aware of the danger, which is when you should stop racing. Right. And just about then I had a huge, massive crash and, uh, shattered my leg. And I, and so it left a huge hole. It left a huge hole in, in my life because I didn't, I didn't have this passion that made me, it was like, it was bigger than life. It's like when you're out there, it was, it was purpose. It gave meaning. It was, it was beautiful. It was something that just, it was, it had poetry to it and it's a fire and ice. Like you'd win or you'd crash. Right. I mean, talk about the extremes that, you know, you come in and you're a lunatic and everyone's celebrating you for being a lunatic and calling it brave. And then other times you crash and then you're alone in the van and no one talks to you. And it's, it was a, it was an amazing experience. Um, but what that left me is as crazy as it sounds. I loved it. It's still in my blood. I still love speed, but I have no desire to go racing like that. Um, I got it out of my system. So you've got some metal on your, or no? Uh, I have many, I have 10 broken bones. I've got a leg that's at a, at a, an angle. I've got bones to stick out. It just comes with it. It, it, it's inevitable. It's kind of like the cow flower years. If you stay long, I mean, it's just how it goes. If you look, my leg is a banana. Like I, I don't think about it except when it's cold and I wake up and I'm hurting and my back hurts. Um, so, so that, that had me looking for things to do. And, um, and I started doing cameras again at this point, but dogs came into the picture. Um, and I was doing dogs for a while, which hopefully we'll talk about in detail. Um, and when my dogs got old, I, again, I had the same feeling. Um, and I got in, I had a time when the two dogs were retired. I had moved to LA and, um, I was looking for something to do and I would pick up the camera and I'd go out and I would, uh, walk the streets and shoot people. Photograph people, street photography. And I loved it. So I'd have a camera and really incognito catch people on the street. And I shoot a little bit of landscape or art or architecture, but mostly I was shooting people. And, uh, I started taking classes and down cause I was in LA and I'm like, well, this perfect place. And there's lots to do that, right? LA is like, that's, that's, there's no, no shortage of people that are subject experts in production and photography and lighting.

So, and I got into it really deep and I started doing studio photography and, and then shooting, um, uh, in this, in the classwork, you'd shoot models. And then I went to some group meetings where we do shoot models. And I met a model and started to, um, date that model. And she had me photographing people and, and, um, and I, I was very, always been extremely technical. And so my tech, my photography was technical sharpness, uh, a composition, um, just making exposure, uh, color grading, all that stuff was very good. She would look at the work and say, it's terrible. I'm like, it's perfect. She goes, terrible. She goes, there's no connection. There's no energy. There's no energy in the picture. There's no connection. And so I gradually over the course of time, a year or two of shooting and I doing some catalog work and stuff understood angles and energy and connection. The picture is not talking back at you, right? Became aware, right. What makes an image, um, pull you into it, make you look at it longer than a few seconds. Um, and so the obvious of dynamic, uh, action or color or a subject that's just, uh, by itself amazing. But if you take an ordinary subject, how can you capture a moment within that? And so when you're doing a model shoot, you might shoot 300, 400 shots within that. There's one or two shots that are like the shot and, and having the awareness of picking out what shot is like, is that is the shot, um, is an acquired for most people. It's an acquired skill for sure. For me, it was not natural. I had to be shown over and over and over. It was much harder for me to learn that than dog training, honestly, because I just didn't, I didn't see it. So, so that aspect, um, over time you, you grow. And I think my work was good, but I wouldn't say extraordinary. And, and not enough that I could make, I could, I was a standout within that, a very deep field of talent shooting that type of work, beauty and portrait work. So, um, in 2012, I think it was, I said, I should shoot a dog event. I kind of miss dogs. Let me go shoot some dog events. And, uh, and I went out in LA and shot a couple of, uh, there was a seminar there of a German fellow that was there. And then, um, a club trial, they go, Hey, this is kind of cool. And so then in 2000, I started studying action photography and I went in 2014, shot the Northwest regionals. I booked to shoot that and I rented all the gear. Um, I spent 700 bucks for that event to rent a 400 millimeter lens, two bodies and a 70 to 200. Cause I had portraiture cameras, which are totally different. They're useless for sports, right? They're slow.

And, uh, they're just not the short lenses. They're, it's not the right stuff. I had very nice portrait and street photography camera gear. So I rented this and, um, and, uh, Lincoln, uh, um, California. So John Raboni's place, Placer County. And, um, Tim cutter was the helper. And I can't remember who the second helper was in there. And, uh, we had a great time and, and I sold a bunch of photos and everyone loved their photos. And I got, and it felt good. I just felt, you just know, you just know when you hit, like, this is like, this is, this is, I need to do this. So I get home and people are contacting me and they go, Hey, I really liked the photos. I said, I went out and I spent $25,000 on camera gear. I said, I'm going to do this. I'm going to go to the deep end. And now there's no turning back. Right. I got to make this pay for itself. Right. So, so I bought a 400 lens, which is like a 12,000 or lens. I bought two camera bodies. I bought, I just went to town and I booked every regional in the country, except North Pacific Northwest, but everybody else I shoot. I think I shot everyone that, that following year, AWDF, USCA nationals, WDC. And, um, and people love their work. And I look back at that work and there's a lot to learn, but action photography was fairly easy. Um, I think, you know, anyone can study for a week or two and understand, you know, shooting fast shutter speed and, and getting a long lens and short depth of field. That's not that hard. Um, knowing what to shoot, you need to know the sport. And I've been doing this sport for a long time and I love the sport. So, you know, what makes a good shot, you know, what people want to see. You, so that's important. Um, but I actually just, uh, just remember where you are at. Cause I, I, I, I just have to interrupt here because when you say, you know what to shoot, like I see you with every time, like between you and Jessica and the way you set up and what you look at, it's almost like how dog training evolves. And, and there is that challenge to show something else, something new, something more intriguing that catches you. It's like, Oh, what, how, how is that happening? How is that healing or recall or dumbbell? And you're doing exactly the same thing with the photography. Um, I like, like what I'm, you know, where I'm going. Like you. Now you're looking at everybody. Has that shot on the send out. Every there is like this standard classical pictures which you cannot take away. They're definitely a must have. Right. Right. But now you have came with. With. Other pictures that are just so.

intriguing and it's like, whoa, look, this is a good one because it's a different take on the sport altogether. Anyway. Well, no, you're right on the money. So at the beginning, getting your standard collection of each of the exercises, that was success. And when people had seen that at a very high grade of photography. So I studied action photography probably at ad nauseum beyond what normal rational people would study. So I wanted to understand how to shoot action and how to do it correctly. And I studied football and motor sports and all the different types of some of the best known photographers to try to understand how they do it and then bring that into our sport. Because at the time that I was doing started, there was nobody shooting like this. The quality of the photography. I mean, I look at photos that I competed at a few nationals and in 2005, 2006 and 2008. And the photos are not very good. I don't mean any disrespect, but No, no, I mean, no, no question about it. There was it just because the camera could take bunch of like, whatever it's called the speed shooting. Yeah, yeah. And then you pick whatever seems right, but it's never really, yeah. So, so when I first started doing it, I wanted to make sure that they got a collection of each of the exercises, a nice, a nice shot. But by the time you get around to the second year, and the person's ordering photos from you again, now I got to have something a little bit more. So at the beginning, I'm just satisfied that they got a great set, and they see it, and they love it. And for the most part, I think, I don't know if this is a reference of quality, but you get reviews, right? And I have like 400, five star reviews, whatever the top review is, it's all top stars. So I'm going, well, people are happy. So keep doing what's right. But I'm not doing it for them. I'm doing what I think is the best thing. And you'll attract people that like what you do, right? If they don't like your photography, they won't order. But more and more, it's, it just kept building. And then you're looking to try to provide something that's a little bit more and that puts you in what makes it very intriguing. So we're sitting there, how can I get a shot here? And you have to look for something. So there's, we call this the high risk shots, because if you're shooting, if you're shooting the same pattern, you have to be in a specific position to do that. And everyone's going to want some of those photos. And I've never shot them before. I'm being very

conservative and shooting the classical position. So they have a collection, because I want them to have the best photos they've ever had in their life of their dog. So if I've shot them a number of times, now I can be adventuresome and go for the money shot. For example, when Sports Illustrated used to have photographers, now they don't have them. Photography is kind of, it's a freelance business now, but it used to be a professional business. And they used to have six photographers at the, at the Super Bowl. And five of them are positioned at key areas to get certain types of shots. And their job is to get that into the field and understand what to get. Then there's one person that's roving and they're looking for the money shot. They're just looking for a shot that's going to be like the shot. So if I've shot someone before, then we might get a little bit risky and go into a position where you're at a position for other shots, but you're putting all your chips on getting this one shot. Now with Jessica coming into the picture here, no pun intended, more recently, right? She wasn't there, but she came into it. It gives me a lot more latitude because now if I go out and take a chance, she's got the backup on the other side. And honestly, sometimes we use her shot because she's on the better angle. She's, she's opposite, right? So the judges can move into position. We're still dealing with electronic focus. So sometimes the focus will miss, even though you're tracking, it'll, it'll miss. So having that affords, and she can't go to all the events, but when she comes, it's, it really allows us to get risky. I tell you what this was really, um, it stood out was, uh, the USCA nationals here in, in Indiana. Um, just the one we just had. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And in the morning, Oh yeah. I know what I had to share those pictures on my page. Oh my God. I'm saying, okay, so we have nothing and I'm panicking. My palms are sweating. I go, it's too dark. There's too much noise in the photos we got. So we have no light, which means you either have to slow your shutter down and you're going to blur images, or you're going to have a, uh, an image that is, has electronic signal amplification of the sensor. And there's noise in it. It is a colored splotches in it and they're useless. They're terrible looking pictures. And if you try to fix it, they never look right. So I'm going, okay, what are we going to do with this? And then it was foggy. So milk, milk fog. So you can't even see the other side of the field. Then the sun came up and it,

it went right into the middle and there's nothing. So, so now I'm saying, okay, it's, you're, I'm making all of this on a whole collection of obedience of milk with a little shadow is not going to make, people are going to be upset. So we had to get risky and, and, and go for it, go for it. And, you know, through those situations, some of your best photos come. It's the same. It's like, they're just, just mystical experience of, of watching IGP. Like, you really nailed it. I mean, you really did. The emotions behind that is complete anxiety. Like, oh my God, what the fuck are we going to do? And then you get a great shot, some great shots that came out of that. And, uh, yeah, those, those are the moments, um, you know, you, you prepare, you prepare for the event, you, you go and you get all, you go through your gear, you make sure all your gear is ready. Everything's clean. Everything's set. All your gear set up, you know, your positions, um, you, you're, you've got enough muscle memory to make it work, but it's still an adventure because things are going to get thrown at you that, that you can't plan for. And that's what turns it into the adventure. But we saw that weather. Um, sometimes I remember in Buffalo, I think it was WDC 2017. It rained, it was freezing cold and it rained for four days. And I mean, I'm talking torrential rain and some amazing photos from there. Amazing, amazing photos, but you can't plan for that. Like you're out there. You have to show the, the hardcore determination of, of what the sport is and, and what, how crazy we are. My nose was raw from being in the back of the water protection, the, the, the, the covering for the, uh, for the camera. And I was soaked to the bone and freezing, but the hell I was sitting in the helper's tent with them. Um, and, and they're all suffering and, and you were brothers in arms suffering through this. And when you look back, it's what makes it really memorable and really enjoyable. It was, it was fantastic. You, you never know. I did, um, 2000, uh, actually this most recent Denmark, uh, uh, WSV was 20, 20, re WSV 2022 WSV in, in, in Denmark. And they gave us, was it? Yeah. They gave us one tiny little box to shoot out of. And so I'm traveling from the United States to Denmark to photograph a world championship. And this is on my own dime. So I travel, I'm a freelance photographer. So I'm, I'm thinking how on earth am I going to shoot five days from the same position and get photos? And you just have to think, like, what, find a way to make it. This is, these are the cards you're dealt with.

So there's, there's not that many photographers at a world championship because they have limited passes. So, but all of us are going to have the same shot, but actually it's, it's not that you see different things. You're looking for different things and then you get creative and you're shooting between moments that are actually a normal moment to shoot, but you're looking in between those moments and you're capturing things unfolding. And sometimes the story is between the lines, right? So there's an, there's an exercise, there's an exercise and in between is where you see. And when you're looking at a photo, it's, you don't know the moment that it's happening. So you might be able to get some of your best photos in those moments. And then gradually over a day or so, um, the organizer saw we were struggling and, and she, she knocked the sides off and then we kind of went out and the judges looked and they were okay with it. And then we were, then we had full reign. We were walking all over, but at the beginning, this is what we're dealing with. Oh my God, somehow, some way. Wow. Yeah. That would be, that would be, I would be frustrated, but I mean, I'm glad that they did let you, you know, what is good now is that I'm not sure. I think it was between the 2000 and the 2000 and, well, I don't know, somewhere years ago, but it was the digital came in and, and the photographers would just come like almost into the field and competitors were never, it was, uh, it ended up being a real test for some handlers and dogs, because you have this photographers laying down and jumping around like rabbits around the field and then and, and some dogs and some, I mean, it really throws you off, you know, when you're trying to, to focus and do the best you can. And this is something that comes out that, uh, you never even thought possible that you got to prepare for something like this. Right. Right. Right. I remember, uh, 2005, uh, nationals, USCA nationals in, in Santa Clara, and I was entered. And during the, uh, retrieves over the obstacles, the photographers walking around me shooting and I turned over and I said, can you just stop? I don't want photos. Stop. You're my dog's distracting. He's like five feet from me. So, um, especially though, you know, running on that side, that side, kneeling. Like, what are you doing? Like, you gotta be kidding me. So, um, I think it's at, in the U and European events, you're not allowed to step one inch on the field. Um, yeah, they, they would literally throw you out. Um, and I, I don't mean that as an, as just hyper, hyperball,

it's, they will throw you out. So you have to stay back and they're, they're watching you, but it, in the U S championships, you're allowed on the field, but you'd have to respect that this is a person's biggest moment. I mean, they, they may have been working their whole, this may be the pinnacle of their, their sport, their hobby, or, or this could be professionally very critical to them. Regardless, you have no role, no place being part of the show. So, um, That's where you come because you have both, you have the understanding of what it takes as far as you're trying to do with the work. But you have the opportunity to do the work. And you have the picture and then you have to make it work without that disturbance. And, uh, I mean, I, I think you're like the prime example of understanding that part of the, the, the, the difficulty of the situation. Yeah. Well, I think if you're, if you've been around, you should, for photography to work, you have to love the subject. And if you love a subject in your, you've, your passion, you followed it, you'll, you'll know, you'll know how to read. I went and watched a, uh, the horse event and I couldn't shoot a horse event. I I'm not a horse person, but I'm watching that person and they're in the ring and they're clearly very, very knowledgeable about the horses. And I'd like to think I'm like that with the dog. So if, if the dog's ear moves, even I, Iota, then I need to respect that. And then you've got to do things. I even have a setting on the camera where you can make your camera silent. Right. So, or I don't give you the most extreme example. I was shooting, uh, Mondo ring national championship here in the United States. And there was a fellow that came in and the dog, uh, it was, he was, um, environmentally very aware. It was a serious dog environmentally aware. And, and I could tell he was, uh, he was tense and I made the decision that I would go and shoot the dog from outside the ring. Well, understand that in a Mondo, you're right in the middle of it. That sometimes the decoy will use you as an obstacle to separate you from him, from the dog. And they'll come straight at you and you're diving out of the position. Um, and they love it. It's, it's a little chaotic, but it's, it's, it's kind of awesome. And it's in its way. Um, but recognizing that this, this could influence this person's results. I stepped out and, and actually shot from outside. And there's been times when, um, on, on the field where I'm, I'm stationary and I won't move.

I'll turn the camera and I'll go passive. And, and we're just going to give up that shot because we can't risk it. We can't risk the dog, um, targeting or focusing because they, they see it can't whatever. It's just something different. You're a fire hydrant. You're not normally there. What is this person? And in that moment, when the dog breaks concentration, that could have a cascade effect. So, uh, we're just clear, we're clear apart. Now there's other dogs that are seasoned dogs, and they, you can be standing on top of them and they don't care. And on those dogs, we, I know, I mean, call it luck or judgment. I kind of got a feel for it. So we'll choke in on the field and you'll get shots. Um, that could be an unbelievable because these dogs don't care. Um, obviously club level dogs, uh, um, or you, you, I don't shoot clubs generally speaking just at a matter of time now. But, um, but when I did, you'd have to be clearly way off the field and use a long lens. Um, in 2017 in Holland at WSV, the side, the, the, the blinds were within just feet of the sidelines. And so Frank Phillips had a dog named Cliff and that dog, it was really, it had just come in second at the, at the FCI world championship. And, and so he was like big news. All the Europeans were like really aware of the dogs. The judges are talking, everyone's it's a buzz. And there was maybe four or five accredited photographers at the event and we're all close, but we're spread out. We are shooting different angles and, and, and I know most of them. So we're, you just sort of have this vibe, like nonverbal communication of photographers. Well, Frank comes out all of a sudden there's like 20 people on the side of this field and we're just, and we're elbowing and pushing to get a position and we're all in blind, uh, four and we're feet from that blind and there's 20 people pushing. I'm like, I'm saying none of us are going to get the shot because it's like a mosh pit and the dog comes running within. I felt I'm exaggerating, but I felt like I reached out and touched the dog. It's six, seven feet, but it feels like you could touch the dog and he runs. He doesn't look at his cameras are wailing away and the dog comes running around and, and, uh, so, so that's the extreme from one extreme to the other. Um, I I've seen where in Denmark last year, there was a German photographer hiding behind the, they'd use these soccer, um, advertisement signs at about three feet high. Yes. And then the photographers are supposed to stand behind it. And normally we shoot over it while he was hiding

behind the edge of it. And so it literally looked like a helper hiding in a place hiding. So the dog ran and goes in and checks on the guy. And I'm like, that's a bad day for this dude, because I don't, I would probably put the camera down and walk away and go, I'm out. Like, because that's the worst that could happen. Right. And some dogs are, are, can you imagine that some dogs are sensitive to it? Oh, I will tell you direct personal experience. My very first world championship, 1994 bred in Belgium, the very first Belgian Shepherd world championship. And up to that point, it was European. My female is in heat. So I'm going, there was, I don't know how many, but we are going at the end. And the guy that was taking videos, he was with the big tripod with the big VHS tape. When we were talking 94, right? Yeah. Some mics with big fuzzy. I mean, it was a, and he's right by, I would say maybe 10 feet on the side, on the side, I can't remember which side of blind six. So my dog, she goes straight at him, starts to bark at him. I call her back. I sent her again. Van den Bosch was the judge. It was, he, he just, he, he just, you know, at this point it was game over, but he's like just giving me a try. And she ended up three times going around now. Now she's fixated about that guy with a tripod, with a camera. There is no kind of offer game. Right. And especially being in heat and then, and probably me being shaken, my first biggest ever experience, somehow she made it to the blind and we continued the routine. But, you know, speaking of, of this kind of big boo boo. And, and it wasn't like the guy wasn't even, he was just there for everybody. It wasn't, you know, but things can happen between the photographer and the person competing for sure. There can be some dangerous kind of moments. What about the one in Italy? Like what happened? Like, why, why is this even possible that they, from my understanding, not Italy, Slovenia this year, that they did not even allow other photographers. It was a, they had a one person and, and it turned out to be a, a, a huge disappointment. Yeah. I mean, huge disappointment, but why is that even allowed? Like on, on your and apparently so, apparently so. So I don't know, I don't know all the details, so I won't, I can't speak to what I don't know, but I can tell you what, what I, what is, it's clearly obvious. And from the perspective of someone who spent a lot of time in photography, um, anyone that owns a leash can call themselves a dog trainer. It doesn't mean they're a dog trainer. People can call

themselves a racer. It doesn't mean they're a racer from my background in racing, right? You can go into a racing room. They all sound like they're world champions, but when the race is done, one guy is going to stand on a podium and then, and then you have tiers of club level, national level, and international level. And photography is the same thing. If someone owns frying pans or knives, just make them a chef. So people have a camera and they maybe have shot some things and they think they're there. And I'm going to just be blunt. I'm sure probably the audience will hear that. Somebody will hear this and be offended. And it won't be the first time when an opinion gets me in trouble like that. But, but this is how I see it from, from my perspective. So, um, I, I heard that they, they had selected one group and that, I mean, for obvious reasons, there's a, there's a financial advantage for one. I mean, it's, it's glaring. There's no other reason they, they alluded to, or, or, or tried to insinuate that, uh, they don't want dogs distracted. Well, there's been world championships forever and it's the same handful of photographers that do these events. And we know what the heck's going on. And there's no record of anyone that one example I'm talking about over the course of a number of years, half a decade, I can talk of one example where a dog came around to blind and honestly the dog was not prepared, right? So it's the worst, but it's a world championship. You would never see that, right? It's a world championship level event. So, um, so they gave that as a straw man argument. Um, but basically they had a monopoly and they gave it to a local photography, uh, business there. And, um, and they said, you can check it very arrogantly. The, the, the promoter said you could check their, their references or their work. Well, I looked and it shouldn't be hard to find their best work, right? Because your best work is what's going to come when you do a Google search, because that's the image that content people have looked at. So it's not hard to, you Google any top photographer and you'll see some of their iconic work. It's what pops to the top. I couldn't find anything in dog sport, nothing. I looked further. I didn't see any dog sport at all. So, um, I, I know that, uh, uh, Mariel from that work and Petra were interested in going Mariel's from, uh, Denmark, uh, from Holland and, and Petra's from Czech Republic. They're very good photographers. I'm, I'm big fans of the work and, and they outright told him no. And then I had posted a comment on it and the guy,

the promoter responded very, very negatively. So at the end of the day, they sent an unprepared group who absolutely, I watched video of what these people were doing and, and, and a photograph, photography is 90% physical. You have to move, you have to get down on the ground and roll. It's combat. I'm exhausted at the end of the day. I mean, you're literally, you don't have an ounce of energy and this person sitting shooting from one location. And then someone's holding an umbrella over on thinking this can't possibly be. And then the second part of it is the capture is a tiny percentage of the time commitment to shooting. You have to take the images back. For example, the average person I shoot, I'll shoot a thousand to 1400 photos of them. And then from that, I'm going to call that down to 30 or 50 photos. And you're looking for a moment that is meaningful and you have to go through the rest of the stuff. People don't want to see. You would never just, we call it a card dump where you just dump your pictures and you, right. And I'm understanding it's like this one English fellow had like 200 photos. Well, there's no way, I don't care who you are that you can, you can be the most legendary photographer. There's not 200 photos of a person. And so in there, there was absolute atrocious garbage. And naturally there's going to be some good photos. The key here is anybody can get a few good photos, but it's being able to consistently go out and deliver a good package of photos and understand the sport. These people clearly didn't do it. How this happened, it should be serve as a, as a precedent. It could never happen again. But unfortunately, well, I think there's probably reasons behind it that have merit, but the promoter of the event, the host of the event gets the pick. How many of the conditions of the event operate. Sometimes it's judges, sometimes it's fields, sometimes photographers, vendors, or what have you. And they made the worst possible choice. They have, there's a proven formula of, of, for this. Five, six photographers that do a really nice job. And there's something to suit everybody. Not everyone will pick any given one person doesn't dominate. You're going to get a, a, a, an allocation, some each, and it divides up. Uh, it's not even, but most people will find something within those people. And, and it's based on experience and precedent. It's a world championship. So I just, I felt, I felt, um, it kind of felt sick when I saw that, because you, if I were to earn a spot on a world championship team, I love dog training, but I'm not

anywhere. You've forgotten more about dog training than I'm ever going to know. So if I were to make it on a world championship team, I would want to have, it's like a wedding. I would want to have wedding foot level stuff. Yeah. And, um, yeah, anyway, that's, that's my take on it. I think it was a, it was, it was, uh, a travesty that had happened. Um, you know, it's just pictures. It's not, it's this person's, uh, a life experience that is huge and accomplishment that's massive and they have nothing, their photos, they have two or three good photos. It's it's a, it was a big disappointment. Fortunately, that was an exception. Yeah. How, how does it typically work when you like, let's say, if you pick up, you, you don't get invitation, I'm assuming you have to show interest and then there is certain number of photographers that, or how does that work in the big events or they're all different? It, it depends. Yeah. So, so the common theme is generally you reach out and you say, I would like to be considered as a, uh, to have press credentials and, um, some of them will charge you actually like a vendor so that you can go. Others don't. Um, and then generally you need to, if you're doing it for the first time, they would want to know who are you representing? What's what either you're representing a country, uh, which is some country, some, some events require that you, you're supporting a country or you're representing a magazine. Uh, it's one of the two. Um, but I can't say it's a, it's the same across the board and then you pay your own dime to get over there. And I support the, the photography through sales of photos for me, it's, um, it's, it's not a viable, um, uh, program it's, um, but I get content that's, that's, uh, it makes it worthwhile. Um, but yeah, there's, there's, there's, I'd say four, four photographers that do this on a, on, on a serious level that go with the commitment. And when I say that they go with the commitment of, they know what they're looking at. They love the sport, have many years in the sport, are passionate about the sport. They understand the sport, they understand how to photograph, and then they know how to deliver images and they know how to do the business aspect of it so that you fulfill the, the, you respect the craft. So people come away feeling, and, and I mean, there's a handful of people that I, that I can speak to there's, and that's it to get to, uh, for example, the first time I, I went, um, I was, I was, had been shooting in the U S for a few years and, and, um, at just natural growth, I wanted to go to

the next level and say, well, I I'd like to shoot in Europe. I think that's the next step. I've shot national championships for a while now. And, and, um, and it just, it just seemed natural. The next step is we've got to go to the world championships. So, so I reached out and, um, and they had seen my work. So somehow they had, they knew it wasn't a question of being qualified. They saw it and they go, Oh yeah, we'd love to see a blah, blah, blah. It was no charge. I was able to go. Um, and I sold 14 photo, 14 people photos. I was just like crushed because nobody knew me like I'm there, but they, they didn't, or they knew me, but they were, had already established relationships with people there. And many of the people were championships are the same people because they're, they're, they're, it's, it's hard to get to that level. And the people that do it know how to push that button. They're good at repeating and getting in there. So they have relationships with established people and, and, uh, it's a relationships like anything. I think relationships count for a lot, but I'm still glad I went. So I ended up spending, you know, to go to Europe and, and to pay for hotel and rental cars and to all this dog care. And it was, you know, it's a five, $6,000 endeavor to go to a world championship, right? At a minimum. And, and I sold maybe, you know, 14 people photos. It was really upside down, but I ended up with a huge collection of iconic photos that came from that event. Um, I think I have something on my, on my wall behind me here, uh, on one side over here is John Bodmerin. Yes. That was a, that was a, um, one of the most attractive from helper perspective, taking shots of those tall, leggy Dutch guys. Yeah. Yeah. And Nicky Cooper's and, and then it was, it was amazing. So, um, I'm glad I did it because sometimes you, you just have to jump in and it doesn't necessarily make sense at the moment, but it will make sense over time. And, uh, and I did. And then after that, it became much easier because, um, people started to reach out and say, Hey, did you get any photos of this? And, and then still a little bit hesitant. They're like, can I see the photos? And the reality is if I shoot 1500 photos, I can't just go process and edit and hope that somebody gets, I need to know somebody who's interested, but then it's a catch 22. Um, the next year was much easier. And then now, now it's, uh, it's something that the bottom line is there's no promises. You just have to, you have to have blind faith, go for it. And, um, and we did, and it turned out,

it turned out pretty good. Um, I see my picture in the back and behind you. Yeah. Yeah. Let me turn the light on. It's gotten dark here now. Cause I, I will show you, I have it, I have it huge on my wall right here. Yeah. That's awesome. That's beautiful. Yes. Yes. I have a few, a few of pretty much. That's all my dogs, you know, that I have to have them, you know, it's like a, I mean, it's a crazy picture because of the, the interaction, but then we are really six legs and there is no one leg touching the ground. Sometimes there's, there's energy in a photo and, and the movement, the positioning of the body. And, um, there there's energy and you can create that sometimes even in a stationary subject, if you catch the right angles on the person in their head and there's energy, but that photo, that was just, um, the timing of that. And, and again, this is why you shoot a lot of photos because I can, I couldn't foresee when you were going to be airborne. You're, you're planning. Well, I see the steps and you want to try to capture the gate when the gates match up between the handler and the feet. Um, and you have to shoot a ton of shots to try to catch that moment because the dog, depending on the speed, they might be in different gates, but eventually they'll hit that one moment where the two overlap. And that was a moment where not just the gate overlapped, but you will also happen to be airborne. Uh, and it's a super creamy background. It was, yes. I love that shot. Right. I really like the shot. Yeah. I got another shot up here that I loved of, uh, Josh Marco's dog, um, Scully, which was a maniac dog. I think it was, but the dog was reckless. It was, he was a wrecking ball and, and he came flying into this dumbbell. I'm going to take that dumbbell somehow. Oh my God. So yeah, I, I honestly, I don't have all, every time I see photos, I want to print them, but the show just keeps moving forward. What you really should do is you, you have to start making some cool calendars. And even if I don't know now, now with the whole digital, even if they're on a digital format, there's a wallpaper of some sort of calendars, like I, I know I have a big screen where my Google calendar is on the wall, right? Yeah. It's crying for, for something that Brian puts together. Yeah. Yeah. Well, this, this winter we'll, I don't want to let cats out of the bag, but we're, we're looking to expand our projects from, uh, from what we've been doing. So, so there, there'll be some things coming down the pipeline. Um, so diversifying the channels, the platforms that we've got, um,

into YouTube was, is one of the plans. Um, and then, and then having, uh, having some form of, uh, ebook where we can, you can have a reference for photos, um, with, with the stories. Cause a good part of this is, is, is telling the narratives of what's happening and writing, which was, was an accidental discovery that sort of evolved into this program. So I'm a photographer, but, but telling the stories and getting to meet people and the behind the scenes and, and, and creating, um, uh, showcasing or highlighting the beauty or the, the story or the passion or the, the joy, or sometimes the, the, the, the, just the, the pain. Exactly. I think we are all very interested in that unspoken, untold story because all of us know that it's there. Yeah. So yeah, yeah, this is definitely something waiting to be, I'll tell you like, um, some of my favorite pictures. I mean, of course, I, I, you know, this is a big deal for me, but the picture that doesn't make sense to put on the wall is a little more special picture from the same, no, from the FCI. So with Kenya, I won, I won all the championships in the country and then I won the two world championships. And after I won the world championship and I walk out and I jump around like a maniac, of course. And there is this moment where it's just me and my dog outside the stadium in a park on a bench and there is nobody around and he's laying in my feet and I am just having this look like, like a little bit of disbelief, a little bit of exhaustion, just, just like, uh, looking somewhere deep in the nothingness, you know, that's awesome. Like what the hell, like what kind of year and how did those stars line? I mean, it's just like, uh, this unreal moment of, okay. I mean, definitely it's not a fluke. Like I, I just became two time world champion and, and it was, uh, you know, and I'm here I am sitting by myself on the bench with the dog and a friend of mine took the picture and it was, um, you know, but this kind of picture is what you're talking about, right? Like, yeah. Sometimes the subject, you don't have to be great. If you were able to capture that moment, um, and you were in the right place at the right time. Uh, yeah, those are nothing tops that, right? Nothing tops that. There's only so many of those moments that exist. The rest of the photography is creating beauty out of seemingly normal moments and making it a memorable. But when you capture a moment like that, I have a, I remember one photo of you. Um, I can't remember the year. It might be 2016 or 15. You won AWDF

and it was down to Mario. He's leading, you have to get a score and you got one point more than him. And you, there was this moment you heard the number and it was like, there was a delay. It was like an audio delay and you heard it. And then all of a sudden you just jumped in the air and your dog is looking up at you like, what the hell? And you're like three feet in the air. And, uh, the judge, I think it was Randall. It was Randall. That's right. He's reaching over to shake your hand, but you're way up in the sky. These classic moments, like you can't plan them. Um, it went, and then you went over the next photo, you went over and you hugged Mario and you guys gave each other a a huge hug. That was the, that was the price. That was the prices photo because I mean, Mario, I know how he's waiting and I know, I know both of our emotions at the moment, you know, it's like, he was happy. Yeah. Well, but that's the thing is follow, follow after the moment because sometimes after the moment is when the best photo happens. So there's the obvious moment, but what happens afterwards, the expression or the moments, things that can happen. And, and so I just kept my camera trained on you as, as you were walking over, I didn't know what you were doing. Cause I'm on the side of the field, but I can't see he's over there and I followed you and I go, something's going on. And then we caught that moment and it was, you know, sometimes you see something in your heart swells. You just feel, you feel this humanity. This is beautiful. He's Mario lost the championship to you, but he's happy for you. Right. Right. But, but this, this is even a bigger thing that, than anything else is that the, the, the, the camaraderie of the sportsmanship was, was there. Great moment. That was, that was an epic moment. I was glad to be there. She doesn't know, but these are the, this is what you are so good at capturing over and over again. And, and as you said, probably now that you guys work together with Jessica, you, you have a little more freedom to take some chances because you know that I, it must be a good feeling that, that, um, that two of you can do, right? Oh yeah. And she's great. So we met in 2016 at the, um, Southwestern regional championship. I was shooting it and she was there, uh, with a kit camera and she's fiddling with it. She came up and asked some questions about how to do the settings. And, um, and she's, you know, got this, she's got this smile. She's just got this super, super good energy. And, and she keeps coming over and asking questions and, you know,

you see someone and then you see someone. So then I saw Jessica and, and, uh, but she didn't know squat about working that camera, but she was interested. Here's a super athletic type gal, super nice energy, just sweet as can be. And she's a super into dogs and she, she's wanting to learn about photography. So I'm just, we ended up talking and becoming, uh, somewhat like acquaintances. And then over time, eventually, um, uh, I asked her to, uh, shoot as a assistant when I was doing a private shoot for somebody in Northern California, I was doing a portrait session for a, for a, uh, a person. And that's how it wasn't even adopting. Uh, no, when, when actually there was one before she had wanted to have a, her photo taken as a portrait and I go, I got a portrait background. So I did a portrait session with her. I did a really nice, um, beautiful portrait. Oh, I know. I I've seen some of those for sure. Yeah. So that was, uh, I, I had a hair and makeup artist and we did a, and I, I, we did a studio shoot and we did, and it, it, she had, she was treated like a model and, and, uh, Jessica has a different side to her. She didn't know. So she could be a, she could be very, she could be glam and she went full glam for this one. And, and we had costumes and, and she, we made some really great photos for her. And, uh, then after that I invited her to be an assistant and then I think it got romantic after that. And so, um, she moved out to Houston and, um, and she would come to the event and immediately the first event I invited her to was the world championships in, um, in Netherlands in 2016. And she sat up in the audience and she snuck down to get on the field. She's, she's, um, adventurous, right? So she's not shy. She's, she, she's sweet, but she's not shy. So she, she didn't want to be, she's not a spectator. She's a, she's a doer. So I'm down on the field and I'm shooting and I'm, I'm sort of finding my way in my place on this world championship stage, um, around people that have been doing this for a long time. I'm the, I'm the unknown American. And, uh, you know, I'm coming with these knee pads. My style is totally different than what the way these go about, these guys go about their stuff. They're looking at me, it's sloughing out who is this guy and look at what he's doing. And, and then one of them sees the pictures the next day that he's like, those are pretty good. All right. So it's all of a sudden I got a little bit of respect and then, um, Jessica wanted to come down. So she snuck down and she came over and sat in the, in the dugout

over there. Usually we're in a soccer stadium, unless we're in Eastern Europe where, you know, you're out in fields, but, um, like in Greece, we were in a, Greece was a stadium. Usually you're in a soccer stadium and there's a dugout. There's a soccer stadiums have a, uh, like a baseball dugout and that's, and the photographers are allowed to go in one of them. And then the judges are in the other one. It's sort of like how it's done. And you put your bags down in the photographer one. And so she snuck in and these events are highly structured and rigid. So it's not like you can just, everything is controlled. And so the guy comes by and he says, where's your armband? And he starts screaming and he goes, well, I'm going to throw you out and you need to go and, and just yelling at the top of his lungs. And I'm going, oh my God, we flew from the United States. I'm here on day two and we're going to get kicked out. And so she's getting her stuff. And then, uh, so she had to leave, but, um, that was a little bit of adventure at the beginning. After that, um, she wanted to shoot. So she would, she would take the camera and do video because she, she's done video for a long time. She made some beautiful videos that just shocked me how good they were. So she took one of my cameras, put on a tripod. And so she wanted, since she's there, she wanted to, she wanted to be active and participate. And so she, she did clips and would turn them into these nice video clips, just relaxed, uh, no rush two, three months later. And, uh, the first one I saw, like, like I'm an emotional guy. I'm passionate. I saw it. I start crying. I go, it's fucking beautiful like that. That is amazing. So she did a few of them. And then I can't remember where it happened, but I said, instead of doing video, why don't you go to the other side of the field and I'll set you up with a camera and you shoot the opposite side of the field. And, um, and so her photography skills needed a little bit of development, but what she has beyond no training needed, she has an eye. So she knows how to see, you can see that in the video. She's noticing like the little tiny tail movements, the paws, the nose twitches, the, the glistening in the eye. She's got, she sees beauty. She definitely has a good eye. So, um, her skills had to get, you just have to do muscle memory. Cause it's one thing you can go out. I keep saying this. You can go out, a photographer can go out and make a great shot. But when you're out there at seven in the morning and now it's, and it's 90 degrees, 95 degrees, or it's freezing

temperatures. And now it's four in the afternoon and you'd have no break. It's obedience, protection, obedience, protection. There's no time that you'd get to go sit down. You're just going. You get so tired that it's hard to be creative and you start to either relax or make mistakes. And so muscle memory kicks in. You've got to just be doing things by default and not have to think about it because you don't have your mentally spent. Um, and so it's hard and she's, she's gotten very good. This last event, she's, she's amazing. So she's, she's finding the angles and, and, um, on set up on the camera, I still will help a little bit. So, but she knows the vernacular. I'll call out settings and she'll know exactly what I'm saying. 2,000, 2.8, 1600. She knows what this means on, on the, on the, right. Or I'll tell her what focal point to use or, or, I mean, all the little guys talk to each other, like, uh, like on the phone or something when you're across the field, everybody's in their zone. Yeah. So, so the key areas that, that I need her with me is, um, is the send out that was absolutely critical. And then sometimes on the jumps, so on obedience, so on protection, she goes to the other field, other side of the field. And because when you're that far off center, the settings don't change. You're shooting the same thing because it, once you get a certain distance, it's a standard setting, but when you're close, there's a lot of movement, a lot of changes depending on circumstances. Like when we had the fog that morning, I had to guide her through it. But the reason we need two, it's ideal to have two is because on the send out, the judge is often standing on your side of the, of the handler and they will be right where you can never tell where the dog's going to send out, where the judge is going to stand. It's, it's random. And so you'll often get the judge standing on the line of view of the camera. So if you have two angles, one of you will get it. There's a bit preferred angle, but a angle is better than no angle. So, and this is particularly true at FMBB, where in the finals, you have four judges on the field or AWMA, where you got two judges on the field and they're standing on the same side. So they can create a de facto wall for you. And the jump is the other very challenging one. So there's a safe way to get a jump picture. And then there's the high risk, but money shot on a jump, the safe way it, the further back you get, the easier it is. And it's a short shot. When you get close, it's really risky that you might miss it,

miss it. The dog might go out of frame. You, you might not get the right focal point. So we try to have both have a safety and insurance shot, and then go for the money shot. And so she gets that and she knows how to, how to position herself and, and, uh, and help with that. And, and as a, as a product of that, I think the, the, the production value has gone up dramatically with her and she likes it. She likes being involved. Now the editing, I still do editing is huge part of this. And, and I still do that. Um, she, she's good at the, uh, um, the video editing. She's, she's no, I mean, it's perfect. I mean, you, you guys get to train dogs together and get to take shots together. I mean, it could, it's, it's, it's, it's amazing. Yeah. It's amazing. Travel together. Yeah. Yeah. Let me ask you this. When you're shooting and you have somebody that you actually care, somebody that you know, somebody that you're rooting for somebody that, you know, maybe, you know, how, how, how do you, do you, are you able to just separate and focus on pictures or are you paying attention to, to, to the routine as well when, when it matters to you, how, how do you split this two? That's a good question. So, so the answer is, is disappointing in this because when you're shooting, you don't actually get to see what's happening on the field. As crazy as that sounds. We're looking through an 18 millimeter hole and you're watching through a, now we use digital view finders, but the older cameras had an optical, which was a little bit better. Now it's digital. So you're, there's a separation. It's artificial. It's like virtual. And there's so many factors that you're, you're trying to align. So I'm trying to make sure I got framing. I want to be, have as long a lens as possible to fill the frame, which takes a lot of your attention to make sure that you don't cut up the head and the feet because you've ruined the photo when you've done that. And your horizons are straight and then you're panning to be smooth. And then you're looking at your settings. And then I'm looking for the moment when to shoot, because you can't just sit there and shoot unlimited photos. You'll never get through the work and you'll burn up all your memory. And when I say it's not that I'm being miserly on memory at the last event, we use four terabytes at the USCA nationals. It's an insane amount of data. It's, it's mind boggling. So, and because these cameras shoot so fast, they shoot 20 frames a second and they're big files. They're 14, 45 megapixel files. So it's a massive amount of data.

That's why I can't have it that big on my room. Yeah. Well, you can, you can actually make that with a much smaller, um, yeah, there, there, there's more data there than we, than we need, but, but, and we shoot in raw because I want to be able to go in after the fact and editing means we still dodge and burn, right? I have highlights. I got, I'm, I'm, I'm, although we don't manipulate the photo, these are real photos. They're, they're, they're not created right angles and, uh, things aren't fixed, but I straighten photos and I definitely, uh, adjust color, color and, and, uh, highlights and, and, and shadows. And we shoot raw to do that raw means instead of a JPEG, which comes out of camera baked, it's the raw data off the sensor and it's a big, heavy file, right? It's a huge file. And then I take it into, into, uh, a processing software. And then I, once I've taken the selection, I individually edit each photo. It's a slow process, but it's a, to me, it's a higher quality photo. Um, you know, the face and details and things of that sort. So back to your question, um, I'm excited for the person out there, but I generally don't get to see it. So I see it and, and, but sometimes I get to see something nobody gets to see, right? Like on the long bites and, and escapes and you get to see, you'll see me running over and I'll show some, something to someone afterwards. Um, I generally don't like to show it to helpers. I used to, used to show it to helpers. Um, but I think differently now I have a new opinion of that. It used to be, Hey, look, you, you did it right. You, you, um, you, or, or, um, it wasn't your fault type of thing wanting to be helpful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, but actually you're throwing them off. Interesting. Correct. Now I think that they don't, you don't, they don't need to see this because now they're thinking outside their channel and, and I don't think it's the right thing to do. So I don't do it unless there's, there is a controversy and, and we need, we need to know what's happened. Uh, it happened in Italy, uh, where a dog had an unfortunate thing happened and, and the, the helper felt was crushed and, and the judge is asked to see the photos and was able to show that, look, the, the helper, it didn't do it. Didn't cause this. Um, but I don't, I generally don't show it. I remember one time a guy was, he was having trouble, um, and, and some dogs were coming off and he wanted to see the photos and, but the more he saw it, the more it was locking him up. And I'm realizing shit. I never should. So, so the rule of thought,

and, and at the end of the day, whether or not it would have been the same, had I not shown it, whether it was just a stress of, Hey, I've had some dogs come off. Um, now my opinion is I don't, I don't show it even the good stuff. I don't want to show it because they have to be in a, in a mode and, and it, and, and consistent and they got it. They're doing their muscle memory repetitions, what they prepared and trained for just as I am. And, um, breaking them out of that zone, I don't think is helpful. Yeah. And if they need to adjust, they need to adjust in the moment on their own, really when, when they're on that level, right? If it's an instructional helper camp or something, then it's a different story. But yeah, that's very true. You know, I, I'll tell you every time I have filmed or taken picture of somebody that I care, it never turns well. It's like, there is the long bite and here is Ivan filming the clouds or the grass and swearing and, and, and it always turns into a big mess. And then I'm hoping that Brian has it. Ah, so, so where, where I take a lot of joy now is obviously I count, I have, I put a lot of, um, you, you asked at the beginning, am I nervous? Um, and it's an, when we get to the event, it's an adventure. It's sort of like the starting line of the race. You've done all your preparation. You, you, you've, you've, you've trained, you have your mind in the right mode, but now you have to deliver. You go out, you got to take the shot. And, and so we've got to get, we've got to get the key shots. That's important. And it's expected. If we miss that, I'm disappointed, right? That's, that can happen. And I really disappointed if I miss one of the key shots, but get now we push to try to get, and you'll see more and more of like the images that, that I share. Um, I don't know what the percentages are, but a high percentage of them are portraits. It's the person interacting with the dog or the person or the dog and just the essence of that person. And so I'll be watching them. And it's, it's, this is where I've said it's come full circle, right? I had talked about portraiture was an important thing that I had a lot of joy in, but somehow, you know, as I look at photography as an art form and, and you want, you have a voice, you want your work to, to have a signature. Like I can see my photo. I know my photo. I don't have seen, I'll know a photo I've shot. I don't know how long ago. I know it. I could also recognize a photo that Petra has taken, um, to a lesser degree, but very

similarly. Oh no, I, I can, I, I know that photo. I know Marielle's photos, a little bit less, but she has a great eye. I, I, they're good photographers and they have a voice. They see things a certain way. The three of us will shoot something and we'll see different things and they're all good. It's just a different nuance. So, so. Do you think you have to be on your level to recognize that or, or people recognize it, but kind of subconsciously and don't really make sense of it the way you would? Well, I think it's sort of like, cause I'm the same. I can, I can see 300 dogs healing for five steps and I can separate 300 dogs healing for five steps. And, and be able to tell a lot of reasons why you feel a certain way about each one. It's the same. If you study something at that level of nuance. So you're talking about framing, you're talking about focus, you're talking about angle, you're talking about the wire, what they selected. Then you're talking about how you treat that photo once it's captured. What do you do with the photo in terms of the color and the, and the grading, how it's edited. There's a massive difference between capture and my photo. If even if we took the same photo and we both handled those photos, I could tell you which one was handled by who. That's so beautiful, right? Instant, instantly. I mean, it's glaring, but if, if you aren't aware of a a straight horizon, you wouldn't know you wouldn't be able to do that, right? So it's like a coffee connoisseur or a wine connoisseur or a dog trainer. You can tell a dog that is happy in, in its work and one that's under pressure and someone that's a casual observer just thinks, Hey, that dog's healing perfectly. Yeah. There's a world of difference between these two dogs. You know, one, one actually might even be technically in a better position, but it's not a good picture. And the other one's a little looser, but it's a much nicer picture, right? So photography is, is, is for sure the same in my mind, in terms of being able to read the picture. You have to like, you know how, whatever canine and sports and any, any of the movements now that are, you know, trying to, trying to show the better side of what we do. And I think you guys with those cameras are, in my opinion, starting to be very, very important in how, I want to say how we present, but how you present to the people and general public, whatever, what we do and, and, and kind of break that if possible. Like, I really hope that we can break that. Oh, this is a word you're teaching a dog

to bite the man and like, like the, the last thing that's happening in Austria. Now it's such a shame. And, and it keeps going and it keeps getting momentum. And I, I feel that pictures tell the story, the real story. And somehow they need to, I don't know, like hopefully whatever your projects, projects are, that's somewhere included because. Oh, for sure. That's a big driver of this. Yeah. So, so canine and sports came into, um, so for those that don't know, canine sports is an advocacy group of, um, of a few people in Germany, but mostly, uh, but supported by where they initiated a program, uh, Florian Novel and, and, uh, Patricia Pearson, um, organized a group to support and protect long, the, the long-term health of working dogs, protect the sport, uh, the private training of, of sport dogs, um, and, and to try to safeguard against attacks from outside parties that believe that dogs should not be trained for, uh, bite work or be trained, uh, using any corrective measures, corrective training, uh, techniques. Um, so, so it's, it's sort of balancing out what is already a very entrenched group on one side that wants to ban working dogs, police dogs, um, in general and, uh, and offering, uh, insight into why it, there's a benefit and, and, and the good that comes out of it. So they reached out, they, they reached out to a number of people that are experts, um, or, or well-known or respected within fields. That's pretty, pretty broad, um, a broad spectrum from military and police people to government people to dog trainers, high-level dog trainers, um, influencers that are dog trainers like yourself, um, judges, uh, and then some people that have a, a big platform. And we were asked, Jessica and I were asked to be ambassadors on that, but, um, that mission, I, I support it a hundred percent. They asked and I said, absolutely, I support it. But, but there's different, uh, motivations for the people that want to do that. Each, each, um, having really good merit, some wanting to protect, uh, reading programs, one wanting to bring closer together, the professional working canine and, and military working dogs and the private breeding programs. And then others looking to protect the sport of IGP or dog sport, not necessarily IGP, but dog sport, um, in general. And the common thread is all of us want to don't take for granted that tomorrow that you'll be able to go out and train a dog for IGP and not have it be, uh, something that's illegal and that you should be able to use, uh, a balanced

training where you're able to have corrective tools to correct a dog. So going back, uh, I don't know when it began, but I post photos, I'm a photographer. And then over time I'd be sitting is the creative process. And, and it's, it, it, I didn't have a mission to get to where, what we're doing now. It's sort of evolved as it became clear that this is a good direction for it. This is a nice direction for it. So it started with, um, I wanted to be back involved with dogs and I love photography. I love photography. Uh, I'm, I'm searching for my voice to express this art where I feel that my work will be something that's, that's, uh, meaningful or good. And, uh, I wasn't getting satisfied in portrait work. So I said, let me go shoot some dogs. And it started to be pretty good and it worked out. People appreciate it. I liked it. And I experimented. I shot some wedding work, uh, shot some show dog stuff and, you know, you sample. And, and I found my vibe is within working dog. I did some Mondio. I loved it. I did, uh, a lot of IGP. Um, and as I, as I'm getting this collection of work, I'd be sitting editing, which is four fifths of the work you photograph for three days, but then three days of photography will take me three weeks to edit or a month. And I work in the automotive field. I'm a region manager for AutoNation. So it's, I used to be a service manager and then became, uh, a region manager. So that's when I get those glimpses of the big zoom meetings and stuff when, yeah. Yeah. So, so, so that's my job is, uh, AutoNation is a, as a, as a public, uh, uh, dealership group. We have a variety of brands and, and I work for the region. There's a district. I cover, uh, nine brands, uh, in the Houston area, the company, about 130, uh, mile radius area. And it's a very, Houston is a huge city. It's the fourth biggest city. So it's a, it's, um, it's a fairly big operation relatively speaking. And, and that's my main job. So I do that in the morning till night and it's fully, uh, engulfs my time on the weekends when, when there's an event, I'll travel. Um, so I have to balance this cause I, I can't really let this overlap into the week except for my time off at night. I'll edit. So, so I'll spend time when I get home and I'll go in and I'll start processing photos and the editing process is you sit down the process of editing as you sit down and I'll take a collection of a thousand, 1500 photos, break them down and I'll start going through and, and, and adjusting the photos so that they pop. So they look each photo. Once I release it out into the interwebs

that I'm proud of it. Otherwise I can't let it go. That photo has to be something that I will be proud of. Right now. Occasionally I'll let a photo go because it's informative. It's instructive to the, to the handler. They need to know what happened. And I hope the photo doesn't go. I don't control it. Once I lose it, it goes out there, but there'll be things that happen on a field. They need to know what happened because what they think happened often is way different than what actually happened. Oh, that's very, like I, I would appreciate that so much. A hundred percent. I'll do a sequence where I'll show five shots of a specific moment of something happening and they'll go, Oh my gosh, I get it. Like it might be the dog trying to go over, over an A frame. And those are never intended to ever go on the internet. Right. And I don't have a way of separating. And I hope people understand when they see that. And the others are the photos that are a collection of photos. And then I'm looking for a handful of photos that are just iconic moments that show the joy and the, and the, and the glory of this. So I'll be looking at photos and I'm a romantic, passionate guy. It's just, you know, I'm, I'm just my nature. So I'll be looking at photos and I'll see something and I'll just pause and your mind, because you're in a zone. It's like when I motorcycle ride on long rides, you'll go and your brain will go into these far thoughts that you would never have in your normal, busy, uh, in your state of, of distraction where you're just, you're actively doing things. Your mind isn't peaceful to think. The rat race. Yes. Yes. Yeah. You have to go off into a calm sort of Zen. And when I'm editing, it's a very, I've got some nice music. I'm just in it and I had no distractions. I don't want any, no interruptions. And, and I'll see moments and I'll go, that's a really amazing moment. And I'll say, why does it make me feel that? And when you see the storylines, often there's a, there's a, there's a narrative that's written around. This is separate from bios bios. When we write the bios, I'll speak to that in a moment where we, we highlight a profile on a person is, is a different thing, but we'll write, uh, you have a gift on that too. We definitely need to talk. But we'll speak about that in just a moment. So, so on these I'll go and I'll write, sometimes I'll make an association with something. I remember there was one, I saw this dog going around a corner and he's doing the blinds at an insane lean angle. And I wrote about, uh, the

technicalities of on a road race course, the limit of traction beyond which you crash the slip angle. And I explained the maximum lean angle, what that means. And just kind of, it was something out of road racing. And then I applied it to the, to the dog thing. And to me, it made perfect sense. I'll go, I don't know if people are going to get that, but let's do it. And that's how these little stories, it's in the calm of an evening, relaxing music. I'm, I'm in his own doing something I love and I'll see a photo that goes, I'll go out and I can't force it. And when, when I get that, I'll say, because there's, I have, we have six dogs. There's a lot of crazy activity in this household. Uh, I'll say, Jessica, I'm having a creative moment. No interruptions, please. Cause I need to get it. I can't, I don't know where this moment is. I don't know where it's taking me, but I, I see something here and then we'll, we'll write that and then I'll sit with it for a bit and then I'll, I'll, I'll edit it and then I'll have her come and read it and say, does this make sense? And then we'll post it. So, so that's where that comes from. Um, and, and the editing process, I forgot how we started on this topic, but it happens at night. And, uh, and that's where, where these stories come from. It's coming back to, uh, canine and sports. Yes. So gradually as I'm posting these pictures, I'm getting, I'm getting comments and questions. Um, and I'm realizing that we've broken through, um, speaking to those that are already converted and we're reaching people outside the sport at a very high degree, right? So on a big event, we'll have more than a million views, right? And over the course of 30 days, it's really big, right? I think I've shared that with you. It's, it's insane. So it's, I'm not just blowing smoke. It's, you've seen the numbers. It's, it's an insane number of people that will see this. And then more importantly, we'll have two, three, 350,000 engagements, which is like, these people are actually, they're sharing it. They're commenting it. They're taking time and telling you they like it. And when we, as you pull the layers back, lots of these people know nothing about the sport and we've caught them somehow we've, the message has got outside of our normal people. And I started to see that. And then there was this, this awesome responsibility that when you post a helper coming down with a stick, I had a friend that I'd known for a long time and, and she knew I trained dogs and she's, she had seen one of the pictures and she says

that the scary guy with the stick, what, why is he hitting the dog? And even though she knew I trained and she knows I'm, I'm a, I'm an animal lover, right? It's not like I was never, the last thing I would ever do, I rescue dogs. It's, it's hurt a dog. And, and to have someone like that say this, I was like, wow. Okay. So, so now it's a responsibility to, to explain what's going on. And then to start to show the soft side of the sport, the action is cool, right? There's the young teenagers want to see the teeth and all that cool stuff. Oh, I don't get me wrong. I love to see it too. Right. But, but we've got to be able to show the soft side of the sport. And, and that's where those, those narratives started to come in and love the dog first. You'll see that over and over and relationship and harmony and, and then the passion for their dog. And I'll, I'll make sure that that story levels out with the action that you're seeing. And then when we got to canine and sports, we've been doing, so I, I write those stuff. That's the writing is something I enjoy and it's, it's, it's, it's expressive. And I get a lot of satisfaction from, from just percolating a thought and getting it matched up with the picture. It's sort of like the pairing for me is a lot of, I enjoy that. And so we've been doing that when canine sports happened, it's like, well, this is perfect. Our place in this, our, our role is, is to show the beauty and the wholesomeness of, of dogs interacting in a way that they're, they're finding me. The dog has meaning. It's just not an accessory that we're not buying a dog because it's got a red coat. We're not buying a dog because I liked the way that it looks. We're buying the dog so I can have share in an activity and engage that dog and its instincts in a way that that dog lives a life where it thrives. And, and on a, a protection type dog, it's balanced with stable nerves and, and temperament so that it's an exemplary utility dog. Right. And, and that message is what, what we've been gradually going towards because it's not obvious. And when, when they reached out, canine sports reached out and said, well, yeah, I'm not sure how I can help because I can't talk to you about military involvement and, and, and the, the, the degree of how science plays in with, with training where you, you know, you have, you have professor level understanding of this. I can't help there, but what I can help is the visual and the emotive expressions of what's happening, being able to express that in a way that resonates with normal folk. We can do that.

We can do that. And when, and when someone sees that, when they see this messaging coming across, gradually it will shape the, the perception of what we do. I mean, I've been doing the sport of IGP dog sport since for 20 some odd years. And at the beginning, when I would tell people, they would look at pictures and think, Oh, you teach, you teach attached dogs, like attack dogs. I'm like, no, no, no. But it's, it was perceived as behind the shed sort of barbaric. And granted, some of the training was fairly harsh and it's, it's become much better. Now I, by and large, I'd say the training is as good as anything in any type of dog sport or dog activity. And it's evolving daily. I mean, we're getting better by the hour. So that's the, the canine sports movement is, is, um, I I'm, I'm honored to be part of it. I I'm not sure where our role is, but I know that, that, um, we've, we've only just now tapped into, um, an awareness of how we can communicate this message in a, in a cohesive, coherent and somewhat, um, integrated way. You know, it's a little frustrating to me. I mean, you know, what is frustrating is that the, the reality that we had to get together and try to defend what we do because the big organizations that have the money, that have the possibilities to do better job of educating public and, and defending, uh, and, and they, for whatever the reason is, they don't want to step up and take that risk to, to do it. So, like we, we really, like, I feel that we just got neglected. It's like, okay, well, if, if everybody wants to cancel you out, then that's, what's going to happen. We're not going to do anything about it. And that's really how can I in sports and, and bunch of other organization came up as a, as a urgency to try to respond in some way to, to show that we are, we are, yeah, we are not this barbaric, uh, uh, people and, and we love our dogs and we, and, and the dogs have fun and, and they live with kids and other dogs and go to coffee shops and, and they don't, they are not the dogs that the bite incidents happen. They're not the dogs that end up in a shelter. They're not the dogs that everybody wants to portray them as. And, and it's a, it's a strange war that we are in, but it's a war, unfortunately. Yeah, for sure. I, I think, I think, um, the organizations, um, have had their, their, their unique individual interests. They've been pursuing their interests and rightfully so, but, but noting small small differences between organizations. So it becomes factions that sometimes exert energy

against one another or to balance or check, put each other in check. And we have so much more in common than we have differences, but, but it's a little bit of a struggle because there's, there's, I mean, dog people are passionate and these nuanced differences, the more similar we are, sometimes the more we pick apart the little differences, right? And while this is happening, there's a pack of wolves at the door and they're wanting to take us out. And, and we're, we're bleeding this energy on, on, and I'm, I mean this absolutely respectfully because we're all part of this, but we, we, we have, we have missed and it's late in the game, um, a growing swell of, of people that have, uh, a very small percent. And I'm not an expert in this and I hope it doesn't come across as though I'm speaking, um, uh, like I'm super knowledgeable on this, but it appears to me, we have a small faction within the public that is very loud and through, through a very aggressive tactics are swaying the direction of, of governance. They really are swaying and not just the governments they're, they're convincing people. I mean, I, like they, they're, some people are so confused to the point that IGP is not much different than some underground pit bull ring. It's crazy. That's really where we are. It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, it's, it's mind boggling, but, but I think with, with, uh, Florian and Patricia's movements, uh, with this canine and sport and the people that are involved, the bet, the good that can come from this is that, uh, highly people that have, when I say people that have some influence, people that have a platform that have following that can extend out and create a, create a balanced message. We have a great message. We don't have to invent anything. We just need to articulate in a way that people can follow and understand. And, and, and a sensible person who comes like a first, a person seeing a dog sport for the first time, it's hard to understand it. No more, no more different than if you were to go to a football, American football game and try to watch it. You have no clue. I went to a hockey game. The first time I watched, I had no idea over time. You grow to appreciate it. And then, then you love it, right? Somebody has to explain what's happening. And so as we do this, it helps balance this out. Um, and, and then I think you had spoken, uh, there's, there's different evolution of this fight at, at any given moment, Austria, where they're, they wanted to ban bite sports altogether is at the extreme level.

Then you have the smaller degrees in, in some of the European countries where you can't use a prong collar, a basic training tool. That's super effective dogs get it makes sense. It makes training so much easier. It makes it less stressful for a dog because it has, it has, it's not, it has a moment of understanding and it's over and we're able to move forward as opposed to prolonging the agony of not knowing what the heck's going on and it's getting stressed and there's anxiety and know what the, this thing starts to build quickly. You can just fix it and we move on and the dog gets to a really good place really fast and it gets proud. And you watch a dog that's, that's been well-trained that, that understands and its chest is up, its ears are up, its tails up. It loves it. It's running around the helper or it's running around with the dumbbell and it loves what it's done. And it's because it's been given clear guidelines and some training techniques that make sense. So here in the US, fortunately we're probably in the best position of all of it. And I don't take that for granted. And every time I post a picture or I post a comment, I want to be mindful that I need to be cognizant of, could this be twisted? And am I, but I still need to be authentic. I need to be able to show a threat on a dog and a dog responding courageously and, and with vigor and, and being energetic and thriving. That's a good photo. I don't want to apologize for that. I need to be able to show it, but I need to explain it. I need to be able to explain it. And I often, you know, I've reached out to you and I've reached out to some of the other top trainers that I appreciate and asked questions to make sure that what I'm writing is, does this make sense? Am I, am I right here? I think there was one, I was talking about a position on a helper's leg and, and you responded and said, no, that the helper was at a position. And the reason he's in that position is he got caught out and now he's compensating and trying to recover. And I was looking at it as a more, uh, uh, athletic move and you corrected and said, no, that's not what it is. And, and, and through that getting the right messaging and, and, and the right visuals out there are, are helpful. Um, anyway, that's, I think we, we strayed a little bit from the, the canine and sport, but that idea has, has become, I think front and center, probably one of the most, um, meaningful and important aspects of what I, what we're doing now. Uh, the other we had touched on was the bios, uh, the stories on, um, profiles on the, on the people.

I know we did one of you and, um, we should probably do another one because it's been a while and, and there's different chapters to people, right? And usually those come from, I'm at an event and I'll hear something. In your case, it has, there's a huge history, right? And, and I've, there's been a fascination and I wanted to know more. And if I have a curiosity, I know there's probably a lot of people out there that would also enjoy hearing that. And so I see that and that's, that's the motivation for, for taking the time to write those. And as you know, they take some time because we have to get the story. Then I got to look at the story and try to understand what it is that we want to say and how we're going to go and, um, where it's going to go. What's the, what's the, the, what's the theme and the message. They are so well accepted and, and, and they're right now. All of us are expecting them to keep rolling. So don't you dare to stop. I have like four in the, in the hopper right now. I just have to get through the setting. When that happens, that it's time. It's, it's, it's all encompassing, but I've got four of them that I'm working on. I'm really looking forward to, but those come from either I'll reach out and I'm curious. There's something that, that I'm just, I want, I want to know. There's an itch. I want to know more about this. And it, it, it started, I remember, um, having, uh, Debbie Zapia come to South County for a training seminar. And I'm like, well, who is this person? I was really new in the sport. Now, obviously Debbie Zapia, world champion, multi U S champion. Uh, she's branched off and, and started a whole nother dog sport direction. I mean, a profound person in the sport, but I didn't know any of that. And it's just, she came over, she's teaching a sit. And I was like in awe on how she taught a sit. The only thing I needed to learn was this. And the whole day we talked about a sit, but at levels of detail, that was just fascinating. Fascinating. So, um, there's people out there like me that don't know these stories. I remember when, when I, we were, we were training at South County and, and I saw in Schutzen USA magazine that Mike Diehl had won the world champion, national championship in 2004. Something. It was early years in 2002. 2002 and I didn't know who Mike Diehl was at the time. Right. I mean, he, one of the top trainers and the, uh, competitors in the U S world team, uh, he's placed third of the world championships. Oh, without a doubt. I mean, I mean, just talk, but I'm going, well, who is this person? Like, how did he win?

Like, how could he possibly beat these amazing people that train at the club that I train at? Cause I thought they were gods that when they walked on the field, they were gods. Like, how could Mike Diehl have beaten them? And so now I'm in a position because of the travel I get is half the allure and fascination and joy of doing this is the chance to go out and see and be around these people. And then to ask the questions and the other direction or, or, or, uh, way that these can happen is I'll hear something and it'll catch my interest. An example being, uh, Trish Harper. Yeah. Um, so, so she was at, uh, AWMA and we were, she was helping me carry a bag. Um, my hands were full and she mentioned something about she had gone through, she was really glad to have the dog on the field because she had, had recently gone through recently being in the last few years through major brain surgery. And I just like, I like literally figuratively stopped in my tracks. Like what? And she said, yeah, but she just said it nonchalantly. I'm like, oh my God, do you have a moment to talk? And we went to the van at the end of the event and she sat in the van and we opened a can of beverage and, and we sat and talked for an hour. And, and she told me the story and I recorded it. And then later I had, you know, when people tell their stories, sometimes it's fragments and pieces. Right. And then I had to go back and, and try to piece this together. And what came through in that story is the insane courage and, and how humble, um, and brave. She just how brave she was and how she, she felt lucky. She felt lucky. Most people would say all these things happen, especially in now today's culture, that how I'm a victim. I didn't get what I deserve. And she was just happy that she had the opportunity. And I go, how about a profound. And so I had to sit with it and let it percolate. And then the story came out, um, we wrote one on, uh, Dave Croier. He said, he's been on the world team 15, 17 times. And he's a kind of a legend of his own. Um, and, and we were at a, a training, a workshop, uh, up in Dallas. And, uh, Mark Pellin was up there as a helper, a national level helper. And I go, oh, great, he's close. Let's get a chance to go work with him. And, and he was up there and I've seen Dave a lot, uh, nationals and around. I mean, cause he's one of the big, of course, but I don't know Dave. He's, he's a, he's a colorful character. He's, he's fun. He's in the middle of all the trouble, always having a blast.

And he's a, he's a, he's a, just an insanely good dog trainer and competitor and incredibly serious about his training. Um, and he has that X game rush that you shared. With him too. Yeah. So, so, but when we were sitting, he mentioned he played in a band. I thought, well, who? And, and the people he played with, I'm like, are you kidding me? Like Cher, he, he traveled on the road in the band with Cher. So I say, Hey, can we write the story? And so we, we, we spoke for a while. And, and then as I'm, I'm, his experiences are beyond the pale. I mean, they're like, he's, he's off the scale on crazy stuff that's happened in his life. Right. So, so as we're going, go, well, how do we write this story? And how do we tell it? And, and it just, eventually I sat with her for like six weeks and I kept coming back to it. I go, no, no, I don't. And I came back and then I sat down one day and I go, Jessica, I'm in that moment. And it just came. And the thing just float. And the course of two hours, the story just came because I had read it and sort of got a feel for it. And then it came out, but anyway. David says, yeah, I, I remember. And I, I don't know what year this was and I have no idea why we were there, but it was just me and him in somebody's house. And it was literally just me and him sitting across the table. And all of a sudden I hear the stories you're telling me. And then off we go in these conversations about things, but I'm so, you know, he's going to be, uh, a WMA judge now. He, he. I'm so happy. Yeah. I mean, this is, this is kind of how we all need to give back in some way, you know? And, and. I love that. He's going to be a judge. Yes. I absolutely love that. Yes, for sure. I mean, that, that's the, the, the beauty of, of, you know, having the more people we have in the sport, especially in judging that really have. Struggled and suffered and competed and have the good and the bad and the whole rollercoaster. These are the best people that you want to have as a judge because. Totally agree. They, they know. They know. The good and the bad and the effort and the sacrifice and the luckiness. And. When you, when you judge like that and when you are able to take photos the way you do and like, I think we all have a place where we can contribute. And I hope that more of us find our place and do that, you know? Yeah. I, I, I think one of the, um, happy, uh, discoveries, accidental discoveries, um, surprises is, uh, getting to know the judges and the humanity and the judges. No, it's not a, it's not universal, of course. Right.

Uh, and judging can sometimes have its own controversies and any, any judge, any judge sport and an IGP is, is, you know, just like any type of judge sport. That's it's tough. What. IGP is one of the, probably the hardest dog sport to be a judge because so much is left for the judges understanding and interpretation of the rules and the performance. Yeah. Um, and so, uh, and I, I totally get that. I, I like when I see they're going, they're going to read situations and behaviors a certain way and may interpret them certain ways. And I've, I've experienced where I have had a dog and it, and the judge interpreted things differently than what was actually happening. So I, I've been on that side of it, but what I really appreciate is where the judge, um, has their opinion, but is consistent on how they read that situation. But then I, I'm okay with it. So they may see a behavior, but they're going to grade across the board. And on this day, this is how the scoring was done, but it was consistent. Um, I appreciate that. And, and the, um, the ability to, to, to read and see things accurately. When I see that, I mean, again, seen a lot of trials in the last seven years. I don't know how many, but it's been a lot of championship trials in the last seven, eight years, 50, 60 championships. It's crazy. That's crazy. It's a lot of, it's a lot of championships. So not club trials, I'm talking champion, regional or national championships. And, and so some, some guys just see it. And I know, cause I look at photos, I can, I see it have a whole different angle. I've seen every single jam that's happened. I mean, I know it. I've got it. I've got them. And I know when the dog doesn't out and what happened before that. I know I can see it. Right. So that's the quiet part. You can't speak of, but what, what I think I most, I admire most is the humanity. I'll give you an example. What I'm talking about. Mike Caputo as a USDA judge and longstanding judge, super intelligent, knows the sport, nice guy, smart. He, he's, he's a, he's helping guide how judging should be done at the, in the USA. Um, he, he was on the protection field and a woman, um, who is someone that experienced or, or at least an experience on a national level. I don't know her background, but at a national level, it's not someone that had frequented a national championship. It was clear. And the dog missed the blinds and had to be DQ'd and she's standing on the field and her shoulders just dropped and all the air went out of her lungs. And my shoulder just dropped listening to her, her expression just, and my heart went down and hit the floor.

It just, I wanted to cry for her. Right. So you see this and, and her dreams, her hopes, everything at that moment. Uh, it was worse than that. It was, you know, it's dogs, it's dog sport, but you have hopes hanging on this and you want to go show and you'd love your dog and your family knows you're going to be there. And it all just came apart and you could see this and he walks off and I've seen a judge go DQ, you're done. And they, and actually I've seen a judge turn their back on a, on a handler. Mike went over and he took her hand and he put his hand on her hand and I couldn't hear, but body language said it all. And he, he spoke to her for like a minute and a half, right? This routine should have run seven minutes and, and he's sitting, so we have time. And he spent two minutes. He was in no rush and, and is very calm. His, his, he's got a dignity to him. Right. And I could see the life come back into her. And then as they're finishing, she's smiling. And so he put her back together before she left the field and she came off the field. And it was, it was just, it was a beautiful moment, a beautiful moment. Um, an example of, of this is, uh, recently, uh, was that, um, I'm trying to think I went to, sometimes you get, I'm sure you run into this. You forget what city you were in because you're traveling all over the place. And I'm on an airplane and I land and I'm a hotel and I'm in a, I'm in a stadium. So you don't remember where you're at. I'm at the Northwest regionals and, um, I'm watching, I'm watching some, some people at regional disability, their first highest level trials. And they're nervous as heck. They're forgetting everything there. You can see, they stopped breathing. Right. And, uh, Nathaniel Roque is the judge and the, um, he's a USCA judge and the, I think he's director of judges. And, um, as, as they're walking up, he's got a beaming smile for every competitor. So on the, uh, checking out and protection where you have to do the side transport out and then you check out with the judge. And sometimes these people like they're turning pale and he's got this big smile and, and, and just setting it at ease. And, and the funny thing is I saw it and I remembered one of my earliest trials when I was doing my club trials being super nervous. Like I remember standing in the blind during obedience and thinking I'm going to pass out because I like I'm overthinking everything and just, and I'm really saying my, my respiratory, my dog, I'm checked out with my dog completely because I'm so caught up in the moment.

But I remember walking up in protection at the end and, and being, and seeing him smiling. And it was 20 some odd years ago and, uh, and just how comforting how, how like it brought me back to, Hey, it's you and your dog and you just did a good thing without saying anything, you know? So, um, massive respect to the judges because, uh, I think it was, um, um, I'm trying to think of the judge. He, he, he judged AWM a, uh, just this, this, uh, last April. Oh my God. I'm going blank. I'm going blank on his name. You know, David Garcia Suarez. Yes. And I saw him in Spain or Italy and we're at the, the lunch place and we're talking about judging and, and he goes, yep. Every time I trial, every time I judge a trial, I lose three friends. There's no way there's no winning in this, right? You're going to go out, you do all the right things. Someone's not going to be happy. Someone's not going to be happy. So David is exceptional in my book. He's an exceptional as a person and as a judge, as a judge, like I've had so many conversations. I mean, I, I, I, I like to talk to people just like you do and like, I remember conversations with him because I'm a people, some people don't know, but I, I am a judge. But I, I don't, it's just, I don't know. I, I, it's for, for many reasons. It's at least not yet. It's just not my thing. And I believe that you have judges that are very good, but then they get out of focus. Not because they want to screw up somebody, but it's just a human brain that cannot stay on that same task for a long time. I've had conversations with him. I'm like, how do you do it? Because he's like truly in my book is one of the judges that can go through a world championship number of dogs and maintain composure of what he is looking at. Top, top. And, and you know, his answer was like, it's not that he's not out of focus or whatever, but it's like the more clear you, the picture are, are of what you want to see. You don't get out of focus as I would. Mm-hmm. And, and so they're like, I mean, being a good judge, it's an amazing thing because of, of, of being the person that you described with, with, uh, Nathaniel and, and Mike Caputo and, and Dave, you know, like you have the, the side that you need to give some support and you need to encourage people. Even when they have a hard time and you need to make sure that everybody gets fair evaluation and then appreciate, I mean, there's just so many components of being a good judge. It's not easy. It's not easy at all. I mean, huge admiration for, for the good ones, you know, me too.

And, and to have the courage to go out and do it because you're going to, you're just going to face a lot of scrutiny. Everyone's going to second guess. You've got video camera. You've got one shot to see it. You might not be on the angle to see it. That's a tough job. That's a tough job. And, and credit to it. I think at one time I wrote, uh, I wrote, um, respect for the judge, uh, and how hard of a job, job they have. And it got written, it got published in SV magazine. It's a picture. Yeah. It was a picture of, um, the, uh, Spanish national champion. Um, it's the fellow that won the world championship. I know the, the, the older. Yes. I can't think of. I'm so bad with the names. I feel terrible. I want to be able to say his name. And, um, and he, he's, he's doing a hold hold and bark. And then the judge is behind. And, um, and yeah, I think, I think, I think it's tough to get people to even want to go into that because the upside, I mean, it's a volunteer work, right? You have to travel. Yes. And it's, you have, you're a volunteer. You have to spend the time to go out there and, uh, knowing that there will be people that will be unhappy. They're inevitably. And most of them don't know what they're talking about. Right. Because many people are going to have opinions, but they, they, they don't know. They don't know. Not that I know, but I don't certainly, certainly, uh, know that some of the stuff you hear is just like, that's a tough job. It's, it's definitely, definitely tough. Have you seen any other breeds of dogs that don't necessarily make points, but, but you watching them and, and, you know, besides Malinois and German Shepherds, like, like when, when you see a Doberman or a, which is almost shameful that we have to talk about it like this. But, but when you see a dog that almost sits, nobody expects that kind of breed to even perform anymore. And kaboom, there it is. And it's showing and it's full of heart and training is good. And then like, how often you see them when you go at the competitions? So the, the, the trials are, are segmented, segmented into breed championships. Obviously, you know, but for, for the audience, you've got the German Shepherd nationals. We have Malinois nationals, and then you have other breed nationals, which are much, much smaller. And then you have all breed championships. So at the world championship, we have FMBB for the, the Belgian Malinois. And then we have WSV for the German Shepherds. And then you have FCI for all breeds. So my, my opportunity to see the dogs is limited because the only time I'll see the other breeds, well, let me go back.

The events have to be somewhat large for me to be able to afford to go to the event. I have to take time to make this happen. And, and there's travel involved in hotels and rental cars. I have to check six dogs into daycare. It's, it's expensive to go to an event. There's, if I didn't have a day job, I wouldn't be able to do, do this unless I was on the road. Right. So it's, so to travel, to do these is, it requires the event to be somewhat big for me to be able to make sense of it. And at the end of the day, it has to balance. And, and the, the alternate breed championships are typically small. So I don't see them. So I'm not getting the view. My only opportunity is when we, when I shoot the AWDF, the, the AWDF is, is one of the primary organizations in the United States aligned with the FCI. And I think there are subgroups of the FCI. I'm not sure about that, but that's a, that's a, a national championship that has all breeds. And then the USCA, which is a German Shepherd organization, they have a one championship a year called the Working Dog Championship, the WDC. It's a very big event. They'll have 80 dogs at that event. So it's a borders on a world championship level event. It's very big, high caliber dogs. So I generally, with a few exceptions over the last seven, eight years, I've shot all those events. And so AWDF and WDC will have the alternate breeds. I've never shot the FCI. I've, I've shot FMBB and WSV. I can't tell you there's a reason for doing that other than I know a heck of a lot of Malinois people and I want to go shoot them. And I know a ton of German Shepherd people and I want to shoot them. And that's what's drawn me to it. And I want to go to those championships. No other reason. It's not a bias of any other kind. So at the AWDF, which all breed championship in the US and WDC, there might be a handful of alternate breed dogs. And for the most part, they're not going to be placed in the top. Now, I'll still make great photos for them. Right. And I'll enjoy that. And I will post those photos because people want to see this. People definitely want to see them. They want to see it. I posted a photo of an Airedale. I can't remember. It was two years ago. I can't remember what the event was. I think it was WDC. But the blind blew over and the helper standing there straight up in the open air as the dog's running blinds. And the dog comes around and it was a hard blind. It wasn't a soft blind where it just laid flat. So it's sticking up at a weird angle. Like this is not a picture any dog has ever seen. Nobody prepared for this. And the judge is standing there.

This piece of equipment is lying in the middle of the field. This guy is just standing out there. And the dog has to run the blinds. And the dog ran the blind. This Airedale comes in as though the blind is still there. He still came around. And he's halfway in the air, teeth out, looking majestic. I'm doing my thing. And I posted it. And that freaking photo, you know, out of sport, I'll watch the analytics on these photos to see what goes where. Not just how many, but who's looking at these things, right? It's curiosity and it's sport. That's fun. It means nothing. I try not to let that affect what I post because you can have a photo that will go viral. That's not something that you want, right? So the fact that it's going out there doesn't mean it's a good photo, right? But I'm still, I can't help but to want to peek and see who's looking at these. That freaking, everyone looked at this photo of the Airedale. There was a guy, Ozzy, this dog named Ozzy that was a Bouvier. The Bouvier, yes. Yeah. And it's just running the hair. It's hard to believe this dog can get around the field. This is an IGP-3 national level dog. And it was cool. And it was an elderly gentleman who was doing his best to get around the field. I have to now think of his name because this is. Charlie, Charlie. Yes. Yes. I'm going back to the side. Charlie something and Ozzy. It was a great combo. He always had these moments where he would all of a sudden stop on the top of the A-frame. Yes. You remember that? Everybody heartbeat stops. Everyone would stop breathing. The entire audience. What is he going to do now? And he would look out there to make sure. Yes. Are you guys all out there? Oh, he was epic. And when he walked off the field, he had a lot of shares of as much as anybody that we've heard. There's been some super Rottweilers. Katherine Sanderson a few years back with Zanuck. I think Zanuck was a really big, powerful, super, super dog. Amy Smith had, I think Amy Smith had a Doberman that was super. I think she placed really high. Yes. So I can think of a few, and I don't mean any disrespect for other dogs that I haven't mentioned in there, but there's relatively, relatively few. But once again, through the pictures and this kind of stuff, it almost feels like you can help revive and bring back the excitement about this kind of dogs again. You know, like, I don't know. I'm optimistic that things like this, because people like it, because it's not, there is that little element of the unusual, which is, again, it's sad that it's unusual, but it is right now.

And I think when people that own this kind of breed and they see these pictures and they see the, how everybody gets excited about it, maybe it will encourage them to stay with their breed and do things with their breed. You know, that's so, that's something that it's, I don't think we have a solution how to. So, but I believe they are good dogs in all breeds. And I wish people that are into one breed, they stay put there and, you know, I don't know. To your point, I don't remember which event this was, but it was a recent all breed championship. And you came up and said, why don't you line up all a representative for each of the breeds? And I think there was nine breeds. Do you remember this event? Yes. Was it AWDF? Yes. That was an exceptional, because we truly had. It was huge. It was nine breeds. Yes. And there was a, um, uh, uh, Marisha Stewart's dog. Um, Ken Acorso. Ken Acorso. That's right. Oh my God. This dog, it was like, it was like something out of like a comic magazine. This, the power, the shoulders and the head. And it was beautifully trained. And so you had mentioned that. And I tried to line the dogs up based on your tip. And I said, that's a great idea, but it didn't make a good photo. So we did. The next best thing is I took one of each dog breed in a spectacular moment to showcase the, the spectrum of breeds involved in the sport. And, and to your point, um, to extend that reach, because IGP dog sport, I think some somewhat, um, artificially is limited to certain breeds. People look at it as with a summit limit, not thinking that their dog can do this. There was a pit bull in there. Uh, the Airedale was really rare. Um, I think there was another. There was a Dolby. There was a Roddy. There was a Schnauzer. Schnauzer. Yes. Yes. And all actually, but the cool thing. There was a Dutchie. There was a Dutch. There were good dogs. Yes. It was, it was not just, there was representation at that event. There was high level, maybe not depth within the breed, but there was certainly performance that they, they stood proud against the other dogs. That was a, that was a really, that was the best. I think the best one that I, I had been. Yeah. I, I have to agree with you. That, that definitely. And I think all of us recognize that, you know, it's like, wow, look at this. Including, I mean, who had the pit bull? Oh, it's a Butch, Butch Henderson. And, you know, I mean, I mean, this is a breed that it's looked down everywhere in Europe. They, they're not even allowed to do IGP. Forget about even walking them on the street, you know? Yeah. He had nice, all, all faces were nice with obedience as well.

He looked, he looked really good with the dogs. It's beautiful to watch the, the different breeds because they all have a little different flavor of how they do things. That's just priceless. And yeah. Tell me about your training dogs. What, what, what's cooking? What's going on? I haven't, we haven't talked. We've got a couple of dogs that are up and coming and developing. I've got a Cliffson. So Frank Phillips dog. Cliff, the one that he took to FCI. And T Floyd had a dog that he came in second at the nationals with, with Demi Malabig, a female shepherd. So an offspring of that breeding I have. He's a big, strong dog. And, you know, relative to how fast I got through trials, this is the fourth dog I've, I've trained. So my fourth, I had three dogs that I've titled to IGP three. And so this is my fourth dog and, and we'll have a trial in two months for his two. And I hope to do the regionals in, in three months. He's ready, but took much longer. He's five now. He's took much longer than, than I would have hoped. But photography takes a big slice of this time. Right. And then living, no excuses, but it is a reality living in Houston. And the training is more limited. I was just going to be my next question. How, how are you guys managing? It's much, well, I only say that because of the, the contrast between living when I lived in Northern California and within an hour, there were nine quality, super high quality clubs. Yes. And you were living in California at that time where there were really like, like nests of, of good training going on. It was good. Yeah. You could travel a short distance and get some great, you know, ideas. And I was, it was wonderful. And then here there hasn't been that we trained on our own. We, there's a few people that I trained with that, that I've really enjoyed a fellow named Chris Oquin, who's a long time IGB person in, in Austin. And he helped me on some of the development because this is a big, powerful, very powerful, strong, much stronger than any dog I've ever had way outside my skill sets. So I needed some guidance on a, a, a, a dog that's more dominant and reactive. I hadn't experienced that. So, and it's fascinating because it's a whole new learning curve. Um, the training and style of training that I used before, um, was not, it was clear very early that, that he was going to have his way. So I needed some help. And then T's been, T Floyd, uh, who was the breeder has been guiding me. And he recommended, I see Chris Oquin for, for, uh, foundation work in the protection. Obedience. He, the dog has drive up like crazy amount of drive to, to do that.

Tracking is very difficult here in Houston because fire ants and it's hot. Um, so that's, uh, so that's also have the fire ants, right? Yeah. So fire ants will get in a dog's nose and then they don't want to put their nose down on the ground and you put a piece of food and the answer on it for nine months of the year. So, so that's the phase that's the most delayed of all of them. And then I, I, I'm working with Paul Freeney, a helper here in Houston. I've, I, I got fortunate to, to discover him here and he's, he's a talented helper and very helpful, um, and consistent and, and he's got, he's solid, solid helper. So I'm enjoying it. Jessica has a import Slovakian import, uh, that's a very young dog, two and a half, um, uh, open super temperament, extreme drive, solid aggression, just a good, just a good all round dog that, that is just now starting to awaken and become like, like, whoa, like really, really, really nice dog. Uh, we, we got him from, uh, Dennis Solden had found him and, and, uh, and grew, uh, Frank Phillips had, had, was aware of the dog and he reached out and told Jessica, Hey, there's this dog and we saw some videos and, um, and she imported them. And, and, uh, so we have these two young dogs and she hopes to get a BH here in this spring. Frank pays attention of what, what is out there for sure. Yeah. Well, we had mentioned that, you know, the next year, Jessica would want to want another working dog cause her dog has retired. And, uh, then he said, Hey, this is earlier than we talked about, but there's this dog and he showed the videos and it looked great. And, uh, it's turned out to be, uh, I mean, talk about polar opposites and styles of dogs. We have mine's a hundred pound beast of a, of a dog that, that I walk him four miles a day to, to bring him down so I can get him into a mindset that he's calm and I can, I can guide him. And, and this other dog is just, uh, just super just guideable. Like he wants to listen, super smart, just wants to listen. So I know Jessica also, she, she truly likes the, the helper work as well. She loves it. Do you guys do sometimes train your, our dogs, just you and her or, or she, she does. So, so especially at the beginning, um, she's, she's really good at develop. She loves that. She loves puppies and she loves development work and, um, she's very athletic. She's a paramedic and she's really strong. So she's, I mean, she can do, she's a strong gal. So, so, um, as strong as most stronger than most guys that they're not training. She's, she's a, she's very powerful and she's, she's got really good, uh, Thomas pain in,

in, uh, in South, uh, California, uh, helped guide her through her development. And, and she's, she's a, she's a very, very good helper. So she does help help her work on Paul's dog. And she did a lot on, on Desmo, my dog until Desmo got really, really big. And there's not a dog, most help. I don't want to say too much about him because I still have to get through these trials and I don't want to be embarrassed, but like helpers, he stops every, every helper on the escape. He just takes them and twists them behind it. And we've, there was a point where we're going, she can't, cause she's 120 pounds and the dog weighs a hundred pounds. And so we said, well, we need to get some help here. And then we found Paul through, um, uh, John Landry is, as someone that we know of in the working dog community. And he said, Hey, did Paul's in Houston? And I have never met him. And he said, we reached out, we were able to make a connection through that, but yeah, she does, she does help work. I don't do help work. I could do the, the, uh, stand in the blind back transfer, but, but I'm not going to catch a dog with motorcycle injuries. I've got too many things that are barely taped together. I would come apart really quick. What's your favorite phase? If you like, well, what, what is like the one you feel like you really enjoy out of the three things? I love training obedience. I love obedience. And I love protection. I love them. I mean, I, I, I love these sports. Um, so we're tracking me because of the, just the climate or, or it's just not coming naturally. I think I, I, I can't wait to show my dog in protection and obedience because I'm very proud of where he is. He's at. And I know when we go out there, we're, we've prepared and we're in a good place and the energy and emotions between us. We work as a team and when we go in the field, that dog is responsive, but he's also independent and it's, it's a great feeling. I love it. I can't wait to get, to get on the field with them. And, but I don't want to rush it. I want it to be in a, in the right spot. Um, I don't feel that in tracking. I'm just not as naturally. I, I don't understand this tracking as well. So that's part of it. And then I think it's compounded that I don't get the repetitions. When I lived in Northern California, I got a lot of tracks in because it's easy to track and I either had dirt and, or I had grass and I didn't have ants. So I was able to track year round and I got a lot of tracks in on a year. I'd get three, 400 tracks in 300 tracks. I don't want to say four.

I get three, a solid 300 tracks in at least, which for some people might be nothing, but it was a lot. There's no way I'm getting 300 tracks in Houston. There's no way. Um, it's just not, I mean, I have to. Same in Florida. Like we right now, just because it's December and we are exciting looking at the weather on the phone. It's like, Oh, it's going to be 56 degrees. And it's like this excitement and it doesn't matter how tired we are, what we are. We know it's like unspoken. We are going tracking because you have no choice. I don't know. So, so I don't know when we'll move, but if we move, that will be a reason why we'd move. Oh, wow. Tracking. So, so dog sport, um, dog sport. I view dog sport as a lifestyle. The way that surfing is a lifestyle way that when a person is in music or in, in, in as a racer, you lived that life. And although I have a day job, my, my life is very much guided by dogs, whether it's photography training. I live for those moments. I loved it. I love it. I love the way the dog reacts. I love our energy together. I love talking about it afterwards and going and sitting down and having meals and, and talking about what happened and the good moments, the bad moments and strategy. And, uh, I love discovering new solutions. We recently went up and trained with, um, T Floyd up in, in Dallas and, and he had an interest in the dog cause it's out of his breeding. And, and then he, he later said, you, you've done a really nice job with this dog. I'm surprised how good he looks. And, and I, I was beaming the whole way home. I'm like, you know, this is the breeder. And, and, and he, and I, you know, he's the straight shooter guy. He said it, he's not going to just throw that out there. He's, you know, he's a tough guy. And, and, um, he's all like, he's, and he says your secondary obedience. Cause he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a hard dog. And, and he's like, you've done a great job with that secondary obedience. So we've got to work on some, some of the, the firsthand obedience here, but, but, uh, we, we love it. And so as time unfolds, I would, I could imagine that we would migrate at some point. I, that's what we hope to an area that has higher concentration of, of, well, better tracking. And that's, that's on the list. And then, um, then higher concentration of training, but I'm very grateful for the people we have here. Uh, Chris O'Coin and his girlfriend, uh, Heather are good friends of ours. And, and we, we get to train with them, not this year so much, but in the, in the past, uh, on a monthly basis. And then Paul Freedy has been great.

Um, and then we go to when people are in town, we'll be seeing, uh, uh, George Sauer. He's coming, Dennis Holden's going to be coming here and T Floyd's coming here in the next two months. So as they come to town, we have the chance to, or within town, we're in Texas. So it might be a two or three hour drive for us to get to, but we get the chance to, to, to, to, to see people. Um, and often you'll see that. I was just saying, when, when you, you get to, to, when we saw T in one session, we saw, we got some real clarity on things and it's wonderful because you get in a routine and, and I look forward to getting home, getting changed, getting the dog out, playing a little bit and then getting into the oxygen. He wants to work. That's like, he lives for it. And I live for it. And, and then we'll get like, there's just this little sticking point. And he'd looked and he said, we were, we were talking about, uh, how, when we're, when I'm doing the motions, he, this weird thing in the dog's head where he's straight on healing. And then I would say plots and down on, in an in motion exercise. And he would go into it. He would cock into an angle. I couldn't figure it out. I just, and I can't undo it. It's like, I can't figure like he's straight. He is straight. He's in position. This dog looks good and he's fast and he's in it. His ears are up tails. It's just like, let's go. And then I say plots and go sideways. And on the sit, he's like at a 45 degree angle. Interesting. Yeah. And I'm like, I don't, I don't get it. And so he, he said, well, and I've got my hand on the inside and, and he says, try your hand on the outside. I know it's going to cost you a point, but just try this. Let's see what happens. Dog was perfectly straight. I'm like, I don't get it. I don't understand. My mind was blocked. I had given up. I'm going to give up these points. There's nothing I can do. It is what it is. And, and he had, he had this little, he's just looking at it. He has this little idea. And then these little, and again, I don't want to give away his, his training techniques and stuff, but there was a, there was a, a, a snap to a down that I was trying to get. And he was slower into a down and I want to do fun training. One of the things that, that are mentioned that I really enjoyed with meeting you is you trained the way that I wanted to train. I felt good about what was happening and there's corrections. Totally fair, but it's thoughtful. You're always looking for the angle to let the dog understand what it is that you're asking and make it a game. So the dog wants to get there before you. And he had this for the down.

And so I'm struggling because he's just slow and I don't want to go super pressure. I just want to disbalance. Correct. And he had this little technique and I'm like, oh my God. And everyone's sitting there going, oh my God. I'm like, that was worth the four hour drive up here that right there. And so, uh, the dog sport lifestyle that those things, uh, for us, give us great joy. That's like the, whatever that plumber saying, you know, the knowing where to tap on the pipe. Yes. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly. That only took you five minutes to fix. How could that cost you 30,000 or $10,000? Right. But knowing exactly what to do to, to get that. I think the, the analogy I heard was the, the, the mechanic that makes the ship engine work and he tapped it with a red hammer and he got it working and charged him $10,000. He goes, you didn't pay for the tap. Those are the moments that get you excited too, though. So excited. I love it. This, this little moments. It's like, I love it. I love it. So what are you going to do with what? I mean, I, I can see how there will be the moment that you're going to actually have to decide, do you show the doc in this competition or are you going to be the photographer? Because this is the year, this is the year we'll have three and I, we're going to be in a, we're going to be in a conundrum. And where you are in the photography, it's so important to be there, but then I know you've put the work and it's show time. I don't know. So what are you going to do? We don't know. So I think what we'll have to do is see if we can find a balance where, because we are two photographers and nobody is too, we're the only two photographers show that I mean, I, I have seen more trials as a photographer than most people that anybody that I know, and I'm a photographer. Um, and nobody shows up with the amount of gear that we have, the caliber of gear that we have and the number of people that wish that we have. Nobody there's that doesn't exist at any world championship. So, so even if Jessica stands in for me or while I'm on the field, we're at least par on par with any other option. So what I'm thinking is we may, I don't know how I'm thinking out loud. The, the, the balance might be, we go to an event and I photograph, uh, except for the time I go on the field. Oof. And then, then I go on the field and I've got to get in the mode. It's tough. I don't know. It could help you. Sometimes I, I have had competitions where now something like this was the case that I had to do something else.

And it actually was good for me because it kept me a way of over training over analyzing over, you know? Yeah. So I was like, okay, let's go and do our thing. I, the only thing would be is if it's, if it's late in the day and I'm exhausted, because I'm tired in the afternoon, I'm tired. There's just no faking it. So I, I will run on, on default mode as you're getting late because I mean, every dog on the field, I'm doing 20, 30, uh, squats or lunges. Right. So by the time we're at three, four o'clock in the afternoon, if I'm late in the day, then I'm going out there. I'm beat. I'm beat. And the dog, I don't, I somehow we find a balance. Uh, maybe I don't shoot the event and we compete, but we're getting ahead of ourselves. I still have to get through these trials. I have to get through tracking. Um, and even at that, I, I don't think we have any hope of getting high placements, uh, because of our tracking scores, but I'm, I'm so excited to show his obedience and protection because he's, it's a joyful show. And he's a powerful dog that, um, has, that we've managed to Rubik's cube, solve a lot of things and, and bring out a very nice dog. And he shows, he shows nicely. He, he obviously has a lot of fun doing this and he's a very powerful animal. So I, I, I'm looking forward to getting that chance. If it happens, I'll be grateful. If it doesn't happen, I'm, I'm grateful for being able to photograph the events. So either way, it's a win. I'll tell you something that's crazy that happened here. When we shot AWMA, when I shot, cause that one I did solo, um, I have support from Nikon on cameras and they send me gear to use. I'm not sponsored, but I'm, I'm, I'm, it's part of a program that they have. And, and if you're a, uh, Sure, you've been long enough in the industry. Yeah. And you're published and stuff. They, they, they, there's some qualification criteria, but anyway, they send, and it's usually pristine gear. They're, they're the most amazing company. Uh, and, and again, I'm not sponsored. I buy my gear, but they lend me gear. And, um, which is very helpful because I would buy a body every year and I have two bodies. It was, this body's cost 6,000, $7,000 each. So that's part of the advertised expense that I've got to, I've got to depreciate over the course of a year, a $7,000 camera. And so when this happened, it was like, Oh, this is, this is huge. This makes this a lot, takes a lot of the stress off this. And, um, and so they send these cameras and they're usually totally reset and they're perfect. And so I get to AWMA and it's just me.

And so I grabbed one of the cameras and that was a, um, that was a smaller venue, right? So it wasn't a full stadium. Yeah. And so I have a shorter, really exotic lens. It's a 120 to 300 F 2.8. What that means is it's got a very big optical element at the front that brings in a lot of light, very fast. So it's a specialty lens. And then I have the, I own that lens. And then I have this, this state of the art body that they sent. Somehow this camera did not go through their check system when it got returned to them and they sent it out. Never had this happen. So I shot the events and there was particles on the sensor. No red, red lens. And I get back in and I normally go through and I've, I've marked, these aren't necessarily the best photos, but I marked some photos so I can post. And I like to try to promote the events. It's good. The timing is that it's right away and you get some stories and it's good. It's good for the sport. It's good for just on a lot of different levels. And, and, um, it's, it's a, it's a sort of a ritual we have. So we get back to the hotel. I download the photos while I'm showering, getting fresh. I come back, pick some photos out, write some quick stories. Then I get to relax and go eat and have socialize. And then we, we start over and he pulled the first photo up and it's got red splotches on it. I'm like, my heart sunk. I shot 8,000 photos today with this. Oh boy. And I'm thinking what on earth? And so I wrote them and they said, we're so sorry. And they FedExed another camera out there. I mean, there's this amazing company. That's just like, this would never happen. It's never happened. I've used them, never. Somehow there was a mistake happening, but I'm still stuck with 8,000 photos that have red blotches on it. So 8,000, you have a call rate of about 95%, right? So I said, I shoot a thousand. You're going to deliver 50 on a complete package. Then we have a little economy package that's less, but on average, 50, 60 photos. That's insane. That's a 5% keep rate. So 5% of these 8,000, I've still got 400 some odd photos. I've got to go through each image and individually fix the image in Photoshop. It's like, you can't plan for this. So I go, and I can't let these photos go. If I sent it, you could probably not notice because it's small. Because when I'm editing, I have it big. But I go, but I know it's out there. But you know. I know it's out there. So I went in. I took each one of the Photoshop, and I kind of know where it is mapped out to fix it. And I go in, and I fix those. Because my background is portraiture, and you do it a lot when you do portraiture, right?

So I know how to fix the photo, but I had to fix every one of the photos and then send them out. So it delayed things. I was like, when it was done, it was like this huge weight off the shoulders. But it's one of those things where you face these challenges that you can't expect. That WDC, when they had the rain, the fog, when we were over at AWMA, where you couldn't see anything, and you had to somehow make pictures, people still want their photos. They want a story to tell. And you have to deliver that. There has been, I can't remember the event when it was 95 degrees, and I'm melting and dying at the end. The world championship where we had the tiny area that we had to work in, and you had to make it happen until they gave us more space. But you're saying, dude, it's your heart rate. Yes, your heart goes up because at the beginning, you asked me that question. Because you think you're prepared, but inevitably, you're going to get problem solving. That's like tracking. That's what makes it awesome. You have to think, something's going to happen, and you've got to think in your feet. You maybe have never seen it before, but somehow, you've got to figure it out. And that's what makes it, I think, fun and exciting and memorable. How much is AI playing anything in your industry, and where is that going for you? I don't know where that's going. So photography is becoming more accessible, right? So an iPhone now can be your little walk-around camera. You can use an iPhone, and the quality of the image as a snapshot is phenomenal. When I say snapshot, that means it's just a capture of the scene that's in front of you. There's no depth of field, or there's nothing. You're not controlling anything. Speed, shutter speed, depth of field, you don't control anything. On action photography, it's still requiring that the photographer know what to do, because the camera, even today's cameras, they don't know what the hell you're doing. You can say action photography and try to get the settings. You cannot shoot what we do on automatic. You have to shoot manual, and you need to know what you're shooting. You still need these long lenses. But what we're seeing in the post-production, it's getting easier. So you can hit filters, and it will read the software. And this is one of the things we're going to start sharing more on our photography, because literally, I'm not worried about sharing the info. I want to do it. It's good. It's good for the sport, for more people to have the photos. And if someone can out-hustle me, then great. I've got to raise my game. It'll push that, right? That's right.

So we will be doing that over the winter. But you can hit presets, and it will apply a theme or a look to the picture. And so that takes a lot of it away. A big chunk of the work can... But it's not the same, because it's heavily seasoned, and it's obvious to someone who's looking at it that that's a filter. Like, to me, I would not want to have 50 images that look that way. If you did one that's kind of cutesy and that's cool, that's in effect, I don't want a real photo. The photographer needs to be invisible. You need to go through that, and you're living that scene. And it's perfectly rendered. It's crazy even how you describe it. It's crazy. Well, so even when you have AI, you still have to be able to frame a photo and choose what you're putting in the frame, the field of view, how long a lens you're going to use to create this image, how you're choosing to do that. The lighting that you're... The angle that you're shooting... Like, I'll often shoot, and I'll be looking for a soft light on the cheeks of the person with the light on the side. And a few feet will make the difference. The camera... AI is not going to do that. You can try to artificially put that on there. It's nowhere close to as good. So where it's helpful is, occasionally, when I shoot, if you're getting aggressive and risky, you're pushing in very, very close. And it gives you very little forgiveness on framing. The best quality photo has no wasted pixels. I use every pixel to get the subject. The easy shot is to shrink the subject, and I could be drunk and get the picture. But the picture's not going to be nearly as good when you fill that frame. You have to crop it. So we're trying to fill the frame. And when you do that, sometimes you'll cut corners. And when I say cut corners, the framing will be... When you straighten it so that your horizon's correct, the corner will be cut off. And they have software that fills those pixels in. And make up for it. And that's pretty darn cool. That's pretty cool. So that's it. Can you ask it, like, if you give the, like, the, whatever, the weather and everything, would it be able to advise you good enough? Watch lens and how to set up the camera for optimal shots? Yeah. So that information is already... There's programming on the camera that you can set those settings. And it's a general ballpark. And it gets you there. So it's like when someone says, what kind of e-collar should I get? I want to start training. It doesn't matter. You have to know how to use this stuff. What kind of camera? Doesn't matter. You've got to go through the basics. And you've got to get repetitions.

That's a very good analogy. And you've got to learn how to see what you're... And you've got to see the picture. Because you're going to make the picture. You've got to know what you're going to shoot before you shoot it. Now, then you've got to be in the right spot waiting for that moment to happen. That's the next level. And then you've got to be able to do this when you're exhausted. And you're subconsciously just acting now. You're not even... Because you're just exhausted. Because you're literally going to get... I don't care how in shape you are. Eight hours into photographing a world championship. And it's 40 degrees out. Oh, I see. Sometimes, you know, I take pictures of you and send you meanwhile as you're shooting. Because it's crazy when I'm watching you all day. Without a doubt, this is tasking on your body and your brain. There's no question. If you were to catch me at a moment of weakness, I'd go, what the hell am I doing? But afterwards, I'm so glad. Because what fuels you is you have these hours to capture the photos. Those hours are fleeting. They're an opportunity. And it's gone. So you get it then. You have all the time in the world to edit later. Yeah, people get impatient. But the impatience is gone once they see their photos and they love them. But if you didn't capture them because you didn't put the work in, that would not be good. So when I'm exhausted, what's driving is you've got to be able to deliver as a pro of your craft. And being proud of what you do. And if my name is on a photo, I want consistency and I want that quality. And I want it to have a brand recognition. And it matters. It's important to me. This is something I love. And each one is something important. So I'm making those photos. And I'm looking. And no one's more disappointed. I work hard. You'll see that. If I missed a shot, because I don't care who you are, you're going to miss shots. It's going to happen. The autofocus captures the chain link fence behind instead of the dog. It's a black dog. It can't see the contrast. And then you're going to see me going crazy running to make up for it. I've got to get something else. I've got to get something else. I need a money shot now because I missed that shot. But that's fun. That's the challenge to make sure that they love their photos. And that you've done something. So do you have things lined up already? Or you don't know quite what's up 24? So we usually plan six months in advance. I need that lead time because there's a lot involved. I have to schedule with my work. I have to buy plane tickets. And if I wait to the last minute, it's not cost effective. I can't do it.

Right? So this all has to be planned. So tentatively, the game plan. And then it's subject to being selected because you don't know. There could be lots of factors of what happens. Right. Who gets what gig. So at this point, going into 2024, I know for sure we'll be shooting AWDF and WDC for the beginning of the year. That's great. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. I don't think we're going to shoot FMVB this year. It's just going to be tough for us to figure this. Italy is a good place to go. I'm dying. It's killing me. But this is the year we're trialing and I need the time off to trial my dog. Very good. And I'm trying to get this balance. So if we weren't trialing my dog, we would be doing Italy. Yeah. Because that singularly is my favorite country to shoot in. One of the very best experiences at competitions for whatever reasons have been as a team. Everything. Everything. The country, the organization there, the passion of the people. It's an amazing place to do dog sport. So we are going to miss that one. So we can get through these trials. And then later in the year, we'll see how that plays out. But we do plan on doing WSV in Germany. And then if we get selected, I'd love to do AWMA, the Malinois Championship, and the USCA National Championship for German Shepherds, which will be in the end of the year. Okay. And that will be it. I often will fill in with some portrait work, dog portrait work in between. But we have other activities that we want to fit in that we play with. I like go-karting, race karts. Oh, wow. So I have a race card. We got the Ducati's behind us. I see them. Track days with the Ducati's. I see the little monsters there. Panigale. Panigale. Yeah. Nice. And then we want to do road trips with the camping. And then also dirt biking. So there's a lot of things going on here in the time that we're trying to squeeze in. So we're restricting it to five events this year. And then I hope to do these dog trials. And then later this year, we'll see about doing it. If we get picked for the Nationals, that would be really cool. Awesome. But pretty full year planned. Brian, that was a super conversation. I enjoyed it too. I want to, I just want to tell all the dog sport people that whenever you guys like a photo, that hopefully you got a good feel of what it takes and how much passion and effort goes into. Please don't crop the outer. Don't take the outer out of the photo. This is, it's just like breaks my heart when I see it. And I don't know how you feel about this, but it's one of the worst things to do. Don't put a filter on it. Right. Yeah, those two. But it's, it's. Whenever credit has to be, it's so easy.

It stays there. It's actually, it makes the picture even more authentic. Right? Yeah. I like to think that, but I become less, less. I'm concerned about that. Interesting. I, yeah, it doesn't. At the beginning, I think at the beginning you're hypersensitive and, and it doesn't. If someone sees that and that's what they want, that that's okay. And I, I've made a point trying to, to provide images to organizations that are trying to do the right cause. There was a calendar recently, not two years ago, where it went to wounded warriors and I gave them the photos. Nice. I made, I made that calendar. Um, you know, uh, when we, the book, that book on the, the, the, the German shepherd book. Yes. Um, that we just did the interview on, um, you know, that those photos, I was happy to participate. I think they're trying to do the good thing when. For sure. Organizations need, need that stuff. Um, we want to do some promotional videos this winter. That's, uh, that's one of our project things. Very cool. And I'll keep my fingers crossed that you guys somehow will find out, find time and, and make some cool calendar because I, I would want it. I think we'll have to put that on the list. I would want it. I, I, I should talk to Jessica maybe if, if needed. Brian, hope to see you soon somewhere. It was a lot of fun talking to you, man. I hope to see you soon too. Thank you so much. All right, my friend. Take care. Bye. Thank you.