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Episode #024

Finding Conservation Stories in Your Backyard with Mike Forsberg

by

UPDATED: May 21, 2023
ORIGINALLY AIRED ON May 19, 2020

 

Looking at what’s near you is the easiest way to keep consistently working on something for the long haul. Join the master of photographing the beautiful familiar, Mike Forsberg, as he talks about working on a local passion project for years on end.

 

Finding continued artistic creativity in a project, as well as figuring out the best ways to get the story out there, can be a challenge. What helps is looking toward those doing exactly this in a brilliant way. The Platte Basin Timelapse Project, launched and run by Mike Forsberg, is one of these ideal sources of inspiration.

Mike is an absolute master at recognizing and photographing beautiful scenes of the every day, and his long term project documenting the Platte River over long periods of time thrives in large part on this talent, this capability, of seeing so much more than most people see when they look out their windows or as they walk along a trail.

In this episode, Mike joins us to talk about how he has shaped his project over the years, and how his relationship to the project as well as his photographic skills come into play in his conservation messaging.

If you’ve been thinking of starting a long term project or you’ve been working on something for awhile now, this episode is going to inspire you. Mike is full of knowledge, and his quiet, contemplative yet extremely purposeful and productive approach to his work will definitely leave a mark on you.

 

You'll Learn:

  • How your project topic can span cultural divides, and teach you more about communication than you ever realized
  • How to allow a story to take its own direction and guide you. As Mike says, “If you let them, the stories will take you where they want you to go.”
  • How to notice the value and importance of the stories nearest to you. And how to recognize something special in the nearby: “I think all of us have something that we can call a habitat of our heart. It's the place that we feel most alive in the natural world, and there that can be almost literally.

Resources Mentioned

Episode 024: Finding Conservation Stories in Your Backyard with Mike Forsberg

Shownotes: ConservationVisuals.com/24

(Digitally transcribed, please forgive any typos)

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Jaymi Heimbuch:

What we conservation photographers figure out pretty quick is that if we want to work on a long term project, often it makes sense to find something in our own backyards. Looking at what is near you is the easiest way to keep consistently working on something for the long haul. It doesn't require it on a travel time. It allows you to get out on weekends or before after work and really dig into your project without any excuses in your way. I'm doing this with my Watershed Sentinels project and that all takes place within a 50 mile radius of my town. And some folks find projects that are of a much smaller diameter and some much larger now. What happens is when we are working on something for a long time. What we can run up against is figuring now continued artistic creativity in the project and figuring out the bass trays to get the story out. There can be really sticking points. Sometimes our inspiration can Wayne or the project becomes kind of big and complex, and we're really not sure the way that we want to tell the story over a long period of time. What can help is looking toward those who are doing exactly these things in a brilliant way.

The Platte Basin Time Lapse project by Mike Forsberg is one of these ideal sources of inspiration. Mike Forsberg is a fellow with the International League of Conservation Photographers. He's been in this room for a long time, and he is an absolute master at recognizing and photographing beautiful scenes of the everyday. And his long term project documenting the Platte River over long periods of time thrives in large part on this talent, this capability of seeing so much more than most people see when they look out their windows or as they walk along a trail. His ability to really see this is what sparked creation of this amazing project that has been going on for years. So Mike is joining us today, and we are talking about how he has shaped his project over time and how his relationship to it, as well as his photographic skills, come into play in his conservation messaging. If you've been thinking of starting a long term project, or if you've been working on something for a while now, this episode is really going to inspire you. Mike is full of knowledge, and his quiet, contemplated yet extremely purposeful and productive approach to his work will definitely leave a mark on you. So let's get into the interview.

Welcome to impact the conservation photography podcast. I'm your host, Jaymi Heimbuch. And if you are a visual storyteller with a love for all things wild, then you're in the right place, from conservation to creativity, from business to marketing and everything in between. This podcast is for you, conservation visual storyteller who is ready to make an impact. Let's die then hello and welcome to another exciting episode of impact.

Now, before we dive in, I want to let you know that this episode is sponsored by conservation photography courses. This is the only online education platform designed specifically for conservation visual storytellers, And it's exciting times because enrollment is opening soon for the digital course. Conservation Photography 101 This is my signature program for helping you master how to uncover, photograph and pitch a powerful conservation story. Now, whether you are brand new to the scene of conservation, photography or you have some experience, but you want to take your skills to the next level. You likely already know that you need a systematic approach to discovering and photographing fresh stories and a strategic way of getting them into the hands of editors. And that's what my signature online course offers. It is a road map for finding a compelling story, crafting storytelling images and writing an eye catching pitch to send two publications. Enrollment for this in depth educational opportunity is starting soon, so head over to conservation photography courses dot com tow hop on the weightless. That's conservation photography courses dot com, And when you joined the wait list, you will be first to know when enrollment opens. All right, let's dig into this episode.

Thank you so much, Mike, for joining us today on Impact, the conservation photography podcast. And I'm truly excited to get to talk with you because you've been an inspirational figure to me since the very, very beginning of my own journey and conservation photography years ago. And I know that this interview is gonna be packed full of inspiration and insights that all listeners are gonna benefit from. But I have to admit that I I'm extra excited just for myself to get to sit down and talk with you. So thank you so much for being here. Well, you

Mike Forsberg

Thank you. First of all, Jamie, your expectations airway Way too high for talking. It's let's just get that straight, right out of the shoot? And, um so, uh, but thank you. And it's It's nice toe. Nice chat with you today. So let's do it

Jaymi Heimbuch

Yeah, so you are well known as a conservation photographer, but I think that your best known project is the Plat base in Time Lapse Project, and I know this project well, But for folks who haven't heard of this project yet, would you mind kind of talking a little bit about what this is?

Mike Forsberg

Sure the plant based in time lapse project has a couple goals, couple missions, really, but really at its root. It's trying to get people to think about where the water comes from. And with that, what does it mean to live in a watershed today and what is the watershed anyway? So this is a project that was started in 2011 by my buddy Mike Farrell, and I and Mike has been a documentary film producer for public television for about 45 years, he worked for Nebraska public television, telling stories mostly on the Great Plains. History, geography, some natural history work. And Mike and I had just finished a production called Great Plains. America's Lingering Wild, which was a documentary film that was based on on a book that I did of the same title and we were driving home. I remember this were driving home from from Western Oklahoma. What was the last shoot for this Great Plains film? And you know, you've got a lot of windshield time and and Mike said So what you thinking about? And I said, Well, you know, thinking about what's next, You know, we're wrapping up here and on this book and then this film and been looking at my big backyard in the Great Plains last several years. What's next?

Mike Forsberg

And so we started talking about water Pretty soon, I thought, you know, be really cool is the thing that hit home for me and the working in the Great Plains. My home is that every time you go back to someplace, it's changed. You know, the peoples and people have changed. The landscape has changed. Whether has changed something has changed and that really, that really struck me. And it also struck me that any time I talked to anybody out there in the Great Plains, um, as a photographer And I know you get this too. And in all of our colleagues do this for a living. Lee become across this all the time that, you know, we'll go and talk to somebody out there in the landscape, you know, and be a farmer or a rancher. Biologists or somebody lives deep in the woods somewhere, and and you know, you'll get there because you're there to photograph something and they'll say, Well, you should have been here yesterday. Hey, hey, last year, I remember the time when you know the river was this high or or the, you know, the lake was this dry or, you know, And so that idea of thinking about thinking about time and thinking about change over time and thinking about the land as something that is always in motion, something that's always changing and that it's alive. How can we How can we, you know, get at that a little bit more

Mike Forsberg

About the same time, Jim Balog, who a lot of your audience may know. And if you don't should look Jim up. Jim has been a world renowned photographer, great storyteller, a scientist by Trade, National Geographic photographer. He had started a project called the Extreme Ice Survey, and Jim had put cameras around retreating glaciers in various parts of the of the world and and was documenting that change over time. And those became really, really compelling arguments, the time lapses that came out of those cameras. And they continue to irrefutable proof that that things were changing and things were changing quickly. And and those cameras were just simply bearing witness to that. They weren't political at all. They just showed it, you know, And and so those that change over time, what Jim was doing, The thing that Mike and I were talking about looking at the Great Plains, where I live as this place, it's always in motion and always changing. But let's wouldn't be cool if we could. If we could time lapse a river, wouldn't it be cool? The time lapse, maybe an entire watershed, and that will? Why not the Platte? Why not the Platte River, which is in the heart of the heart of the Great Plains of North America, and it starts up in the Rockies of Colorado and Wyoming and and runs down through the through the prairies and, uh um and through Nebraska and then dumps into the Missouri River. What a tremendous stage. Let's time lapse that.

Mike Forsberg

So that's what we That's what we set out to do. Um, I approached a a friend of mine, Jefe Dale, who runs a company called TRL Cam, which builds out camera technologies for photographers and film makers and such, and asked Jeff if he could build some time lapse camera systems, which he hadn't done before. But he figured that he could do it and we sat down and we thought where we would put us many cameras this week as we could get a hold of and we started putting him out on the landscape. And so we started, I think, Jaymi, that first year in 2011. So we started with maybe 12 cameras, most of which a Nikon professional service is had generously gifted to me and the in this sort of startup idea. And now we have over 60. The highest ones are at over 11,000 feet up high in the Rockies, and the lowest one is at the confluence of the Platte and the Missouri, you know, sort of the other side of the watershed. Actually, it's not there anymore. We had we had very big floods this last spring, and so we had several cameras washed away in those floods. That was one of them. So I suppose that one's down in the Gulf of Mexico by now. But But each one of these scammers air out on the landscape. Each one, if you think about it, is a different chapter. You know of story of our water as it moves as it moves through our lives in a watershed and and hopefully through building time lapse videos out of each of these cameras, we can help people get to see that the that the place that they call home is a living, breathing thing and that we're all connected to water you can't live without. It's one thing that you can all talk about. You all have a stake in, and, uh, and we're trying to build community around a watershed. So we're trying to not think about you have to acknowledge the straight lines that we drew on a map a long time ago that delineate counties, um, and states in the West and in the Midwest. But we're really trying to blur those lines and really think about nature's boundaries, which nature knows no straight line, as far as I know,

Jaymi Heimbuch

absolutely, and in talking about community a little bit more, you know, I've watched the P B T website really evolved over the years, and it I remember looking into it years ago, and it was relatively straight forward like this very cool experience. But it's evolved a lot over time into this incredibly rich, interactive experience for anyone to go and dive into. And you. There's so many cool ways that you've put together timelapse imagery for people to experience it, whether it's through video and you can play the video and just see that landscape breathe, or it's through slides that are almost like you're going through a flip book. So how did you navigate the evolution of that website so that people can go and experience the watershed in this way and and be part of that community?

Mike Forsberg

Man, we just made it up.

Jaymi Heimbuch

That's a perfect answer

Mike Forsberg

seriously are completely organic. And, you know, and Mike and I started this project it, you know, it started out as our project. And within about six months time, we realized that this was not our project. This was gonna be a lot of people's project, and everybody was gonna bring something to the table, and we were just gonna build this thing together. And, uh so we've had, um a on our on our plant based on website. We have a page that shows all the all the folks that work with us now or are alumni that used to work with us. And And where are they now to tell you, I mean, most of the brilliance behind behind how the website works today and how it's evolved doesn't have anything to do with my career. I it has to do with the students of ours at the University of Nebraska, either either past or present or future. And, um so the first frame for this website was actually built by one of our first students that we have been one also one of our first interns on this project. A guy named Steven Spiker we know Stephen lives in lives in Seattle any A and he works for the New York Times. You know, um and we have people that have planted all around the country now that, you know, have contributed to plat base in time lapse and then going on to do really cool things in their in their career and s So we really have sort of made this up out of out of clay. But, you know, we try to hang our hat with this website. Um, and then this platform is as, um you know, we're never We're never done first of all. And second level, we want us, you know, we're gonna do education, We're going to do research, and we want to do storytelling both formally and informally. And the education side we've we've done both working with school teachers and then just doing stuff on our own. Um, the research is coming along. You know where none of us are researchers when none of us are scientists that are attached to this project. But we're increasingly working more with researchers, mostly through because we have these cameras that we have 60 out in the landscape when We started this project in 2011. We're gonna be 10 years old next year, and we've got over two million images so far and count. Wow. So that's what that's. They're not just pretty pictures, but their visual data, and that's really important. And over about a stretch of 10 years, you can actually start to see stuff. You know, it's taking that old, boring physical geography textbook, and you're bringing it to life. You can actually see, you know, the rise and the rise and fall of drought and flood. You can see erosion and deposition. You can see change of the seasons and responses toe just prescribed fire and differences and grazing patterns and the encroachment of invasive species and all that stuff. So all of that is is great fodder for research and then the storytelling component. You know, we've told about 100 and 40 stories, I think so far in this watershed, and our approach is, is is to get us many voices as we can to contribute to it. And each time we come up with something, if there's something we don't know how to do, but we wish that we could we just figure it out,

Jaymi Heimbuch

coming back a little bit to the community that you are hoping to really build out of this project and how rich that website has become in terms of stories that are coming from all different people. And the stories were told in very unique ways. So one story might be, you know, Bill on as re platform that's really interactive. And then another story might be like a poem that you are following. Someone threw about this landscape. So what? In the years that you've been working on this and you've been seeing people come in and out of the team and community members discover community members, as in statewide or even internationally, discover this project? What have you noticed about the impact that it's had on people? Are? Do you have any examples of how this has really changed the way that people think about the river about really, the watershed as a whole.

Mike Forsberg

Yeah, it's, you know, it's that sort of tough to tough to measure, and I get asked that a lot. But what I can say is said, I think that well, I know that people that come to this project where this project comes to them. Um, I know that it helps them think a little bit differently about the water that's in their lives and, you know, with our premise when we asked, Where does our water come from? I would love everybody to know where the water comes from, but that's not as important to me as that. People begin to think about that question. That's the important thing is that they're thinking about, and because that's that's then an important, it's an important turn. I think, because our water doesn't just come out of the tap, you know where I'm from. Where does it go? How does it interact with our lives? And and so I think the testament to this project really is built into the growing community that we have. So there's there's more folks that are asking about this project or wanting to participate in this project that are are in Colorado or Wyoming, or maybe they're down Street in Missouri or some other place. It's and it's a diversity of voices from a diversity of cultures, diversity of ages, and I guess for me that's that's where I see that this is being successful. And we have, um, increasingly, we're getting calls and feelers out or approached by other people, other entities and other watersheds in other places around the country to ask, How can how can we do what you guys were doing? Or how can we be a part of your network? Or how can we take the template, um, and lifted up and apply it here in our own backyard and make it our own? So I think that that's that's where the hook is really is really being set. And the good thing about water is that you can talk about water to anybody. And it's not just how much water, but whether or not that water is clean, whether or not enough to drink, you know. So I have a buddy of mine named Cliff, who lives in Connecticut, and we were on the phone one night and this was years ago and he could hear it was raining outside when he was talking to me on the phone and he said, You know how much training you guys getting? And I said, Well, I think it's predicted we're gonna get like 60 hundreds of an inch and he says what he means. 60 hundreds of an inch, you know, with 60 hundreds. What? Why do you Why are you saying that's like Well, jeez, I don't know. I guess that's because that's how we measure water out here because, you know, once you get into the Great Plains and you get into the West, that's how precious water is. You know, it's we measure it in the hundreds of AnAnd shot here and that always that always stuck with me. But, you know, and I have friends who have lived in other places in the in the east or or another geography is that they've got plenty water, have a wealth of water, but they don't drink it out of there. Tap because because it's not healthy, it's not safe. Or they won't let their kids or their dogs or anything else go swim in the lake because they're signs that says that say, it's poison That's terrible today. It's flat out wrong today, so you know you can I can't I can't get everybody to care about prairie dogs or whooping crane or, you know, some other in polar bear. That doesn't mean that those creatures aren't important because they are. But I know that we can have a conversation about water, all of us, anywhere we live because we all live in a watershed and we all need water to survive, and we're all primarily made of it. So this river, that's outside, looking out the window that I'm looking out of right now on the on the Platte River, that that water is in my blood. It's me. It's part of me and all the people that live up and down this community along this along this river and say the same thing. It's literally in us, and that's a pretty powerful thing. So it becomes a muse for us to tell the story, and it's a gateway in Doorway and everything else.

Jaymi Heimbuch

So I know that when I work on a project for a long time and buy a long time, that might be, you know, six months a year, a couple of years. Eventually, the project starts to shift. How I look at things as a photographer, how I I understand the ways to tell a story, or how I might utilize visuals. Um, what has working on this project done for you as a conservation photographer. What have you learned about yourself as a conservation photographer? A storyteller through the plat base in time lapse over the years.

Mike Forsberg

You know, I think that one thing that I've allowed myself to do is before I used to have a pretty good idea of this story that I wanted to tell before I walked out the door and damn it, I was gonna tell it that way, you know, that's I've done my research. I know. Its story is I know what my arguments are. I know that I know where you know where my direction is set. And I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna find the statistics to tell it the way that I want to find the pictures, to tell it the way that I've got it in my brain. What this project has allowed me to do is it has allowed me to understand that there are stories out there that want to be told and they're looking for somebody or somebodies air a vessel by which to tell them, and they will. If you let them, the stories will take you where they want you to go. Just like following the water, it takes you where it wants you to go. And so for me, it's it's really helped me Relax a little bit, um, about being so determined to tell a particular story, but to let that story tell itself and be more and more in tune, be more an observer, be more of a listener, um, and done and just and just let it flow.

Jaymi Heimbuch

So two things that you just said that really strike me are to really be in tune and to be an observer. And one of the reasons why I love following you on instagram is because you almost daily show these really beautiful images of these really basic plane familiar scenes like whether it is tracks in the snow or a feather caught and grass or its tree limbs. You know, you have this truly exceptional I for seeing beauty in everything that's around you. And I know that so many photographers get stock in finding creativity and unseen the potential for these beautiful photographs when they're super familiar with an area and the way that you mentioned, you know, being very present and being an observer, you know, how do you combat that kind of boredom with familiarity and and see such beautiful photographs everywhere around you during that daily grind.

Mike Forsberg

I don't know, really, I I think that to me, photographing is about photographing what you feel and you photograph. I fought. I photographed because I have to. If I'm not making pictures on a regular basis, which for me is to simply means if I'm not connecting with the natural world in some way on a on a daily basis, I'm not a very good person. You know, e it's one of these things that I just sort of have to do. And, um, and I since I was a little kid, I've, you know, I was I was the kid when I was in kindergarten that I would get fights on the playground with my with my friends because they would want to go step on the ant hills, you know, and I didn't want to step on the ant hills and kill the ants. You know, I was I was the one that wanted the wanted to g o, you know, find the lost dog and all this stuff, and and ah, and would stop and probably stare too long. At a sense, it and those are things that are just gifts. I think you know, And and, uh um I really, really care about about this place, about about our world. And I'm lucky that I've been able to find a have a camera in my hand for that to be a vehicle vehicle hotel. Well, the share I guess with other folks how I feel about about the world around us. And yeah, you're right. You know, there literally is beauty everywhere, and we need that beauty. And there's tremendous power in beauty. So, uh, but, you know, I one of the cool things about working on this project and working in community with other people as a photographer is that then you get to be able to see what they see with their eyes so we can all go stand shoulder to shoulder on a hilltop and each of the same camera and the same lens and watch that sunset and photograph that sunset. But you know what? Every single one of us is going to make a different picture. Why is that? It's because we're all different and we're all taking it in emotionally. in a slightly different way. So, um, you know, when I when I started as photographer, a long time ago? Um, I'm a very introverted person by nature. And I figured, you know, if I can if I can make pictures and get paid for it and not have to be around a lot of people most of the time, that's what I'm gonna do because that's how I can handle with being extremely shy, you know, And, uh, after a few years getting into it, I realized, Well, I'm gonna do this. I've got to be ableto talk with people. I gotta be able communicate, and I gotta be able to work with others and now spinning forward, You know, many, many years I look back and I'm so grateful that today I look forward to working with others, I look forward to being on projects like this. I look forward to collaborations because you know, the beauty that I see out there, it's great, but I'm just is interested in seeing what other people see now to Andi how they take it in. And that's that's really what we're trying to do, I think, isn't it in the conservation world and conservation photography in general is, you know, we we're only as powerful as what our voices are together. Um, you know, we we need every single person's voice because every single one of us has a different has a different perspective.

Jaymi Heimbuch

I truly could not agree with you more. One of the things that I see so often, especially in in photographers who are starting out and they have a passion for conservation photography. But they're just starting out there. It's almost like a nervousness to move forward with whatever it is that they're interested in working on. And it's so important to me that they find that confidence in that courage and whatever resource is and support they need, because they're every bit as important as a conservation storyteller. As someone who's been doing this for many, many decades, I have one more question for you. I think that I know the answer to it, but I'm gonna ask anyway. So speaking of conservation photographers, that air getting started a lot of times I noticed that folks can get stuck in figuring out what project that they want to work on, when when they are just starting out, and they know that there's kind of like a wise move to make by choosing a project that is really close to home. But it's really hard to figure out what to work on. And I'm guessing that you probably hear all the time from different people like Nebraska seems like such a boring place to be. And yet look at this extraordinary project you have going. So do you have any suggestions on how a conservation photographer can go about finding a really interesting project that's right there in their own backyard?

Mike Forsberg

The patent answer that I have is to look in your backyard, you know? I mean, that's that Find the, you know, find the polar bear in your backyard sort of thing. What is, you know, what is it that you really, really care about and that you have access to that you can get at go to spend time with on a very regular basis, um, over and over again, so that you begin thio, get into the rhythm of whatever it is that you're trying to pursue, and I think that that's really I mean, that that's my that's my answer, and that's what we That's also what it has played itself out really well in so many people that I that I know that there are colleagues of mine are contemporaries. But even more so in the in the young people that, um that since when? Since we've been talking about the plat base in time lapse project, I mean, we have we have three graduate students in our program. We have a number of undergraduate interns sold through, you know, in partnership with the University of Nebraska on each of our graduate students, they have selected a story that they're gonna tell as their as their graduate work. That takes place over time on the land, and and, you know, each one of them has selected something that is in most cases, very close to home that they can get access to, or if it's a little further away. It's a place that they can go to again and again and again, again, and really and really dig in. And by doing that, you you do gain the confidence because you get to know it really well. You get to know these places and these creatures you also get to know the people that are there. So it's it's really, really important that you that you pick something that you really care about is if you pick something that you don't care about, you're gonna hate yourself halfway through it. You know, it's not It's not gonna be worth doing. And secondly, you gotta be able to have access to it. So I've seen lots of really great young photographers that have gone all over the world, have brought back beautiful pictures, um, from Antarctica and from Africa, from Iceland and from, you know, Alaska in all these places. But the most compelling work that I see that they show me is not from those places. It's from the places where they live in places where they grew up or in the category of the topic or whatever that they care most passionately about. You know, it's photograph What? No, it's just like, you know, missionaries. Old quote about writing. Write what? You know. No, on dhe that may not seem as sexy right out of the chute. But if you do things locally, if you're doing them locally, you're gonna build community around the work that you're doing, and you're gonna get people, they're going to start rooting for you. They're gonna help you. They may even fund you. And you were gonna be able to see the difference that you were making. Whereas if you were trying to work half ways around the world at a young age with limited resource is you may never see that I don't try to discourage anybody from from going out, spreading your wings and going wherever life takes you. But man work close to home because you'll have impact there, too. Real impact.

Jaymi Heimbuch

Well, Mike, I know that at the very beginning of this he said that my expectations were way too high. I have to tell you, you were completely wrong. You have dropped so much great information just through talking about what you do on a daily basis and what you care about the most. And I've I personally right now feel very inspired to take my camera and head down to the creek. That's about 1/4 mile away and just sit there and watch and pay attention.

Mike Forsberg

Well, thank you. I hope you do, Jamie. And look, I mean, I'm I'm sitting here. I'm sitting, you know, at the Crane Trust, which is a conservation organization on the on the Plant river and central Nebraska. Um, and you know, I'm I've been coming to this spot and this river for most of my life, and and I still I feel like I've barely scratched the surface and it's not very far at all from my home, you know, it's just every day there's something new, everything. There's some every time there's something different, you know, right now we're on, we're right on the cusp of spring and walk outside and, you know, the Platte River and Central Nebraska sort of the pinch in the hourglass of the Central Flyway, which is this huge international fly away in the sky that's trucking millions of birds up and down the continent. And and right now you know, you stand outside and you look up and there's and there's, you know there's snow geese and there's Canada geese. And there's and there's, um, Mallards. And there's pen tales and there's sandhill cranes that are starting to come. And there's and there's, you know, yellow leg shorebirds. There's just all of this life, and I saw an order this morning, and, uh, I saw a beaver and a muskrat. And and, uh um, you know, there's there's bison out on the prairie right now, and and everything is just coming alive and you know that that never gets old. Um, but it never gets old because because it's always knew. But yet it's something that I've known almost all my life, and I think all of us have something that we can call, maybe a, you know, habitat of our heart. It's the place that we feel most alive in the natural world, and there that can be almost literally right in our own backyard.

Jaymi Heimbuch

Oh, Mike, thank you so much for sitting down with us. I know that you are so busy right now, especially with going out and doing repair work on several of those 60 plus camera traps for the plot based in time lapse project and all of the other things that you do on a daily basis. So thank you for taking the time to sit down and talk with us on such a really important topic and for just sharing who you are and how you think as a conservation photographer, because it really is just a joy to hear what you do and what you work on. And to know that those nuggets of inspiration that you provide to be able to grab onto those and go and put it into our work as listeners. So thank you. I really appreciate it.

Mike Forsberg

Well, thank you, Jamie. And I really appreciate you. You're doing some really, really great work. And, um, you're filling in a lot of gaps and a lot of holes for a lot of people right now. And and, uh and you inspire me to. So will this. We'll just keep on truck and down the road.

Jaymi Heimbuch

Yes, Absolutely. Before we wrap up, I would love to ask you to do one quick thing. Subscribe to this podcast as a sex forever. You'll not only know when each week's episode those lives, but you'll also get insider goodies like bonus episodes. You might miss them unless you're subscribed, and I don't want you to miss out on a thing. So he's tapped that subscribe button, and I will talk to you next week.

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