Transcript:

Chris Burkard (00:00):

I remember sitting in a meeting with a creative agency, they’re sending me a creative deck and I’m looking through the deck and I’m like, that’s my photograph. That’s my photograph. That’s my photograph. That’s the greatest thing is that on this call I can be like, well, I’m pretty sure I can nail this for you. I’ve even got a little insight into how this was made.

Ross Borden (00:16):

I’m very, very excited to have Chris Burkard with us, us. I feel like you are the OG outdoor adventure photographer that we are all following the early days of Instagram. There’s sort of this ebb and flow.

Chris Burkard (00:29):

It’s never always going to be like this.

Ross Borden (00:31):

And what would you give as advice to young creators who are like, I have the adventure, I have the love for travel. I need to figure out how to make this my life’s work and make it my career.

Chris Burkard (00:41):

Ross, that’s a great question.

Ross Borden (00:43):

This is creator, the podcast for Matador Network. I’m your host, Ross Borden, and I believe creators are the future of all global advertising. So join me as I sit down with top creators to hear about how they got started, the challenges they’ve overcome, and the tips you need to become a full-time creator. Welcome to another episode of Creator the podcast today. I’m very, very excited to have Chris Burkhard with us. Chris, how are you doing? Where in the world are you right now

Chris Burkard (01:16):

I’m currently at home in Iceland, so a new home for me as of the last year and a half. And right now just evening time, right around 5:00 PM my time, I think. Are you in the West Coast? Time,

Ross Borden (01:30):

Time, yeah.

Chris Burkard (01:31):

Okay, there we go. So yeah, this is a shift, but nowadays most of my working day is kind of pushed into the evening, so I feel like this is pretty par for the course. And Ross, I’ve known you for maybe, what, six, eight years now, so it’s epic to be chatting at.

Ross Borden (01:48):

Yeah. Yeah, that’s awesome. I actually didn’t even know you were based in Iceland now, so we’ll get into that in a minute. But first, for the listeners, I know that most of them I’m sure have probably heard of you, followed you over the years. I feel like you were the overall, the OG outdoor adventure photographer that we were all following the early days of Instagram. But tell me even before that, before social, before the word creator was even on the scene, take us all the way back to where’d you grow up, how did you get into photography, and then what brought you into this world and where you are at now?

Chris Burkard (02:30):

Well, my mom brought me into this world, so that was the start right around 1986, central California.

(02:39):

Truth be told, I was pretty much a hellion in my youth, not the most focused kid out there. And I think that a big part of it is just growing up in a single parent home and not having a lot of direction. So when I found photography, which was really at the end of high school, I was around 18 years old. It was more about connecting with my peers, my friends. It was a group of dudes that were running up the coast of California trying to surf, ducking under barbed wire fences. I felt like this kinship to that group, and in some way I felt like my place was to be this documentarian. I was using a borrowed film camera, an old cannon, and then I was buying expired film from Rite Aid, and I would go to the one hour film developer and I would develop that film after we’d have some session up in northern California or central California surfing.

(03:41):

So it was really pretty bare bones. I never in a million years thought that photography would even take me to where it has today. And in fact, it’s still pretty shocking. And to be honest, it wasn’t something that I ever pictured as like, oh, the camera is the tool, this is it. To be honest, even today I don’t even care about that. It was always about traveling. It was always about seeing new places. And ultimately that goal of realizing that when I had a camera in my hand, I felt like it opened doors and I would flip through the pages of National Geographic and Time Magazine and outside and dream about going to those places. And so I think that I always looked at photography as a tool to just simply get me to out of this small town and out of this tiny environment. And it did. It took a long time. I don’t want to illustrate any kind of picture. It was this quick journey because it wasn’t at all. In fact, it was the opposite. But it taught me a lot and I feel really grateful and indebted to what it’s given me. And now it is. I call myself photographer, but I also call myself a lot of other things, and I’m pretty proud of the hats that I get to wear and

Ross Borden (04:54):

Yeah. And when did you start to actually from that early time when you were documenting your friend’s adventures and you were the group photographer to actually jumping into some of those trips and going on these adventures through where that camera was taking you, what was the early side of your career?

Chris Burkard (05:15):

Yeah, so I mean early side I would say again, was purely just surf trips with friends. And it wasn’t anything that was a paid or a career or any kind of focused effort. It was just haphazard chaos. If anything, I think where it changed, where it evolved was when I sort of had that epiphany that, okay, I wanted to go places. I wanted to see the world. I didn’t know much. I had no passport. I had never been on a plane, I had never gone anywhere. I’d never been past the western us. I grew up in California. And so for me, the big vacation in the year with me and my mom was like, how far could we drive our car? That was it. So I got to see places like Yellowstone and Yosemite and the Sierra and Utah and everything. But beyond that, I had no idea.

(06:08):

And so when I kind of had that epiphany, I put all my attention and focus into what type of photography is going to allow me to travel. And I was super passionate about landscape photography, but I realized really quickly that wasn’t probably going to be the thing that was going to make money. And so I kind of explored everything, senior pictures, weddings, anything to make a buck. When I chose to quit junior college and I quit my job working some really crappy job, I was like, I’m going to do anything to have photography become my living. And it wasn’t glamorous at all. In fact, it was the opposite and the very first trip I ever did, again, I’m fast forwarding a ton because I don’t want to bog people down with my origin story, but the very first trip I ever did was to Dubai and Yemen and Oman, and that was for transworld Surf Magazine.

(07:04):

I had eventually kind of poured my efforts into shooting, surfing, documenting, surfing as a surf photographer, and the dream was to be somebody. I was like, well, surfing gets to take you to cool places. I understand how this works. I grew up in the ocean. I was aware of the culture and how to I think tell a story what I basically did as a kid. And that was my first assignment was with transworld. I had scored an internship there that was more of a hazing experience than anything else, and I learned a lot. It was not easy, but I think that set the stage for so much in my life that I feel indebted to that experience is what I’m saying. And learning about magazines, learning about the editorial process. And this is when magazines were everything. The internet was in its infancy, I would say. And that was it.

Ross Borden (08:02):

Yeah. If you mentioned weddings, I feel like every career photographer, everyone, and I know in directing photography, filmmaking, who has a badass career now started as sort of a rite of passage filming weddings and doing that kind of stuff to start, and that’s a hell of a first assignment. So did you go to Ttra? Where was you guys for that first trip?

Chris Burkard (08:25):

We were right over the border of Oman, and we basically just explored the coastline, some remote islands. I think that Kora and Yemen is probably a little more tourist friendly. This was probably 16, 18, 6, 17 years ago or something like that. And it wasn’t a place that Americans were, I think we’re traveling. And so we had put Canadian flags on our backpacks, like stickers on our backpacks, and we just told everybody we were Canadian and Oman, Oman and Dubai were obviously super, super chill and relaxed, but we were trying to get out there. And oftentimes when you’re going to places where there’s surf, you’re going to outer islands, you’re going to remote areas, you’re kind of scouring the coastline, ending up at some little bay talking to fishermen. So we were doing our due diligence to try and make those trips and those places worthwhile. And it was tough.

(09:18):

I mean, those trips, those early experiences, they taught me so much. But if anything, I really realized that I was lacking so much in terms of how to connect with people emotionally. Because at the time when this is your first experience seeing the world and all of a sudden you’re seeing these moments that look like a Steve McCurry National Geographic cover, and you want to go up to these people and take a portrait, but you have no idea how to interact, you have no idea how to work with your nonverbal communication, you’re using the camera. I am using the camera as almost a filter between myself and my subject because I was uncomfortable because it was uncomfortable and it’s an awkward thing at first time coming from the west. And you see this culture that you have no idea how they operate, what their lives have been like. All of a sudden at noon, everybody drops down to their knees and says a prayer, and you’re like, whoa, this is crazy. And I feel so indebted to those early experiences for teaching me a lot, and it really opened my mind and my heart up to so

Ross Borden (10:23):

Much. So for us as travelers and photographers, creators. Do you have any quick advice for photographing people when you’re in that situation and you’re like, man, I can’t not take a video or a photo right now, but I don’t want to be misunderstood. I don’t want to be seen as disrespectful. I’ve been in that same situation. It could be a little bit tricky.

Chris Burkard (10:47):

Absolutely. I mean, it took me years. I’m not going to say that this was something that happened quickly. In fact, I would say that’s something I really had to work on for a very long time. I had to kind of prioritize and put in effort. And I remember very vividly in Cuba, maybe seven, eight years ago, I was on assignment there shooting kind of a catalog for a brand and shooting some stuff. And I remember walking the streets of Cuba and seeing just amazing stuff. You’re on the great ocean road, you’re seeing kids jump into these cracks in the reef and just women with all different types of colorful clothing on and just the most animated faces, and you want to take pictures of everything, but you kind of have to remember, this is people’s daily life. These aren’t caricatures. These aren’t people that are there to perform.

(11:38):

This is just life happening. And I realized very quickly upon pulling out my camera that it wasn’t even me. I watched somebody else. I remember sitting down on this little kind of brick inlay right along the road watching other photographers, this dude with a big cannon strap and his big white camera, white lens, black camera, start taking pictures of kids and immediately the kids stop what they were doing and they put out their hand for money. And regardless of how you feel about that situation, that’s just how the world operates in a lot of these places. People don’t really want to feel like their photographs are being taken all the time and they’re not as willing. And although I have no problem with that, there’s no problem to me to pay somebody some money to take a portrait. I do think that it does strip away a lot of the kind of intimacy of that moment, the vulnerability.

(12:37):

And I thought about this. I was like, man, I don’t want to be that person first and foremost. I don’t mind paying somebody for a cool portrait or whatever, but I just want to understand why am I doing this? What is my process? I went back to my hotel room that night. I remember taking all the stuff off my camera. I had two camera bodies with me. I had this tiny Sony NEX mirrorless camera, and I had a bigger full frame body, and I was like, I’m going to take this small one. And I had some climbing webbing with me, some old climbing strap, and I used that as my neck strap, took off my Sony logos, taped my camera. And what I realized really quickly was that I was unobtrusive in that moment. I had sort of approached photography, not so much as this, I’m a professional, see me, I need to be seen, but more like I want to just be a fly on the wall.

(13:29):

So first of all, my camera became a lot less invasive. Secondly, my approach, I just stripped down. I put my board shorts on. All I had was this one camera, one lens. I didn’t have a bag with me of a bunch of different stuff. And I walked down to the Great Ocean Road, same time, it was like afternoon. Kids are just playing. They’re just jumping into the reef. And I remember putting my little bag down, putting my stuff there, and I just jumped in and started swimming, started swimming with the kids. I jumped off this thing three or four times, and immediately upon getting up, I was just one of them. I was just hanging out. And then it became this kind of casual exchange where I pulled out my camera, I took a photo. There was this equal amount of respect and that experience, and I’m sorry, I know this is a long story, but it taught

Ross Borden (14:16):

Me a lot. No, that’s what I wanted. Yeah,

Chris Burkard (14:18):

Yeah. It taught me a ton. And it taught me so much about the idea of trying to interact and realizing that the connection first always like if the goal is to immediately pull out the camera, which was my experience in that first trip to the Middle East, you’re not going to get the results you want people, they’re thrown off. And I can’t only blame myself because I didn’t know any better. And nowadays my approach, having gone to a lot of these places, remote Russia and India and et cetera, et cetera, I really want to capture an emotion. But at the same time, it’s important to feel it too. It’s important to interact. So I always reserve the opportunity, the privilege of pulling out my camera when I know that I’ve in some way kind of connected with this person. And that doesn’t mean you need to always speak the language. Nonverbal communication is powerful. But there have been moments in India where I’m finding myself sitting in someone’s home holding their baby for a long time, and then all of a sudden this moment kind of unfolds where I get to take a portrait. And that’s really special. It’s something that sits with me a lot deeper than just firing away frames knowing that I left these people potentially feeling uncomfortable.

Ross Borden (15:36):

Yeah, I love that. I also found that showing people the photo when digital cameras came along when I was traveling to Africa, it started with kids. Kids always love to see, and a lot of these kids in these rural areas don’t really get to see themselves a lot. And it would be so awesome to show them the photos you took. And I’ve even found with older people that they just appreciate seeing the work and that you’re stoked on it, and it’s more of a sort of playful interchange rather than subject and photographer. So you mentioned K Chaka, the royal trip you did, or in the middle of Nowhere Trip you guys did in Russia. And I remember that was in the early Matador days when we were publishing some of your photos.

(16:27):

I think we were broke as a company and back then, and I think we were one of the sponsors that you reached out to and we couldn’t scrape the money together. But that I see as one of the sort of watershed moments of your career when your career really started to take off because that trip was so epic and you guys got so much epic, incredible footage and photos and had such an incredible experience on that trip. So can you tell us a little bit about that trip, how it came to be who you went with and what ended up being sort of the results?

Chris Burkard (17:03):

Yeah, I mean, it’s interesting you bring that up because I’ve used that trip as sort of a benchmark for sharing and helping people, maybe younger creatives understand the value of collaborating and also the value of just realizing that there was a time when social media was really frowned upon in terms of supporting magazine articles. And so this experience, exactly the one you’re talking about, going to Kim Chaka surfing this really rad remote surf trip, it would not have been possible unless I had basically raised money by bringing on a handful of brands to kind of chip in to make it possible. I was working for Surfer Magazine at the time. They didn’t have the funds to basically pull this thing off. And so I remember reaching out to you guys and Polar and Patagonia came on board, et cetera, et cetera. And the point I’m trying to get to is that it was the first time where the magazine let us share moments in real time on social media.

(18:09):

And what I mean by that is that we were able to make posts in the field on Instagram and other channels. This was early days of social media too. But before that, it was like you can’t share anything until the article comes out, et cetera, et cetera. And we had, prior to this happening, we had made these relationships saying like, okay, well Matador is going to publish something online and Patagonia is going to do some real time updates. And the goal was that everybody wins, right? Because there’s this print article and then the brands get these, the ads that they need, and social media was going to play a role. It wasn’t so much a time when I think that my following on social media was valuable at all. So it wasn’t something where I was necessarily bringing exposure to brands via at CRISPR card, whatever on Instagram.

(19:00):

It was more about just teasing out the trip and creating excitement. And ultimately that’s for me has always been the funnest way to use these tools and to support something bigger, a film, a book, an article, a web article, whatever it was. And I also feel, and this is no disrespect to Matador, but at the time I knew that I wasn’t going to make some paycheck, but I did know that the followers and basically the subscribers and the people that saw this channel, it was a lot and it was a big deal and you guys were having rapid growth. And the way I always saw it was like this is going to be an inroad to something bigger. This is going to be an inroad to something larger down the road. And I’ve always been one to advocate for giving exposure for free in some capacity or trading images for exposure when you feel like it’s right.

(20:01):

Sometimes it doesn’t, sometimes it does. But that was one of those situations where I was like, you know what? This is going to be cool. I know they’re going to give it the proper exposure it deserves. And if that translates to print sales or a book sales or film attendance, we made a film from the trip and we toured the film, that’s where the benefit comes. I think that to me, I’ve always looked at partners like working with Matador in those early days of how can this support my other endeavors? It’s not always been about trying to make as much as you can from all these kind of various sources. In fact, a lot of the work I did for Surfer Magazine, like the retainer that I got paid, the money that I got paid from them barely covered the cost what I was doing. It was more of a means of getting the work in front of other consumers, customers, clients to make money.

Ross Borden (20:55):

Yeah, I’ve always admired that about you in terms of your savvy of, I think photographers, a lot of them take sort of a closed stance to sharing their work. They’re like, even in the early days of matter where we were publishing these big photo essays and where some photographers were like, oh no, this is my rate. And then you got to take it down after six months, there’s a licensing fee. And we’re like, forget it. Nevermind. You are always, are you crediting me done? Take as many as you want. And I was like, Chris’s photos are better than anyone’s. And he’s got this really open stance on sharing his photography. And I think in a lot of ways that’s paid off because that’s why you’re so well known. Your photos are everywhere, and they all led back to your Instagram or one of your other channels and then people were able to follow you. Do you have any thoughts on that or advice on sort of that open sense? I for

Chris Burkard (21:48):

Sure, and I appreciate you saying that. And I just want to be clear too, I was never undercutting any other photographer out there in any capacity. I’ve always been a huge advocate for people sharing their fees and understanding what someone’s charging so we can kind of keep the rates high. But I’m a firm believer in the idea that we can create multiple streams of revenue and we can lean into those streams of revenue. For me, a big part of that was print sales or book sales or like I said, film tours. So I was always thinking about, okay, my media partners, who are my media partners? Well, at the time I had Surfer magazine and Surfline and Matador, which was, Matador was nice. It would publish a lot of the work that was maybe not always surf related, maybe climbing maybe a travel essay, et cetera, et cetera.

(22:40):

And I always looked at these media partners as like, well, this is my free pr, this is my press, and they are obviously publishing something, working with advertisers, getting paid, but what’s the value of the exposure? And maybe I’m going to nickel and dime them to charge 200 something bucks for an essay. I’m like, is it better for me to give them more and receive more exposure that then can turn people’s attention to this book I want to sell or this event I want people to attend? I’ve always found that fostering those relationships was more profitable than trying to just, I don’t know, collect some small amount of money. And I get it, if that’s your only revenue stream is working and publishing work online or publishing work in print, then that’s what you got to do. But I think that where I really sort of realize the value is I remember sitting in a meeting with a creative agency, one of the big ones like Chiat or Wyden Kennedy or whatever

(23:42):

Agencies that represent the Apples and the Abercrombie’s and the Harley Davidsons, whatever. And we’re sitting there and they’re sending me a creative deck and I’m looking through the deck and I’m like, that’s my photograph, that’s my photograph, that’s my photograph. And they had no idea. And that’s fine. That’s what creative decks are. They’re internal. They’re meant to give the photographer photographer or the production company inspiration. And to me, I’m like, that’s the greatest thing is that on this call I can be like, well, I’m pretty sure I can nail this for you. I’ve even got a little insight into how this was made. And ultimately there was a shift right around maybe the late two thousands when digital photography really came into its own. And obviously social media came into its own where you would see this all the time, people putting big watermarks across their photograph.

Ross Borden (24:32):

And

Chris Burkard (24:32):

Nowadays that’s unheard of because the point is for stuff to go viral, is anything going to go viral if it’s got CRISPR card written halfway across it?

Ross Borden (24:41):

No.

Chris Burkard (24:42):

So there’s this kind of give and take. You want the work to get out there, you want it to get in front of the right people, but then you also want it to find you again. So you want that full circle experience. So I kind of realize, well, I’m going to put some of my best work out there online. I I’m going to utilize and lean into social media as a tool to share not just my B and c and D photos, but some of my A photos, some of the ones that maybe didn’t make it into the article or some of the ones that I’m really proud of. And I learned at a certain point that I had more, I could give them more life and exposure than maybe this magazine. And yes, there were times where I’d publish something and they’d be like, oh, well we saw this online so we can’t publish it anymore. And I’d be like, that’s a bummer. But it still ended up bringing money back. Yeah, Nat Geo, they’ll publish the cover on social media before they’ll choose the cover. They used social media as a tool to kind of see what has the most positive response. And I think that that’s a great way to use it and to lean into it. And that’s kind of the thing that I have tried to adopt.

Ross Borden (25:48):

Yeah, I think it’s brilliant. I always admired you for that and obviously it’s paid off. So let’s talk about that sort of your jump from being a photographer to someone. People were following on social media to all the other things you do. You had or maybe still have, I think Chris Burkhart’s studio in Central California. What your Instagram, you’re followed by millions of people, but I feel like you’re not on their hawking brand deals most of the time. It’s like all of your passion work and stuff that’s promoting other things that you’re doing, whether it’s books or films. So tell us a little bit about that evolution. All of a sudden you’re following is skyrocketing, you’re traveling all over the world. What came next in terms of your career?

Chris Burkard (26:37):

Oddly enough, early on I kind of tuned in. I keyed into the that if I wanted to get my work out there and I wanted to get out of this bubble that was surf photography, because in the beginning of my career I was like, this is the greatest career choice ever. I live the dream, I have the dream job. And very quickly the wallpaper starts to fall off and you’re like, huh, this is not that great. Or there’s a limit and maybe you want to have kids, you want to have a house someday, you’re not going to make it on that budget. And so

(27:12):

Early on when I published my first book, I got very lucky and I did spearheaded a personal project. I received some money from a grant that I won with my photography. I used that money to try and do a trip that was purely focused on making a book. I could have used that money for anything. I could have bought new lenses, bought new tires from my truck. I could have, I don’t even know, bought some groceries. I was living in my truck at the time, shooting surf photos at the beach. And ultimately I was like, I want to do a trip about California, a story about the California coast. So I made this book called the California Surf Project, Chronicle Books picked it up. Long story short, when this book got published years later, like three years later, glacial, okay, so it’s not instant at all of a sudden my photographs were in front of say the mom and pop wine store on the California coast and some little place that sells artwork and Barnes and Noble, it was everywhere, urban Outfitters.

(28:14):

So I was getting my work in front of new audiences, and I really thought about that long and hard. I’m like, this is the answer, this is the key. I need my work to constantly be getting in front of new audiences because right now I’m just serving the same group over and over. That’s why I saw Matador such a value. Early days, I was researching travel websites and I’m like, well, I want to shoot more than just surfing. I have all these epic photos of travel to the wildest parts of the world, but I wasn’t getting published there. And I was like, what’s wrong with me? So I started to look into those options. I started to get my work into in front of new places. And I guess to answer your question, yeah, I try not to, if I can avoid it, hawk random stuff all over the internet, I really try to focus on doing my very best to get my passion projects, the things that I care about, making films, making books, making stuff that is a story about a friend or a place or a location or a landscape.

(29:12):

That’s what I would really rather rely upon to make money. And yes, that requires a lot of community support to be totally honest, but I also feel like people understand that what I’m giving them or what I’m offering them are hopefully stories of meaningful places, people and things that I care about. And so I guess that’s been my model. Yes, I have leaned upon and relied upon commercial photography, shooting catalogs for brands, directing, producing. That’s work that I love too. I don’t put as much of that out there because I feel very strongly about putting work out in the world that I want to bring back. And that’s kind of been, I guess my motto.

Ross Borden (29:52):

I love that. And I think a lot of people think of books as this old school thing that an old pre-internet way of making money as a photographer or putting out work. But you’ve been very successful with book publishing, not only finding new audiences, but revenue wise, building your career, how many books have you published and how has that, how stacked up in terms of work that actually pays the bills?

Chris Burkard (30:23):

Well, I think it depends. It depends on the year or the project. So I would say that some of the most successful things I’ve ever worked on my children’s book, this is a children’s book that isn’t really speaking to my age group at all. I mean, it’s as relevant for adults, but this was a project out of nowhere. I made it because I have two boys and I’m passionate about teaching the youth and trying to urge them to find answers in nature. Nowadays that book is at every national park bookstore. That book has been, it’s won awards. I never imagined it being successful like this. There is probably years where a certain project, like a book or the film under an arctic sky requires a lot of time and energy. It doesn’t always mean it’s the most profitable, but what I’m trying to get at here is that there’s sort of this ebb and flow, and I like to call it rhythm, like the rhythm of business, which it’s never always going to be like this.

(31:23):

If it is, you’re going to burn out or you’re going to become a workaholic or something is off and there will always be dips. And so to me, the intelligent, creative businessman, whatever, when there are times of plenty and maybe you have extra money to spend or you are feeling creatively energized or you’ve done a lot of commercial work, you’ve grinded fairly hard, that’s when you need to pour your time or your attention or your money into something personal that then will create a PR buzz for yourself that then can hopefully perpetuate more commercial work. Does that make sense at all? I know that I’m explaining this not the very best way, but I have always ridden the wave of excitement around projects over the course of two years. And what I mean by that is I’ll come out with a film, I will promote that film and I will see it through, and that will take six months or a year.

(32:19):

And maybe when I’m doing that, this is a personal project, I’m not working as much on commercial projects, but I’m seeing that through then usually the benefits from those, the benefits from my children’s book, the benefits from Under an Arctic sky, the benefits from other films I’ve made have come back to me because somebody saw it and somebody wanted to hire me to do something else. So does that make sense? I feel like the personal project and the passion project, they inform the commercial work. I’ve published now seven, eight books and I’ve tried to have those books be spread out to two to three years apart.

Ross Borden (32:57):

Yeah, it’s very smart. It’s kind of like the flywheel approach for finding new audiences, but also getting the flywheel going for the promotion and the sales of the books. And I appreciate what you said about taking that as an opportunity when there’s a lull, when there’s not so much work, you can focus on stuff you’re kind of more passionate about there. Tell me about your relationship with Iceland. I had actually no idea that you were living there. Are you living there or part-time now?

Chris Burkard (33:29):

Well, I mean, my kids, I’m paying taxes here, so it’s about as full-time gets, I think I’ve probably published 2, 3, 4 articles with Matador over the years about Iceland, whether it’s a surf thing or whether it was something else. And it’s interesting because my relationship with it has changed. So it wasn’t something where in the very beginning I even imagined ever living outside of the us. I came to Iceland maybe 20 years ago, and I was here for a magazine assignment for a men’s journal, and I just kind of fell in love on the first trip. I was like, oh, this place is magic. I love it so different from home. So cool. What an amazing place. And then as I got older and as I started, I had kids, I think that somewhere in the back of my mind I was like, that would be a fun place to bring them.

(34:20):

And what I’m getting at is the reason I’m here is because of my kids. My kids hit in age where I wanted them to have more freedom. I wanted them to have a bit more of that freedom that I felt. I’m sure that you felt growing up where you could go down the street and play with friends until dark and come home. And I just wasn’t finding that in California where I lived. And so I wanted to give them a bit more of that independence and show them that to me, nature, access to nature is the priority, not like how much can dad work? Because I think that it’s easy. And again, I’m just saying for myself, I’m not saying that this is everybody, but I will say that hustle culture is very prevalent in the us. Nobody ever stops to say, wow, you’ve really got a good thing going. You should just enjoy this. Everybody just wants to know what’s the next thing, the

Ross Borden (35:17):

Next level, next

Chris Burkard (35:18):

Step, yeah, what’s the next level? And to be honest, there is always a next level, and I’m aware of that, and I found myself thinking that way constantly. And so I got a little fed up with that and a little irritated by that mindset. And there’s nobody to blame but myself, like I said. So yeah, the reason I came and the reason that we stayed, we came for one summer. We spent a week, came for another summer. We spent a month with our kids. The next summer we spent three months and we were sitting back at California and there was wildfires and it was hot, and I was like, this is not where I want to be at the end of September. And so we just decided to stay and now we’re here. And I guess the reason I’m saying it’s still partial is because I have to go back to the US quite a bit to work. And that require, it asks a lot of me, it’s not fun to be on planes. I think the novelty wears off pretty quickly, as you know. So the western us still calls and I love it. I mean, there’s nowhere in the world I love more than the western us, but for a place that I can call home, this has been really special and I think that it’s given me more time with my kids.

Ross Borden (36:24):

So where do you guys live? Do you live in near Revic or do you live out in the country?

Chris Burkard (36:30):

We live, well, truth be told, we own a little bit of property out in a remote fjord out in a remote corner of Iceland, which is epic. And we get out there as much as we can. But we live just on the outskirts of Reykjavik. So my house is in an area called 1 0 4, which is the zip code. And it’s nice because you’re not in the hustle and bustle of the city, which is a hilarious thing because it’s more like a suburb of la. I

Ross Borden (36:57):

Mean, it’s so small hustle and bustle of Ray.

Chris Burkard (37:00):

Yeah, the hustle and bustle of the country that only has under 400,000 people in the whole country. And so yeah, I get the chance to get out of town really fast. And there are days where before I start my morning calls, I’ll go skiing and go fly fishing and come back for a chat like this. And I just feel like it’s an amazing privilege. It’s been pretty amazing.

Ross Borden (37:22):

That sounds like a pretty good lifestyle. I think you found the balance you’re looking for. That sounds epic. So getting back to the business of being a creator, because you were saying earlier you have days where you ski in the morning, fly fish, and then you do some calls, you’re living with your family in Iceland, you’ve kind of won at the game of life of total freedom, doing what you love. Yes. A lot of time on the planes for sure, but I think there are so many people who want to reach that level, not necessarily of making money, but more of the lifestyle and freedom that you’ve achieved. What have been sort of the drivers in your financial success as a creator, and what would you give as advice to young creators who are like, I have the adventure, I have the love for travel, I need to figure out how to make this my life’s work and make it my career.

Chris Burkard (38:15):

Right. Well, I did that. I mean, Ross, that’s a great question. I wish I would’ve given myself that advice 10, 15 years ago or had the answer to that. I would say that first and foremost, I’ve never been a great person at learning from other people’s mistakes or other people’s successes. I feel like I’ve always had to learn from my own way of doing things, which is usually to fail and then figure it out. In fact, I wrote a book about this exact process called Wayward, which is kind of like a pseudo memoir about all my life’s failures, I guess you could say.

Ross Borden (38:49):

All the nar,

Chris Burkard (38:51):

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I mean that’s part of life is realizing that at a certain point when you think you have it all figured out, you usually don’t. I would say that I don’t want to get super spiritual here, but I would say that it’s required a lot of introspection to get to this place. That being said, moving to Iceland was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my whole life. I sold my gallery, my business, my production studio in California, this massive office that was epic. And I had a climbing wall and custom artwork everywhere. And I bought that maybe six years ago and I was like, this is the dream. This is where we’re going to build our enterprise. And I started realizing that I never stopped and paused long enough to ask myself just because I can should The question never popped up.

(39:39):

And I think that as we chatted earlier, I think that what I’ve noticed in Iceland especially and in Europe is like there’s a big difference between the way people look at capitalism here versus capitalism in the states. And I guess I just wanted to really understand, is there a point where I can just be satisfied and I can just be happy and I can actually spend the time? Because coming from a blue collar family big time and the idea of saying no to work was sacrilegious. It was like, you don’t do that. If opportunities are coming to you, you take ’em all. And I prided myself on being more busy than you or her or him or whatever. I prided myself on being the person who like, well, I’ll say yes to that job, or I’ll do that job or whatever. It’s okay if I’m going from one to the next to the next.

(40:30):

And all of a sudden you have kids and your kids become of age because in the early stages of having kids, they don’t notice if you’re gone and then all of a sudden they do. And then you realize, well, this is taking a toll. And again, I don’t want to, but I do want to lead with a little bit of vulnerability that it’s hard when you wake up one day and you’re like, well, work is the thing I’m good at and what I don’t think I’m good at is being a parent or being a husband or being a friend. And so I tried to put life on pause a little bit and reflect more on what I want. So I guess what I’m getting at is that unless you pause and think about what that means to you, what does success actually mean to you?

(41:15):

Is it a number in your bank account? Is it a number of followers? Is it, what is it? What does it look like? And I think that I had to reflect on that pretty deeply to come to terms with that. But I would say that what did set me up, I guess early on was I didn’t go to college. So a lot of those years that people spent partying and doing all the things you do at college, I didn’t do. I worked. And so I just want to be realistic about the sacrifice. I got married at 21, I had kids at 26. I went straight from high school to my first to trying to make a career out of this, and there wasn’t much time wasted. There was no debt. It was just basically living in my car. So that being said, I think that not having a plan B, not having a backup plan, it really helped me because this was it. This was the only option,

Ross Borden (42:10):

No safety net you just had. Go for it.

Chris Burkard (42:14):

And I know this is probably the worst piece of advice to give anybody. I feel like this is not what maybe you were expecting to say, but I do feel like I would’ve been maybe more successful, made a few less mistakes had I just honed in a little bit more on what is it? How am I going to define success? When young creatives ask me the question that you’re asking me right now in some form, I always ask them the same question in response. And I say like, well, what is success to you? How do you define it? And for example, if success is a destination that has an actual ending point, only then can I or you or somebody much wiser than both of us offer directions. But if people have no idea what that means, if people have no idea what success means and does success mean happiness, then they’re never going to get directions.

(43:10):

They’re never going to get, nobody’s going to be able to guide them to that place that doesn’t exist. So I think that that is the advice that I’ve given myself and thought about. And I think I spent years of my career just trying to find success without any determination of what it meant. And I think when I finally honed in on making a name for myself, it all changed. And I feel like you guys were a critical part of that. When I started to hone in on going to places that were cold water destinations where I felt like I was making a name for myself where I was maybe going to locations that were a little more risky, a little more challenging, where the images meant more, where I was actually loving the work I was doing as opposed to just phoning it in for the magazines,

Ross Borden (43:57):

It

Chris Burkard (43:58):

Started to build a reputation and it started to set me up for more success in the long term.

Ross Borden (44:04):

Yeah, we’re getting a little philosophical here, but I think that’s good. I think people, that endpoint that people have of happiness or success, it changes as you get older. I was the same way. I was like, it is a dollar amount. It is. I want house here, house there. Now I look around two healthy

Chris Burkard (44:23):

Kids,

Ross Borden (44:24):

My wife freedom with my work, it’s better than any dollar amount,

Chris Burkard (44:29):

Dude. I think that’s really

Ross Borden (44:31):

Important.

Chris Burkard (44:33):

I feel so lucky just to be able to be healthy and be here. And I know we are getting philosophical, but isn’t this what we do as we get a little older?

Ross Borden (44:42):

A hundred percent. And that’s also what travel inspires you to think about and give you some context. And not to hate on America, but I do think there is this sort of hustle mentality that you can go overboard in that hustle mentality. And I’ve met people older than myself who kind of snap out of it when they’re in their sixties or seventies and they’re like, holy shit, I worked my whole life. I didn’t stop to slow down and enjoy the things that I had. So I think it’s an important lesson. Alright, man, we got to wrap up soon, but something I ask, well, two things I’m going to ask you. One again, you’ve been to more crazy adventures than almost anyone I know. What is another place that’s on your bucket list still one of these sort of remote or non remote adventures that’s still on your list that you’re like can’t wait to do?

Chris Burkard (45:34):

One place I was dreaming about for a long time is I really wanted to cross lake by call, which is in Russia, it’s the lake. It’s like one of the biggest lakes in the world and it freezes over. And what I was fascinated by was the pilgrimage that people had made for thousands of years. I mean, it has always been almost like a superhigh for trade. I mean, I don’t know all the facts about it, of course without reaching into my notes, but I had wanted to go, I wanted to cross it on bike, I wanted to cross it on a car, I wanted to go photograph it. I dreamt of photographing people riding horses over it because this is what they have done for hundreds or thousands of years on this lake. It became a trade route in the winter. And I am fascinated by places where you can take the beauty of storytelling and weave it into history and weave it into a narrative that helps to kind of remind people of, I guess something that we’ve forgotten about, I guess you could say.

(46:29):

And also just stunningly beautiful. But I think that at this point, traveling to that country might be hard and obviously not something that I think is safe nor do I want to support. So yeah, I mean there are trips and places, the Colan Islands, which is a small island just above Antarctica that I’ve wanted to go to, but it’s nearly impossible. You need a scientific vessel or permission to get there. And so I guess at this point, I’m not going to say my bucket list is full, but it’s almost harder and harder because the places I dream of going are more remote, more expensive, need to find that funding to get there, that super big project to kind of take you there. But I’m also super content going back to the places I’ve been before, pouring more time and energy and having a deeper connection with them. I’ve sort of been that guy who realized a long time ago that I don’t want to just get more stamps in my passport. I want to actually invest myself certain communities and become somebody who I think is valued for their time they’ve spent there. So it’s brought me back to Russia and the Pharaohs and Alaska and Norway and Iceland, et cetera, et cetera. And that’s been really, really cool too. So

Ross Borden (47:43):

Perfect lead into a question I ask everyone who comes on the pod. So if your passport only worked in three countries for the rest of your life, you had to choose three places to live. And I think I’m going to know two of them maybe, or at least Iceland, it seems like going to be on the list, but I won’t speak for you. Three countries for the rest of your life. You can go nowhere else. What would they be?

Chris Burkard (48:04):

So you can’t cross a border even if that country is connected? No. Okay.

Ross Borden (48:09):

That’s like even on horseback if the lake freezes over. No, I’m saying only in the three countries. I’m curious to know where you’re going with that, but it’s got to be three countries.

Chris Burkard (48:21):

Would Alaska be its own country or would it be part of the us?

Ross Borden (48:24):

Part of the us yes, us passport.

Chris Burkard (48:27):

I mean the US, to me, there’s nowhere with more diversity and it’s obviously, it’s massive, right? It’s hard to even process how big it is, but us for sure, and I feel like iceland’s cheating because live here and whatnot. But I would say New Zealand, I could really get down with New Zealand. I’ve been there a lot. It’s so special. It’s kind of the best of both because you can have all that terrain that you find here and there and everywhere and just for pure, I guess you could say. I was going to say shits and giggles, but you can cut that out if you want. But I would say maybe Norway, because it’s got some of the wildness of Iceland, it gives me that craving, that sweet tooth sort of experience of being in a place like this. But it’s so big that you can get all the way south and have that warm weather and you can get all the way north and be fully in the Arctic. And I think that it’s a little more broad and that would be, it’s awesome to experience. And I love Norway,

Ross Borden (49:43):

So I’m not going to let you off here though. That’s four. If you include Iceland, so

Chris Burkard (49:46):

Say Iceland is not

Ross Borden (49:48):

On the top three.

Chris Burkard (49:49):

It’s not. No. I mean, if I had to,

Ross Borden (49:52):

Interesting.

Chris Burkard (49:53):

And again,

Ross Borden (49:54):

Very interesting answer.

Chris Burkard (49:55):

I’m thinking of places where I know my family would enjoy it and they’d have fun and we’d have a good time.

Ross Borden (50:00):

Yeah, that’s important. All important stuff. Awesome, man. Well it’s great chatting. Congrats. When did you move to Iceland? What was the timeline on this big move?

Chris Burkard (50:09):

It’s about a year and a half. So it was like year and a half, maybe June of, well, yeah, early summer of last year basically.

Ross Borden (50:20):

Well, congrats on the big move. What other new projects should we look for coming out from Chris Burkhart in the next year?

Chris Burkard (50:26):

Yeah, thanks. So actually I’m right now in the middle of doing a photography guidebook, which is sort of the Chris Burkhart’s version of Photography guidebook, which is basically a play on Zoolander like center for kids who can’t read good and want to learn how to do other stuff good too, if you know what I mean. And you understand my humor. And what I mean by that is I’m not going to tell you all the minute details, it’s more about what you need to know and nothing else and how to get by when you don’t have a tripod or you don’t have a polarizer and you can use your sunglasses and this is what I would implement. When you’re out in the field and you’re trying to get creative, grab a leaf and pull it in front of your lens. Just stuff that’s applicable and practical application.

(51:14):

I wanted to make a guidebook that people would actually put in their backpack and have with them in the field. And so it’s, it’s been a process. We’re doing a lot of illustrations for it. I want it to be fun and I want it to be actually very usable and sort of steer very clear from all of the very intense manuals that are already out there, not what I need to make. So I’m working on that. And I finished, I just finished a film tour, or I’m finishing a film tour next, well, it finishes in November for a film called The Forgotten Coast, which was a big bike packing expedition, bike pack, rafting, expedition we did in Iceland. That was, again, it was weaving through history of Iceland’s most dangerous coastline and the most dangerous coastline in the world and why, and people who kind of risk their lives to create a home and an environment in this area. So anyway, it’s a cool film. It’s been touring around the world. We’re showing it in North Carolina next week. I’m flying there back to the States, and then it’s showing it the Kendall Mountain Film Festival in the uk. And then after that we’re going to put it out online. So those are the two things I’m kind of working on and I’m really proud of. And yeah, man. Yeah.

Ross Borden (52:31):

Cool. Congrats, man. I appreciate it. I’m excited to see more adventures in the future. Appreciate your time. Thanks for coming on. Thanks, bro. You are the first person I’m heading up next time I come to Iceland.

Chris Burkard (52:43):

Please do. I deserve it. You need to.

Ross Borden (52:46):

Alright, thanks Chris. Creator, the podcast is produced by Matador Network. We are a leading global travel publisher focused on travel and adventure. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please subscribe. Every week I interview a new top creator. New episodes are released every Tuesday on YouTube, apple Podcasts, Spotify, and everywhere podcasts are found. Thanks for listening.