Nathan Bauman - Artist

Embark on a journey through the lens of Nathan Bauman, as we uncover the remarkable transformation of a one-time grocery clerk into a master photographer with an unquenchable thirst for adventure. Nathan's tale is a mosaic of unexpected turns, from the pivotal hike along the Appalachian Trail that rekindled his passion for photography to the life lessons from his father that echo in his heart. This episode weaves together the threads of Nathan's diverse experiences, revealing how each job, from cable sales to car wash attendant, played a role in supporting his artistic and outdoor pursuits.

Our conversation with Nathan Bauman takes a more intimate turn as he opens the album of his life, sharing stories that reveal his personal side. He indulges us with his love for elusive snow leopards, the warmth of his favorite duck ragu, and the wisdom imparted by his family that has sculpted his philosophy in life. But it's not just about the man behind the camera; Nathan also guides us through the ever-evolving world of NFTs, providing sage advice for newcomers navigating this digital frontier, and reflecting on the rapid growth and cautious skepticism that accompanies the buzz around cryptocurrencies like Solana.

As we close the shutter on this session, Nathan leaves us with a snapshot of his current projects, inviting us into his world of "American Reminiscence" and "The Archive" on Foundation World. He shares his documentary journey celebrating the Appalachian Trail community, encapsulating the spirit of the hostels and the hikers they embrace. The episode may end, but the anticipation for our reunion at NFT NYC lingers, promising more stories and shared experiences to come. Join us for an episode that captures more than the perfect picture—it captures the essence of a life lived with passion and the pursuit of new horizons.

https://twitter.com/nathanabauman

Transcript

NorCal Guy: 0:32

Hey everyone, welcome to this next episode of Knorr, cal and Shill. In this episode, I'm thrilled to have photographer Nathan Bowman. A craftsman of moments, nathan has been passionate about photography since his youth, inspired to freeze time and document life as it unfolds. He began his journey in high school, saving diligently to purchase his first camera, and returned to photography with Vigor while preparing for his Appalachian Trail hike in 2016. During our conversation, nathan and I traversed from his early job experiences as a grocery clerk and tele-sales operator to the transformative lifestyle of long distance hiking, eventually leading him into professional photography. We also delved into his personal world, including his love for the snow leopard and favorite cuisines and the influence of his father's advice in shaping his ambitious pursuits. As we part, nathan leaves us with thoughts on the bustling life of New York City and his dream of settling in Serene Wyoming. Here's to Nathan capturing time one frame at a time and the picturesque journey that is his life. Everybody, please, welcome Nathan Bowman. Hey, nathan, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?

Nathan Bauman: 1:58

Hey, man doing pretty good. No complaints, other than just super busy, which is a good thing in all reality. Yeah, doing well, man doing well. I'm glad you are too. You're just chatting about Miami a little bit, Seems like it was a good time.

NorCal Guy: 2:15

It was fun. It was fun, it was really quick. We were at four o'clock on a Wednesday when did stuff that night, then Thursday Friday out early Saturday morning. It was packed. Yeah, quick trip. It was great. Yeah, definitely, we handed out a bunch of merch, had an event. It was great, it was good times.

Nathan Bauman: 2:38

Yeah, dude, it's so good. I wish I could have come, but you know.

NorCal Guy: 2:41

I know, yeah, next time next time, Next time for sure, do you have a hardware wallet and do you use it?

Nathan Bauman: 2:51

Yes and yes, I didn't use it for a long time just because I didn't really have anything of value to put into it, but I think I probably started using it frequently September of 2021. I bought crypto, bought and sold crypto since like 2017, but just did most of my transactional stuff on Coinbase. Yeah, but like once I started selling, work as NFTs and getting more involved in the space and accumulating more crypto in general, I made the switch pretty quickly. I have a super old ledger I think it's like the ledger S or something.

Nathan Bauman: 3:32

It was like the ledger they made, so it's kind of a pain in the butt to work. I don't really enjoy using it. But you know that's where, like the long term cold storage, goes Right. Yeah man, I hope most people use them, but I don't think the majority of people use a hardware wallet, right?

NorCal Guy: 3:52

Right? Well, they live and learn.

Nathan Bauman: 3:56

They do, you know. You'll eventually learn why they're important. Yeah, man, hardware wallets are great, I'm sure.

NorCal Guy: 4:05

So what were your first thoughts when you heard about NFTs?

Nathan Bauman: 4:11

I had a lot of thoughts about it at first and, honestly, like mostly work, most of them were negative. At the time I first remember seeing the acronym NFTs cross my Twitter timeline. Probably would have been like September or October of 2020. So this is before like really any photographers were minting work. This was like right when clubhouse was starting to kind of expand and that's that's really where, like, most of the conversations were happening around NFTs.

NorCal Guy: 4:48

Right.

Nathan Bauman: 4:49

And I have a super vivid memory. It would have been like late January of 2021. I was in New Mexico at the time and my dad was just going into surgery for his heart and I was in the process of driving from Albuquerque back to Ohio as quickly as possible and I found a clubhouse room and it was. It was kind of like the first time that I had gotten a bit of information that made sense, because everything up to that point was very much either misinformed or very biased and I just didn't feel like I really understood the tech all that much and I made the drive from Albuquerque to Ohio and one go without sleep.

Nathan Bauman: 5:34

And yeah, it was really not a great, not a great time, but the last like seven hours of the drive I was listening to clubhouse room, yeah, about NFTs Okay. And I remember like, coming home, got home to my parents house at like five in the morning and immediately was on the computer Really Searching NFTs. You know, like it was one of those things where it like finally clicked and it started to make sense. So, yeah, early on was, like you know, late 2020.

Nathan Bauman: 6:04

But those first like three months of 2021 was where, like, everything really started to make sense. That's like when you started finally seeing some photographs minted as NFTs and because up until that point, I mean, everything was every, every photograph that was being minted was being animated. There were hardly any still photographs on the blockchain, and so it was like super interesting. You know, at first I was just like I don't I don't even know if people are going to want photography on the blockchain Like yeah, it seemed everybody was very strict about having like digitally native art be the only thing on the blockchain, but that quickly changed, obviously, so right, definitely did yeah.

Nathan Bauman: 6:49

Significantly. Yeah, I think about that now and it's actually insane to kind of realize how much has changed in three years in the space.

NorCal Guy: 6:58

Yeah, yeah, it was really funny. So I was like, oh, do we need to animate it? Like animated, so it's like a motion.

Nathan Bauman: 7:06

You're like every single person. Don't do it. You know. At first, though, like it felt like you did have to make a sale, like it did not feel like there were any photography collectors in the space.

NorCal Guy: 7:18

Right.

Nathan Bauman: 7:19

Everything needed to have like a digital touch to it. But yeah, you know, things again quickly changed for the better, I think so.

NorCal Guy: 7:28

Very true. So why did you choose art? What brought you to photography?

Nathan Bauman: 7:36

Photography is always kind of been, even before I picked up a camera. It's always been just something that I've been drawn to. Just the art of freezing time and making a photograph always seemed really interesting. I remember watching national geographic documentaries growing up and being very interested in kind of being on assignment or going to these like far away places that seemed so foreign to me. Yeah, and that was like when I was a young, young child.

Nathan Bauman: 8:11

And then when I got into high school, my 10th grade year, my teacher started. They started offering a photography slash, adobe Photoshop course and, yeah, so this would have been 2000 and 2009. So I was like 15, 16 years old and I signed up for the class and like the first half of the year was getting familiar with Photoshop and just kind of learning the basics. And then, you know, the latter half of the semester was focusing on photography and then bringing that photography into Photoshop and editing it and all that good stuff. And I remember and it's funny to think about now but I remember saving up like $400 in high school and buying my first. It was like a digital point and shoot Samsung camera.

NorCal Guy: 9:07

Oh, sweet yeah.

Nathan Bauman: 9:08

It was like 20 megapixels and I wanted to save up a few extra hundred dollars to get like a Canon EOS Rebel.

NorCal Guy: 9:16

You know like a very basic rest of our and my mom.

Nathan Bauman: 9:20

I'll never I never let her live this down, because it's so funny, because out she greatly told me to not spend that much money on something, just in case I would never use it again. So I, you know, I settled for the cheaper camera and I I did the course for the for high school and, yeah, I was really, really interested and felt like I kind of had some sort of natural Instinct for a camera. But inevitably I put it back down and didn't really pick up another camera until Probably like middle or earlier middle of 2015. So like six years basically went by with me not really Finding my way back to photography until I started long-distance hiking.

Nathan Bauman: 10:12

I think yeah yeah, brought this up during the click create stuff when I went in through hike the Appalachian Trail, which was March of 2016, I wanted to make sure I had a camera. I wanted to make sure I was able to document the experience. So probably sometime, you know, six, eight months before I left, I purchased the Sony a 6000 and just kind of really dove into photography head first. At the time I was working a sales job and wasn't really interested in pursuing that any further and I think I just kind of was really drawn to the idea of again making a photograph and freezing time and having some sort of way to document what I was experiencing in life. And Even now, you know, I think about it and that's still just my goal is to document. You know, that's like something I've always been really intrigued by is just the process of documenting our current, current present and then that becoming the past.

Nathan Bauman: 11:14

Yeah that is a way to look into the future and so you know it's. It's interesting. Like my parents are both we're both in their, you know, 30s, 20s and 30s very interested in photography as well, my dad ended up giving me his old film camera my mom still has her film cameras and and my dad like dug up some stuff in the attic maybe a year or two ago and it was like all of this New York University like dark room programs that he sent in for when he was like 25 or 30.

Nathan Bauman: 11:47

Oh, wow and he had. I mean, he just has stacks of like informative papers About how to expose an image or how to print in the dark room and so now I, you know, it's just kind of interesting, like there's like some sort of lineage and interest that dates back through my family and right, right I just kind of, just kind of fell into it, naturally so that's awesome.

Nathan Bauman: 12:09

Yeah, it is funny, you know, like I look back on it now, and even now my, my dad's 74, or it'll be 74 tomorrow Actually. But every now and again he'll like ask me like, what camera should I buy? You know, like I'm thinking about buying a camera just so I can take pictures, you know, and I always tell him to go buy something, but it hasn't, it hasn't gotten, so we'll see. Oh, man.

NorCal Guy: 12:33

So what jobs have you done along the way like post? Well, even in high school, during college, any any good grinders down out there.

Nathan Bauman: 12:44

Sure, certainly my first job, first like official job, when I turned 16, was Grocery store clerk, of course perfect. I worked at the grocery store my brother got his first job at in my small town in Ohio, and that lasted all of about I don't know six months or so, and I I quickly moved on to what might be still my favorite job I've ever had was working at the car wash.

NorCal Guy: 13:12

Okay.

Nathan Bauman: 13:13

I mean, it was just like I was in high school. I was a degenerate you know, I enjoyed smoking, weed and drinking under the age and working at the car wash.

Nathan Bauman: 13:23

It's just like one of those things that was like, oh, you just get stoned and wash cars for your People, tip you. It was a great job, but that was that was all high school. And then, once, once I was in college, I was like, okay, I need some more money to exist. I moved out when I was 18 for my parents house, so I, you know, I was paying rent from pretty much right. When I turned 18 and I got into a it's like a tele tele sales gig with the Red Cross, I was Basically cold calling people that have already donated blood to see if they wanted to donate blood again. Ah, and we got. We got an hourly rate plus commission of sorts that was based on how many people you scheduled to go give blood. So there were some incentives interesting.

Nathan Bauman: 14:14

And that quickly turned into, a few years later, a sales job, which turned into a supervisor job for Time Warner cable.

Nathan Bauman: 14:24

I was in yeah, I was in inbound sales at Time Warner cable for a couple of years and that was just basically answering the phones, selling people cable and internet and then getting commission on top of an hourly rate. And I did that until I went and through hiked the Appalachian Trail, which was in 2016, and For the preceding three years after that I would Go hike. I would quit my job. Once I had enough money saved up, I would go hike and then, once I ran out of money, I would come back and I was really, really solid at my sales job and I was eventually became a supervisor. But inevitably they would hire me back.

Nathan Bauman: 15:08

Uh-huh and I and I would make another five, seven, ten grand and I would quit and I would go hike another trail. Then I would come back and I did that four different times where I would quit, come back, quit, come back and Eventually, after my last long distance hike, I I could not do it anymore. This was 2018 and up until then, you know, 2016, 2017 and 2018 was kind of when I started to do paid shoots for photography. Mm-hmm, I would you know, I would do family photos, I would do, I Would do newborn shoots, I would do real estate, I would literally do anything that I could possibly do just to build the portfolio.

Nathan Bauman: 15:51

Yeah but in between all of that I was still working full-time in sales. And then my last job before I went full-time with photography Was a job that I was getting paid under the table at gardening.

NorCal Guy: 16:06

Oh, nice, yeah, yeah, I was living it.

Nathan Bauman: 16:08

I got done with the Pacific press trail and had a few hundred dollars left in my pocket and While I was out hiking I had met a couple who owned a gardening business in Denver, colorado. So I packed, I got done with the trail and packed up all my belongings and moved to Denver and lived out of my car for almost a full year and I was yeah, I was just gardening five days a week. It was rock climbing, a lot was trail running, I was taking photographs. I mean it was like really like my last hurrah before I went full-time with photography and I I mean it was.

Nathan Bauman: 16:47

It was great, man, you know, like digging in the dirt, planting, planting beautiful plants, and Weeding and watering people's gardens, like it was. I was outside all the time. Great, and at that point I didn't, I didn't have many worries, you know, it was kind of just like a really carefree job. And you know, eventually that that that changed as well and you know which led me to Pursuing photography full-time, which is six years, six and a half years ago now. So wow.

NorCal Guy: 17:15

Yeah, a lot of a lot of jobs.

Nathan Bauman: 17:16

But when I was in college I was just making, making money and sales. You know just kind of life and you know that that kind of transformed into this which is crazy but Nice. A good amount of jobs. You know a good amount of like just kind of normal blue collar, everyday jobs and Never really. I was in college for photojournalism.

NorCal Guy: 17:41

Oh, okay.

Nathan Bauman: 17:42

Okay, I was pursuing photography, regardless, right, whether I went to college or not, but after I, after I started hiking Is when I kind of was just like I'm gonna drop out of college and just try to make, try to make my way doing this myself, you know nice. Yeah, man, a long, long line of weird jobs, fun jobs and Every really everything in between. You know I was a server at one point, I didn't even.

NorCal Guy: 18:08

I forgot about that job.

Nathan Bauman: 18:10

I see, you know I had a busboy gig for a little bit when I was in high school and a bunch of other stuff, but yeah, yeah, so some good, some good history there. Some good history, oh yeah.

NorCal Guy: 18:21

So if you were an animal, what would you be and why?

Nathan Bauman: 18:27

Oh gosh, that's actually really tough because I I love a lot of animals. You know, like in a perfect world I'm just a domestic dog in a nice house with a loving family that feeds me two meals a day and takes me on walks. You know, that would be great. I honestly would, would love that. But I mean, you know, outside of the the luxurious life of our dogs we have, I think my, my favorite animal is a snow leopard, um, and that's probably been my favorite animal for I don't know, since I was like the first grade.

Nathan Bauman: 19:03

Oh yeah, I think the reason I like them so much is because they're so elusive and so solitary and they live in the, the tundra of Nepal and China and Asia. Yeah, they're just these very intricate and intriguing creatures and, you know, not not so much the solitary part, because I do love company and I am somewhat of an extrovert, but I just admire their tenacity for the cold and for being living in a solitary lifestyle, something I think is is pretty Ridiculous and crazy and those, those cats, are just wild.

NorCal Guy: 19:41

Yeah, for sure, for sure. Do you have a favorite food?

Nathan Bauman: 19:48

Yeah, you know this is also you're asking some tough questions. Food and animals I love. You know there's said so hard to pinpoint a Favorite cuisine, because it's hard to narrow it down even further than that. But you know, like my top three cuisines are probably Italian, indian and Mexican. And I would say probably. If I had to choose Italian Just because of my ancestry and like I have family from Italy, but I did, I will say, just just being back from Italy, I had the best food I've ever had in my life and I had a duck ragu oh, that was out of this world. And I had a ball like bowling is a is probably my yeah, yeah probably bowling, is he?

Nathan Bauman: 20:40

let's go with that. I will lock it in From Italy, specifically from la Victoria, which is in Torino. Okay, shout out, alberto. He took me there when I was in Italy.

NorCal Guy: 20:57

So do you have a piece of advice that you live by, a motto, or just like a solid piece of advice you've been given?

Nathan Bauman: 21:07

Yeah, I do.

Nathan Bauman: 21:07

Actually, I think about you, know, I've been given a lot of great advice from my dad and my brother and just colleagues and friends over the years. But something that kind of always sticks in my mind and something that I've Really taken to heart is just my dad has always said when I, you know, start pursuing a new venture, or when I expressed interest in something, he would just always say you can do whatever you want to do. And that was like something that I Still think about a lot. When I have these Intrusive thoughts of not being able to do something or not being good enough for something, I just always remember my dad saying you can, you can do whatever you want to do, you can be whatever you want to be. And it's something that's greatly influenced how I move through life and how I tend to pursue things. And you know, it's it's kind of you just giving me the confidence to go forward With like a really sound mind about what I'm pursuing.

Nathan Bauman: 22:12

Yeah, I Think, yeah, I think, I think that's what I'd have to say, just because it's it's it's really vague and it's, you know, it's kind of one of those things that you can apply to anything. But you know, I, I remember my dad telling me that when I was like 10 years old. You know what I'm, you know what I mean, like picking up picking up drums for the first time into grade.

Nathan Bauman: 22:31

You know he's just like you can. You can be whatever you want to be. If you want to play in a famous band one day, you can do that. Right now the ability to do that. So I think, yeah, just like knowing that not only do I think that I have the capability to do something, but, like the people around me are supportive of that and, you know, push that, have pushed me forward.

NorCal Guy: 22:53

So Right, right. So do you have any advice for people joining the NFT space?

Nathan Bauman: 23:05

Yeah, of course, loads of advice really. I mean I I've learned a lot just through trial and error over the last three years in the space, especially in the early days, you know, like nobody really knew what they were doing, so we were all Doing things just to try it out, to see if it worked, and eventually that has kind of narrowed down to just being really intentional and thoughtful with what you do in the space. I think curation is single-handedly the most important thing to do is to try and make sure that you're doing something. The most important aspect of Navigating the space whether it's curation and minting your own work, or whether it's curation and collecting work, or whether it's curating your feed To see the things that you need to see to continue moving forward positively in the space. Right, right, you know, I think. I think everything is about you know, having like a positive stream of information come through rather than you know, just a bunch of noise, and there is a lot of noise in the space. So it's. It is sometimes overwhelming narrowing down what you should do or shouldn't do, or what you should listen to, what advice you shouldn't listen to, but I Think whatever it boils down to whether you're here to collect, to connect or to create and mint and sell.

Nathan Bauman: 24:24

I just think specifically like the most important thing is to make sure that Everything is very well thought out and intentional. You know, the space moves so quickly that it's easy to just get wrapped up in what's happening, lose sight of long term, right, but that that curation and that in those, those intentions, really slow the space down and make it more personal and I can just give people more time to process. And you know we've seen it time and time again where people have just rushed to do the thing that's popping off right now in space, whether it's an open edition or a new blockchain that people are bidding on or releasing collections that might not make sense, you know, and have people have. If people just take the time to curate their thoughts and to take the time to be intentional with their movements, I think it it really does just make, make everything easier to comprehend and process and to enjoy, you know right, right for sure.

NorCal Guy: 25:30

It definitely helps. Intentional is is key, I think yeah, I think so too.

Nathan Bauman: 25:37

It's. It's easy, you know. It's like right now, for instance, like as we're recording this podcast, like people are freaking out about Solana, you know. So, like you go to the timeline and people that have never minted on Solana are rushing to mint on Solana, and that's obviously a great thing, that people are minting work and wanting to try out a new blockchain. Yeah, you know, but it's just there's no rush. You know, like I, my advice would be to just take two days to process what you want to do before you do it.

Nathan Bauman: 26:13

Yeah, you know, just be very intentional and thoughtful and, you know, move with grace here because the people here are really great and there's a lot of there are a lot of wonderful people to connect with and there's a lot of just really wonderful things about this space and if you move too fast you'll probably miss them, you know for sure.

NorCal Guy: 26:34

So if you could live or move anywhere, where would you live and why?

Nathan Bauman: 26:41

oh boy, it's hard to answer that question when you haven't been as many places as you ever, as you hoped by now you know I'm 30 years old, like when I was like 20, I was like I'm going to, I'm going to Nepal when I'm 24, you know. And then you quickly realize it costs $2,000 to get to Nepal and you know. So out of the places I've been, which are very few and far between, in the grand scheme of things I would say right now I'm super interested in Italy just because I just got back from there also, I I explored that country a good bit in the two and a half weeks that I was there. I didn't get as far south as I had hoped, but I really fell in love with the northwest of Italy, so, near Torino and the Alps, I spent a few days in Torino and the city really captivated me and has really been something that I've been thinking about recently. So internationally, I would say Torino in Italy.

Nathan Bauman: 27:47

But out of the places in the United States that I haven't lived, I really want to live in New York one day. I haven't lived there. I it's spent weeks and weeks and months, and probably close to a full year of my life, in New York City at this point, but I've never actually lived there and I've shot so much in my archive in New York City and I have so many connections and ties to New York City that I it would almost be a travesty if I don't live there before I die. But yeah, new York City, italy, and I would love to live in Wyoming, you know, and property, and why over some day true, there be nice place to get some property you know it would be, you know, no income tax.

Nathan Bauman: 28:32

First and foremost, there is it's the least populated state in the country. There's a lot of really amazing landscapes in Wyoming and some my favorite mountains in the United States are in Wyoming. So you know there's there's a lot of attractive appeal for Wyoming right for sure.

NorCal Guy: 28:53

So do you have any questions for me?

Nathan Bauman: 28:59

I mean, first and foremost, when is that biscuit recipe coming online? That's my first question is when, do you just wonder the? When do we get the biscuit you?

NorCal Guy: 29:12

just gotta go to click create discord oh, is it in the just it? Is, it's a command.

Nathan Bauman: 29:22

I'm gonna make up this weekend just for you. I guess my only, my question is to you like, what motivates you to stay here? You know, like, outside of, obviously, like the community and the connections, but like, obviously, from, like from an artist standpoint, like there's an easy way to just justify people being here and say that it's monetary. You know, it's a really easy way for artists to say like, oh, I'm here because there's a chance for my art to sell, right, you know, but it from your perspective, like you're a collector, you're a curator, you're a community leader, you're, you're really like one of the people who are extremely recognizable in the space, you know, and it's, it's one of those things where I often wonder, like, what, what keeps these, what keeps certain people around? You know, is it the art? Is it the prospect of, you know, trading and flipping? Is it the community?

NorCal Guy: 30:22

I'm super curious it's a good question. I mean, you know part of it is it feels a lot like the early crypto scene, like the like the same feeling I got when I heard about bit like Bitcoin, when when, I first like discovered it.

NorCal Guy: 30:41

I got that same feeling about NFTs when, when I like finally clicked and so that kept me like here and focused, and you know I'm not gonna lie. I mean I mean definitely hoping to make some money. And you know I feel like with some of the purchases, you know, long-term I'll definitely get the return on those not necessarily everything, which I understand that. But you know some things you you buy for the art and some things you buy for the art and you're like, oh, that was probably really good investment and I hope I don't have to sell that in the future. Yeah, I don't know. I mean that besides community I mean community is, like is a huge part of it. So it's hard to discount that when you make some great friends in the space. But if you're making me choose besides the community, yeah, it's just that feeling initially of this is the next big thing.

Nathan Bauman: 31:51

Yeah, it's hard to break that feeling, too, once you feel it and it happens not only with crypto or finances or stuff like that just when you find something that you're interested in, but that's also new and exciting, and you actually get those butterflies. This might be the thing that I'm supposed to be doing. This is where I need to be and should be. Yeah, it's a great thing. I feel really similar with the sentiment I remember when I first minted and when I really started to make friends here and feel a part of the community. I could never have seen myself just leaving. Even three years later, there's not a part of me that wants to leave, and it's really, really interesting. But, yeah, I think that's great, man, because the community is a given. We log on every day. What would we be doing if we didn't have friends to talk to, if we?

Nathan Bauman: 32:53

didn't have other people that we were chopping it up with or talking about the same stuff with, there would be no reason to log in. So community is really the number one thing. But it is interesting. I mean, you're a big collector man. You've collected some of my work. You've collected some really great work from some of the best artists in the space. Were you a collector before NFTs of art?

NorCal Guy: 33:16

We mainly collected photography beforehand, and so that was it, and it wasn't even like we collected a whole lot, but that was it. I mean, we would definitely go in the galleries when we go on vacation, you know, like the hot spots, like Maui or something, but sure, sure. Yeah.

Nathan Bauman: 33:38

Cool man. Yeah, that's great. I would love to see some of the stuff you have, you know, from like the old days before, because it's funny like I have a bunch of framed pictures that I bought from people before I really started collecting or started making the work that I wanted to make, and it's interesting how taste changes over years, you know true, true, true, true.

NorCal Guy: 34:00

Yeah, we had me. We have two commissioned art pieces, like from a friend that was a really good painter, and so those, we have those up on the wall and then but yeah, most of the stuff is actually at my wife's office we bought a bunch of photography to outfit her office.

Nathan Bauman: 34:17

Sick, that's awesome.

NorCal Guy: 34:21

Yeah, any other questions?

Nathan Bauman: 34:26

Yeah, sure I got one for the future, for the future, future, you, future guide NorCal. What do you think like where do you not just click create, but like where do you see, what do you see yourself doing in the space 2024 and 2025, you know like more of the same. You think you're going to expand a little bit and maybe start some other endeavors in the space, or do you feel like you're in a place that's what like? You feel like you're in a place that you can sustain long term?

NorCal Guy: 35:03

Yeah, I don't know if I deal. I mean I think I'm in a good place right now. I don't know if I want to take on any more than like the podcast and click create. I mean I could see maybe click create, expanding and growing, and who knows how that, that what that means to grow into something a little more than what it is, or expand and what we do, who knows? But yeah, I think just mainly the the pod and click create and that's it for now.

Nathan Bauman: 35:37

Yeah, I mean it's a lot as it is. You know, just like even just just the podcast, or just click create, like especially click create. There's so much that that happens behind the scenes or click create, and you know that was a even just like experiencing click create from an artist perspective for July. That was like a really not only intensive, but just like it was. It was stimulating and then it was also like to some point, like I was, I was like by the end of July I was like, oh my God, thankfully I don't have, you know, I can, I can move on, I can think about other things. You know like it consumed a lot of my attention span and I can only imagine, like working, working on the managerial side, or just like the artist relations, pr stuff, like all the marketing. Like I know you guys have roles and you know people, people each have their own role within. Like you know, julio does stuff and right right.

Nathan Bauman: 36:34

Jordan and all you know, everyone, but it's a lot. I can imagine it's a lot.

NorCal Guy: 36:39

Yeah, it definitely is Glad we're taking, like you know, a break before we start season two, get some quick create merch. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you do.

Nathan Bauman: 36:51

I need to get a sweatshirt.

NorCal Guy: 36:56

So do you have any shout outs or upcoming projects you'd like to talk about?

Nathan Bauman: 37:03

Sure, yeah, project wise In web three at the moment I'm still just kind of slowly minting American reminiscence, which is a project I've been shooting for about a year and a half, two years. It's kind of like an open ended new topographic documentary project of sorts, really focused on Americana. I shoot for that intermittently, you know, kind of just whenever I decide to go out and search for some stuff, I'll bring the camera and take a few photos and see if they fit the theme. So that's like always something in the background that I'm working on. Recently I launched a foundation world titled the archive, and my thought process with the archive is really inspired by what Joel Myrowitz is doing with fellowship currently. So Joel is doing something called the sequels and basically he's digging back through his archive and sequencing images one by one with fellowship, and fellowship is doing an auction on one of his one of ones every single day for the next 10 years. Wow, and it's like this.

Nathan Bauman: 38:20

Yeah, you'll have to dig in, because Joel is. I mean, his archive is it dates back to like the mid and early 60s. You know he has 60 years worth of photographs that most people have never seen or never come across. They've never been shared or published. And so when I when I had this idea for the archive as a long form project of sorts. But basically I share a similar sentiment with Joel about just documenting work and inevitably most of those photographs never really see the light of day. So the archive will, you know, in the future just act as a on chain archive that is representing a fraction of what my physical archive holds. You know, I have binders and binders of negatives from the last seven years and basically the archive is just going to be a curated, sequenced and yearly place where I can bring images out of the archive, mint them on chain and have it exist digitally as well as physically in my binders. So that's something I'm excited about, just for the future, you know, to be able to have a place that I can bring work on.

Nathan Bauman: 39:37

That might not necessarily be a part of a certain project, it might not necessarily be my quote unquote best work. You know it's not going to be not every photo is going to be these bangers or these really beautiful, amazing photos that I went to the ends of the earth to get, but they they will make sense in a sequence and they will make sense in a curation and and you know I foresee that being like a quarterly, maybe maybe bi yearly, release, where I dig through the archives, find 20 or 30 photographs from either New York or a specific place Puerto Rico, wyoming, new Mexico and these are those. These will be photos that have, again, never been minted, not really ever seen or shared publicly, and you know, it'll just be a place where I can mint them in a sequence, in a curated release and you know, maybe 10 years from now I'll be able to look back and, holy shit, here's, you know, 200 or 300, 400 of my favorite photos that might not have necessarily ever done anything with, you know, they might have just sat dormant for the rest of my life, but something I'm shooting or in the process of working on and documenting is a project that's really close to my heart. So, again, when I threw, like the Appalachian Trail in 2016, I was just documenting basically my experience on the trail and not much else. And so now, seven, almost eight years later this, this past summer, I had been thinking about this for a while, but I've had the urge and the interest to document the people and the hostels and the places that kind of make the Appalachian Trail work in a sense.

Nathan Bauman: 41:27

Okay, so along the 14 states, along the 2200 miles of trail, there are, I would roughly estimate, close to 75 to 100 different hostels that are along the trail directly or in a town that is adjacent to the Appalachian Trail. But basically these hostels are the only thing that really provides some sort of reprieve from hiking itself. So when I remember when I was hiking, you would be out in the woods for a week and you would need a shower and you would need to resupply on food and you would need to maybe sleep in a bed, because you've been sleeping in a tent for a week. So you would get off trail and go to these hostels and it would be this really lovely place where other hikers would be the people who own or work at these hostels. They have so many stories and so many years worth of history and a lot of these hostels have been, kind of you know, around for 50, 60, 70 years and they've just been this kind of iconic third place for a hiker to go get rested up for the next leg of their journey.

Nathan Bauman: 42:46

Right, and there's a lot of documentation about the Appalachian Trail and there's a lot of movies that have been made, a lot of documentaries, there are photo books of the Appalachian Trail, but there's never really been an all-encompassing project done that shows the people, the places and the work from the outside community. That makes it possible for hikers to actually do this. So I went up to Maine in August and started photographing the project, and I went to the northernmost hostel along the trail, which is in the small town called Millinocket, maine. At one point Millinocket was home to the world's largest paper factory paper mill, rather and the hostel is called the Appalachian Trail Hostel and it's actually in the building of a boarding house that housed all the paper mill workers.

Nathan Bauman: 43:46

So this building has been around since the early 1900s and we're kind of at this point with Appalachian Trail history where a lot of these hostels are in the process of changing hands to the younger generation.

Nathan Bauman: 44:02

So a lot of the people that I met that owned these hostels in 2016, there's been at least four or five of the owners who have passed away within the last five years because they were in their seventh grade. So really what I'm working on is just a long form documentary series of portraits, still life, landscapes, interiors, really just a culmination of the culture that surrounds the Appalachian Trail. So I began that in August and I'm hoping to put a lot more time in this year on that project. It's kind of difficult because you can only make the photographs for about seven months of the year. The Appalachian Trail basically opens, quote unquote, in late February or early March and then generally closes about October.

Nathan Bauman: 44:57

So you have six or seven months of a weather window and again, there's 75 to 100 hostels along the trail. So my goal is basically to drive up and down the trail and make a documentary project that really encompasses the culture. So that's my next big project and I foresee it probably taking a year and a half, maybe two years of work, but ideally this will be the project that I'll be able to exhibit and to be able to make into a really nice photo book and to maybe have this project reach communities outside of the Appalachian Trail community. It really is a historical and culturally significant project.

Nathan Bauman: 45:45

The Appalachian Trail is the oldest hiking trail in the United States. It was built in 1937. And since then, I mean millions and millions of people have stepped foot on the trail. But there's really there's an enigma about it. It's like one of these things that's kind of a mystery until you surround yourself with a community and then it kind of clicks in that sense. But yeah, so that's what I'm working on Currently. I've got a couple of working titles for the project, but I just really just made the first few photographs for the project. So it's going to be a long process.

NorCal Guy: 46:20

Yeah, wow, that's amazing yeah.

Nathan Bauman: 46:24

I'm excited, man, you know it's. I love the work that I'm making now. You know just the American Reminiscence and my street photography and there's a really innate human aspect to it that I love. But this is like really the project. I think that the first project I'm pursuing that I feel is more important than just myself. You know, right, right, yeah, man, a lot of work always, you know it's. It's really like I don't shoot off Often, but when I shoot I shoot a lot type of type of a deal. So like I'll go a month or six weeks without taking a photograph and then I'll like get us like a bit of inspiration or motivation somewhere and then I'll just go make photographs for weeks on end and shoot 20, 30, 40, 50 rolls of film and then I won't make a photograph for another two months you know, and it's, it's really, it's really just like a process for me and I don't really shoot individual images anymore.

Nathan Bauman: 47:29

You know, like I, sometimes I'll pull out my iPhone and take a picture of something I think that looks cool or if, like, light is hitting a building, nicely.

NorCal Guy: 47:36

Yeah.

Nathan Bauman: 47:38

But you know, I just don't, I don't really work in single images, so everything is really a project of some sort, but the AT project is certainly, yeah, the big one that I'm pursuing currently.

NorCal Guy: 47:49

So dang, oh man, that sounds crazy. It sounds pretty impressive as well. To get all that documented to preserve that history. It's gonna be great.

Nathan Bauman: 48:01

It's gonna be a great project, thanks man, I'm excited about it, you know, like it's it's something that I'm like so, so passionate about as far as the Abolition Trail goes and the community, and but it's also like it's like the perfect confluence of my interests and documentary work in general. You know, it's like really, yeah, something that I think is going to turn out incredible. And I'm excited, you know, because it's gonna involve a lot of communication on my end, it's gonna involve a lot of planning and the best part of it is, you know, I'll get to interact with, hopefully upwards of a hundred different people who have countless stories to tell. And you know, there's there's just so much knowledge and history within these places and, yeah, I'm excited to to really dive in.

NorCal Guy: 48:51

Sweet, that's awesome. Well, thanks, man, nathan, that's awesome and I can't wait to hear about it. And I also want to say thank you for coming on the show and I really appreciate you being guest and I've always enjoyed our chats. It was a click rate before, in the podcast now, and I hope to hang out in New York soon.

Nathan Bauman: 49:15

I hope so too, man. Yeah, I gotta say thanks for the invite on man. I always enjoy chatting with you too, and it's been a pleasure, man, really it's been a good time getting to know you over the last year or so, and I'm excited to hang out in New York, man. I will certainly be in New York for NFT NYC, so that'll be a good time, I'm excited.

NorCal Guy: 49:34

Sweet man. Well, have a great day and we'll be talking soon.

Nathan Bauman: 49:39

Sounds good, brother, talk soon.

NorCal Guy: 49:41

Who is this guy? Who is this guy? Who is this guy? Who is this guy? Who is this guy, who is this guy? Who is?

Nathan Bauman: 49:47

this guy? Who is this guy? North Cow Hy got what I shoot like a shell Overall hour liners at the 75 squared eight Chill.