NorCal and Shill
A podcast where NFT artists tell stories, hosted by NorCal Guy. https://twitter.com/GuyNorcal
https://twitter.com/norcalandshill
NorCal and Shill
Flying High: Photography and Creative Evolution
Meet Paul Seibert, the photographer whose stunning aerial views of New York City have redefined urban landscape photography. In this captivating conversation, Paul shares his remarkable journey from jazz saxophone player to renowned aerial photographer, revealing how a simple trip to New Mexico with an 8-megapixel point-and-shoot camera reignited a dormant passion that would transform his life.
Paul's story is one of creative evolution and second chances. After feeling he hadn't fully applied himself to his musical talents in his youth, he approached photography with renewed dedication, embodying his personal mantra: "Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard." This philosophy has guided him through a career that now includes a published book with Rizzoli, collaborations with major brands like Canon USA and the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, and a thriving presence in both traditional and NFT photography spaces.
The conversation takes us through Paul's colorful employment history—from grocery store cart boy and short-order cook to estate landscaper—before he took the leap into full-time photography about a decade ago. Now based in Colorado after relocating from New York, Paul offers valuable insights for creators navigating the web3 landscape, emphasizing the importance of community, patience, and intentional relationship-building beyond social media. He also shares details about his exciting new project "Cathedrals of Baseball," which aims to capture aerial views of iconic stadiums as NFTs, potentially revolutionizing sports memorabilia in the digital space.
Whether you're a photographer, an artist exploring web3, or someone seeking inspiration to pursue your creative passions, Paul's journey demonstrates how commitment and authenticity can help transform talent into a fulfilling career. Listen now and discover how looking at the world from new heights—literally and figuratively—can open unexpected doors.
Who is this? Who is this guy? Who is this guy? Who is this guy?
Paul Seibert:Who is this guy? Norcal guy, norcal guy, norcal guy, norcal guy, norcal guy.
NorCal Guy:NorCal guy. Norcal guy. Norcal guy. Norcal and chill Podcast Show. It's chill time. Norcal and chill Podcast. What the sh? What the sh? Norcal and Shill Podcast. What the sh what the sh-? Norcal and Shill Podcast. So it's shill time. Norcal and Shill Podcast. What the sh what the sh-. Hey, everyone, welcome to this next episode of NorCal and Shill. Today we have Paul Seibert.
NorCal Guy:Paul, a native New Yorker now living in Colorado, has been a photographer for almost 15 years. Paul's area of photography spanned many genres, but he is most widely known for his aerial photography over New York City. Although he has contributed to multiple photo publications, paul's first solo publication with Rizzoli Books, titled New York from the Air, was released in 2022. Along with being a full-time creator, paul has also run social media accounts, created, directed, produced and hosted YouTube series. Paul has worked with brands such as Canon USA, tropicana, statue of Liberty, ellis Island Foundation, national Parks Conservation Association and Empire State Realty Trust. Community and education are two passion areas of Paul's creative life, and supporting young creatives is an extremely important part of Paul's life outside of his creative activities. Everybody, please welcome Paul. Hey, paul, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?
Paul Seibert:I'm doing good man. Thanks so much for having me Pleasure to be here.
NorCal Guy:Yeah, I'm glad we can make this happen. It's a great time ahead. I feel I feel like you really planned for the questions you have for me. Now I'm not sure if I'm ready for them.
Paul Seibert:No, nothing too bad. Nothing too bad, sure, sure.
NorCal Guy:I mean yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fair Nice. You done any flying lately?
Paul Seibert:Well, the last time I flew I was back in New York. Killian Maura and I we try and fly together as much as possible when we're in town, when we're together, so we did a last, a last minute sunset flight. Um, uh, yeah, just after, just a couple days after nft nyc, and uh, I'm going back, uh to work on a project and then he and I are going to start doing something together where uh, we've flown together so many times that we're now talking about um doing specially motivated, like like a challenge flight, and maybe we'll mint it or maybe we'll turn it into a series, but, like, the next time we go back we're going to do only using our iPhones and a certain focal length.
NorCal Guy:And that's, and that's it.
Paul Seibert:And see what we can produce from that and um, that's nice. Build something out from that. Maybe it's an ever-growing project, or maybe it's just fun between friends, but it's always good to push, you know, yeah.
NorCal Guy:Now does he go on that to help decide what font works best for your promo videos?
Paul Seibert:Yeah, yeah, for the topaz. He's, he's, he's, a consultant for topaz and all the font work that you see across all of my promotional materials. He's gonna kill me, oh my god it's so great, okay.
NorCal Guy:Well, it's good to know because I I was trying to like you know, with the colors of the sunset or the sunrise, figuring out what font would go best. I understand why he's there. I mean, it seems like a lot extra weight to have him there, but you know, it's probably worth it. He's so good right right.
Paul Seibert:And then it also depends on which british rock band he's listening to that day. So there's a lot of zeppelin. The last time I saw him, we listened to a lot of zeppelin. So, yeah, all right.
NorCal Guy:Well all right, good, good to know, good to know. Oh, so do you have, or and use a hardware wallet?
Paul Seibert:no, I don't, I don't, I don't, I'm sorry, I'm sorry everybody out there, I'm sorry, I don't, I don't, I don't, I'm sorry, I'm sorry everybody out there, I'm sorry, I don't we're going to just stop this podcast right now.
Paul Seibert:I thought about being like yeah, I just, you know, I just got one and I haven't really set it up yet. But, like I got to tell the truth, I don't have one. The volume I don't. I only do things on my computer. I don't I'm not like into the dgen stuff, I'm just I collect art that I like and list and and I take things out when I have it.
Paul Seibert:Um, so yeah, so it's probably not not the greatest uh advertisement for uh web3 safety, but I don't click any links. How's that? Does that work? He's like, he's like. No. Yeah, totally, totally makes sense yeah, you should be fine, what could go?
NorCal Guy:wrong. Yeah, no, I mean, I mean yeah. I mean you've probably never paid more than $8 in gas in your career in crypto art, so it's totally not worth it to get an $80 device. Oh my God, it's a waste of money.
Paul Seibert:I'm so sorry everybody, I'm so sorry.
NorCal Guy:I'm a failure. I'm a degenerate degen, you like living on the edge there you go, that's it. Helicopters no seat belts it's just that 80 device you don't need.
Paul Seibert:Yeah yeah, yeah, I mean we'll get around to it.
NorCal Guy:It's been on the list for a while, all right all right, fair, fair, fair I'll uh, yeah, all right, moving on, moving on so, oh god, what were your first thoughts when you heard about crypto art or digital art that you could sell?
Paul Seibert:that was rare yeah, I mean, I thought, I thought that it was. I thought it was pretty amazing. Um, I I kind of started paying attention to it back um, like mid 2020, where, um, you know, I I'm I'm from new york, so I've been following the ways of dave krugman and Cheyenne Silva for the better part of a decade now, just watching what they're doing. These guys are like I, just they're living in the future, like and so I started noticing that they were talking about NFTs, web3 space, about nfts, web3 space.
NorCal Guy:Um and usually when they start to talk about things, they've already done the research and or they're already in it, you know.
Paul Seibert:So I was just kind of like I started seeing what was going on, like jn was doing work with fractals and dave was doing like collaborations with his photography, and then you know, animated 3d digital art, um, and I kind of was just I'm a watcher like at first to kind of see like is this something that I could get into?
Paul Seibert:Um and um, there didn't, there wasn't a space for photography yet, um, and I think, right, we started the Clubhouse rooms in like January, I think I signed up for Clubhouse and like we slowly but surely started to work towards an understanding. This is like I know you've heard this name before like the Just Chillin' group which, like Chris Kelly, started, and then, like people, just he just started a room to mic check his microphone and people just went in there and he just put just bill in and there were so many nft rooms and people like our friends were kind of like I don't know, like doesn't seem like there's a place for us as photographers and so we went in there and but it started the learning process, it started the understanding.
Paul Seibert:And those who adopted it quicker or understood it sooner. They helped everyone else understand Brian Muneer, Chris Kelly, Abraham. Like all these people that were in there, we're still in touch, we still have a WhatsApp chat and we talk every day.
NorCal Guy:That's awesome.
Paul Seibert:So that was kind of like there were two worlds that came together in that and yeah, then I think I minted my first piece in first couple pieces in May of 2021.
NorCal Guy:Oh, nice Okay.
Paul Seibert:And yeah, then I moved across the country from New York to Colorado and I had to take a couple months off and then so much had changed in that time. That's when.
Paul Seibert:I mean because when we first started, there was like like one collector right there was and like that was it, and it was like if he liked you, he liked you, and then if he didn't like, he didn't, and then I came back and there was like all these collectors and like all these new names and I just started to kind of reinsert myself into the community and kind of make connections and I think it's it's really been like an amazing to see, even from like the early standpoint, just to just to feel the community come back together, cause I've been around for a while and, like in New York, our community was strong in like I don't know, 2015, 2014, something like that and then you know, life takes over.
Paul Seibert:People have careers and they start to move away. But this was like we were all kind of suffering through the pandemic and congealing back together.
NorCal Guy:So yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, so what brought you to art? How did you come to photography?
Paul Seibert:Yeah, I mean, uh, art has always been a part of my life. Um, uh, my degree is actually in music. I'm a jazz musician, jazz saxophone player, um, yeah, um and um, I, you know. Just I didn't. I didn't do what I had to do.
Paul Seibert:Uh, when I was in my early 20s, there was a lot more partying than there was practicing, um, so I spent a number of years, um, outside the realm of creating.
Paul Seibert:I was always writing and producing music, um, but photography came back into the fray, um, because I had an interest when I was younger. I just had to make a choice between photography and music, and music was the thing at that time, um, around 2008, uh, my wife and I took a trip out to new mexico for a friend's wedding and I'd never been there before. I had a little Canon PowerShot 8 megapixel beast of a camera and I'd never been there before and I was just enamored with the landscape and I just started taking pictures and I was like, oh my gosh, I kind of actually like I remember now I liked taking pictures when I was a kid and, slowly but surely, that camera came everywhere with me and, um, you know, then came Facebook and you start sharing pictures on Facebook and people are like, hey, these are really good pictures. You should, you know, sell them. And so I took my images to the only photographer that I knew, who was our wedding photographer.
Paul Seibert:I've done like a bunch of like editorial work and I was like are these good? Like is this worth me pursuing this? And she started talking to me about like oh, you know, you should work on your depth of field, and blah, blah, blah. And I was like, well, I'm just shooting with this. And I pulled the little point and showed out and she was like, oh my gosh, she's like go get a dslr. Because at the time right I bought a used.
Paul Seibert:my first camera was my used Canon 5D Mark I and, yeah, just slowly but surely learned as much as I could, shot as much as I could in my spare time, and it took over.
NorCal Guy:That's awesome. That's an awesome story. I like that. That's crazy.
Paul Seibert:It's crazy how the paths I think it it's gone forever and then and then there's another opportunity, right, right so what?
NorCal Guy:what jobs have you done along the way?
Paul Seibert:oh man, um, I yeah, okay, let's run them, let's run them down for you. Well, my first job. I worked at a grocery store as a cart boy Sweet.
NorCal Guy:Second job.
Paul Seibert:I was like a short order cook in the town pool snack bar. Okay, yeah, it allowed me to deal with unbridled pressure of kids getting out of camp and wanting french fries immediately. Remember those Fun Dip Lick'em Sticks and stuff like that. It was just a fevered pitch and you're like 15. You're like I don't know, kid. You better chill out.
NorCal Guy:Hyped up a Mountain Dew.
Paul Seibert:They're like give me some more. And you're like, oh my god, how did you eat all of that so fast? Um, thank you, fun dip for diabetes in the united states. Um, then, uh, yeah, then I worked for my town. Uh, like summer job type of stuff, like garbage man, worked for the dpw. Um, did that. I did a lot of physical labor. I feel like, um, what I I? Actually? While I was in school, I worked at a group home for developmentally disabled adults. Um, so I would be taking 20 credits in college and then working 40 hours over the weekend.
Paul Seibert:It was the most amazing time it just helped me grow and mature, because I was definitely not doing it.
NorCal Guy:I was not doing life.
Paul Seibert:well, let's just put it that way. So being responsible for other people's lives.
Paul Seibert:It snaps you out of being an idiot quickly, or at least I was able to focus. For the time that I was working I did that, you know, and all the time I was going to school I felt like because I squandered some of that opportunity with my music. I also had decided to me that I needed to be outside. I couldn't ever be under fluorescent lights. So I did a lot of physical labor. I installed lawn sprinklers, I worked at garden centers, I managed the stores there. I finally, my last job before I was uh, um, before I chose photography was I worked as a landscaper on like a 70 acre estate just outside of the city, like like $500 million estate, wow, like that. Like I could have run if I felt like sticking around, but I just kind of had this thing where I was like man.
Paul Seibert:I'm going to blink my eyes and I'm still going to be cutting grass for somebody else for a living. And I have this talent that's like here, and I've wasted this talent already, like in my eyes. I wasted it. I still use it, I still play and I still write music. This talent already, like in my eyes, I wasted it. I still use it, I still play and I still write music. But at that point in my life I was like I don't ever see a way that the music is ever going to find its way back in here I have another opportunity and so, yeah, we took the plunge.
Paul Seibert:Um, yeah, just just about 10 years ago, we started the business awesome so congrats, man, that's awesome, thanks, thanks, I'm exhausted true, that's true, it's yeah, but it's good. It's good, though, it's good yeah if you were an animal, what I do, you think like bird of some sort, but I, and you know like I was thinking today, I was like man. This question, I know, is like I always thought of like an eagle, right, but like, like, but.
NorCal Guy:I don't know, but like like, but I don't know.
Paul Seibert:I kind of feel like, if it can be any animal like, I'd probably be like, maybe like a dragon, so I can still fly, but I'm, I can be kind of a dick sometimes. So like I was like don't, don't wake me up in my gold pit because I'm going to. You know, I don't have, I really don't have a gold pit, but don't wake me up in my gold pit because I'm going to spray fire everywhere. But like, yeah, that's, I would say, dragon just because, yeah, that's just because.
NorCal Guy:All of those reasons, yeah, oh, do you have a favorite food?
Paul Seibert:Ooh, geez, um, like anything that resembles tastes like bacon, like like it's fake bacon, don't tell me, just let me see if I enjoy it or not. Like if it looks like it or I'm okay I'm usually okay. Like bacon is probably bacon. Is it like I've? Had bacon, milkshakes, you know like it's pretty good, actually you should try. It's pretty good, actually you should try it, but it's like salty and sweet. It's delicious, true, true um yeah, it's not bacon, I'll go with bacon all right, all right, that's fair, that's right.
NorCal Guy:What's the best piece of advice you've been given?
Paul Seibert:um, I will. I will give two pieces of advice. One comes from my dad, um, and as, as a kid growing up, um, when I started to enter into the workforce as you know, I've had many jobs by our previous discussion, um, but you know, his advice to me was it doesn't matter how big or small the job is, whether or not it's a gig where you're going to be playing in front of a lot of people, or it's just a, you know, a small coffee shop or whatever. Whatever it is you're going to do, make sure you give it 100%. Someone's paying you to show up, you show up 100% and you give your absolute best all the time. That's something that I've always held very close to myself. And then my own personal mantra and kind of reminder to myself, is the phrase of hard work beats talent, when talent doesn't work hard.
NorCal Guy:Because I feel like I'm a living representation of that.
Paul Seibert:I had a lot of talent in the music industry and I just didn't apply myself. I wasn't ready for it. So now, given this other opportunity to be creative, I put everything I can in every single day to make sure that I'm not squandering another opportunity.
NorCal Guy:I love that. That's a great great saying. Personally, it's like something I kind of look at when I'm like looking at artists and researching them. You know I feel like they're a hard worker. I'm like that's like an easier bet for me Long term.
Paul Seibert:Yeah, yeah, long term. Yeah, yeah, you know that they're gonna, they're, they're gonna be there pushing through regardless of. You know, like all this stuff, all this web3 stuff and markets and up and down, this is all stuff that artists are having to learn about. You know, like, and at the same time, we're kind of like, yeah, we get it that markets go up and down, but at the same time, like, we're still, we're going to be here, we're going to keep on doing it if we're here for the right reasons. So yeah, for sure.
NorCal Guy:Do you have advice for artists coming into the crypto art space?
Paul Seibert:Hmm, I guess my advice would be to do a lot of listening before you attempt to make yourself a presence. Learn a little bit and take your time. You know something that I feel like I. I fight against, and maybe it's just me, like you know, in an echo chamber. But, like I, I understand that the space moves quickly. But to say like to have that, like level of anxiety, of like you miss a day, you miss a week or you, you remember like, like it was like, if you haven't been here in three days like you're irrelevant you know like, and I feel like that's still.
Paul Seibert:It's still, in essence, something that is like spoken about. Yes, things move quickly and it feels sometimes like it's out of control before you're endeavoring to be a part of it. And being a part of it first and foremost is find a community that understands you, your work, and then, slowly but surely, build in the space. Yeah, you'll be fine, definitely.
NorCal Guy:If you could live or move anywhere, where would you live and why?
Paul Seibert:Oh man.
Paul Seibert:So I recently moved from the place that I love the most, right, I've spent my entire life and I'm now in a new place in Colorado, which I love, and I'm starting to explore that space and I found there's a little town in Colorado that I absolutely love. Everybody probably knows it. It's called Crested Butte. It is this little mountain town. It's just like whenever you think of Colorado, this is the town that you think of. It's like one road in, one road out and like surrounded by mountains and lakes and they're like. There's like I think it's like 300 inches plus of snow in this in the winter, and there's like the mountains are covered, covered in wild flowers in the summer, and it's like the. It's just like. It's amazing. Um, it's also like it costs like millions of dollars to live there.
Paul Seibert:So I don't know if that's going to happen in my lifetime, but if it, you know.
NorCal Guy:God if you're listening.
Paul Seibert:I'm ready to go to Crested Butte and find an affordable place to live there.
NorCal Guy:Thank you do you have any questions for me? Oh yeah, Hold on a second.
Paul Seibert:Let me there we go, okay, okay. So I don't know if these questions have been asked before. I've listened to a lot of your podcasts but not all of them, so my first question and you kind of touched on it just a minute ago is when deciding to collect from an artist, what's your method or level of research into them? Is it mostly social, like Twitter, ig? Do you Google them? What level of real world career provenance factors into your decision making?
NorCal Guy:Yeah, I mean that's a great question. I guess it kind of depends on the price point Because, like, the lower the price, the more you don't care.
NorCal Guy:I guess you could say Because there's less risk, so the higher the price. Then you're like, okay, let me see what this person has done. How long have they been around? How old is this Instagram account or this Twitter account? Like, did they just join the space and then? But yeah, like, I definitely like to see some history there for the higher price points, you know, and see that they've been grinding pre the space. Possibly Not that I don't buy from people that you know got into art recently, but that's like the main factors looking at Nice, nice, all right.
Paul Seibert:Um, my next question is uh, as an as an artist. It's kind of like a statement slash question, so just bear with me. As artists, we all have our own process that has been refined over the years that allows us to repeat a stylistic standard that is associated with our work. Do you think? Here comes the question do you think that your deep dive into biscutry uses the same part of your brain or follows a similar process, that is, involved in your art.
NorCal Guy:They both follow a set of steps to achieve a desired outcome.
NorCal Guy:Yeah, I guess, yeah, sure, probably. I mean I mean I guess one thing with the best. I mean I guess if you have a style, you know you always come out. You want the products to have a similar vibe at the end. So I guess, technically, you know that's what I'm going for. I want the end product to be the same, regardless of where I am. So if that means along the way not putting as much buttermilk in, then I got to pull out some because it's too humid in fricking Miami, yeah, you don't want.
Paul Seibert:You don't want scones in Miami.
NorCal Guy:Well, those don't, I don't even know. Those are so dry, I mean you can't even help them.
Paul Seibert:Oh my gosh, you've opened up another can of worms. Killian is going to be writing you so many like emails with that red exclamation point next to it Urgent please respond Urgent oh my gosh. Um yeah, I think I did have another one just popping in my head, but it's completely gone I know it's completely gone. Um, uh, yeah, I don't know that that's, that's basically that's all I got all right.
Paul Seibert:I just wanted to see if there was like if you felt like there was ever that kind of we're all trying to refine something right. We're trying to break things down to the lowest common denominator of like steps to achieve.
NorCal Guy:Right, right, I mean I guess that since biscuits are only like four ingredients, five ingredients, I've messed around with the ratios for myself to where I like it and I guess at this point I'm trying I've been trying to just make a bunch and like only make half of them and freeze them so I don't have to like make them all the time. So, I've like got this stash in the freezer so I can pull them out when I want some biscuits, nice, nice, that's awesome.
Paul Seibert:That's awesome Love it.
NorCal Guy:Sweet. So do you have any shout outs, any upcoming projects you want to talk about?
Paul Seibert:Shout outs always go to, you know, the folks that I've, I've, I've come into this whole operation with, and continue to do so with, and and continue to do so.
Paul Seibert:We, you know, on varying levels of how busy we are um, we try and hop back on clubhouse every once in a while, or jump in, jump in a voice on discord, or or just have kind of. You know, I'll shoot out texts to people that I haven't heard from in a while. I feel like that is something that, like, we need to remember as a community, that, like, we're all focused on doing what we're doing but, at the same time, if we're community and we're not trying to like, enforce that in real life outside of you know the twitter um, then then it's like it's kind of the same thing that instagram was, and if we're not putting intention into it, um, then it's kind of the same thing that Instagram was, and if we're not putting intention into it, um, then it's. Then it becomes kind of like oh yeah, I remember you from two years ago and that thing that we used to do, you know, like and I, I like those people. So I try to be intentional. Um, yeah, like, um, I'm playing golf with Ben on on Saturday.
Paul Seibert:So, yeah, he's my golf buddy out here. We live like 10 minutes away, so it's fun and like had dinner with Brandon bat soup last weekend and like just those little things to to kind of enforce community. Um is is I, it keeps me going and.
Paul Seibert:I like to encourage people that way, by looking people in the eye and telling them you're doing a great job, buddy, as far as anything that I have going on, we kind of did that big skyscraper project that's still out there, but my partner, who's a cinematographer his name is Alex Geiger he and I are trying to break York and did opening weekend over Yankee Stadium, oh, wow so, and trying to work with the team so that we can get inside these flight restricted areas yeah, so, a lot of a lot of emails, a lot of yeah, that sounds really amazing and like Zoom calls, so it's just right now. It's like grinding and that's taking up definitely a lot of my bandwidth of like all right, who do we know now?
NorCal Guy:Right right. So that's the project for 2023 is to create a product that, to my knowledge, hasn't been done before. Um, so yeah, that's awesome, that sounds.
Paul Seibert:That sounds really cool and we're hoping to maybe turn it into like a, an nft project. The idea was originally to to, because sports memorabilia is such a it seems like such a like a common sense leap into the nft space. For sure. We had decided that we're going to do a series called the Cathedrals of Baseball and it's just like look downs on the oldest stadiums, oldest teams, with fans in the stands as NFTs.
NorCal Guy:So we'll see, we'll see.
Paul Seibert:It takes some funding, so we'll. It's always like, yeah, this sounds great and we've got two out of the way, so you know, five or six more and we'll, uh, maybe put a project together.
NorCal Guy:Oh, yeah, nice Well, congrats. Thank you, paul. Thanks. Thank you so much for your time today. I really enjoyed this chat and glad you could make it on the show today.
Paul Seibert:I am, uh, humbled and honored to have been a part of the pantheon of artists that you've brought through here so far, so thank you so much for thinking of me and having me, and, yeah, it was great, I had a good time, cool. Well, we'll talk soon.
NorCal Guy:Yes, who is this? Who is this guy? Who is this guy? Who is this guy? Who is this?
Paul Seibert:guy.