I worked a big part of my life
as a photographer at the National Geographic.
The best job in the world.
That job has changed my life in a very surprising way.
That’s the story I want to share with you tonight.
It started a long time before I held a camera for the first time.
My family had been subscribed to the magazine for years.
From when I could read, I grabbed it when it was delivered.
I took it upstairs and I read it at night.
My dad always said, “Turn off the light, Dewitt, go to sleep!”
But I lit the light again. I used a flashlight.
I stopped to look at the photos in this little yellow book.
Photos that showed me all the possibilities that the world has to offer.
I never dreamed that I would work for them or take pictures,
but they changed the way I looked at the world.
The Geographic has an extraordinary vision –
very simple but very profound.
The job they gave me, every time they sent me away,
was to pay tribute to what was good about the world,
instead of emphasizing the bad.
That’s why we keep these little yellow booklets.
Throwing away is a national shame,
everyone knows that.
(Laughter)
If all Geographic’s in the world disappeared at once,
half of the houses would collapse.
(Laughter)
Because they are supported by large yellow foundations.
(Laughter)
Why? They show the good of the world.
When I started with the Geographic,
I had no idea how powerful this vision would be,
how strongly it would change my life.
But our vision manages our perception, and our perception becomes our reality.
From the highest mountains, over rivers that bathe in the sunlight,
to waterfalls and rainbows.
Everywhere I looked, there was unseen beauty to capture on photo.
And, you know, in Geographic’s vision, man is not outside here.
He is as magical as all the rest on this planet.
The more I set out to record the best of humanity,
the better I could see it.
I could see it, and I could see it on the faces of those who work,
to the body language of those who play,
from people in their youth,
or by age.
I thought this would be a good photo before he laughed, did not he?
(Laughter)
I could see it. I could see the light, not the light that shines on us,
but the light that we emit.
From the inside, if we have the courage to release it.
I saw the same light in nature
that looks like it does not need confidence to expose itself,
but daily blesses us with the tenderness of a flower
or the light of an upcoming storm.
However, the more I worked for the Geographic,
the more I felt this strange conflict
between the world vision of the Geographic
and the world view with which I had grown up.
You know ‘The law of the jungle’?
Eat or be eaten. My profit is your loss.
The second place is the first loser.
(Laughter)
I once saw that on a t-shirt.
What a depressing way to look at life.
(Laughter)
Too many people among us see the world from that point of view,
a world based on fear and scarcity and competition.
That is not what nature showed me.
Nature showed me
unseen beauty and the ability to be just behind the rat race
and to say: “Hello, hello …”
I mean, come on.
Mother nature never stood before a forest and said:
“There is exactly one beautiful picture hidden here.
A photographer will find it
and the rest are hopeless losers. “
(Laughter)
Nature said, “How many cards do you have, Dewitt?”
Bring it on. I will fill them.
I will fill them with beauty and opportunities
far beyond your wildest imagination.
To my smallest seed.
That was a much more elegant philosophy,
a much more understanding way of looking at the universe.
At some point I decided to just embrace it.
I decided that if I had a choice between a world full of scarcity and fear,
and a world full of opportunities, well, then I chose the opportunities.
No matter how dry and deserted,
how bleak and hopeless the situation looked like,
as long as I could bring out the best –
in this case by dropping into this gap and looking up –
I could find a perspective that changed the ordinary …
in the extraordinary.
Through that festive lens
I saw one of the most important lessons of nature.
There is more than one correct answer.
There is more than one correct answer.
There are a thousand ways
to tackle challenges and find that extraordinary vision.
And I know so well about my years at the Geographic.
They sent me to Smith River, a town in northern California.
About 80% of the country’s trumpet lilies are grown in this city,
and I had to tell that story.
And I get a perspective of picked lilies and unplanned lilies
and the boy who picks them.
One correct answer. A very good answer.
But as a photographer I do not think about stopping there.
I took this photo; immediately after that I took another lens,
went a few rows, knelt and found another correct answer.
The same parameters of the problem,
but now seen from a completely different point of view,
and my favorite correct answer of that day was this.
This is an advanced hover technique that I picked up along the way.
(Laughter)
Three correct answers.
So many things are starting to change
when you look at the world from that perspective
of more than just a correct answer.
Never look for one correct answer. There are always more.
But when you start to find more and more,
it becomes increasingly easier to reframe obstacles as opportunities.
The Geographic sent me to the Selkirk mountains in British Columbia.
Beautiful area.
I wander around, I find a field full of dandelions.
I should have been overwhelmed, but I was not.
I do not know why.
Instead of running in with my cameras,
I took a snapshot.
I said, “I do not know, the light is not quite right.
I’ll be back tomorrow. “
I did not take any action.
Everyone knows what happens when you do nothing.
Tomorrow will change in the next day, the next day in the following week,
and when I came back to that field …
No more dandelions. I had fluff bulbs.
I wanted dandelions, I got fluff bulbs.
I was about to leave when something in my head said:
“Dewitt, what is there to celebrate here? What is right here?
You wanted dandelions, you got fluff balls! “
Lint bulbs, fluff bulbs. Soon I was lying on the floor with the fluff balls.
I roll around between the fluff bulbs.
I am lying on the fluff balls. And under the fluff bulbs.
And suddenly, whoa!
(Laughter)
Whoa! That beautiful picture.
It always seemed to be there
if I had looked through that festive lens.
An extraordinary picture, but I already hear the critics …
grumbling:
“Dewitt, you’re such an optimist.”
(Laughter)
The world is on fire:
war, terrorism, global warming, poverty.
And you photograph fluff bulbs?
(Laughter)
To those cynics I say: “Change your lens!”
To celebrate good is not a perspective
that denies the undeniable pain and real suffering of this world.
However, it is a perspective that these problems arise in a larger,
more balanced context.
A context that shows that many more things are good in the world
then that there are wrong.
When I put that festive lens,
when I really allow myself to see the beauty of the world,
I feel like a cup that is so full that she is about to walk over.
It’s … It’s like I fall in love.
That’s how it feels. I mean, think about it.
Think of a time when you were in love.
You got up in the morning, waddled to the bathroom and said:
“Aha, the toothbrush, what a miracle!”
(Laughter)
Then follow the soap dish and the towel.
The whole world is beautiful and you feel so full and enthusiastic.
And that does not happen to me, because when we are in love,
we are in contact with a source of boundless energy.
We call it passion! Passion!
What most of us would not give
to feel the energy of passion daily.
Extraordinary visions do that, they release passion.
So how weird a situation where I end up is,
The first thing I do is ask: ‘What is there to celebrate here?’
“What do I fall in love with?”
In this case it is simple, because that is
my daughter …
Most fathers would help their daughter in this situation.
(Laughter)
But that did not matter.
Whenever I could record what was right with the situation,
I was passionate and full of energy to emphasize that
and slide the rest aside.
Instead of starting, as we often do,
to complain about what goes wrong with the situation,
what is going well?
Because that connects us with our passion.
That gives us energy!
Celebrating the good gives us the energy
to find the right answer.
As Michelangelo once said, “I saw an angel in the stone
and chiseled to release her. “
“I saw an angel in the stone … and chiseled to release her.”
Every day we can choose through which lens we see the world.
It is our choice.
And you know, the more I do that, the more I choose the festive lens,
the more I find – in photography, but more importantly, in my life –
that the difference between a good framework and a very good framework,
much, much smaller than I ever dreamed.
Good framework. A day flower on the beach in Maui.
From 25 cm. Beautiful framework. Beautiful framework.
Good framework. A cowboy in Bryce Canyon. Believe it or not, his name is Binky.
(Laughter)
I take a picture of Binky and I enjoy it,
but then I sent him back 10 meters to the entrance of the barn.
Beautiful framework. Beautiful framework.
Good framework. The Golden Gate Bridge at sunset with a new moon.
How could this be improved? 15 minutes later … Great frame.
Change your lens, change your life!
So I speak all over the country … for many kinds of people.
And you know what? They are all looking for this festive lens.
They want to test it all out.
We have it all. It is there waiting to be picked up.
Why do not we do it?
Perhaps because the media and the internet bombard us daily
with everything that goes wrong in the world.
And it is so easy to be dragged into it.
It is so easy to stare into the darkness.
But would not you rather focus on the light instead of the darkness?
Would not you rather focus on what is good instead of what goes wrong?
That is the change that we make
when we put on the festive lens.
Do I always use that lens?
No, come on, I’m just a human being.
But a long time ago I got a touchstone,
a touchstone and a guide that, if I ever take the lens off,
help me to put them back on.
I want to share with you tonight
by telling them how they came into my possession.
I was photographing on an island off the coast of British Columbia.
And it did not go as well.
(Laughter)
The weather was printed, just like my pictures,
but I was getting ready to go back outside.
I had a big camera bag and a huge tripod.
I looked up and up the stairs of the lodge where I was staying,
sat a five-year-old boy,
a five-year-old with a big smile on his face.
He looked at me and said, “Do you have a camera?”
I was covered under the cameras.
(Laughter)
I said, “Yes, I have one.”
Then he raised his hand and I realized why he asked
because he had a magical camera.
It was yellow. It had a blue lens.
It had a red sight glass
and a purple rewind button where a small straw came out.
He said, “May I take photos with you?”
That was about the last thing I wanted to experience,
but I could not say no, so I said, “Come on.”
So we went to the woods and I took my first photo.
And this guy was so cute, he was settling for my tripod,
leaned back against it, lifted it up, (click).
“Do you have it?” ” Yes.”
(Laughter)
And again, that laugh. We kept going.
I, take pictures and grumble, he, take pictures and laugh.
And it started to rain.
It started raining.
And I got ready for what I thought would be the last substandard photo
of a substandard day and he just sat beside me in the grass,
looking carefully at my material and he turned his face towards me
and he said, “Is there juice in your camera?”
(Laughter)
I said no.” He said, “In mine.”
(Laughter)
He sucked on that little straw.
(Laughter)
His question almost blew me away: whether there was juice in my camera?
No, not with me, in his own. I was the one with the wrong perspective.
It was I who had lost the passion to find the next correct answer.
There was nothing more to say.
I went shopping and bought a juice camera.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
And every day Adam and this camera remind me
to honor the good in the world.
And whenever I do this,
whenever I allow myself to fall in love with everything again,
I really see a world full of light and opportunities.
You’ve seen it all,
not only in the faces of your children and grandchildren,
it is always present.
And, you know, the beauty of that world, our world,
gives us a wonderful example of how we should live and love.
It is a horn of plenty, an overflowing cup.
And I know that if we let ourselves be filled by that beauty,
we will also overflow, and it will be visible in everything we do.
In our ideals, in the passion we feel and the compassion,
in the love we now dare to show without fear.
That perspective, that lens, will change your life,
as it has changed my life.
See this vision, my friends, and four …
what’s good in this world!
Thanks!
(Applause)
Thank you!
(Cheers)
”
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