admit I’ve imagined being on the stage
getting an Academy Award but this is
cooler because I get more than 20
seconds I love making the invisible
visible because there’s so much around
us we can’t see and using the art of
time-lapse and slow motion
cinematography I can take people on a
journey through time and scale have you
ever imagined what it would be like to
see the world from the point of view of
a hummingbird or a butterfly if you
could see life from their point of view
it would expand your vision it would
open your heart it would in Vail the
mysteries of life and that would be
truly transformational we are all born
with a sense of wonder sometimes it’s
triggered by astonishing feats
extraordinary talents and gifts or
scientific discoveries that push the
the more often we experience wonder by
wandering all allow us to transcend the
ordinary
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even to test our concepts of time and
we are overcome with a sense of being
were unaware of past or future we are as
we use the word breathtaking to describe
it because it actually takes our breath
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wonder inspires us to open our hearts
so wonderin ah brings us into the
present moment and that unleashes our
imagination
it helps us are just our perception of
time it influences our decision-making
it makes us more patient more willing to
help others and that makes life much
more satisfying it makes us feel rich in
time when was the last time any of you
felt rich in time we need to bring
nature into our lives because it helps
us build resiliency people often ask me
how did you get started swimming all
these beautiful shots of nature well I
didn’t grow up in the woods I actually
grew up on the streets of Brooklyn I
think my first whitewater experience was
racing popsicle sticks down the gutter
my parents were Holocaust survivors they
met after the war in a relocation camp
and after knowing each other for only
two weeks they decided to get married
and friends who they had just met stood
in for their parents to walk them down
the aisle they came to America a few
years later with my sister and nothing
more than the clothes on her back they
were resilient but growing up under
their roof I learned under that lens of
gratitude that they appreciated every
blessing that came their way like food
on the table the roof over their heads a
steady job and the miracle of having
children and under that roof I also grew
up wanting to make the world a better
place so I headed off to UCLA as a
history major but how could I study the
French Revolution when it was a
revolution happening right outside my
door the students were protesting
against the Vietnam War which turned out
to be an unjust war and of course the
police brutality stopped a protest from
happening we didn’t have camera phones
back then so I quickly had to learn how
to use a camera and that camera
protected me and other people from being
beaten
this is an FBI agent on campus that was
taking photos and writing down names and
arresting all the student leaders these
were my first photographs
I also learned it was a lot easier for
me to hand in a photo essay done to
write a paper and and then the time for
experiencing right now it probably
doesn’t hurt to take a look back and see
that maybe there’s a connection the
repression that happened back then
spawned Earth Day and the liberation
movements through women and people of
color I continued to capture magic
moments and I fell in love with
photography and filmmaking and I
continued to capture moments by chasing
the light and that’s what I met my
greatest teacher mother nature taught me
everything about lighting and
Composition texture color and movement
she also taught me how to live a
creative and sustainable life because
mother nature isn’t greedy and will
never waste a single molecule she also
helped me connect to the deepest part of
my soul so after I graduated and went to
Northern California to a little town
called Elk I didn’t have much money but
I did have time in a sense of wonder and
I imagined what if I could take these
old cameras to shoot time-lapse built in
the 1920s but they had this big AC motor
attached to the back of them and
obviously in my extension cord wouldn’t
be long enough to go outdoors so I
thought what if I could build a small
little motor that ran on batteries so
that I could take these cameras outdoors
and capture the magic of fog rolling in
and out and and in shadows moving
through the forest and shafts of light
through landscapes and flowers opening
and closing I’ve had a camera rolling
now 40 years non-stop 24 hours a day
seven days a week
capturing time-lapse flowers and I’ve
squeezed that into 16 hours of film I
want to share with you at life
be like if you could see it from the
point of view of a flower
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[Applause]
so the flowers seduced me by their
beauty color taste aroma and what I
learned after shooting is flowers all
these years is that beauty is nature’s
tool for survival because we protect
what we love and that’s why puppies are
cute
that’s why kittens are cute and babies
are cute that’s why your kids are cute
if they weren’t cute you throw them out
for the bath water it’s called
unconditional love and your grandkids
are cute we’re hardwired to love because
DNA wants to move forward and so does
our living planet so I’ve always
imagined what would it be like could I
put a time-lapse camera in space in
order to film the earth well thanks to
breakthrough technology and using data
we can simulate that image the movement
of humanity on earth every blue dot you
see is a plane taking off and using data
we can create an image that’s invisible
and above us constantly
the vast network of air traffic over
America
we can do the same thing but ships at
sea we can use data to create a
time-lapse image of a global economy in
and decades of data can show us the
currents in the ocean clouds in the
atmosphere
lightning adorned by the aurora borealis
this could be the ultimate time-lapse
image
thank you so let’s come down to earth
but not all the way this is the sorne
ride that I did for Disney themed parts
and I was fortunate enough to be able to
travel around the world and capture ease
and credible wonders but sadly a lot of
them on the verge of disappearing
because of climate change in China two
hours outside of Beijing we could not
take off for two days because the
visibility was so bad I literally could
not see the Great Wall below me in
Greenland the elders talked to me about
the fact that the ice was too thin for
them to hunt and that melting ice is
raising the sea levels and in Fiji many
of the small islands are already going
underwater but the highlight for me last
year was during the Paris summit a
number of filmmakers were asked to go to
Rome and project imagery on the Vatican
in order to support Pope Francis’s
encyclical to protect the environment in
front of 20,000 people imagine how I
felt the son of Holocaust survivors
being able to project light and beauty
on the Vatican given that they were
silent during the roundup of Jews in
Italy and throughout Europe times do
change things get better
I’ve got hope but I think we have to
remain vigilant I wish I could have
shared with my parents
thank you so in these times a breakdown
breakthrough we need to imagine that
solutions are possible we can’t allow
our political leaders to turn their
backs on science and fear and denial we
need to get them to work we need to
compel them to work for solutions and
partnerships that we need we also need
to reach out to people that have
different views than we do by finally
common ground and being able to agree we
want a healthy planet for our children
these are these are difficult times and
we’re facing big challenges but we can
rise to the occasion we need to wake up
and imagine that we can live in a better
world we can’t waste a single day
because this is our one and only home we
need to protect what we love and celebrate life thank you thank you