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Regina Barber DeGraaff: Welcome to Spark Science. I’m your host, Regina Barber DeGraaff and I teach physics and astronomy at Western Washington University.

Our guest for this episode is an internationally awarded nature photographer, a conservationalist, a filmmaker, and the recipient of the National Geographic Explorer grant, Gab Mejia. He also happens to be an undergraduate student just trying to finish his degree in engineering.

In this episode, we speak with Gab about his swift, meteoric rise from hobbyist to one of the youngest and well-known nature photographers in Asia.

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Thank you for coming to talk to us because I think our listeners would really love to hear–you’ve done a lot in three years. I remember when I first met you, you were like, I just started doing this just a couple years ago. We’re all blown away!

Maybe you can tell us a little bit about your mission in life, because I know that you’ve done lots of talks.

Gab Mejia: Wow. That’s a tough question.

DeGraaff: I’ve seen your interviews. You do it a lot.

Gab Mejia: No, but I think my greatest mission in life is really–I’ve learned to advocate my life for wetlands, which is on more conservation and nature. I think I’m just here to learn–learn more about stories. I’ve always wanted to use photography to be able to tell these stories about the world. Our world, especially now at this time, where you have the global humanitarian crisis, the climate crisis, biodiversity loss. There’s so many issues on the environment that I want to try and give people this kind of awareness or knowledge. I want to create this legacy of stories about the environment.

DeGraaff: You’re in a younger generation than me.

Gab Mejia: [Laughing.]

DeGraaff: You’re still an undergrad. You’re almost done.

Gab Mejia: Yeah, almost done.

DeGraaff: Almost done. You decided while in undergrad to start this new experience, this new career of being basically a nature photographer and a storyteller. Can you tell us, how did that happen?

Gab Mejia: Me, coming from the Philippines, I have very a tiger mom. So, like really strict and wants you to do a professional career. In the Philippines, we don’t have that kind of mindset yet or privilege that, “oh there’s a career in nature photographer. There’s a career in conservation.” It’s all about being an engineer, a doctor, a lawyer.

So I ended up taking up civil engineering. I’m specializing on environmental engineering. But I realized it’s important, this kind of scientific background that I need especially when I get into more serious line in nature photography. It all started because of my dad, which he introduced me to the mountains. He would bring me to go hiking in the forest in the Philippines.

Growing up, that was when I was still 13 years old. Now that I’m 23, growing up throughout the years, I was really able to see and witness first-hand all the destruction happening to the illegal forests, illegal mining companies, the deforestation happening in the Philippines.

Me, personally, having this kind of attachment when I was

still a child, I realized that, okay I want the people, the kids, to also experience the same thing that I did when I was 13. That’s what really led me into this nature photography. That, oh, maybe I could do a professional career in engineering, and as well integrate arts and science together.

People always assume here in our country, in the Philippines especially, that it’s totally separate parts of a spectrum. Every time somebody asks me, “what are you taking up in college?” They realize like, “what? You’re doing a career in photography and then you’re taking up engineering?” Like, what’s the connection, right?

Then you start to explain that it’s not always different. You have this aspect in photography when you want to tell stories, but you need to back it up with hard, factual science. So that’s how it all started.

I was able to choose which specialty I wanted to do in civil engineering, so I chose environmental engineering.

DeGraaff: If our listeners go and follow you on Instagram, what’s your “at?”

Gab Mejia: It’s just my name. It’s Gab Mejia. G-A-B M-E-J-I-A.

DeGraaff: Right. And it’s beautiful. Just to go back to where we started, we talked about how you were the youngest and I was the oldest. I’m never gonna let it go.

Gab Mejia: [Laughing.]

DeGraaff: Jackson Wild Fellows, we were selected to be part of this film festival and this media workshop kind of bootcamp. A lot of people there had media experience, like I did, or they had science experience, or they had both. You were there and we would look at your images and they were like mind blowing! You have had your photography around the world!

When did you pick up a camera?

Gab Mejia: Yeah, I actually started picking up a camera about 4 years ago, 2016. I can still remember it. November 2016. I was borrowing cameras from my siblings or my cousins or my friends whenever I hike in the Philippines.

After experiencing a lot of climbing, a lot of mountains, hiking, volcanoes, I got to share these moments I had with the mountains or with these places. I wanted to dive deeper into that. I was, I think, 19.

DeGraaff: Okay. But you were in college then, so you’re in your major and you’re kind of taking pictures for fun, and you’re like, now I’m going to do this semi-professionally?

Gab Mejia: Yeah. That’s how it happened. It was a very tough time, actually. I tried to balance a lot of things. Especially with engineering, it’s very difficult. There are times when I have an exam and after that exam, I would ride a bus and go straight to the mountains. The next day I would have another exam. It was really that kind of effort that I was putting into, so much energy.

DeGraaff: When did you study?

Gab Mejia: And now I feel like–yeah, of course I did study. I would actually bring my notebooks or my schoolbag in the bus. I would read in the tent or an airplane. That’s when I knew that I actually wanted–that this is what I wanted to do in my life. I was able to willingly go this far to take photos, to go to nature, even if I had all these responsibilities that I needed to accomplish.

So that’s when I realized that this is what I’m willing to sacrifice things for, so maybe this is what I really wanted out in my life.

DeGraaff: Tell me about this Nikon ambassador. What is that?

Gab Mejia: So, it was actually a really funny story with this Nikon thing. I actually gave a talk in the mountaineering conference before about taking photos in the mountains and the forest. Apparently there was a Nikon manager that watched in the conference. She just emailed me and had a meeting with me.

Apparently I didn’t know that they submitted my portfolio to the Nikon agent in Japan. They were releasing this new camera called the Nikon Z6, like a new mirrorless camera. They needed an ambassador to choose from around Asia. So, I was really fortunate enough and really lucky to be chosen as that ambassador.

DeGraaff: Not for all of Asia, right?

Gab Mejia: For all of Asia. So I was really, really lucky. I was paired with this other wedding photographer. So it was a different kind of styles of photography. They were choosing ambassadors for different kinds of photographers or photography.

DeGraaff: So, you’re kind of jumping around here. So

you pick up a camera and now you have a portfolio. So what happened in between? How long–what is the timeframe between you picking up a camera and turning your hobby into semi-professional because you get commissioned from somebody to go into the mountains, to having a portfolio?

Gab Mejia: Yeah. It was around 4 years, 3 years. Even right now, I wouldn’t say that I’m fully professional yet. I’m still studying. I have one more year in college. But actually looking back right now, it just went by so fast. The years just went by so fast.

I got really lucky also this one time when I was joining all these photo competitions.

DeGraaff: So you just enter yourself into these competitions?

Gab Mejia: Yeah. I tried to build this portfolio. I tried to build these stories, and focus more on nature photography. I would try underwater. I would go hiking or I would go to wetlands to find more stories about culture.

Then one day, there was this competition. I was commissioned to do an expedition in these volcano islands

in the Philippines, to document it for the first time. When I was going back, apparently I got a text and there was no signal there the whole time.

So, I received this message 3 days later when I finally got signal. It said, “Oh, Gab, you won this international photo competition for your work in wetlands, which was supported by National Geographic. I was blown out of my mind! I could have never imagined being the top, first place.

When I got first place, they sent me the list of all wetlands around the world. So basically, everywhere: Madagascar, New Zealand, Canada, Greenland, wherever. They wanted me to do a story and they would fund everything.

DeGraaff: How many of those did you do?

Gab Mejia: I only did one. It was a one-prize thing. Then, I chose to go to the farthest place that I could go to from the Philippines, which was in Argentina! [Laughing.]

DeGraaff: [Laughing.]

Gab Mejia: I didn’t want to spend…. It even had the Philippines in the list, so if I would spend my time, that prize, just going somewhere close, like in Asia, that would

be a waste. So, I was thinking, “Okay, might as well go to the most exotic place that I could find, or the most expensive.”

DeGraaff: Right. “Let’s make them pay the most amount of money that they possibly could.”

[Upbeat musical segue.]

DeGraaff: We’re speaking with conservationist and engineering student, Gab Mejia, about his first trip across the world.

[Music fades.]

Gab Mejia: We ended up going to Argentina and Chile, and the southernmost city on our planet, which is in Ushuaia.

DeGraaff: So, what happened there?

Gab Mejia: I did a story about glacial wetlands, about the receding wetlands of Patagonia. I did that expedition in 2017, so that was a year after I got my first camera. So, after that, I realized that I never knew that photographs could actually make you travel the world or like….

DeGraaff: Give you that opportunity.

Gab Mejia: Give you these opportunities! That would take me tens of years just following footsteps in engineering, right?

On 2018, I realized…. There was this Filipina National Geographic photographer. Her name was Hannah Morales. I was asking advice, and she persuaded me to apply for National Geographic, for this explorer grant that helps photographers start out their career.

I wrote this application about the Philippines for about a year. It was like my thesis, basically. It’s really like a thesis kind of grant application. I thought I wouldn’t get it, and I was writing my mind out of it, and suddenly I got that grant, and that’s when I became a national geographic photographer in 2018.

And that’s when it all started. So, it’s like a really, really crazy thing, looking back. There’s just so many experiences and hardships that I was able to live out in this 4 years. I consider school as my hobby and photography as my “real career.”

Right now, it’s more difficult to get these opportunities because my whole career involved around travel. I could

get the best stories in the Philippines or in other countries. And now, I can’t even leave my house!

DeGraaff: You said you’re pretty lucky, but I honestly think that you’re very strategic too. I mean, I know you very little, but I’ve seen you very organized. I remember when we were in Jackson, you made a spreadsheet of all the people you met, and if you were going to respond to them. You’re a very organized person, and I think that that organization….

Like you just said, you spent a year on that application for NatGeo Explorer, and the Nikon Explorer of all Asia. I just want to point out to our listeners that there was one person…. So, there were 17 people picked for Jackson Wild, and you were one of them, and the only person from East Asia.

There was one person from India, one person from Asia, right? One person from Europe. I mean, you’re a big deal, and I think that yeah, it is very frustrating when you have no idea what the travel is going to be like now, but I think you’re going to find something that you’re going to apply to, and you’re going to get it!

Gab Mejia: It’s pretty cool, this Jackson Wild experience. A very diverse community, and how being able to learn

from you guys…. Even all these opportunities to be able to collaborate and work together, it’s really such a humbling experience.

DeGraaff: Yeah, I do agree with that. At Jackson, we were given 4 days to make a short film, and we were not sleeping, which Gab was very used to because he’s young, and I was not used to that at all! But I did it! I did two all-nighters!

Gab Mejia: [Laughing.]

DeGraaff: It was a really crazy experience to see all of our skills mesh into one. We were in these 4-people groups. In my group, there was myself (who had audio experience) but there were two people who had really, high level photography and film making experience. It was crazy!

But I wanted to ask you. You’ve traveled around the world. You went to Patagonia. What stuck with you the most? In these 3 years of traveling nonstop (because I’ve been following you on the Instagrams)….

Gab Mejia: I think it was really Patagonia. That was really the craziest experience. I can still vividly remember every single day of that trip. It just made me realize, “This is how far you could go,” in terms of doing your dreams

and reaching your dreams or career.

If it wasn’t for that experience, I wouldn’t have pushed myself harder. I wouldn’t try to do more work and take on more responsibilities. Right now, I could honestly feel the call of all the things, saying yes to everything that goes into your face.

I honestly consider myself a kind of self-motivated person. I don’t really care about things that other people have to say. It doesn’t motivate me as much. It’s like, what my own direction or my own compass is telling me that I need to follow, and that’s really what I…. That self-intuition, I think that’s the….

DeGraaff: So, we’ve been talking about your career, but when you are going out there and doing nature photography, you’re doing it because you have, like you said, this goal that you want to show people what we’re losing. Right?

And, your generation…. You’re so kind! I have here…. He is so kind!

Gab Mejia: Who is that?

DeGraaff: You! You’re so nice!

[Upbeat musical segue.]

DeGraaff: This is Spark Science, and we’re talking with National Geographic explorer, Gab Mejia, about the power of stories.

[Music fades.]

DeGraaff: Your generation is really vocal about climate change, and nature, and ecology, and conservation. Since I’m old, I would like you to tell me a little bit more. How do we, as people who are older…. What do the younger generation want us to do?

Gab Mejia: I think it’s really about listening. The impact. Especially with photography, there were times when I realized, “Oh, would my photos or my stories actually reach all these articles in Nat Geo? Or, would anything actually make an impact in the local setting?”

That’s when I realized yeah, it does actually make an impact. Just to give you a brief example, I was working on this story about marshlands in the Philippines, called the Agusan. It was funded by National Geographic.

I had to create this story, and I used this story about the

fires and our climate crisis. This was the first time that I covered fires on peatlands, so it was the first time that the government–

DeGraaff: What are peatlands?

Gab Mejia: Peatlands are wetlands, basically wetlands that are very high carbon, so it doesn’t decay easily. It’s kind of like soil that’s really rich in nutrients and everything, and a lot of biodiversity. They can get on fire because they’re decaying; it’s a lot of carbon.

So, it was the first time these fires are happening because of the climate crisis, because droughts are strong, the temperatures are increasing, and the annual water levels are decreasing in this part of the Philippines.

So, I had to do this story. It was the first one that was published and documented about it. It was the first time also that the governor, the authority in the province, actually heard about it.

Realizing that, wow, okay, you don’t see these stories at all about the climate crisis. You realize, maybe these authorities don’t know what’s happening in their area. You realize that, okay, it’s not that they’re ignorant, these authority or people. It’s just that they don’t know about

these stories, right?

Nobody’s telling them these stories. That’s how you get it forward. And then, when they start to get aware about it, or when they realize the impact of it, that’s when you try to double your force: lobbying for new policies, or creating new partnerships, or anything.

So, I really think making people aware…. We honestly all live in a bubble. One thing I realize is that we’re not supposed to assume that everybody knows everything.

DeGraaff: I learned that in my 30s.

Gab Mejia: No, but it’s true! You think that people are ignorant, that people are pathetic. Yeah, it’s true. People don’t know. Even in social media, especially if you think we’re so vocal as kids…. I have a lot of friends as well as colleagues, who voice a lot on Twitter or Instagram or Facebook.

But it’s just a bubble. It’s a bubble that not a lot of people would get into. When you think that maybe I’m also surrounded by people who share the same voice, and you realize you’re still a minority compared to the whole Philippines that doesn’t know about the fires.

But what I realize is that’s how the power of stories are, especially ones that are backed by hard science or factual science. That should be actually a norm, but it’s these stories that really give a stronger impact because people can connect with these stories. That’s where really change can come from.

Honestly, I wasn’t an environmentalist when I was…. I wasn’t working in the environment when I was 10 or 8 years old. I had to learn my way.

DeGraaff: You were going to elementary school…. [Laughs.]

Gab Mejia: [Laughs.] Yeah, but I had to learn this mission of mine. I had to learn it from people, from my dad who brought me to the mountains, or from mentors who would show me how to create more stories. We have a lot of teachers along the way, and that’s the most important thing. How we can educate each other communally about the environment, or how we can protect and conserve the environment?

I mean, it’s easy to say to be vocal and to be educated in just the social media aspect of things, but it’s just a small minority. You would go to a far-flung place in the Philippines, and they wouldn’t even know about what

National Geographic is. They won’t care about those names. They won’t care about Jackson Wild, right?

So, it’s really about how you can bring these stories stronger to them, and give them that kind of voice and empower these communities to be able to tell their story to the world. I think that’s how you could really make a more significant impact with whatever issue you’re trying to solve.

It doesn’t need to be about the environment. It could be about social justice. It could be about other things. You have these viral groups of moms texting each other about treatments that are fake! Concerning bleach or whatnot. It’s crazy, right?

DeGraaff: Yeah, well, but let’s end on hope, shall we, Gab?

Gab Mejia: Yeah, we definitely should always end on hope!

DeGraaff: There’s a student of mine who actually is from the Philippines. She is from… Muntinlupa?

Gab Mejia: Muntinlupa, oh wow, yeah.

DeGraaff: I was talking to her yesterday. She was talking about companies that claim to be sustainable and trying to help out the climate crisis, like you were saying. Are they?

She said that she was talking to someone in the Philippines about turning trash into energy. I don’t know if you know about these companies that are in the Philippines, and the waste from it can also be helpful to make concrete or help with algae or something? Do you know…. She was like, “I don’t really remember exactly what that company is.” Have you heard of this?

Gab Mejia: Yeah, the biofuel companies. There are a lot in the Philippines, especially in the southernmost islands. We studied this actually in engineering, environmental engineering.

DeGraaff: There we go, back to STEM!

Gab Mejia: See? Exactly! How important science is with getting engaged more with the environmental aspect. So, what about these biofuels?

DeGraaff: My student was asking if it was legit? Are these good companies?

Gab Mejia: Yeah, they are, but it’s really small, just a small percentage of (I imagine) the total amount of the population of the Philippines using other alternatives for oil. Honestly, the big problem with this is, they sometimes have to import the waste, rather than using our own waste in the Philippines because our solid waste management sucks. So, it’s really complicated.

DeGraaff: Ooh! So, literally getting the trash to burn, I guess burn cleanly, is what they were talking about. To get the trash is hard just to do, period.

Gab Mejia: Yeah, it’s really a very difficult situation. Yeah, you want to solve the plastics issues. Why not turn it into petrol? But apparently we can’t do that if the plastic is not clean. You have to get into a more cultural aspect of things, and how people throw their trash; to the more governmental and institutional side of things, the collection of trash.

DeGraaff: Right. The separation.

Gab Mejia: The separation of trash, the management. It’s a very tough thing. We have so much trash, considering that the Philippines is the third top plastic polluter in the oceans in the world.

DeGraaff: Really? Is the US number 1?

Gab Mejia: No, I don’t think the US is number 1.

DeGraaff: Man, can’t do anything right. [Laughs.]

Gab Mejia: [Laughs.] Yeah, it’s a really big problem for us.

DeGraaff: I promised I would talk about pop culture. What are the misconceptions about either the Philippines, or being an environmental engineer, or being a NatGeo photographer, or a mountaineer? What would you like to clarify that maybe is in the media a lot, that you’re like, “That’s not true”? Or maybe something was in the media and you were like, “Wow, that was actually an accurate portrayal of the things that I do”?

Gab Mejia: Like a stereotype?

DeGraaff: Yeah.

Gab Mejia: Of what? What’s a stereotype? I don’t know.

DeGraaff: Of mountaineers, there’s a lot. Right?

Gab Mejia: I have heard some mountaineers. But yeah, like, a Filipino mountaineer, what the heck is that? You only have islands, right? Not a lot of people would realize, but for me, I say, we always want what we don’t have. We don’t have these big mountains, so that’s what I want to climb.

I mean, we have the best gnarly beaches here in the world, so…. That’s something very different, to be a mountaineer, especially a Filipino. It’s not something that you see yourself as, in the Philippines. Or, if you’re a Filipino, it’s not something you see yourself as. “Wow, you want to climb mountains in the Himalayas?” Or, go to snowy mountains in Jackson Wild, or something like that?

DeGraaff: What do you like to watch? What do you like to engage with?

Gab Mejia: Yeah, it was really a National Geographic upbringing. That was really the big thing. My dad had the whole magazines, the paperback magazines, of National Geographic when I was still a kid. I was just reading it out of my mind, encyclopedia books. So, that’s the kind of media I had in my upbringing.

Right now, the media that I watch…. Yeah. Of course, I

do watch Netflix if I have time, and all that stuff.

DeGraaff: Do you play Animal Crossing?

Gab Mejia: I wish I had my Switch, but nope, I don’t have it right now. [Laughing.] I think that’s the thing. People don’t think you have time for Netflix, you don’t have time for the simple things in life.

DeGraaff: But you have to, or you’ll go insane.

Gab Mejia: Yeah, definitely! You’re going to go insane if you’re just all about your work. That’s why, after the 4 years I had, looking back, maybe I’m good to retire, I think!

[Music swells, leading to ending sound bite.]

DeGraaff: I’d like to thank the always-kind and thoughtful Gab Mejia for talking with me about his path into conservation photography. If you’d like to see his mindblowing photos, check him out on Instagram at @gabmejia. That’s G-A-B, M-E-J-I-A.

Spark Science is produced in collaboration with KMRE and Western Washington University. Today’s episode was recorded in Bellingham, Washington, in my house on my computer, during the 2020 statewide Homestay order.

Our producers are Suzanne Blais and myself, Regina Barber DeGraaff. Our audio engineers are Ariel Shiley and Zerach Coakley.

If you missed any of our show, go to our website at sparksciencenow.com. And, if you have a science idea you’re curious about, send us a message on Twitter or Facebook at Spark Science Now.

[Music fades.]

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