Live Large and Long

by Mike Holtby – Photographer

“LIFE is not measured by the number of breaths we take,

but by the moments that take our breath away.”

George Carlin

“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count.

It’s the life in your years.”

Abraham Lincoln

When I was twenty years old, I wanted to be a cultural anthropologist or ethnographer, but I couldn’t figure out how to do fieldwork in Africa while I was supporting a wife that didn’t work and a young daughter. Yes, I got married at nineteen, and yes, I was too young! Anyway, I changed my major to sociology with an emphasis on subcultures. That led to a master’s degree in social work, and my interest in subcultures lead to a master’s thesis about work with gay men.

Ultimately, I ended up as a private practice psychotherapist in Denver for 37 years. When I went into private practice I was advised to specialize, and with my previous experience I ended up with a caseload primarily of gay men. By my early thirties I had burnt out and went back to school at the Colorado Institute of Art in commercial photography. I never stopped being a therapist, but for a few years made half my income as a product and portrait photographer. Again, my aspirations were thwarted, this time by a divorce. I lost my studio and darkroom and returned to being a therapist full-time.

In the mid 1980’s the AIDS epidemic hit Colorado, and because many of my clients were gay men, I quickly developed an HIV specialization. Within a short time two-thirds of my practice was men with HIV or their partners, parents, or children. This was at the beginning of the epidemic and no treatment was then available. Ultimately, from 1987 to 2001 I had 90 clients, friends, and colleagues die of AIDS. This was a personal turning point for me, facing death and decline every day; I saw the reality of our limited life spans. Most of the men I saw were dying in their forties. None of us are guaranteed long lives. We, or the people we love, could be gone tomorrow. I used to ask my clients, “What do you most want out of life?”  One of my clients with AIDS responded, “I want lots of great adventures, so when I get sick, I’ll have lots of great memories to fall back on.” “What a great outlook,” I thought. “Carpe diem! I’ve deferred what I really want to do with my life. I need to start collecting those adventures.”

The first thing I did was take up scuba diving, combined with travel to places like Fiji, Cuba and Galapagos. I racked up two hundred dives, including with seven species of sharks, – most notably great whites and whale sharks – all while taking photographs. This led to my making travel a priority and bringing me full circle back to my desire to be an ethnographer. I have since traveled to 46 countries, concentrating primarily on Asia and Africa, chronicling all with thousands of  photographs. My photography has focused on my anthropological interest in indigenous cultures, and I have pictures of many tribes in places like Ethiopia, Tanzania, Papua New Guinea, Cambodia, and Northern Vietnam.

My photographic interests have also expanded into wildlife. I first went on an African safari in 2012. I thought it would be a trip of a lifetime, and my only safari given the cost. But I was hooked and just came back from my eighth safari, which encompassed five countries in Africa, and over a hundred game drives.

So now, at seventy-six years old, I am retired, single, and can live the life I longed for, both as a photographer and an ethnographer. I don’t have the obligations and shackles of a work life, but I continue to have a strong sense of purpose and passion for what I’m doing with my time. I am not primarily collecting photographs, but I treasure the experiences. I’m recording and then recycling these adventures through my photos and videos.

Here are a few: On my second trip to Papua New Guinea, I was invited to the initiation of boys and young men into the spirit house in the remote village of Yamok. After a long ride in a dugout canoe, we walked for two hours through the humid jungle. The villagers were as curious about us as we were about them, and fascinated with cell phone videos of our American lives. We were given a guest house specifically built for us, where we slept on the bamboo floor under mosquito nets. They also prepared a large pig in our honor, dividing the meat systematically among all the village families, as well as our group. The initiated men danced all night long to prepare as the first part of the ceremony. They were aided by chewing betel nut, turning their mouths red. In the morning the young men, each being held by an uncle, were ritually scarred with a pattern unique to their village. It was an intense, secretive experience I was invited to witness – another culture so alien to our own.

The second example was being on a team of four photographers to document the Hadzabe tribe, the last hunter-gatherers in Tanzania. This was with the Jimmy Nelson Foundation, based in Amsterdam, that has produced coffee table books about vanishing cultures. We spent four full days with the tribe, from dawn to dark. At first, they were wary of us, cautious even. They warmed up as we followed their daily routines: hunting, making their huts, digging for tubers and water, making bows and arrows, dancing, and storytelling. They don’t have a written language, so they impart their culture around a fire. They do everything communally and share all their possessions with one another. They were adamant that they didn’t want to live like we do: too busy, too noisy, too removed from nature. After our time with them I could see their point of view, and we were all sad to leave them.

And two experiences in the natural world: I dove off Wolf Island in the Galapagos where the water is cold with currents. We would dive down to 85 feet and hook our buoyancy control devices (BCs) on a hole in the lava rock which was not occupied with a moray eel. Then we’d wait. Soon hundreds of large hammer head sharks would swim by above us, and on either side. We were just a pothole in their highway as they circled the Island.

And finally, while on safari in South Africa we encountered a leopard that had killed an impala. It had been chased up a tree by hyenas that had stolen his meal. The hyenas were being hounded by a large group of rare African wild dogs trying to snatch the kill. Our vehicle was surrounded by the dogs, while the hyenas kept their prize in the bushes. There was lots of yipping and whining, with the hyenas growling in response.

Christmas of 2019 is when my sister-in-law gave each one of us a small white box that lit up. It came with letters so you could make your own customized sign. With some thought, I summarized my own personal motto: Live Large and Long. Finally, retired with enough money, time and freedom, I am able to do what I’ve wanted to do since my twenties. One of my fellow travelers has said, “You know, we’re racing the reaper.” I’ve known that since my wakeup call with the AIDS epidemic, and consequentially am living my life with intention, adventure, and purpose. The older I get, the more I want to collect these experiences in the time I have left.

For more photos, videos, and descriptions of my experiences visit: http://GrandAdventures.org.