The Grey NATO – 338 – Going Pro In Watches With Writer-Photographer Troy Barmore

Published on Thu, 31 Jul 2025 06:00:00 -0400

Synopsis

In this episode of The Graynado, hosts Jason Heaton and James Stacey welcome photographer and watch journalist Troy Barmore. The conversation covers multiple topics including Jason's recent experience officiating a wedding, James' testing of the new Citizen Aqualand 40th Anniversary watch, and housekeeping updates about The Graynado shop and upcoming Toronto Timepiece Show events. The bulk of the episode focuses on Troy's journey from optician to watch journalist and photographer, discussing the intersection of watches and photography, the challenges of turning passions into professions, and advice for aspiring photographers. The conversation also touches on favorite everyday carry items like bags and boots, and concludes with final notes about breathing exercises and photography apps.

Transcript

Speaker
Jason Heaton Hello and welcome to another episode of The Graynado, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 338 and it's proudly brought to you by the always growing TGN supporter crew. We thank you all so much for your continued support. And if you'd like to support the show, please visit thegraynado.com for more details. My name is Jason Heaton in Minneapolis, and I'm joined, as ever, by my friend and co-host James Stacy in Toronto. James, how are we doing?
James Stacey Yeah, not too bad. You know, catching up on some sleep, you know, trying to lean into the summer of it all. How about you? How's the last week been?
Jason Heaton Yeah, it's been pretty good. I had an interesting experience over the weekend that I've never had before in that I officiated at a wedding. Oh, cool. A very old friend of mine, going back 30 years, one of my first jobs, I worked with him and he kind of got me into cycling and we've climbed a mountain in Colorado together and we both own Defenders and whatever. Anyway, he's a good friend and he just married his girlfriend, now his wife, clearly, on Sunday morning. So I... Got the license here in Minneapolis to be a marriage officiant and performed the rituals there on Sunday morning. It was a lovely ceremony outdoors and then we all went for brunch. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I think I might have a knack for it. It might be a third or fourth career for me. If anyone in Hennepin County here wants to get married, I'm offering my services. That's fantastic.
James Stacey Well, we've got a reverend on duty. I like it. That's good. That's so much fun. Well, that's cool. That's a fun thing to get into for sure. We've got a few things to kind of jump into as far as news about things going on with the show and the rest of it. We can get to that in just a moment. You know, I spent my weekend up at the cottage for a couple of days kicking around with the new Aqualand 40, the 40th anniversary Citizen Aqualand. You know, obviously, we've talked literally ad nauseum about the 2007 17W, the lume dial version of this watch. And then for... For the 40th, they brought out the sort of one that reflects more the original model with sort of a dark tone case and a lot of gold accents and that sort of thing. And, man, I just had a blast with it. We'll get more into it in wrist check in a few minutes, but that's kind of what we got up to. A little bit of kayaking, some snorkeling. I tried out the depth sensor in about, you know, by my measure, about eight or nine feet of water, and I couldn't get it much over two meters. These things with the first few feet are never... pinpoint accurate. So that's to be expected. I hope to give it a chance to get a little bit deeper maybe later in the summer. But yeah, it was a good weekend for sure.
Jason Heaton That's great.
James Stacey We've got a great guest on this week if it sounds like we're moving a little bit quickly. We'd like to devote most of the time to the guest who I'm sure you've seen from the title of the episode. But you know, before we get into there, Jason, do you want to get through a little bit of these sort of housekeeping?
Jason Heaton Yeah, definitely. I can go first with just a little bit of news about the TGN shop. As I mentioned last week during the show, we've paused the option to purchase TGN NATO straps due to some rising shipping costs and absurdly high shipping costs, especially to the EU, possibly as a result of the tariff situation in the world. Um, we will continue to offer free straps and stickers to our, our new annual subscribers. So those that sign up for the a hundred dollar a year subscription. Um, but at this point, um, the shop is only accommodating, uh, products that are sold through our fulfillment partner. Um, so those would be, you know, the t-shirts basically, um, and some mugs. Um, but we're not, uh, we're not going to offer the straps for sale just, just to, to, uh,
James Stacey new subscribers so that's that's the news on that front yeah um and then you want to talk about toronto timepiece show we've got some some new news on that front yeah we do so toronto timepiece show is the third weekend this year in september you can check it out at timepiece show.com jace and i will be doing a live episode on saturday And then on Sunday night, we will be doing our Party with Marathon. If you went to the party hangout last year, we're literally doing the same thing again this year. It's at the same incredible location and all that. And by the time you're listening to this, if you're active on the Slack, there's a good chance that you'll be able to... Find sort of the earliest RSVP link. We'll go to the Slack first, and then we will share it likely with next week's episode. We have a good allotment of space, and we've built some time to travel because the show this year, the Timepiece show, is quite a bit further north. We want to keep the same location. If you were there last year, I don't think we have to explain why. It's just the most amazing place to have a party. And so we're really excited. Marathon's really excited. So stay tuned this week on the Slack and in next week's episode, if you're not on the Slack, to get in on those elements. Once we have timing for the live episode on Saturday, we'll share that as well. We're part of the schedule of kind of live events that are happening throughout the day. So by all means, once we have that time, we will share it. But, you know, if you're going to be there on Saturday and you'd like to see the show, it'll be at some point during the day. So, I mean, it's a walk around kind of hangout show. So it's pretty casual in terms of making these schedules work. The other thing we've got on the list is we got a great run of questions last week for the Q&A portions of the show that are upcoming. So if you're listening and would like to send in a question for a future episode of the Q&A, we would love to have them. We got probably like a good 10 or 12. I organized them yesterday. So thank you so much for sending those in. Really varied. Some silly ones, some about watches, some not, some about music. all this sort of stuff. So if you want to get in on that, by all means, please send us a voice memo from your phone. Send it to thegraynado at gmail.com asking your question and we will get it into the flow and get it answered pretty soon. I'm actually kicking around an idea. And I'll just put it out there, Jason. I was going to talk to you about it, but we're on this little bit of a time crunch. So let's put it out there. And if people like the idea, that's what we can do. Instead of doing a monthly Q&A where we have to do an entire other episode, I was thinking we have a subscriber feed. We could do two or three questions at the end of every weekly episode and have that be an episode that goes into the subscriber feed. So if you like the idea of having... an extended version of the show each week that includes a couple of questions, or if it's a great question, just one. Who knows? Let me know in the comments. Let me know in Slack. This might be an easier way to stay on top of the questions and not have to do an entire alternative show. I kind of like this idea. A couple of the podcasts I listen to do extended episodes for the subscriber side, and this would allow us to have a much stronger cadence for the questions. So if you like that idea... and it would represent a similar value. We'd be getting to the same number of questions and that sort of thing. Let us know. It might be something we trial for the rest of the year, just adding a question two or three at the end of every episode and having that be something that tacks on to the episode on the subscriber side. So let us know if you think that's a good idea. But otherwise, I think that's all the housekeeping for this week. We've got another five minutes or so until our guest jumps on the call. Do you want to hold off on wrist check until they get here? Might as well, right? I'm sure he's wearing something fun.
Jason Heaton Yeah, I would think so. It's always good to include our guests in that and get a little variety. And people are always like, oh, another Pelagos and CWC for James and Jason or another Aqualand or something. Yeah, exactly.
James Stacey Yeah, I don't I don't think you're going to be very surprised by either of our choices. If you read Jason's sub stack this past week, an excellent story. You won't be surprised by his. And if you saw any of my Instagram, you won't be surprised by mine. You know, my cottage weekend was fun. I'm just trying to think of the stuff I wanted to talk about. Just looking back over my weekend, there's a few things I did want to update, mostly around products that I bought earlier in the year and have finally put to use. The first is a Dynatrap. It's like an insect trap for mosquitoes. And it looks like a little lantern. It's got like a UV thing, and then it synthesizes CO2 somehow. I didn't really look into it. They had good reviews. I put it on. And the interesting thing is reading through the manual, which I don't always do, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't doing something wrong. You actually leave these running for months. Like, I'll leave it on at the cottage for months. It disrupts the breeding cycle. But it apparently attracts the mosquitoes into this container where they just kind of starve and die, I guess. And then you clear out the container every now and then. And it gets the occasional moth and that sort of thing in there, too. I always, I'm kind of doubtful of these mosquito things. The mosquitoes at the cottage can be unbelievably bad. Yeah. And it just works beautifully. There's no mosquitoes around my cottage. And then we walk, you know, we have like a playground on the other side of the property. And you walk over there and you're immediately getting bit. Huh. So this was like 90 bucks at Costco. I'll put in the correct one because they make them like more powerful ones. The one I pulled up here is for an acre. I don't think I bought the acre one. I think mine's maybe a half acre one. Hmm. If you're in the zone where you could leave this at your cottage or really, I mean, it doesn't use a ton of power. So if you're traveling or camping with one of those like Jackery anchor power boxes, it's just a little LED. So it's not claiming a lot of power. It's worth considering as well. And then the other thing, which I know I spoke about buying it. closer to Christmas was I bought both of my daughters these inflatable Intex kayaks. And we took them out for the first time this weekend. Like we had them in the water previously, but we went out on an actual little like kayak adventure up to the north end of the lake where there's this marsh Delta. And dude, they're awesome. They were like, I think 70 bucks Canadian each. And it's like, I ended up in one of them because my youngest got tired of paddling. So she went in the large kayak with my father. So she didn't have to paddle. Yeah. And so I ended up in it. So it's enough room for, you know, I'm 6'3", mostly leg. I think it's pretty flexible that way. But yeah, they're really good. I highly recommend them. They're even good enough, they're stable enough that we drop something in shallow water. And once we found it visually, I jumped in, got it, and got back into my boat without flopping my phone or the rest of it. So it worked out pretty well. So that's a plus for the Intex as well. I'll put both of those in the show notes and that sort of thing.
Jason Heaton I had an inflatable kayak for a number of years. It was from a company called Fullbot. It was something I reviewed for Gear Patrol back in my early days there. And the problem I had with it was, and maybe I was 35 pounds heavier than I am now, so I was probably pushing the weight limit, but it would bow in the middle where my weight was. And so I sort of created this low point, and I would end up sitting in a puddle of water.
James Stacey the whole time oh but um sounds like you didn't have that issue and i'm maybe maybe i was pushing the the upper end of the weight limit with the one that you had was it two air cells or one i don't remember it was it was it was it wasn't like the the index you you inflate a floor yeah and then you inflate the it's like two different cells and it's quite rigid i there's no bowing at all I can even pick each one up on one arm, and they're so rigid that you can hold on to the superstructure to carry them around pretty easily.
Jason Heaton Well, and this was many years ago, and it wasn't a cheap one. I mean, it was a fairly high-end one, but I think, obviously, technology's changed, and nowadays you get inflatable stand-up paddleboards. So Boeing, I think, has been solved as an issue with most of the good ones, I would imagine. So that's great.
James Stacey Yeah, these feel more like the quality of, like Sarah has a stand-up paddleboard, which is $400, four times, five times the price. They feel more similar to that, semi-rigid, if you will.
Jason Heaton Yeah.
James Stacey Well, you know, I think it's probably time to get into our guest element. I think we're really excited about this one. It's a fellow that I've gotten to know over the last little while. And I'm just really excited to have him on the show. So today we have another great guest, a guy from our world in watches. He's a New York-based writer, enthusiast, and photographer whose expertise spans luxury watches, heritage goods, adventures, and more. You may know him from Instagram, his excellent body of work for Revolution and others, and more recently, his contributions to Hodinkee. We'll get into all this and more. All you need to know is it's Troy Bearmore. Troy, how are we doing? Doing very, very well. Thank you guys for having me. Thanks for coming on. It's an absolute treat, man. You've been on my short list for the last several months as I got to know you. I mean, we crossed paths certainly, but we kind of got to know each other better at Audrain last year and the occasional crossing paths and airports and that sort of thing. Of course. And I'm sure we'll get into this, but when you kind of transitioned out of Revolution and it was an option that you might be up for some freelance, I jumped on it. And you've already cranked out some great stories. We'll include a couple of those later. In the show notes, I thought the coverage of the Leica event, the incredible coverage of the Glashuta Dial Manufactory Tour was great. And, you know, there's a lot of great stuff on the horizon. So hopefully we get to cross paths in person again sometime soon. But it's certainly a treat to have you on the show today.
Troy Barmore No, thank you guys so much for having me. And thank you for that intro. I mean, that's, yeah, very, very, very, very nice intro. Oh, you got to have a good intro. Come on.
Jason Heaton Troy, I don't know. Have you and I have you and I formally met? I think we've probably been on a press trip together and I think I've seen you in a in a situation, but I'm not sure we've actually chatted more than we will today.
Troy Barmore Yeah, no, I don't think that we I think I mean, certainly our paths have crossed and I think we've rubbed shoulders now and then. But but yeah, I think this is the first like proper introduction and an interaction that you and I have had. So I've been long overdue, I would say.
Jason Heaton Yeah, definitely. Right. Yeah. Both Revolution alums, it sounds like.
Troy Barmore Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. They're an entry point for a lot of voices in the space. I think it's one of the things that makes Revolution great.
James Stacey Absolutely. Yeah. Well, look, I think the natural spot to kick off here is with some wrist checks. So, Troy, would you like to kick it off with what you've got on today for the recording?
Troy Barmore Yeah, absolutely. I'll hold up so you guys can see it, even though you'll just have to listen and trust me. So today I am wearing the Alpina Alpiner Extreme, specifically the Freeride World Tour Edition, which has... Been in my collection for a couple of years now and is easily, I would say, my most worn watch of the last year or two. Which is funny because it's not a style or a watch that I would have previously thought was very me. I tend to be very minimalistic in my tastes and tend to wear smaller watches. But since I got this, it just, I don't know, it unlocked a different side of my personality. And yeah, I can barely take it off. So absolutely love it.
James Stacey That's amazing. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, cool. Yeah, good point. And yeah, because you can't see it on, we do record these chats on video for the ease of the conversation, but we'll certainly have that in the show notes or I'm sure there's a great photo of it on your Instagram. I can pull that. I've got a couple I'll send your way.
Jason Heaton Good stuff. I think that's the first time either of us or a guest has worn an Alpina in wrist check, and we don't talk about that brand much. I've liked their stuff over the years, and they've cut across so many different styles. I mean, they were kind of doing some, maybe they still are, IWC-esque pilot collection stuff. Their divers have been pretty cool. When you held it up at first and before you said it was an Alpina, I thought it was, do you guys remember Jean Richard, their Terrascope? Yeah. And I think it was called the Aquascope or something. I kind of missed that brand, actually. I quite liked Jean Richard, but it has that similar sort of cushion-shaped case. Yeah. That's a really cool watch.
Troy Barmore Thank you. Yeah, man, Alpina, I think is one of the most underrated brands out there. And especially in like the American side of watch media, because they, you know, the brand itself hasn't hasn't really pushed too hard as far as marketing in the US. So a lot of folks don't really pay that much attention to it. But, you know, pound for pound, it's it's an incredible value in terms of the build quality and the finishing and just the structure of especially the, you know, the extreme cases. It's a really cool brand that a lot of people should check out.
Jason Heaton Yeah, I like it a lot. Great.
James Stacey Jason, how about you? You put a story out this week. Are you wearing a coordinated watch?
Jason Heaton I am, yeah. I've got my Rolex Sub. This is the 14060M that I got back on my 40th birthday, now many years ago. It's funny, it was actually one of my first, tie it back to our comments about Revolution, it was actually one of my first diving reviews I did back in 2011, actually, of this watch, not long after I got it. I took it diving on a wreck up in Lake Superior. And, um, I had written that for revolution and I, I, I was going back through cleaning up my Dropbox folders the other day and I came across that review and I just thought I'm going to kind of edit it and like revisit it, uh, from today's perspective and what I know and some of the things that have changed that was before the no date sub got, you know, even re, you know, updated, I guess, with, you know, the new clasp and the solid end links and that sort of stuff. So this, this was a bit of history and I haven't worn it. much in the past couple of years. It just kind of sits, as we've discussed. I mean, different attitudes and views about Rolex and been kind of leaning in hard into the Tudor space lately. But I've been wearing it almost nonstop for about the past week, week and a half. And it's just made for... I don't know, as you know, the old Rolexes are very comfortable, and especially in hot weather like this, having something on kind of a slightly loose bracelet is really comfortable, and I'm really just enjoying wearing it. It's been great.
James Stacey Yeah, I mean, that generation and then also the coordinated Sea-Dweller from that era are still such cool things that really feel more connected to the start of the sub than the more modern side of the sub these days. Yeah. But it's good stuff. And, you know, it is such a ubiquitous watch, a black Submariner, even from a five digit era. But I do when I see them, I go like, oh, that's like that's like Heaton's.
Jason Heaton It's great. I mean, I was I'd written that story about the Tudor video last week for Hodinkee. And and I was I was wearing this watch last night and I was looking at it. I was thinking this is basically the same watch those guys were wearing with a with a better movement. And I think somebody posted probably, you know, Ben Lowry or something on his Instagram or on watches of espionage saying. There are still ongoing debates in forums about whether or not you can wear your watch in the shower. These guys wore these watches to do far worse stuff than that, and I was thinking about that. There's a lot of lore tied to these things, and I'm enjoying it.
James Stacey Troy, where do you land on shower with a watch? With a bracelet, it's a nice chance to kind of give it a rinse.
Troy Barmore I mean, I suppose so. I don't see the necessity either way. I'm of the mind where it's sort of like, why?
James Stacey But if you were traveling, if you're having a shower, I don't know if you're the type to occasionally claim a shower at a lounge, an airport lounge, here or there. I've done it maybe twice in the last decade. I'm not taking the watch off in that scenario, right? Or at least I don't want to. That's entirely valid.
Troy Barmore I mean, look, I kind of professionally came into the world of watches through vintage, right? So I was very much kind of, you know... No water.
James Stacey Yes. Ideally, no humidity.
Troy Barmore Yeah, more the humidity than the water, right? Because you can have a watch that can withstand, you know, big fat water molecules if you're swimming, but it's the steam, right, that really is kind of the major concern for it, right? So, like... you know, shower, you'd probably be all right. Steam room, maybe don't. You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, I don't think I could do a hot tub. Yeah. It feels like abusive. Yeah. So, you know, again, push comes to shove. Yeah, I'd rather risk it than risk having it swiped. But, you know, in general, you know, better safe than sorry.
James Stacey I'm paranoid. Well, speaking about a watch that I think would handle a shower, probably even a hot tub, I'm not at the point of testing that theory, but I think this would be one of the watches I would put on the list of a possible winner. I'm wearing the new Citizen Aqualand 40th Anniversary model. So this came in on last Friday, literally like a couple hours before I was going to go to my cottage. I had the loom dial in my case to go up to, and I had the Pelagos on my wrist. I was going to do a little bit of like... loom shot in the evening with those two watches and this showed up and that plan just disappeared and i quickly threw it on uh the t-strap which we've mentioned many many times i sent one to jason back when we got the the 17w the the loom dial version a couple years back and i threw it on this so it's kind of a two-piece you know nylon it's essentially a nato but not a nato it's quite comfortable it works really well and look i'm a sucker for a ten dollar strap especially on a watch that I may not wear every single day. Like an Aqualand, I go through a week here in the summer and then I'll do another week later on. And I think some straps have become really, really expensive and are still being made in the same place as straps that you can get for under $20 on Amazon. It all comes down to the branding and the photography and all that kind of stuff. And there's been some interesting discussions about this on the TGN Slack recently. But as far as this watch goes... Look, anyone who listens to the show, even for a little bit of time, knows that I have a lot of trouble with two-tone. It feels kind of boomer flashy to me. It feels like when I was growing up, the dad that was doing okay had a two-tone tag, probably because he maybe wanted the two-tone Rolex at the time. I don't know. It was really before my broad understanding of watches. But I think if you grew up, like I was born in 86, so I grew up in the 90s, everything was two-tone. and I grew up with a real affinity for steel, steel, steel, steel. And if you're going to go gold, if you're going to have gold on a watch, give me some more grandpa charm. As is the case with all things Aqualand, it defies every rule. This watch shouldn't wear well. I shouldn't like it on my wrist. I think before Jason kind of convinced me to really get... my head around one, I didn't understand the, you know, the so-called wart or the, you know, the bump on the side for the depth sensor. Now, the other day, I took a photo, just this weekend, I took a photo where my sleeve was over the sensor, and I was like, oh, that doesn't look right. I can't see the whole, like, I'm missing part of the charm. The weirdness is part of the fun of it. And in that case, I think... I'm finding the gold coloring to be something I rather enjoy because of the dark tone of the case and the orange Minahan. The shininess of having a brand new Aqualand is weird. They are not a watch that ever, in my mind, needs to be shiny. So I think this watch is going to beg to be worn until some of the glint. is taken off of it. I love that. But look, I really like it. It wears and performs identically to the 17W and to all the other versions of Aqualins because they haven't changed them that much, if at all. But I really like it. The lume is good. The functionality of having the screen and the ability to use the digital... Time display is a second time zone, very handy. I get a little buzz that's so hard to describe when I have the seconds of the digital display perfectly aligned with the seconds of the analog display. That doesn't make me cool. It's a problem, I'm sure. But it does make me happy. And yeah, I think this is an issue because it isn't. A little bit, yeah. Jason, this is kind of like the defender of dive watches. At some point, they will make a modern version, and it will be better in every way, but it'll have a different charm. You know what I mean? And from 85 to now, they really haven't modified them that much.
Jason Heaton Yeah, I was thinking about that. I got mine around the same time you got yours, I guess, last week and was wearing it a bit. And I have one from 85 and the batteries had gone flat on it a while back. And they last a year and there are three tiny 371 batteries in this thing and all these little tiny screws that you have to take the case back off. So they did improve that part of it. But that is the only bit of evolution is like a single screw on case back with a single battery in the newer ones. But I was thinking to myself, like, do I want this watch to be in this? Imagine it in the same format with, you know, like solar or Bluetooth connectivity or something like that. I mean, would you like that? Would you like that added functionality if the watch itself, the form factor didn't change much at all?
James Stacey I don't, I wouldn't need Bluetooth.
Jason Heaton Okay, maybe not Bluetooth. Solar would be a nice step up.
James Stacey I think solar would be excellent. I think the interesting thing to think about, and we've talked about this before, so I mean, it's not, Protrex that came out earlier this year with the new MIP screen, which has a backlight, which has way more functionality, way, like... a different type of legibility in that it's much higher resolution so it can show you more data. A version that takes some of that movement and puts it in this watch would be cool, but can that movement have a depth sensor? Are they going to figure that out for such a niche market? I don't really know. How many Aqualand, like, you know, they made a lot of the 40th anniversary, but I think that number that they made is like a statement about the size of the Aqualand market.
Jason Heaton Yeah.
James Stacey Because I think these are watches where once you own one and you're kind of in, you're like, well, I could, I mean, any color could be better.
Jason Heaton Yeah.
James Stacey Or as good, right? Right. And you kind of get squeezed in. Troy, where do you land on Aqualand?
Troy Barmore I mean, it's one of those, it's one of those watches that I think it, because it's so weird looking, I kind of love it. You know, I think there's a, you know, that, again, it's a very enthusiast watch for me and I would love having one, but it's definitely, it's not something that I would like daily. You know what I mean? Sure, sure, sure. But I just, I love that it exists because of everything that it represents. You know what I mean?
James Stacey Yeah. Yeah. One of the guys on the Slack, and I apologize, fella, I didn't clock the name. Your comment came back into my mind. He said, oh, because I posted that I got mine. He said, oh, I've got mine. I'm wearing it at the office today. It's totally weird in the office. I'm like... Yeah. As a guy who hasn't been to an office since 2017. Yeah. This would be a kind of a strange watch to wear with a, you know, a gingham button up and maybe a tie. Totally.
Troy Barmore I respect it. You know, I feel like it's it's dangerously on the road to like wearing Oakley wraps and a backpack with a suit. But like.
James Stacey again like hey you know what let your flag fly bro like I have more power to you dude absolutely yeah right TGN is not an arbiter of any type of style but a certain type of taste two different things ooh I like that that needs to go on a sticker
Jason Heaton Just imagine this. So back in the day, they did make one of the originals, a version of it that came with a bracelet. And I would love to track down the bracelet for the old one. I don't know if they made it for the ones they've been making since the 90s that look the same. But that'd be a pretty cool addition, I think, even for the new ones, like the 40th anniversary or that form factor to get it with a really nice bracelet on it. I think that'd be a great step up for that.
James Stacey Then you're kind of hitting like that two vibe feel of like a Luminor. Yeah. It's one thing on a strap and it's very cool and you have a huge amount of personality from the strap, but it's a whole different thing on the bracelet.
Jason Heaton Right.
James Stacey And I think you could do that with this or like a Ploprof.
Jason Heaton Yeah.
James Stacey Rubber to the mesh, totally different vibe. Like these big, chunky, kind of hilarious dive watches have so much personality and it's so easily defined by the strap. Yeah. That's a good point. And then, yeah, the secret sauce for this one, for anybody who might be on the fence or looking at any of the versions from the last 40 years, they wear so much better than you're expecting. This is not a size of watch that I accept from any other case shape or brand, but I really like these a lot, and they wear really well. I had mine on all weekend. I slept with it on at the cottage because, you know, the lume's good enough to read in the middle of the night, and obviously I wore it up several times in the middle of the night thanks to the new kid. and uh and that sort of thing so it's very handy for all that kind of stuff but yeah an absolute treat so uh yeah i think that's wrist check and uh troy time to dig into uh troy check oh boy if you read troy check so let's start with the really easy one i think everybody who's ever listened to us chat with uh with a pal on the show knows where we're going how did you get into watches like what what was the what was the starting point
Troy Barmore so i mean kind of like for a lot of us watches you know my my entry point was really through through my dad um and through my parents like they you know my dad has always been you know a lover of of watches a lover of well-made things right And, you know, that was kind of the first real exposure that I had to them was, you know, was I grew up out in Colorado and, you know, construction family. And after one of the first, you know, really big, successful houses that my dad built, he bought himself a couple of watches, bought himself a 16610 Submariner as his work watch, which he later gave to me after I graduated from college. So that watch has an enormous amount of, you know, importance and meaning to me and um got my mother a uh a ladies reverso which fascinated me man i used to like that's a cool one like literally when i was like a little kid would like go into into her uh you know, her, like, jewelry box and pull it out and, like, play with it and just be fascinated with the case flipping back and forth. And then when I first saw the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair where Brosnan is wearing a Reverso, which they've... I think they digitally removed the logo from the dial because it doesn't actually say anything on the dial, but he's playing with the watch in a few different scenes in that movie. And I watched that probably when I was way too young to see it, but... It was just the coolest damn thing ever, right? So watches always sort of came to represent, you know, these different fantasy lives, right? Just these very evocative objects. And then it kind of grew from there and spiraled out wildly out of control.
Jason Heaton How did you roll that into a career? Where did that start?
Troy Barmore So, yeah, I mean, it was definitely a meandering path. I went to school and actually studied literature and psychology and art history and all these sort of creative endeavors. But then when I was at school, I got a part-time job and ended up actually becoming an optician. So my early career was in luxury eyewear. And it really came from that similar place of wanting to understand really, really well-made things. And that kind of led towards more luxury goods. And, you know, so I worked in that and throughout my 20s and sales and sales training and all that sort of stuff. And then got very tired of that and wanted to move more into the watch space. When I moved to New York, I got connected with with the folks at Red Bar and met, you know, Adam Craniotis and, you know, really kind of let the passion kind of blossom there. And then when I was trying to transition careers, I ended up actually working for James Lamb did an analog shift where I became the head of sales there just up into the pandemic. So it really was kind of through sales that moved me into... Even though I never liked selling things, what I realized in retrospect that I enjoyed doing was I liked sharing enthusiasm for things, right? I liked creating and telling the stories of really cool stuff and helping people connect to that, right? Which is what we all do now, you know, for a living. So I realized that I was sort of always a writer in a way, even if it was in, you know, sales training seminars and stuff like that, right?
Jason Heaton Yeah, that makes sense. And I think it reminds me of when I was working at REI for a while. I couldn't stand selling. But it was the people that would come in and just want to talk bikes and skis and stuff like that. And it's like, you are sharing enthusiasm. And actually, that is a very effective form of... Salesmanship, even if you don't consider yourself that.
Troy Barmore But yeah, I mean, those are going to be your your best your best clients, your best relationships. And I always used to teach in my trainings that, you know, if you are trying to convince somebody to buy something from you, you are doing it wrong and it is going to be an uncomfortable experience and it's going to be a hell of a lot harder. You might sell something, but like or you might let somebody buy something. But if you're having a natural connection with someone where you're sharing your enthusiasm for something and illustrating to them why it should have value to them as well.
James Stacey completely different animal man yeah I had my time in sales it was computers and I learned very quickly that you don't make some especially something like a computer it's a solution to a problem exactly that's how that works and watches there's not actually a problem yeah so trying to convince someone to buy a watch you just you're mostly helping somebody find the watch that they probably want totally totally and same thing in the eyewear world well yeah there's because there's a functional side of that like you need glasses to see and then there's the style side there's the heritage side there's the How deep down said rabbit hole does one want to go?
Troy Barmore No one needs a $2,000 pair of sunglasses made from exotic woods constructed in Luxembourg. That's the most insane sentence anyone's ever said. No one needs that at all. Same kind of deal.
James Stacey And on that front, like through this process, what was it photography that came kind of first? Was it writing? Did it kind of come at the same time?
Troy Barmore Yeah. So it I would definitely say it was the writing first, you know, coming into into analog shift and writing, you know, watch descriptions and analog was really special, I think, in the in the vintage and beyond space because of the stories that we would tell about the watches on the website. Right. So that kind of. got me back into writing. And then I started doing reviews of, of heritage menswear and like leather boots and leather bags and things of this nature for a website called stride wise. And that really kind of got me to a point where I was able to say, okay, I think I can actually safely call myself a writer, right. Without feeling like I'm a poser or, or pretentious or any of these sorts of things. Right. And then after the pandemic, I started working with Red Bar, helping Adam and Kathleen kind of run and manage the global community. And then other freelancing opportunities kind of came my way through the watch community. So the writing really started initially. But then, you know, coming out of the pandemic, I really I felt like I needed to reconnect to a more creative side of myself. Right. I needed a new creative outlet, something to really kind of inspire me and just just reignite me. Right. And I'd always dabbled in photography since I was, you know, since I was very young. Another thing that my dad introduced me to. One morning when I was really young, I grew up in the Aspen area, and we went up to the Maroon Bells very, very early one morning with a couple of Nikon cameras, a Nikon F3, and we were shooting film. And I just remember this wonderful day where my dad and I just walked around the mountains and took pictures. And... I remember getting that role developed and not a single shot came out. Like it was a totally just wasted, awful role because I had no idea what I was doing. But it was such a special day. Right. So that had kind of that that was always sort of in there. And, you know, I so coming out of the pandemic, I decided, you know what, I want to get back into photography. I really want to understand exposure and how do you really create a photo in a technical way? So then I. bought a camera and you know a fuji xt5 and just started walking around new york just doing street photography and just learning teaching myself trial by fire i mean you know we can get into this a little bit more later but you know new york city is is the best school for photography that could possibly exist yeah so then you know obviously starting to to come to more watch events and shooting and all that sort of stuff it really kind of all kind of just came together you know
Jason Heaton There's such an overlap in the watch space with photography. I mean, obviously, you know, we talk about crossover with the car culture, but I think even more so the photography side of things. And I think there's guys like you and, I mean, gosh, you know, Blake and Adam Moore and just so many that are just such great photographers in this space that... um, it can be intimidating to like get into it. I remember, I still have a bit of an inferiority complex when it comes to photography, unless we're talking underwater where I think, um, there's an expectation that as a watch journalist, as a watch writer, that you, you need to be good at photography as well. You know, they're, they're often, well, most cases there's no budget to like send a writer and a photographer on say a press trip or an outing. And so the writer's expected to be able to take good photos. And I think I find that to be intimidating and that you have to be multi-skilled in two very different disciplines, you know, writing a story versus taking a good photo. And that that's really multifaceted.
Troy Barmore Yeah, I mean, it's it's very true. And I do remember listening to like long before I was I was a writer in the watch space. I think listening to a podcast, I think, or an interview, James, I think I think it was involved you and Ben Clymer and a few other folks talking about, you know, kind of folks getting into watch media and. One of the bits of advice was if you can write, learn how to take pictures because you're probably going to need to do both. And a lot of things like there's barely budget to send a writer, let alone more than one person. So you got to get good at both. But this is something that especially since I've... And again, my imposter syndrome is still on 11, even as I'm known as a photographer. That won't go away. Yeah, it never goes away.
Jason Heaton It's the same for all of us.
Troy Barmore I have so many friends and colleagues and folks that I'll meet at watch events who say, oh, well, I have this camera and I take pictures, but I'm not like you. I'm not a photographer. I'm like, slow down. You have a camera. you take pictures with it, you're a photographer. Like, that's it. Like, you know, I completely, you know, want to disarm any that sort of gatekeeping mentality that, you know, in order to be a real photographer, you have to, you know, develop film in a dark room yourself and you have to shoot fully manual and you have to understand, you know, the finest rudiments of composition and you need to have a book from, you know, of, you know gary winogrand on your coffee table otherwise you're not a real photographer right no you take pictures with intention hell you don't even have a camera you have your phone do you take pictures with intention okay you're a photographer end of discussion you know that's that's really it as far as i'm concerned
Jason Heaton I think that's a real challenge too in the watch space is just gatekeeping in general. You talk about gatekeeping and that brings to mind luxury watches can be a space that can be exclusionary and elitist in many cases. And I think we try to knock that down a bit with TGN. And I think having you on, you're a kindred spirit and that's kind of what we're all about. But yeah, it's not nice whether it's in photography or watches.
Troy Barmore Yeah. And I mean, it's, it's, it's tough, especially with the watch world and also with photography because it's expensive, right? Like there's a, there's a, an intrinsic element of it where the barrier to entry, it's like cars, right? Like the barrier to entry there is, is pretty high, but that's also why I think the watch community is so cool and so special because you don't necessarily need to be able to buy these things or own these things to participate and to show up and learn about it and get that enthusiasm. I mean- The vast majority of my time in the watch world, right, beyond my professional capacity, my experience has been having my nose pressed up against the glass of the watch world, right? So I totally get that. And that perspective and trying to sort of demystify and remove that gatekeeping and allow people that sort of lens into this world, it underpins everything that I do, you know, professionally, personally, in the community. It's the foundation of all of it, you know?
James Stacey Yeah, and I think the other thing, especially with photography, and certainly, weirdly, I would say that what has happened with photography has had a huge impact on watches and cars. Enormous. And that's like the transition from kind of second generation of photography on the internet. We left forums and bulletin boards, and we got to Flickr. And the speed at which you could learn about how to get a certain type of... You wanted to take pictures of ladybugs. You could go online, find a ladybug channel on Flickr, learn, oh, I need the 105 with the tube adapter, and I need this type of patience, and I need to learn how to do focus stacking. And then photography becomes a backwards solution from the result that you want. And this is how I try and help people that shoot for photography learn how to take pictures of watches, because it's not... A photographer, if we're going to use that with a capital P, picks up a camera, takes a picture, and is considering all these things without actually considering. The exposures in the background, the compositions in the background, you're waiting for a moment. With product photography, you're building that moment and you have to see it holistically. It's not just the camera. And I would argue, and we'll get to it in my final note, the camera might mean less now than it did six months ago. let alone three or four years ago when I penned a piece for Hodinkee about how you could do a lot of this with an iPhone. And before that, when we were saying, you know, it's not the camera, it's what you're shooting and how you're shooting it. If you want a very specific outcome, it might be the camera. If you want to get into like Adam Moore style work. good luck because that's an incredible overlap of very specific gear and a very specific thought process of making that work right yeah or if you want to catch up with a guy like you know who shoots for uh hodinkee our senior editor mark cosler i would argue find someone who's better to walk into a room not consider any of the light in that room and walk out with a photo that could be on the front of anybody's magazine yep He's at the absolute top of the game, but it's a learnable system. It's not this magic brain process. It's doing it 10,000 times and it's knowing how to set up a light and maybe a little mirror and maybe some background stuff and that sort of thing. And I think all of it's learnable. And right now the world is in such a place where all of that has been demystified. So if you see a photo that you really like on Instagram... especially if it's from a photographer, there's a chance that there's a YouTube video from that guy explaining how he made the photo. Or a YouTube video from this woman explaining where they went to Bora Bora to get a certain photo of certain rays and what camera they used. You can get through all that. You still have to put yourself in the place to get the photo. And I think when we hit that third wave of Instagram, it made photography feel a lot less special. And it became more about the moment, which I think has goods and bads to it. Like photography itself became so democratized that we were more about like, oh, you know, Aaron Hall's got a lady hanging off of a helicopter just over the water. And you're like, that's the best photo. That's the coolest photo I've ever seen. Or you get into, you know, all these different sorts of elements depending on what you were into. But all of that came downstream of cameras kind of getting to a point and then just being good enough. Right. And now you have this backwards bit of like lo-fi stuff where people are going back and buying, you know, early power shots. Old Nikon cool pics. And modifying them or removing filters or, and I mean like digital inside the camera sort of modifications. And we're getting, I think we're seeing more and more of the art of photography rather than just the pure obsession with the gear. Right. I'm curious, Troy, because you cracked into it and because you're now a working photographer, which I think is a line in the sand. There's hobby and there's people who are doing this to put food on their table and that sort of thing. What would you suggest from someone listening who maybe they lost their job, maybe they're planning to move into a different career path, maybe they want to learn? to be kind of a broad spectrum creative. Maybe they want to learn how to take and edit photos, how to run a shoot, how to, you know, bring it home and put it into a website and all that kind of stuff. What would you suggest for some of the starting points, you know, in a 2025 context?
Troy Barmore I think for the first six months, I would really just focus on keeping it fun. You know, like what, like identifying what's the thing about photography that makes you want to do it in the first place, right? Because I think with any creative endeavor, especially, I mean, this has been my experience because I turn everything I love into work. Like it's something I've always done. And it's very easy to absolutely destroy the thing that you love, right? By turning it into work, turning it into an obligation. So I think before you get to that point where you're like, okay, I need to make money with this. I need to support myself with this. Because that's just going to stress you out, man. That's going to drain any of the kind of joy that you get when you snap the shutter and you know you got that really special moment, right? Before you even look at the photo, you just know you got it. Like that high is such an incredible feeling. And if you're focusing on initially on like, all right, so how do I monetize this? How do I structure this as a business? you're going to be dead in the water before you even get going. So I would start from a place of, you know, kind of understanding what it is about photography that attracts you in the first place, learning, you know, what makes a good photo from from the standpoint of composition, you know, learning some of those rules, you know, but but don't focus too much on that. and then and then doing it and experiencing it and finding what works for you i mean even still and i hope this never changes every time i go on on a shoot or on assignment or something like i learned something right like i'll i'll make a mistake i'll you know i'll not have the depth of field that i wish i had or maybe i'll do something accidentally that really really worked like oh man that was awesome i'm gonna do that again right So the more you shoot, the more you will learn what works, what doesn't work, and how you can start to use the technical elements of photography, you know, the exposure triangle, all these sorts of things as expressive tools, right? And really kind of just focusing on that to begin with, you know. don't worry so much about gear yes gear is is important and there are limitations to it always drives me nuts when when photographers who are walking around with you know like you know uh you know an m11 dangling around their neck and they go oh gear doesn't matter and i'm like well sure you've got a twelve thousand dollar setup like you know come on Of course it matters. You know, there is stuff that I can shoot on my Canon R5 Mark II that I can't shoot on my Fujifilm, right? Or on my iPhone. Of course gear matters. But it's not the only thing that matters and it's not as much of a limitation as gear reviews will tell you that it is, right? So get the best camera that you can afford reasonably. Learn how it works and avoid gear acquisition syndrome, right? The only time I will go out and buy a new lens or a new piece of equipment is after I have actively noticed that I'm missing things by virtue of the absence of that piece of equipment. And then I will go get it, but not before. And have fun with it, you know?
James Stacey Yeah, I mean, we've said on here before that... And I think Jason's the same way. You kind of have a life cycle with a camera or conceivably with a lens. I find lenses, you can keep them forever these days because everything can be adapted. But with a camera, I just find I work until I feel like it's a limitation where I'll eventually go on a shoot, have a great opportunity and go like, you know, if I had this or this, I would have gotten the photo that I really wanted. And then I start this process of like, all right, so what's next? 100%. And that lasts years in some cases. Jason's got my Q, which I've shot with for a really long time, which is overkill for a camera, but it also does so many things so well. But now, between the time when that camera started and now, there's about 20 other options that have the same ability that don't cost that sort of money. So yeah, I would agree that gear is important when you understand the solution that the gear will provide you. gear will not make you a more artful photographer. If anything, it might distract you. In some ways, the limitation, exactly. In some ways, the limitation of so-called lesser, again, I'm using air quotes on audio here, but lesser, older, you know, gear could lead to more artful outcomes or things that just feel more signature you because you're working around what the one or two things the camera might not be great at. You know what I mean?
Troy Barmore Almost every single iconic, you know, society-shifting photo that you have ever seen, the most important photos that we all know were taken on worse cameras than all three of us own and use every day.
James Stacey Oh, yeah. Right? Yep. I mean, there were covers of National Geographic that were shot on cameras so much less than your iPhone. Infinitely.
Troy Barmore So much less. So again, it's important, but it's not the most important thing.
Jason Heaton So you mentioned that one of the challenges of getting into the creative space and doing it as a job is you kind of end up killing what you love. Yeah. Or there's that risk. Yeah. And I'm curious, what is something that you love that you will not... drag into your professional side of your life and we have kind of this question we were kicking around like if you had a free weekend with no constraints what would you get up to and how would you keep that sort of separate from you know I'm going to take a watch along and turn it into a watch story you know
Troy Barmore Yeah, and I sort of answered kind of two different questions there. So the first I would say, and I nearly did this, is music. So I'm a guitar player. I've been playing guitar for over 20 years. I nearly went to school for that. I pretty much... I went to and interviewed at the Berklee School of Music in Boston and was essentially told, just show up to your audition and you're in. You know what I mean? And I, at the very last minute, did not do that because something about it felt off. It felt that tug in me that was just like, this ain't right. I don't know what it is. And I didn't do that. And I'm desperately grateful that I didn't. So now I will never turn music into any kind of career or work. It's something that, you know, when when i need it i return to it and you know when i'm by myself and and i'm playing guitar you know playing some you know some moody western folk i call it sad bastard music you know it's just for me and and i love it desperately and i will and i will protect that from my own ambition you know um indefinitely To the second question, if I kind of had just a completely unconstrained day, it's a funny thing. Because we get to do so many cool things in this insane career that we all have, it's those days when I'm just at home and I don't have to go anywhere. I don't have to be social. I love cooking, so I can just cook an awesome dinner for my wife or I can sit and just be a... just a garbage can of a person and play video games for, you know, for five hours straight. Absolutely. You know what I mean? Yeah, my mom would have called a bump on a log. Yeah, bump on a log. Exactly. You know, getting stuck at the crack of the couch. You know, I'm big on that downtime. You know, so as boring of an answer as that is, left to my own devices, I can become an absolute homebody hermit.
James Stacey Yeah. Nice. Yeah. Well, look, we've got a few more minutes left, and then you're going to stay on for final notes? Yeah, absolutely. Sure. Amazing. So let's do a little bit of rapid fire, kind of digging into what I think you would really zone in on. So what would be your... This is always a popular one for TGN, and Jason and I, we have a problem where we can't pick... So we end up with a lot. What is your go-to value first like bag, a bag that you would carry with you every day? Something that kind of, it could be expensive if it's worth it or it could be inexpensive because that's what makes it worth it. So just daily carry bag or camera bag? No, I think just a bag, just in general. Because I know that you're into this to a certain extent as well, and your background in leather and handcraft and that sort of thing. Sure. Like, is Filson overrated?
Troy Barmore Oh, absolutely. Filson is lost as far as I'm concerned. They don't know who they want to be anymore. I've written articles about this. I would say, look, my personal favorite bags. I love my my indie bag from, you know, from Observer Collection. James, you introduced me to that, you know, saddleback leather. Great stuff. Absolutely great stuff. Saddleback leather was my first love. You know, my classic briefcase from them really got me into the world of leather bags. But these are very expensive bags and can be kind of hard to get. There's a there's a company out of Indonesia called Cravar. um that it's c-r-a-v-a-r that make beautiful vegetable tan leather bags that are super reasonably priced you know it's it's a very small operation so your money is going directly to the people who are making the bags and making the leather um oh these are gorgeous they're awesome and the value is nutty for what you're getting um i mean i I walked into, I won't say the name, but like a very high-end, you know, luxury leather boutique in Manhattan on Fifth Avenue one time. And... The sales associate saw me wearing one of the Cravar bags, and he thought it was like a $2,000 bag, and it very much is not.
James Stacey Looks like they're floating around $400 to $600. Yep. Really, really great bags. Cravar.
Troy Barmore All right.
James Stacey Great tip.
Troy Barmore Yeah. You're hard-pressed to find, I think, better value for bags. Again, they're not necessarily the most evocative designs all the time, but really solid.
James Stacey Nice. And then let's hit another one. Same question, but for boots. Jason and I are huge Iron Ranger, Red Wing fans, but obviously there's so many more out there.
Troy Barmore I definitely have some Red Wing boots in my collection. My go-to dailies are my White's MP boots. They might be called the MP Shermans now. It's their basic... cap toe military boot. That's my go-to. I find they're a little bit more refined in terms of the design. They're very much that Pacific Northwest heritage boot style, not quite as expensive as Viberg necessarily, but just really, really good. Um, if you're on a little bit more of a budget, Grant stone is an awesome brand, really beautifully made. They're all made in China, but they're made in this sort of small family owned factory in China. And, um, you're getting awesome value and really good quality leather. So yeah, probably either whites or, or Grant stone, if I had to pick.
James Stacey All right. And then without necessarily labeling a budget, but a friend comes to you, they go, hey, you're my friend that knows watches. I'm, you know, maybe the watch I had previously has run out or I can't wear an Apple watch at my office anymore. What do I go for? Where would you kind of steer someone for that nexus? Because it's a moving target in the last decade of where the value and the watchmaking really, really kind of balances out nicely. Yeah.
Troy Barmore Yeah, I mean, and again, I really, I do think it is ultra budget dependent. I really think that it comes down to... Let's say it was under $1,000. They'd be thrilled if it was under five.
James Stacey Yeah.
Troy Barmore Five's tough these days. Five is tough. I think this is the thing that's exciting about watches right now. If you have $50, you can get a great watch. If you have $50,000, you can get a great watch. so it really it entirely depends under a thousand bucks i mean there's so many amazing micro brands that are making awesome watches it depends on the style that you want but i mean you know our our buddy jonathan at brew like hard pressed to find better value for for quality and finishing than a brew watch um you know for more utilitarian stuff there's some awesome hamiltons that are you know that are what like five six hundred bucks You know, my buddies, Ryan and Reagan over at Veyr, they've been doing some great stuff for a number of years. Yeah, Veyr's become one of my answers to this question. They're so good, dude. They're so good. You know... so yeah i mean it's it's it's a cop-out answer but there's there's so many different options that you can get um just coming down to to the value the one thing that i will say on this and i apply this especially to micro brands um the the sign of a truly great micro brand or or value priced watch is when you're wearing it and you are not made aware of the thing that it isn't Do you know what I mean by that? Like, so you're wearing a watch and you're like, oh, exactly. You're like, oh man, this is nice, but it's not the Submariner that I wish it was.
Jason Heaton Right.
Troy Barmore I've never put on a brew where I was looking at it and thinking, oh, this isn't whatever. I love it for exactly what it is. And it's not any lesser by the price point. That's my metric. Yeah.
James Stacey Yeah. And I mean, the other thing is there are options out there in the world that are the OG option that are still under a thousand dollars. Like you go buy a marathon navigator. 100 percent. Any citizen pro master like, dude, you know what I mean? Yeah. Pick the one that fits your wrist. Yeah. Eco drives just also just so nice for someone getting into the idea of a nicer watch because it's no fuss. 100 percent. 100 percent. All right, well, this is great. We'll jump into final notes. I got one more question. For people who want to go a little bit deeper on the Troy of it all, what work would you say kind of represents your personality in school? What are you out there that if somebody said, hey, what have you worked on recently that you really were proud of? What could we share with the audience so people could dig in, read a couple stories, see some of the photos?
Troy Barmore I love this question so much. Thank you for asking it. Because there are a couple of the stories that I'm deeply proud of. Yeah, of course. You know, obviously the Leica photo report and the Glessuto original reports that I just did for Hodinkee, I'm very proud of those because it's, you know, they're my first pieces in Hodinkee. And that's, I mean, that's a big deal for any, you know, watch journalist. But I think if there was one single piece that represents kind of All of my my ambitions and skill sets. I wrote a very long article on the Citizen Pro Master 35th anniversary watches and the experience press trip that went along with that. We went up to Canada. And when, you know, canyoning, which is where you hike up and then rappel down numerous different sections of waterfalls, and then went heli hiking at the lodge with CMH and the Bugaboos in the Purcell Mountains. And, you know, we take helicopters up to these distant peaks and then sort of hike from there. And that experience, the photos that I took, the article, it all really encapsulates the desire that I have to create experiential, narratively driven content that people who don't get to experience these things, that don't get to go to these places, see these watches, they can live a little bit vicariously through, right? That's the ambition that I have with any piece of coverage that I do. And it's a tall bar. It's not something that I would say I succeed in. um every time but yeah i think that article and also the experience behind it really kind of changed me like it i've never considered myself a particularly adventurous person necessarily but that experience really had me going oh this type too fun, you know, there, there's, there's something to that, you know, let's, let's go get really uncomfortable for a few days and, and, and learn something about ourselves in an incredible place. You know, that's, this might have to be who I am moving forward, you know? Um, so yeah, so that piece was for revolution. Um, and, uh, it was called, I think, uh, going beyond the spirit of the pro master or something along those lines. Um, but yeah. Yeah, if I had to pick one, that's probably my favorite piece of content I've ever produced.
James Stacey Nice. All right. Well, let's jump into some final notes.
Jason Heaton Jason, you want to kick it off? Yeah, sure. We'll stay on with the citizen theme of things here. We've talked a lot about citizen today. And this is a shout out as well to a past guest, multi-time guest on our show, Chris Soule, who worked on a story for Worn and Wound. And it was a report about the windup and a lake dive that they did this year in Chicago as a part of Wind Up Chicago. Um, and it's, it's, it's all about kind of the release of the watch you're wearing today, James, the 40th anniversary Aqualand and how citizen sponsored this outing on Lake Michigan as they, um, as they did last year. And I believe it was the fourth time for wind up in a lake. I've been on three of those and. it's always a fun crew. And this year they kind of kicked it up a notch with some real eighties theme going on. They, all the guys that showed up dressed in eighties regalia and look, the photos looked great. The underwater photos looked great. And then Chris did a great right up there. So yeah, I just want to, you know, big kudos to Chris for writing that up and to all the photographers, you know, Jeff and Brock and Matt and some others that were taking photos there. Just a really nicely done piece and go check it out. You can kind of live vicariously through those guys and what looked like a great outing.
James Stacey Yeah, we missed this, but it certainly looked good. The photos are hilarious. Some of the personas that have come out of this are very funny to me. So this has been, yeah, some mustaches, some great fashion and certainly some cool watches and that kind of thing. The one up in the lake is just kind of a... I think like the weirdest, coolest thing that idea that someone's come up with and that any brand has decided to support. Just like, hey, we'll just go out and go for a dive. And yeah, right. And it's become this sort of signature, you know, storytelling piece that connects back with with Wind Up Chicago, which is super fun. All right. Who's up? Troy, do you have a final note for us?
Troy Barmore So the thing that I think has been the most impactful for me in the last year or so, I started doing every morning, I've been doing these deep breathing exercises. And it's the specific one that I follow is the Wim Hof breathing. And, you know, Wim Hof is a little controversial and, you know, very, you know, he can be a little flamboyant. And, you know, you can talk about the cold exposure therapy stuff, you know, pros and cons of it. But just the breathing exercises um which is you know rhythmic you know breathing 30 40 breaths that you inhale deeply and exhale and then you exhale on the final one and kind of hold your breath as long as it's comfortably possible and i think the longest that i made it to was was like a like five minutes of holding my breath which is kind of insane And it is so incredible for starting your day on just kind of this level playing field. I mean, I feel like it resets my mind and my body, especially if you are an anxious person or you have something really weighing heavily on your mind. Having that like 20, 30 minutes at the beginning of the day before you start looking at your phone and getting all stressed out about what you have coming, doing some deep breathing exercises.
Jason Heaton man oh man it has been a whole game changer for me that's great i love i love um that that you you presented an actual like discipline like a self-care sort of uh discipline um as a final note i don't think we've really done much of that um and certainly that's uh that's a great one yeah i'm all about it
James Stacey A month ago or so, my brother recommended to me the idea like four, seven, eight breathing. And I can include that in the show note as well. Yeah. So you're breathing in quite quickly to fill up in four seconds, holding for seven and then exhaling audibly for eight. And I don't do it 40, 50 times. I'll do like five times, especially if I just want to calm down. The difference is kind of ridiculous. Wild, right? And like the first two, three days I did it, you know, new kid, you're anxious. Maybe you're not sleeping enough. You're all kind of all the emotions are kind of jacked up. And it just like kind of drops all of it. And the first few times I was like, this has to be a placebo. My brain has to want this outcome. But I've kind of stuck with it when I felt like I needed it. And it's really nice, especially to end the day. So maybe you start with the whim. And then for me, I'm such a problematic falling asleep type. Yeah. And this is, I found to be quite helpful. So an incredible pick for final notes, Troy. Solid choice.
Troy Barmore Thank you. And yeah, box breathing, it's the same basic principle. There's different types of yogic breathing that you can do when you're doing yoga, ujjayi breath. It's all circling around the same things of sort of... you know resetting your autonomic nervous system getting oxygen into your brain you know being more present with your body and not you know having your you know all the the sort of tesla coil of our thoughts flying everywhere it's all circling around the same idea so whichever whichever school you use or method you know go with it but yeah man it's uh it's a whole game changer
James Stacey Well, mine for this week is a pretty simple one. I believe I've mentioned it kind of in passing on previous shows, and it's now become sort of a thing that I'm answering questions on in DMs on Instagram. So I'm just going to throw it out there. It is an app for the iPhone. It's called Adobe Project Indigo. And it's a very simple explanation. I'm just going to read theirs. It's a free experimental camera app for iPhones available through Adobe Lab that combines computational photography with traditional manual camera controls. It aims to offer a more natural SLR-like image quality by utilizing advanced image processing techniques and giving users more control over their photos. So look, to be mostly clear, I'm fine with how the standard phone app on an iPhone takes a photo, except when I was trying to get a watch photo. You would get everything kind of locked in and you could maybe tap the, you know, get your thumb on the dial and get the exposure down just a little bit to give you a little bit more shutter speed. But you were always kind of fighting how auto the camera wanted to be. And also when you would take the photo about a split second later, once it applied the processing, you'd zoom in on the text of the dial and it would be kind of jello-y. insincere in its resolution. And that always kind of bugged me. And it was kind of the only thing holding me back from going up to the cottage for a weekend and just taking my iPhone, which is kind of a freeing thing to not carry gear and be charging batteries and that kind of thing. And now the Jeep is full. So a camera bag does make a difference between a rabbit and another kid and all the stuff that goes along with that when we go up for a weekend. And so I'm always on the lookout for something that, you know, if you're going to use all the processing power in these things, use it to make the photo closer to what I'm getting from my other cameras. and i got there's nothing this is the best wrist shot app i've come across and it's now fully replaced what i use on my phone if i'm taking a photo i take it with with indigo um it is free they haven't put a price on it it is something i would probably pay for um in the in the future if that's how it went i do like it that much but uh yeah it's it's a very simple straightforward app i would say you largely end up just letting it make decisions But the moment that you go, no, I want this underexposed. I want this part in focus. I want to simulate this sort of an f-stop. All of those options are available to you. But I would say, like, for me, I can open the app, set it to the second zoom, and get a really crispy wrist shot in, like, one or two tries. without trying to focus on this. It knows it'll focus correctly. I don't have to tell it to hit the dial. And it really is almost surprising where once you zoom in all the way to check a detail, it's super crisp. And it feels like kind of the next gen for what I'm doing with my phone. And I would say most of the photos I have put on Instagram in the last six weeks are from Indigo on my iPhone.
Jason Heaton Yeah.
James Stacey With exceptions. You can tell when it was like, you know, I took a big camera to take pictures of flowers or something or the zoo or that sort of thing. But the wrist shots, I'm really not going and grabbing a camera to get a quick wrist shot anymore. Wow.
Troy Barmore I got to check this out. Yeah. I've had a real issue with the way, particularly in the latest, the last like maybe two generations of iPhones with the level of computational photography effects and, you know, especially the zoom lenses where... Yeah, I mean, there's so much post-processing going on that it almost feels like it's an AI-generated approximation of your picture.
James Stacey Which, to be clear, I think Indigo, that's partially what they're actually doing. I'm just saying the outcome feels so much more natural than I expected from anything that says computational in its description. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to check this out. Thank you. Yeah, of course. I hope everybody gets a kick out of it. Hopefully it's something they bring to Android. My guess is the wider variety of camera sensors and such makes it more difficult to apply to that platform, whereas you have more locked-off options with the iPhone. But hopefully they bring it out more broadly, because so far I'm quite happy with it. It is from their lab, so I'll include the entire kind of breakdown of the experimental explanation for the app in the show notes. But... Troy, this has been incredible. Thank you so much for coming on. Why don't you give people as sort of a final, final note where they can follow along, where they can find your work, where they can get in touch if they want to, if they'd like you to come shoot something or write something for you. Sure.
Troy Barmore Yeah, no, thank you guys so much for having me. It's really, you know, as any watch nerd will attest, you know, coming on this podcast is it's, you know, it's a little bit of a pinch me moment. So it's an honor to be here and be a part of it. Um, yeah, as far as my work, you know, uh, Troy Barmore on, on, on Instagram, easiest, you know, kind of way to, to find what I'm doing day to day. Um, my website, Troy Barmore photography, um, you know, is, is, is another great place that I don't update that as regularly. So probably Instagram's the, the, the quickest and easiest way to see what I'm, what I'm up to and get in touch.
Jason Heaton Cool. Great. Awesome. Yeah. Well, this was great. And it's always fun to have an interesting guest and a kindred spirit. And we appreciate all the nerdy chatter about doing the business and photography and watches and all that sort of stuff. So great. Good to have you.
Troy Barmore No, I appreciate you guys.
Jason Heaton Hopefully my answers weren't too meandering. As always, thanks so much for listening. If you want to subscribe to the show notes, get into the comments for each episode, or consider supporting the show directly, and maybe even grab a new TGN-signed NATO, please visit thegraynato.com. Music throughout is Siesta by Jazzar via the free music archive.
James Stacey And we'll leave you with this quote from the great photographer Ansel Adams, who said, You don't take a photograph, you make it.