Through the Lens: Photojournalism, Topeka, and Capturing Moments That Matter | Evert Nelson

How many stories that you have come up with, you pitched, have landed on the front page.

I mean most everyone, of course.

this is what happens when we have a journalist on the podcast.

He starts turning on us, he starts asking us questions.

I've also ridden some helicopters, taken some Blackhawk flights. That's scary.

I've never been on a hot airplane. I would love to. He's finally got to quit.

Exactly. We're finally done, Everton Nelson, with the Topeka Capital Journal the chief photo journalist. Thanks for being here man, it's a pleasure.

I really appreciate you guys having me out here.

Dude, yeah, I've been following you a little while on social media and seeing like all the stuff you're posting, I'm like this guy sees everything man.

I do see a lot, I've seen a lot and I continue to see a lot.

Yeah, I think even when we had the washburn guys I was thinking about, because we had you scheduled when we were filming uh with the washburn guys. I remember seeing you running around the stadium a few times on the court like taking photos for the tournament games and stuff.

He's got one of them passes.

It's like I can go wherever I want, yeah yeah, it's a perk of the job, I guess it's. It's part of the job, honestly, yeah.

So chief photojournalist. What does that? What does that mean? What do you do?

Well, I mean my. My primary responsibility is to get good art for almost all of our news and sports stories that we produce out of our local newsroom here in Topeka. So you know that that is tagging along with reporters. Sometimes I'm doing my own stories and kind of producing content on that, but the primary focus is to get just good art to go along with their stories and kind of bring those to life.

Is that just a tapika, sports and art that you're capturing, or is it how far do you kind of, how far does the journal go out?

so, uh, well, we, we definitely cover, uh, kansas and kansas state as well, as far as, like, we have a reporter in both of those um beats. So I do go to some ku games, some k-state games football, baseball, soccer, basketball, all of that. Um, I really have kind of restricted back because we're, you know, it's only me.

So it's a lot to cover it's a lot to cover, yeah, um. So, like the sports side, a lot of prep sports as well, that's high school sports. We have a preps reporter here, uh, so trying to keep it more, you know, peak a base, but also we do have that coverage area of Lawrence and Manhattan.

Wow. So how much of your uh, how much of your stories that you're on are assigned to you, versus your own stories that you're coming up with?

I mean probably 85% is assigned and then, like that other 15 is like me going out and finding my own stories like and again you'll viewers will see all the content I brought on here so that's probably the most recent one that I produced.

Yeah, so this is uh this is the last easter centerpiece on 420 over the. This chainsaw artist um couple actually it's a vicky and pat lankton who uh carved a giant tulip over at uh ward me park and they wow. It's a kind of a cool story like again, um, I was just having lunch with my wife out there. I saw this couple out working on this huge uh stump. I'm like that's kind of interesting. I've always been interested in like how you do chainsaw artwork and got to talk to them. They've actually created a lot of the chainsaw art that you see around Topeka, like the giant Chief Tecumseh at Tecumseh Park and then all of those pieces around there. If you play golf at Lake Shawnee you see the 1920s style golfers by the Punning Green.

And the bald eagle off of hole 12. Wow, the bears at Topeka Zoo. Yeah, on and on. It's all in the article.

How difficult is it to get something on the front page? Well, I mean, that is my job, like, legitimately every single day.

It's to try to have good art on the front page.

Right.

So, like when I see a story like this, I know it has good art potential. I'll pitch that to be like the Sunday centerpiece and that's kind of always been like the Sunday centerpiece, like the Sunday editions, like the big paper. That's the good one. Right, Everybody always like you know you work up to.

But so, but so. 15% of your job is right, Coming with your own content. How many stories that you have come up with, you pitched, have landed on the front page?

I mean most everyone.

What? That seems like a big deal, right? Well, look at him. There's a reason he's on the pod. He knows his stuff, man. I mean, it's literally. Yeah, we don't just have anybody on this podcast.

I appreciate you guys. I mean, you know it's something that's. You know it's it's something that's you know I, our newsroom is really great and that they have that ability and we have that ability to like hey, this is a really good story.

It needs to have that play out there and uh, so yeah, it's okay, wait, but here's what I'm asking, and maybe I'm asking you to brag about yourself too much, which is totally cool, you can like shut it down, like hey, I'm humble, it's fine, I get it, uh, but like you kind of what. What I heard you say is basically like you're batting a thousand on like front page articles that you're writing, like how many other reporters like what's their percentage on articles landing on the front page? You know?

I mean for for the daily uh stories. It's always. It's for the most part it's gonna be somebody else's um story with my photos attached to, and usually that's kind of how it goes right. When, like it, when I decide to produce my own story and do the photos and all that it's, it's guaranteed to be on the print page as well, like it just kind of comes with the job wow, yeah, so okay kind of how it goes, all right, okay, like the newsroom operation.

I can't go into like a lot of details on all that, like you can talk, talk to our corporate people. Who has the lowest percentage of front page articles? In the newsroom I don't know what's their ad.

Question so when you say like, hey, this is going to be a good article, you know you guys get excited about it. I think the same thing like when we're putting out social media clips or when we have a guest on like, hey, this is going gonna love it. You know we get some uh some feedback on. Hey, you know this had lots of shares or this had lots of views. How do you guys get feedback like? How do you know, like that was a good article?

oh, I mean, there's definitely analytics that you look at really even like print paper.

Oh yeah, for sure.

Well, what are they getting like?

again, I can't go into a lot of those details. Uh, just because I don't know them, um, off the top of my head you're just a photo guy.

Yeah, I mean honestly like that's pictures.

I try to focus on like that's. The job at hand is to just make good art right those and videos to go along with the articles. Um, I hope that I'm doing a good job and they get great play. Um, we know that, like some photo galleries that I've done have done really well.

You know others, just you know it's just like online, where you can track that. Well, you know you're good at your job. I mean, you've been featured in some of these big time magazines, like what is it Times. You were showing us. What are some of the big names you've been on?

Well, I mean I'll kind of go back in time a little bit, Because I've been with the Capital Journal for only. It's got to be six years in October. Before that I was freelancing Topeka kid. You know we can, we can kind of rewind.

Yeah, yeah, who was that?

we'll go all the way back because, uh, the the kind of wild card I say I'm, I was born in Costa Rica, but I actually raised here in Topeka, uh, tecumseh actually. Yeah, so my, my mom's Tika, my dad's American, wow, and the the fact that I'm here to begin with, it's kind of a interesting uh story in itself.

Is Tika the like local? Yeah, that's Costa R, that's Costa Rican, okay, yeah.

Wow, yeah, so that's kind of my origin. And then, yeah, I went to Shawnee Heights graduated in 2010.

Go birds. Exactly, I was on the golf team during that but, like, the whole aspect of like being a photojournalist and being a photographer is something I've always kind of had in the back of my mind. It kind of starts with my uncle, andy Nelson, who, when I was growing up I saw him he was working for the Christian Science Monitor at the time out of the Washington DC Bureau. So, like I was also raised a lot by my grandparents and they're very big in the news.

So we always had news on, always had the Capital Journal delivered to our front door every day. So I was very accustomed to seeing this surrounded, so Andy was a working photo seeing this surrounded. Uh. So Andy was uh a work working photo journalist in my family and so I kind of saw that as an actual viable career path.

Wow.

Um, so kind of just like following his footsteps. Uh, learned a lot from him. Uh, when I was in high school this is 2008,. He actually took me up to Iowa to the Iowa caucuses and got to see Barack Obama give speeches in a non-mentory school. So I've kind of always been this like this is just where I'm heading and what I want to do, and somehow it's just kind of worked out in this in this way.

Wow, yeah, that's wild. So you graduate from high school and you knew kind of at that point okay, I want to do photojournalism.

I knew, probably from like fourth grade, it goes way bad because I there, there was definitely a point in time that I I remember seeing like what uh andy was doing, what just other photojournalists were doing, and just seeing the news all the time, like this is just cool, like you're able to like make art and do uh take photos and like make that actually a living right. So yeah, throughout high school, uh, I did a whole bunch of just photography.

I got into like the film photography as well At that time like we had a film lab at China Heights, which was kind of a rarity and I think we're like the last class that had that. So one of these photos and I'm going to reach yeah, you're good.

So this is kind of just a fun. This is of New York when I went on an orchestra trip and it's a dark room photo that I kind of just did some like manipulations with the developing. But it's just kind of like a random thing what I was doing when I was, um, a teenager, kind of just experimenting. So from there, uh, I spent one year at Washburn before I went up to K state and got my degree in uh, print, uh, journalism, mass communications. I went up to K-State and got my degree in print journalism, mass communications, and then kind of throughout that whole career, like that time at college, I had an internship, salon Journal and then Clarkson Creative in Denver and that's where all the Rockies stuff comes into play. So, like all along my life I've been taking pictures and that's kind of always been my ethos.

It's like if I right in pictures I'm happy. This is where I want to do so what are some of the?

so you mean, when you're a photographer, you get one of them passes and you get to go to all these cool events. What are some of the coolest or maybe high profile games or events? What's some of the coolest things you've been?

yeah, well, well, definitely some of the things that I brought along here we can go. So, some of these collegian this is the, the school newspaper at K State exactly what one of the kind of more interesting things. It's just like what happens on Anderson lawn. It's just like kind of seeing these things happen not really as far as like having a press pass to be able to do that, but I just think it's cool to find those opportunities. This is from 2011, of one of the K-States versus who are they playing here? George Washington.

So, not really like a bigger team, but it's. You know sport photos early on. So from there when I was at Clarkson Creative. That's Rich. Clarkson has a rich history in Topeka as their director of photography for the Capital Journal back in the 50s and 60s.

Oh, wow.

Developed this into like a world-class, just like workshop or, I guess, just training ground for fellow journalists specifically. So I got the opportunity to intern for him. At that time they were still the Rockies official photographers, so like these Rockies magazines I have on here I got to be their like official photographer for two seasons, that 2013 and 2014 season. So like taking pictures at every single game. The fireworks photos they put me up in the actual like the Rockies logo.

Like I don't know if you've been to Coors Field or like seen it but like that's uh screen.

They've they've now modified it since this, but yeah, I I was actually put up there during the fireworks display to get some unique shots and then back on the ground how do you get up there?

is there like an elevator or they have a like a lift crane thing?

no, it's literally ladders. I mean it's just like from, like concession stands. So this, yeah, that's actually shot like inside of, uh, the, the scoreboard, which is pretty interesting, wow, yeah, so that was kind of a more unique one.

Yeah, did that feel like I've made it as a photographer like? This is the.

You know I'm in the nba of photography right now, or the mlb if you will it seemed like it yeah, I mean it's kind of crazy, like um, to be given those opportunities like really early on in my uh photojournalism career. You could say like again, it starts like in high school and even like having andy take me up to iowa and then kind of like get right onto the right into the the job itself, like even in college. It like as soon as you start working for a paper and doing this, you're a professional.

You're making money doing it.

This is what you're doing.

So within the Hall-Clarkson era too, they started putting me on some of the championships. Again, ncaa photos huge shout out to them, because they do all the production for all the championship and tournament games for the NCAA. So from I think it was 2014 through 2022, about that I was shooting the women's Final Four games for them.

Wow, that's cool, I brought along some of those publications like the Sports Illustrated and Time Yep, so that Time magazine piece from 2018 is Aruke Agumabowale, who's the Notre Dame Nailed it. Yeah, she got the game, the game winning shot and I got that photo. Wow that appeared as a double track and time magazine and so this is like the equivalent of mario's miracle, and yeah, pretty much and that's 2008 or whatever also.

That's uh, that's very uh, uh yeah so do they a freelancer when you take these pictures and they want to use them. Are they paying you for these photos?

And again like back onto the freelance side of things. Like you get paid for the most part per assignment. It's like where the photos go is kind of up in the air, because you're usually working for a wire service. This is NCAA photos via Getty Images, so we're sending photos to Getty Images. Those photos get shared out to whoever.

Gotcha. So when? Okay, so when your photo gets featured in a big magazine, it's just more of a pride thing. It's like, hey, you know my photo was so good. You know this big company is going to use it. It's not like a financial Exactly. Yeah, yeah, that's still awesome.

Yeah, right now, like we are. The Pika Capital Journal is part of Gannett's and USA Today network so, like on occasion, I'll have some of my photos appear on USA Today. Wow, and again that's something that I also brought along From this, the snowstorm on January 7th. I thought it was kind of an interesting one to share, just because, like, I got this photo and our deadlines are pretty quick in the morning, so like I have to kind of turn around.

So, like I got this photo of uh, this is tim harris uh, over by lake shawnee shoveling himself out I remember when you posted that uh, seeing that, because that was, that was wild.

Yeah, it was only a few months ago, that's crazy exactly, yeah, so I I took that photo and then at the same time, usa today's kind of put a uh alert out to like photographers within the network Okay, this record snowstorm came, so they use the same photo, a little crop on it, um, but also put that on USA Today. So it was kind of wild to see like the same picture from our local news yeah. Make it to national news.

And that's awesome. It's like it.

It is still very cool.

Is that stuff like, do you frame stuff I?

need a frame. I need to do a better job honestly framing some of that work. I got, like another one of the Time magazines framed. I have just boxes and boxes and newspapers.

honestly, I just like this sort of stuff.

So I just pick some random things to show you guys.

I know I feel like some of this stuff needs to get framed and put up in your office. I mean, that's so cool. These national magazines.

Yeah, it is, uh, it is pretty interesting to, uh, you know, say that I have these, these items, that. I've done, and but again, it's just, I see it as part of the job. You know, um, our photos should be shared, Uh, and that's kind of why you do it.

Yeah, that reminds me of, uh, brogan and my wife and I, uh, when we got married, we had the idea like, oh, it'd be cool to have like the front page newspaper of the city on the day we got married. Um, so we had the idea after. So we went to like the archives and we got married in Lawrence, and so we went to the the paper archives and we paid. It was like, yeah, so we paid. It was like 88 cents or something, like it was something. But we had to go there in person and they gave us like the whole paper. We just wanted the front page. We're like, oh, we're gonna frame it, it's gonna be so cool. And it turned out the front page article was like someone got murdered. And we're like, yeah, I don't think we're gonna frame this one. So it's just, I don't even know if we still have it, but it was like 88 cents down the toilet.

Yeah, maybe he had like the announcement in there, you could clip yourself out of that exactly, exactly.

Okay, so you've been all over all sorts of different events. What's something you haven't been at? That's on your bucket list as a photographer and maybe that's more of a freelance side question if you're ever in the freelance world again but what's something you haven't been able to go to that you want to?

Uh, I mean, I think for most photographers, especially those in, like the sports world, uh, olympics, you know, amazing to cover in Olympics. Um, and that's something that know. I've met photographers who are at that like, when I go cover uh, kansas, uh ku jayhawks basketball games and whatnot, like I'm talking alongside people like the ap photographer charlie wow, who's over, who went to the olympics last, I don't know how many years, um, jamie squire with getty. He's also like at these big events.

Kentucky Derby that's also a cool one, oh yeah, but I don't know if I really have a bucket list of I have to go. I want to do this thing or I'm not a great photographer. I really feel like I just keep on doing the job at hand. When I see a cool opportunity come out, I want to go and photograph that.

But it's not something that I have to go and like photograph that, um, but it's not something that like I have to go and do this thing. Olympics would be rad right, I'm hoping to work uh up to that point, so I can go to la for that one, that'd be really, especially if cj's fronting the bill I mean it's a business expense baby

that is awesome. So how do you like as a photographer, it seems like you have a unique eye for things. I love even just the way you framed your job. Like you're not just a photographer. Like you, you create art, and you said my job is to create good art for you know this, this publication. How do you tell when there seems to be a good opportunity, like, for instance, on Easter? You said you saw someone doing making chainsaw art and you're like man, that would be a great story. It ends up on the front page.

You know, like saw art and you're like man, that would be a great story ends up on the front page. You know, like, how are you seeing these opportunities like that? I mean, maybe it's just because of I've been doing this for a while and I kind of just can piece together like that's, there's some potential there for something. Honestly, though, like and a lot of the assignments I go and cover aren't the most exciting thing, but it's like, how do you make this interesting? I got a lot of things. You know someone's speaking at a podium, okay, but how can you get that shot different than just like face on? How can you do things to make it a little bit more interesting than just like the typical photo that you think?

you're going to see from this event. Yeah, it's kind of hard to like conceptualize how I think like that, and I think I'm kind of all over the place too. I even like I, and I think I'm kind of all over the place too. Right I was. I even like I taught our reporters how to use cameras and like how to take better pictures. I was talking to one of them who was covering prom this past weekend, how to use flash and the way I kind of like do it though too. Um, I, I kind of just go at it Like I I was trained to like you know, this is how you use camera. This is all the compositional techniques you should know.

Like framing and that kind of stuff.

Yeah, rule of thirds, all the basic things that you learn if you take photo 101 or whatever in high school and college. But I think the key is just to keep on doing it and just keep on shooting, keep on taking, just looking for interesting shots.

Wow.

Like there's definitely assignments that, like I know, I'm going to repeat every year, like tulip stories. It's because it's just such a visual thing.

Right, yeah, to have that here. Yeah, what are some of the coolest events, in your opinion, that Topeka has, maybe on a reoccurring basis, that you know, hey, every year I'm going to cover Huff and Puff, or every year I'm going to cover this. What are some of the ones you look forward to?

Huff and.

Puff's definitely up there.

Because we get to do a media flight and that's always just fun to ride.

That's awesome. I've gotten some pretty cool photos from that Dude.

I wonder if they would let a podcast on the media flight.

I mean, hey, just reach out, we'll do a live podcast from the air.

It might get interrupted by you know every time, so you get, you get to go like all yeah they take us up and it's very interesting to be out there. I bet that's scary. I've never been on a I've never been on a high airplane.

I would love to.

Yeah, no, it's an experience. It's way more gentle than you think. But then all of a sudden it's like a lot going on when you're landing, a lot to kind of juggle. But yeah, I've gotten the opportunity to do that. Um, I've also ridden some helicopters taking some black hawk flights, which wow yeah, uh, some antique, uh world plan, war planes um that's something like you're shooting pictures out of the planes.

Yeah, the helicopters um, the, the national guard's done some these flights like where they'll go to like a local high school and like some of the jr or jrotc people get to, um write on them or faculty or things like that, and so they'll invite the media along because it's just a cool opportunity to you know well, for one riding the blackhawk, but also seeing reactions of like oh yeah community like being able to do this as well.

Huff and puff Any others.

Huff and puff. The the air show recently has been a really cool one.

Okay.

Again, I think that's something that they're going to keep on promoting, that to keep it going. But the the air show is very cool. To photograph for sure. Lots of parades. You know the parades always do really well as far as like photo galleries.

Right.

What other kind of just the peak events, tulip time again. That's uh, that's something that just came around. Um, I'd have to like, honestly, the way that I like document everything and like archive it. I could go back like month by month and basically like start to find patterns, like okay, this event's always going on, or these sort of things happen at the same time, um, but yeah, some of those major events are are ones that are super cool.

Do you have any? Uh, do you have any photos or stories that maybe didn't get as much traction as you thought they might, that you're still really, really proud of? Like man, this is one of the best photos I've ever taken.

That wasn't on the front page or something well, I mean, I'm sure there are and I think that's something, that's uh, I just keep on like moving forward. Like I really can't think about like well, okay, this didn't go. Well, I'm going to dwell on it. Like I just kind of like yeah, just what it was.

That's good for you. I've spent hours making clips just for them to suck online and it's like geez, I thought this was going to be awesome. No one else thinks so.

Hey, just keep at it, though that's legitimately, legitimately like how, how I feel like this industry is and, if you want to, that's my advice to younger photographers and videographers and media people in general.

Right.

You just keep on going and you know you'll. You'll find your style throughout and again, I don't really even know if I have that much of a style. Do the thing, that's how I describe it.

I'm just taking pictures. I mean, that's honestly great advice for a lot of things, just like finish what you start, put it out there, move on. You know, learn what you can learn, but don't dwell, move on and just keep keep creating. You know that's great advice.

It is great advice and it was. It's funny. My wife, when we started this podcast she knows I'm notorious for starting things and not finishing them you know I'll start something, get really excited about it. It's like, eh, this is stupid, I'm moving on. And so when we started this, you know we had to invest some money, some tech and you know, some commitment involved. She goes you're going to do this for a full year. She goes you're not allowed to quit and tell you, do a full year. After a year you can. You can quit if you don't want to keep doing it.

And I was like all right, cool, cool, cool, whatever, yeah sounds good, easy, but it is a. It's a healthy reminder, it's. You know. It's like yeah, stick to doing something, anything worth doing. It takes a while to get some traction. Yeah, and I'm not saying we have traction yet, but we're maybe up to 11 followers now instead of tens.

I mean, hey, I think you guys, multiple tens means multiple, I hope this episode does well you know, I really hope we can come on.

man, yeah, what spicy content can you drop on this episode does well, yeah, me too. I really hope we can.

Me too.

Come on man. What spicy content can you drop on this episode right now? I?

mean I'm just saying just support local media, keep on going. I mean it's something that you know. I think it's really important for a community to be engaged with those that are, you know, covering things going on around here.

And you know.

I'm just happy to be here.

Maybe things going on around here and you know I'm just happy to be here. Maybe can we talk about that then. Like, just like you've been in topeka, you grew up here. What's, what's your sense about where topeka's at? What are you excited about? What's what? What are you would you like to see continue to develop?

oh, I mean, and again I don't want to talk uh with, with the respect of my company and saying that, like you know, this is my opinion um, I, I think can we put a disclaimer all opinions ever nelson opinion yeah, not an opinion of the capo journal.

Yeah, I, you know, there's just a lot going on here and I I feel like you talk to developers and you talk to, you know those really in these industries, and you kind of get a feel of like, well, these are the things that people are saying that they need and this is how it can be addressed. Um, there's just, I think, a lot more things going on than people think as well, and that's why you know we exist and the TV stations exist to highlights, uh, some of those stories and just kind of keep promoting the good things and even the bad things and anything else that happens around here. Um, it's, it's definitely just the evolving city, I think, knowing what this market really is too, in proximity to Lawrence, manhattan, kansas City. You know we we definitely have a niche on certain aspects to really pinpoint what everything is.

I don't know if I'm exactly the guy for that right, I just kind of I embrace it all, kind of just show off what this town is and everything else.

So are there things that you're especially excited about that you've seen in the last five to ten years in topega?

I mean again, I was talking to you guys about, like, what I do on the side. Um, mountain biking is really like a passion that's kind of been building oh, that's cool too. So like I kind of started that before I worked for the paper too, um, working with some of of the trail guys and like kind of seeing what the bike scene is all about mountain biking. Specifically I have gone into roads. You know no hate on the roadies out there, but you know there's a lot of trails.

Is that what they're called roadies?

Yeah, it's a term.

Is that the official lingo? Yeah, yeah, so a roadie is someone who bikes on the road.

Exactly what is a mountain biker called? Uh just a mountain, a man, a man, yeah, I mean it's uh yeah, mountain biking is just a cool thing. So, like the trail systems around here I think are just ever increasing. Uh, I've done again a lot of stories on that and uh top city trail alliance is uh kind of a up-and-coming uh newer organizations. That's really taking the front on, like making the trails over at a cedar crest slash, uh cod valley to be called river state park, not cedar crest. Sure, the way that's out there over by the governor's mansion it's divided on property lines oh, okay, yeah to people, but yeah, yeah, I've accidentally hiked onto some of those.

You're like bikes, only like, oh, how did I get here?

so you found the downhill trail?

yeah, I guess I've hiked up the downhill trail on accident because I realized that's what I was on.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can't say I've ever accidentally hiked anywhere like it's, like it's.

Yeah, we don't do that on purpose, yeah hey, but I mean there there really is a. The trail system out here I think is something that's very cool and again it'd be a cool uh guest to have on to really talk more about them yeah, yeah, that's cool.

Um, so you're, you're into mountain biking personally, not just, not just documenting it as well yeah.

So um shout out to tyler brown, my friend back from high school, uh, who we later reconnected when I moved back here from colorado and he got into mountain biking at the time and I met him when I was actually like selling wine when I was freelancing. I've done a lot of random jobs, you say.

You say selling wine.

Selling wine, yeah, yeah.

I was a wine salesman for a second. Who's the famous the social media? Gary Vee.

Gary Vee, of course. Yeah, yeah, I was listening to a lot of Gary Vee at that time.

Nice.

Was it the same brand or is it a similar market? No one. French guy out of Overland Park had some connections so he made his own. Well, he didn't make his own he. He knew all the wineries so he was like a distributor for them. I just sold through him his stuff around Topeka and yeah, for a while that was a uh, does the capital journal?

this is random question. Do they sell ads?

Is that how they make both? Clearly, I don't subscribe again, like I'm not the person to talk about, uh, like how, what are subscription models? And like ad works, because, like I honestly don't really know all that I can. You know, I'd be happy to give you guys, uh the the people to talk to on that, um, but yeah, I think we do so out. So ads and subscriptions is obviously what we really want. Yeah, I mean, honestly, though, I think there's a lot of content on there that we we do promote. That, I think, is really good stuff.

Um and again like.

For my side of things like photo galleries and videos are always free, and that's a lot of the things that I make, Um we appreciate you yeah. Yeah, of course I know everybody uh on Facebook world. Like you know uh, we'll try to just take our content, but you know we we really do. Uh need to make a living as well over here and oh yeah, people like download and repost them themselves. Oh really yeah but I mean again, that's something that's uh.

People do what they do on the online and you know it is yeah yeah, I have a friend who's a fairly successful wedding photographer and she's happy to like start fake accounts with her photos and try to make money from stuff like that. It's kind of rough.

That's how you know you've made it one of these days. I'm gonna be a fake Topeka insider Instagram account. Yeah, it's not the real one, but all press is good press exactly they get more followers than us.

I'm curious on on you guys because, like again we were talking about like we haven't had much of an introduction of you. It's like when did this podcast start? It's only been. It's almost on your year, so for your wife.

She's pretty happy she's coming up on it. Oh yeah, yeah, we're coming up on it. Yeah, he's finally gotta quit.

Exactly, we're finally done so, buddy and I when I moved here. I moved to Topeka in 2019, august 2019. From where I was in Lawrence for a year, I was at K-State for like eight years working with campus ministries at K-State, and then we basically moved here to plant a church, me and a buddy and some families and stuff and we were just trying to find a way to just like meet people and connect with people. And so me and my friend started this podcast where we would literally go into coffee shops and convince a stranger to sit down and just talk with us, and so we called it the look around podcast and and so we probably did five episodes before COVID shut down and we're you know, it was obviously greatly discouraged talking to strangers in coffee shops at that point. So we're kind of like I think we had like two episodes that we hadn't posted yet and we ended up just kind of not doing it and then we forgot about it. Then, like two or three years later, um, we were like dude, we should revamp that. And we did it, where we started doing more like what we're doing now, but we would go to people's businesses. We interviewed David Vincent at Circle Coffee right after he opened and a few places like that. Then basically, we did a season of episodes.

Then my buddy ended up switching jobs. Now he works at AE and had a lot less flexibility time-wise. It was like, are we going to keep doing this? I don't know. We kind of pushed pause for a while and then Justin was like, hey, man, is he going to keep doing that? Can I take his spot? Can we like switch this around and rebrand it? And and so I was like, yeah, man, I'd love to keep doing it. So he kind of came in and was like, hey, let's rebrand this, let's do this, like, let's take it to the next level. And so we did. I mean, he had owned the URL for Topeka.

Insider for five years. Yeah, that's true.

And it was like he just had it in his heart Like I'm going to do something called Topeka Insider at some point. It was kind of funny because he like low key, was like suggesting this idea, as if he didn't have all this ownership over the idea he's like. He's like, hey, like what do you think about the name Topeka insider? If you don't like it, it's totally cool.

I was like yeah it's fine.

He's like cool Cause I've owned the URL for five years Like I really want to do it, yeah, and I was like it was like, yeah, that's great. So we did that. Um, he knew Gabe brought to his new job. We bought all of his camera gear just for the church to use for different things. So it's kind of this amazing, like the stars aligned. I mean, we had all this gear. We already wanted to build a studio of the, the resources for like online stuff and kind of a vision for um, kind of a next level kind of branding and things. Um, so we relaunched almost a year ago.

Yeah, almost a year ago. We, I think our first episode was I mean, this is going to be episode 18, so what's that?

nine, nine months, nine months ago, yeah.

Yeah, so we did two a month and we've been doing that for a while, and the goal is because previously Ryan and I had done seasonal, like we'll do.

Like you know, 10 episodes in a season, take a break. And it was more like we were figuring out as we went and he's like hey, man, I want to know that we're just, we're doing this forever.

No breaks, like every two weeks, into eternity you know, at least a year, yeah, yeah, I mean, just like we're not doing season one, season two. You know, we're just gonna go, and I was like, yeah, I would prefer that too. I think that'd be really cool. So we kind of came up with our plan, started reaching out to a ton of people and, uh, it's been good, I mean, we haven't missed one, it's yeah, there was.

There was a couple there where we were like what are we going to do? We don't have one, and once every two weeks isn't a lot, but we both have full-time jobs, super busy. John's got kids, I have a dog.

He sneaks into the Discovery Center by himself.

You won't even get that.

We had the Discovery Center lady on laura burton yes, we had laura burton on and I have never been to the discovery center, nor do I really know what it, what it was, and so I was like is that something? Like, can you go without I can go to? Like what is this? She goes. Uh, no, she goes. If you show up at the discovery center by yourself, we'll call the police. I was like, all right, never mind, I won't be there then he asked if he could borrow my kids together.

I was like no the key is uh children's discovery exactly yeah.

Yeah, it's called the children's discovery, exactly yeah.

So yeah, we've been we've been rocking and rolling for nine months. We, we love it. Uh, it's a great chance to meet guys like you who we'd never, you know, meet. I, I was telling someone I said the best about, and the reason why I do it is you know, there's a ton of people I'd love to just sit down and grab coffee with here. There's story here. But you know, a guy like you, I don't know you. I, you know I wouldn't reach out to you to have coffee.

That's weird. But if I guys, when a guy wants to get coffee he doesn't say, hey, man, we should hang out.

He says hey, yeah, we should podcast. Yeah, there's a what an SLR SNL skit about that. Okay yeah.

Podcasting and therapy. Yeah, exactly Exactly. It like fulfills the same function, like, oh, I feel so much better, I feel so much lighter after that, and it was just podcasting. Yeah, it's funny, we, we, uh, when we first started, we kind of wanted to like guarantee our success a little bit on the front end, so we recorded a ton of people before we released any of them. So we and then, and then we kind of had like a just a I don't know a sense of urgency, like we're going to record as many as possible. So we developed this bank of like four months of unreleased episodes and and then around Thanksgiving we were like, hey, this is like we've, like this is too much, like it's, it's too much time between the recording and the release, like that's, we don't want it to be that way. Um, because there was some things like man, I forgot we even recorded that it was four months ago.

I'm re-listening to these episodes, yeah, trying to find, you know, stuff for clips as you're getting ready to be released and I'm like I don't remember that at all so, around thanksgiving, we're like, all right, let's, let's just deplete the bank and not record for a while.

So we depleted the whole bank, just release, release, release, release. And then we got to where we had like two left in, like march. I think march was like we were about to end. Then we started, we started scheduling and we hadn't recorded for four months, yeah, and so it's like hey, john, don't even remember you.

We were like just texted like we were weren't even really seeing each other in person. It was just texting like hey, man, like every is everything going. You know, it's like I'm used to seeing you every week and I'm not seeing you for four months and uh.

So yeah, now we're basically we have one in the bank, just kind of in case you know something happens and so we almost ran out that one time we had someone's had a scheduling thing fall through and so we couldn't release and I was like, what are we gonna do? Luckily we have some good buddies that are business owners, like, hey, they do something cool, you know, let's interview them.

So it's thankful yeah, but nice so, like your background podcasting and, uh, you're a realtor. Yeah, okay, yeah, okay.

Full-time realtor. Did you ask if you have a background in podcasting?

Yeah, not at all. No, but average listeners, I assume. Yeah, I listen to a ton of podcasts.

I'm really good at ripping off ideas and making them my own, so you know this whole setup. I watched someone else's podcast that I watch regularly. I'm like we Graham Stephan Finance guys, they did the table thing. They have the camera set up with the curtains. We're not doing the table set up anymore.

They also haven't steamed their curtains. Yeah, it's a vibe that we're going for. I get it Wrinkly curtains.

If you look at our curtains, you can tell that there has not been a woman here to help us, because it just looks like a bachelor.

It is kind of a guy aesthetic podcast room. Absolutely I dig it, I dig it. That's the trick.

So no, no real background in podcasting, other than you know we kind of collabed on this room getting things ready, and then Gabe's a wealth of knowledge. She spent a lot of time helping us kind of with the tech on what we need, and so there was a lot of days where I was like, gabe, send me the link, I'll order it. You know what do we need? Oh, you need this Blank, blank, blank cord. No idea what that is, but just send me the link, I'll buy it.

Does Gabe have a mic over there?

I do he does Bring him into the conversation.

man, what questions you got for Gabe?

How do you get involved with all this? You're the media guy behind it, all the whole production.

Of course, this is what happens when we have a journalist on the podcast.

He starts turning on us questions.

He's trying to put me on camera. Yeah, yeah, I wish I could turn that camera around, man I don't know if you can see me, let's see okay oh yeah, we can see the screen on the back. We can see you.

So, gabe what? What's your background on all this?

sure? So I kind of started, let me get my yeah, get your, get your volumes, yeah, so I started working with justin here a couple years ago. I did, uh, basically some video production for him. He was wanting some social clips and I did that. Probably what three, four years?

ago. Yeah, three or four years ago.

Yeah, and so I started doing real estate videos for him. So I do all his listing videos and stuff like that.

He makes me look pretty.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, you do a good job on uh, on this, because obviously, yeah, you got the, you got all the soft boxes you're you're using what fuji film? Yeah, you're right yeah, three.

Yeah, a couple xc3s and an xh2s he had he put, he did make sure to pull out the high level cameras for when the photo channels. Absolutely he's like we can't use the crappy ones.

Yeah, the church cameras drive me nuts. A bunch of r10s and hey, hey they're like the mini hdmi and they stutter so bad so I like you also.

You also do stuff with, like, michael dubitin and what else, what else.

So as far as what I do is, I do a lot of like interview style content and I've been full time since 2020.

Is that full time with the job, with them, freelancing?

So full time by myself, nice and what's your shout out your group.

You have a shirt on here.

Got the shirt on Butoh Media Group. There's the logo there.

Let's go yeah, so that's what I do. I do a lot of like different, like interviews. I a lot of like different, uh, like interviews. I do real estate I do. I started with photography but, uh, I I really liked the video side of things and so, since I graduated high school during COVID, I then transitioned. Instead of going to college for film, I just started doing film and started with weddings and that sort of thing and kind of got to where I'm at now. So a lot of the stuff here is actually the churches that we're using. But I bring quite a bit of my stuff for some of these projects and I usually shoot my big projects on like a Sony FX6. And so I bring out the big guns for that kind of project. But for the podcast I like to use the Fuji gear because I love the colors.

Just looks great straight out of camera okay, see, everett knows what all those words mean he's got this this netflix approved fx camera? Yes, okay, it matters, quality matters you can't shoot everything on night exactly.

That's awesome what is what iso? Are you rocking right now? Right?

now, what's your? I don't know. I'm trying to give other technical questions right now, right now.

What's your? I don't know. I'm trying to think of other technical questions.

Everything's on 640 right now.

Perfect, that's just the Matches everything.

Yep Base ISO for these 100-watt video lights Nice.

Will do? We want to hit him with some rapid fire.

Sure man. We need to revamp our rapid fire questions.

We do the same ones every time potholes.

Uh yeah, so I'll just like start going because I've heard, I've heard, I know we're going this guy studied up. Well, I mean honestly again, I'm not one that really like, pays attention to that. I, I know roads are hard to maintain. Uh, there's a huge mill and overlay project going on at the uh, it's peak boulevard, a lot of that stuff wait, wait.

So is this like? As an employee of the capital journal, you're not allowed to have an opinion on the pothole situation? Hey, I mean roads can be difficult. Very political of you.

Hey, I'll just say I can just refer people to our article that we posted a couple months ago about talking to the you know, the streets department and actually why are potholes bad and what's?

going on with it.

Again, like over the winter, it's because you can't have the hot mix to fill and you have to use the cold mix, and so that's way more brittle.

So oh, that was very way faster.

Obviously the I assume the biggest fix is just the mill and overlay. You just take the whole street out and put new right, redo it yeah so I mean, potholes are always a thing, and I've lived in denver, um and I mean it's road maintenance, this is what it is right, I've learned that just get good tires and, uh, just do the service on your get good tires and quit being a baby, that's what you're saying yeah, cool, learn how to swerve.

And buggy's anymore. I mean it's pretty good, we got pretty good yeah all right, you're doing a home project menards lows home depot.

Where are you going?

well, um, it's, you know that's. That's pretty limiting to have just the three personally. Okay, I was just at. I'm over on the east side so I actually went to Tractor Supply Store because it was pretty cheap.

Okay, it's breaking us out of the box.

I also want to say I mean, you got Sutherland's, you got Tar Waters Boy, there's just many other ones. And again, like sometimes I just have to get something small. I'm just going up to Walmart, right it gets, but I hit all three and again. Maybe that's being an objective journalist.

Like you know they all they all serve their purpose.

They don't have, they don't have feelings about it, of course.

Of course, I mean everyone has their own, like you know. Honestly, my, it's like going here to here, to here to here. Okay yeah, it's not super specific.

I will say I definitely prefer to avoid the big box stores as much as possible. We have right down the street Waters hardware.

I was going to say Waters and Ace. Yeah, yeah, the small ones.

If I can get at Waters I prefer, Because then it's like it takes an hour trip into a 10-minute trip just going down the street.

But anyway, or a two-hour menards trip.

yeah, you know, you get caught up in the two-hour menards trip is a one-hour home depot trip is a 10-minute trip to waters yeah yeah, yeah, it's the thing about the menards that real quick is.

Uh, you know, are you doing the rebate?

um, oh, that's a good question. Yeah, I do it on. It's the reason why I got hooked on menards, honestly, because we were doing a big home renovation. It's like, all right, I'm going to menards because I can get the 11 rebate, and now does that actually make it cheaper than other places? I don't know, it just sounds like it's. I mean, it's the whole reason why they do it is it's like you know whether it is or it isn't? It's like, oh, I want that 11 rebate, I want that right and now they've ingrained me into their kind of ecosystem.

That's just where I go, because I want to go to Menards and it started with the 11% rebate. So, like on the big home, on the big purchases, you know you're spending a couple thousand dollars on flooring there. You know, yeah, I'm going to do it, but if I'm get sidetracked and pick up some, you know, checks, mix or something, no, we're not doing it then. But all right. Favorite coffee shop in Topeka Coffee shops.

Well, again, being over on the scumsy side of things like Milk and Honey is the closest to me Milk and Honey is great. I also do definitely prefer PT's. Again, I'll say probably mention every single coffee shop.

You keep me going.

But I just know the history of PT's and it's kind of a little side story that I've heard. It's actually my grandparents' house and it's kind of a little side story that I've heard is actually the um, my grandparents house, the place that I raised, that I we just recently bought the owner of PTs, jeff Taylor, uh, when he was in college at K state. It's also, uh, same year as my uncle, who started all of this Um, he, he actually lived in the basement of the house I own now.

No way.

Again, I need to clarify this with Jeff. He's over in San Diego now. Um, clarified this with Jeff. He's over in.

San Diego. Now, right, um boy blanking on the name of uh, that coffee house that he? Yeah, I can't remember either. Yeah, but it's like he co-owns with Fred.

Right, the guy's here, yeah yep, so PTs again has a huge legacy of like just single origin coffees and I think they still do a great job. I love.

PTs and do you want to hear a funny story about PTs? Back when they were over across from Washburn, I was was going. I'd go there all the time. One day I needed lunch and I was there working on things. I'm like you know, I'm going to give their grilled cheese a try, Got their grilled cheese and if you've never had it at PTs, it has apple slices in it.

The grilled cheese has apple slices in it.

And when I took a bite, I bite. I was like what is this? And I realized it was apples and at first I was like disgusted. I'm like why on earth would you put apples in a grilled cheese? I get it all the time there. Now it is one of the best things you can get is their grilled cheese with apple slices. And at first I was like what are we doing? Ruining grilled cheese, cheese and bread? Don't ruin it. But you know, they put apple slices in it. Real good, yeah yeah, they're great.

Obviously, circle coffee, it's got the vibes sure that's a big one. Um, there's some other ones and you guys had uh, who was it from the, the one coffee roaster here? Like the joy line yeah yeah I gotta actually, uh, try the him and hit him up. Actually it's kind of pitching that as a story to our business reporter because I've never heard of that and like you have uh pts blue jazz as like two of the other big posters, but like that's just right.

Yeah, so he's like in blue jazz's warehouse, like they have a partnership of some kind gotcha, and then I think the only storefront type thing he has right now is he's doing a cart at evergy plaza.

Um on, maybe thursday morning or something okay yeah, yeah, yeah, that was a fun one too.

Um yeah, so wait. So side note, you mentioned the house your grandparents grew up in. You just bought.

Yes, that's cool, and I just uh bought this house back in uh last fall that's very cool.

It's very interesting.

The way it all happened was, uh, just kind of. You know, it's settling the state too.

My grandparents passed away, unfortunately oh, I'm sorry to hear that um and so it's always kind of been like you know what's going to happen to that place and my wife and I were in a position that we were able to purchase and it's got a lot of work. You know, it's 70s style, it's on some acreage, so like the land is as well with it. So, yeah, being a new homeowner it's a learning curve, but it's it. Being being a new homeowner, it's a it's a learning curve, but it's fun.

I'm definitely enjoying it. And again the history of it and just like knowing that like this was my house growing up.

It really is very connected to to me and my wife, so that's very cool. It's very interesting. Wow, uh, you're taking your wife on a date. What are you guys doing?

Uh well, I actually just made a reservation for Luis's place this Friday. Okay let's go I know you're with Luis's, I'm not no. I know of it.

I'm blanking on what it is.

It's. He used to own New City Cafe back in the day. It's across from the old downtown post office.

It's a little high on the wall.

Okay, is this by the White Lennon Well, it's not on the same street, it's down a block.

Oh, okay.

So it's literally like you really have nowhere to add, because it's like underneath a stairwell. I'm blanking on the bakery that used to be Shawnee Cakes. If you're familiar where that place used to be, it's right underneath them actually. So, that's an old bank building and they're underneath where apparently they used to be like a speakeasy way back in the day, so it's very private, like kind of like you just have to know about it.

So we're going there for a date, so that's, I'll tell you guys how that will be. We've gone to White Linen. It's obviously great. They do a great job for fine dining in Topeka, weather room as well, and strategy.

so sure yeah, these are great absolutely um, yeah, uh we. We cook a lot of our own food, though like honestly, we we've really been getting into meal prepping and just like cooking let's go, yeah that's uh, that's where we're at you guys in, you have some land, so you guys gonna get into like homesteading well, uh, I, I brought you guys these gourds yeah, I actually grew, these grew these at our previous property, yeah, so we were definitely big into gardening. Love it, so you grew this.

I grew these, yeah so, and now it's birdhouse yeah so. We were living in Meriden actually last year and I started my first garden out there and we had this cattle panel that I made into an arch that I grew these gourds on and they just exploded. I mean, I started them from seeds, I was just very diligent about watering and, you know, made my own compost to put on it and they, they grew huge and like that one over there I have some that are probably like this big now.

So, like they all dried out. Finally, um right, basically the last week I started scanning, sanding down some of these, um, taking all the mold and things off of that and then prepping them to just make birdhouses, and so, yeah, I figured I'd give you guys some.

That's so awesome. Share the other side of things I do. Yeah, that's awesome. What don't you do, man? I mean this is wild.

I bought my grandpa's old 1983.

GMC square body truck. So that's my big project that I'm trying to get done by this summer as well as get that thing going again. Summer's like almost here. So like I know you feel like it's happening, I know that you think it's happening like is it.

You're on your way carburetor out, I just have to get into I. I've kind of been going back and forth like well, do I rebuild this carburetor? You know you just buy an upgrade. I've kind of gone to that decision too because, like I, I don't have like very many mechanical skills. I've been learning from like just rebuilding tractors and having to have a tractor to just go and that's just like a mower, not like a just low-key working on tractors, yeah little things like that, riding lawnmowers.

I should uh actually clarify, okay, what is uh, what is?

something that you think topeka is missing. If you could bring something from another city.

Okay, well, I mean and again I think it's something that I want to just keep on promoting the things that we do have and just like seeing where the developments go from here, because, again, like there's been a lot of the talk about, like you know, the riverfront, what's going?

to happen at West Ridge mall after advisors, excel move in and all that construction, with how that actually is going to end up. I think that has a lot of potential. Um, just continuing the downtown development, just kind of trying to fill some of those vacants. Uh, businesses, um again like being kind of a outdoorsy guy and trails just keep on going on those fronts and, you know, supporting those uh that are making those changes to make everything better. Um, so there there is a lot of things I think Topeka already has that just keep on improving upon and just keep going in that direction. As far as like really like specific things, I mean I know I was thinking we had a guest on talking about Topgolf. I was like, well, we do have that, you know the Top Tracer, right, right, topgolf, topeka yeah, that's kind of similar. It's not exactly the same, but it is a driving range with the technology. So there's a with the tracking yeah exactly.

So there is a lot of those things, um, but like I don't know, we we also like we like to travel and go to, like colorado, arkansas and the mountains too, to also explore everything so we could use a mountain or two, is what you're saying.

Again, we do have pretty lands. Yeah, mountain, yeah we are where we are yeah

well, final question where can people find you at? Are you on socials? Uh, where can people get a hold of you?

um, my instagram is probably where I post primarily things and, again, I'm not like the most like socially present guy out there. I post occasional things and then like story updates on, like assignments on mats, the biggest one, obviously, cjonlinecom. That's the capital journal where you know that is my job and what I do on a day to day basis. I'll be going to an assignment here in about 30 minutes Governor's doing some things at the statehouse. I got co-cover and keep on going today and yeah.

Love it. Love it, everett Nelson.

Thanks for joining us. Thanks for joining us.