Mylo Fowler is a landscape photographer who takes pictures of his homeland, the Navajo Nation. He uses his photography to give back to his community.
Mylo Fowler is a landscape photographer who takes pictures of his homeland, the Navajo Nation. The images he captures are stunning - they feature the rock formations, plants, and skies of the southwestern United States. His photography holds layers of meaning that celebrate and preserve Navajo culture, and he’s also figured out how to use his photography to bring electricity to people who live on Navajoland.
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Mylo Fowler:
With photography and imagery, really, what I'm after is to find creative ways to use my talents to help other people.
Shelby Stanger:
Mylo Fowler is a landscape photographer who takes pictures of his homeland, the Navajo Nation. The images he captures are stunning. They feature the rock formations, plants, and skies of the Southwestern United States. For Mylo, taking pictures goes deeper than creating a piece of art. His photography holds layers of meaning that celebrate and preserve Navajo culture. On top of that, he uses the proceeds from his work to bring light and solar electricity to families who live on Navajo land.
Shelby Stanger:
I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living. Mylo speaks Navajo, and he grew up near the Navajo Nation capital in Arizona. In his early 20s, he worked as a guide bringing visitors into the Antelope slot canyons, to photograph the unique formations. He's always wanted to show people the beauty of his home. Eventually Mylo got his own camera and his photography career took off. Since then, Mylo's won several prestigious awards in Native American fine art. His dedication to his culture and its preservation are woven into everything he does.
Shelby Stanger:
Mylo Fowler, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living. So tell me about your background; you're Navajo, right?
Mylo Fowler:
Traditionally in culture, we would say dine.
Shelby Stanger:
Dine.
Mylo Fowler:
Yeah, dine. That's how we describe ourselves in our mother language, in our tongue, in our form of communication. Indians, indigenous Navajo, those were never part of our language ever. We always call each other dine.
Shelby Stanger:
What does that mean?
Mylo Fowler:
To us, it would mean... Simplified, it would be the people. Like our kids, they're half-Navajo and their mother is blonde and blue eyes, and so it's a [Navajo language 00:02:18]. The people that come from across the great water, Scandinavia to be more exact. So every people on earth, they come from a land. Their roots are from a specific area.
Shelby Stanger:
Your culture is so cool. Okay. So where geographically did you grow up?
Mylo Fowler:
I grew up predominantly in Arizona. I was born just a stones throw from our Navajo Nation capital Window Rock, which is what we call [Navajo language 00:02:47]. My mother comes from [Navajo language], which in English would be Steamboat Arizona. My mother was a single mother for a bit, and so I was around my maternal grandparents, [Navajo language 00:03:01]. I was around them a lot. I would say I spent the majority of my childhood with my grandparents.
Shelby Stanger:
How did you learn to speak the language? I mean, it's beautiful.
Mylo Fowler:
Being around my grandparents, especially my grandpa on my mother's side, he never spoke English. I mean, he knew a few words. However, he predominantly spoke in our language and my grandmother actually learned English. So nonetheless, even though she spoke English, and she knew I spoke English, we always spoke in Navajo. So it was just really being around the language. When neighbors or other elders would come to my grandparents' home, they would say something, and then later on when they would leave, I would say, "[Navajo language 00:03:44]," basically, "Grandma, you said this word, what does that mean?" Then she would explain what that word means, and how to use it, and then I would memorize it internally. So it wasn't forced to learn the language, didn't go to school to learn the language. It was just being around my grandparents.
Shelby Stanger:
Being raised by grandparents is a really unique, beautiful thing. It sounds like you've took so much from them.
Mylo Fowler:
I view them as sacred people, and now I'm a father, and I look back at just my grandmother. I don't think she was even five feet tall, but holy cow, she was so strong, physically, spiritually. I look back at photos, a few rare photos that I have of her, and she was just this short little lady, but man, she was the world to me. At some point in my youth, I just remember daily, whenever I saw my grandma, whether if I was going to the cornfield to go feed the pigs or make sure all the pigeons came back or going into the canyon to make sure the sheep were okay. Just wherever, and whenever I crossed paths with my grandma, I would always say, "Hello, grandma. I love you."
Shelby Stanger:
Do you have any stories about your grandma or grandpa that you remember?
Mylo Fowler:
Yeah, there's a library of stories. I just remember my grandmother had me go out to the fields, and I recently went on Google Earth, and I measured it out. It was 12 acres.
Shelby Stanger:
That's pretty big.
Mylo Fowler:
That's huge. Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
Yeah.
Mylo Fowler:
12 acres of corns, squash, zucchini, cantaloupe, beans. I mean, we grew everything we ate.
Shelby Stanger:
Amazing.
Mylo Fowler:
Not far from where we live, there's a natural spring that we use to get water for our family and our crops, and our livestock, and community members would come and they'd knock on our door and they would ask us, "Can we have some of your water? My grandpa always said, "This is not our water." He always said, "This is our community's water. We appreciate you coming by. So we know you're going back there." My grandma and my grandpa would see how many water barrels they had, and through that, they would say, "Oh, they'll probably come back out of the canyon in an hour or 20 minutes." Whenever it came close to that individual or that family coming back out of the canyon with water, minutes prior to that, my grandma would, would have me go out into the cornfield and say, "Hey, go get these vegetables, this corn, this watermelon, or this, that, and the other." Then, as the family's coming this way, my grandma would stop them and say, "Hey, here's some of our food."
Mylo Fowler:
One time I got frustrated, I got mad. Because again, think about farming, 12 acres, all the work that goes into that. The hot days and sweating and sticky and dirty, and I just ask grandma, "Why are you giving away all of our food?" She sat me down. She said, "[Navajo language 00:06:48]," which in direct English translation would mean, my child, in Navajo would be like my loved one. She said, "[Navajo language 00:07:03], sit down right here. When we look out our door and we see all the fields, your grandpa has found really good soil, good ground for us to never worry, if our plants will be good this year. We don't have to worry because the water is so close to us. This family that just came here, do where they live? Do you know how far they have to come just to get water?" I said, "I don't know. I don't know. I don't know, yeah." She's like, "Well, I know them and they could use a little bit of what we have."
Mylo Fowler:
She said, "We don't ever have to worry because we have been given plenty. Yes, we give some away. However, we can afford to do that." She said, "[Navajo language 00:07:50]." "Think about this. Think about this when you get older." So she always had a giving heart, and whenever anybody came, if she was there, she would always prepare a meal for them. I never once saw my grandma not feed somebody. That was just such a powerful thing that I learned in my youth of, you know, giving always, no matter how much you have always give.
Shelby Stanger:
The lesson to give back carried over into adulthood, when Mylo worked in the slot canyons of Arizona. You've probably seen pictures of slot canyons. They're remarkable. Over time, water flow has formed the rock into long narrow corridors. In the dry season, you can hike inside them. The sun streams in and reflects off the sandstone. It almost feels like you're on another planet. You could get lost in this maze of orange wavy rock. Mylo was fascinated by the light in these canyons, and so before he ever even bought a camera, he got a light meter, a device that measures the optimal exposure for a photograph. He used this tool to learn the camera settings he'd need to take the perfect picture, and instead of keeping these lighting lessons a secret, Mylo offered his knowledge to the visitors he was guiding.
Mylo Fowler:
How did you find your way to photography? Did you go to school for photography or were you just like, "I'm just going to figure it out"?
Mylo Fowler:
My first job was being a guide into the slot canyons, which had a tremendous range of light. So I would just spit out numbers to people. It was like, "Hey, based on your camera, your lens and your ISO, I'd use this aperture of the shutter speed." They're like, "Whoa, that's magic. I was like, "It is. It's amazing." Then it came time to get the camera, and then my light meter broke, and I was so used to that specific light meter, they're pretty rare to find because the specific solenoid inside there is no longer made. So then I said, "I've taught myself a little bit about light, the math behind it. I'm just going to go photograph now."
Shelby Stanger:
But wait, you're a guide into the slot canyons?
Mylo Fowler:
Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
That's a pretty cool job.
Mylo Fowler:
It was, it was amazing. It was very intimidating because people would come with these backpacks full of two cameras, bunch of lenses, tripods, and I was like, "Yeah, the light's really good right here, and then it's going to be awesome for the next two minutes, and then we're going to go to this other spot," and we just bounce around, and I'd say, "Hey, you guys do your thing."
Shelby Stanger:
Interesting. So did you work for adventure guide company?
Mylo Fowler:
Yeah. Yeah. That's what it was. It was, I basically would give people a little bit of insight to our culture and the land, the area, and then with the photographers, I would just set them up say, "Hey, yeah, the light's really awesome here for like 30 seconds, and then there's another section of the canyon that's going to get really cool, and we got to go." Then, at the end of those tours, I would say, "Well, how'd you guys do?" They're like, "Oh, my goodness. the canyon was amazing. It's one of the most beautiful places we've ever been." I'm like, "Okay, great. What about your photos? What do you think about that?" They're like, "Oh, it's terrible. I was shaky. It's too dark. I overexposed, underexposed." I was like, "What on earth?"
Mylo Fowler:
So then after that, I got a little bit of confidence and I said, "Hey, if you guys listen to me, you will probably create better photographs than trying to tackle this on your own. Let me, let me help you because I want you to go home with some amazing images about my land, our land." After that, people were happy. They got on Tripadvisor, they would write, and then my tips started to increase, and I was like, "I like this. I really like this." People would always say, "Hey, can Mylo be our guide. We'd love to go with Mylo," based on everybody else's reviews. That's really where my photography started was inside that slot canyon.
Shelby Stanger:
I think that's so cool that that's how you got your start, and it's in some ways you were a teacher before you were a photographer yourself. So how did you transition to working as a photographer full time?
Mylo Fowler:
A couple of days before my birthday, I had this vivid dream that I was in, and it was all of Monument Valley. You know I'm a landscape photographer, and I saw Monument Valley. It was clear. You could see every rock in detail, crevice, shadow, and light and clouds, and there wasn't a soul in sight. I woke up at just a little after 2:00 in the morning. I told my wife there, like, "I got to go. I have to go." So I go up there to this place, camp out, and I overlook the whole entire Monument Valley. It's just one of the most fantastic vistas, and that night we got snowed on, and in the valley, there's kids that still ride the bus and there's tours that go through there, and I didn't see any light, headlights.
Mylo Fowler:
Then about 6:30, 7:00, I made a phone call to my friend. I said, "Hey, how come there's nobody in the valley? Are you guys not doing any tours today?" He's like, "No, they shut the entire park down because the roads are all muddy. So they're not letting anybody in for the next day or so," and he said, "Where are you at?" I said, "I'll show you." So I took that photograph and usually with the tour vehicles, and when there's a lot of dust in the air, but there was no dust in site, is one of the most clear, specific sunrises I'd ever seen. Then I was invited to showcase my imagery at the Santa Fe Indian Market, which is the biggest event for Native American fine art, and I sold that image for quite a bit of money, and I was like, "Okay." That was really my introduction to photography as a way to provide for myself and my family.
Shelby Stanger:
Making a successful career from art can be extremely tough. But when you see Mylo's pictures, it's understandable that his work took off. He captures stunning vistas, massive rock formations, mountain ranges, and wide-open planes. His images examine light and shadow and how the two interact in our natural world. When we come back, Mylo talks about his mindset around photographing Navajo land, passing his culture onto his children, and how he's using photography to bring electricity to hundreds of families.
Shelby Stanger:
Landscape photographer, Mylo Fowler is driven by purpose. Just a couple of weeks before our interview, Mylo traveled almost seven hours to take pictures of an incredible snowstorm in Arizona. While he was in the area, he offered his help to anyone who might need it.
Mylo Fowler:
I went on social media and I said, "Hey, I'm in the area for just a little bit. Is there any grandma or grandpa that needs firewood chop because I got nothing better to do?" When I went to this one gal who lives in Phoenix, she said, "Yeah, if you could go visit my grandma, it would just mean the world to me. If you could go chop firewood for her." So I went over to her house. Again, we're not related one bit whatsoever, total stranger. However, through our clans, I would be her grandson. So it was like 12, 15 degrees at night, and I'm chopping wood for my grandma. I don't know this lady. However, through who I am, my identity as a Navajo man, this is my grandma.
Shelby Stanger:
Helping his Navajo family isn't just something Mylo does in his free time. Representing and preserving his land and his culture is a big focus in his photography. What do you love to take photos of? Obviously you live in one of the most beautiful natural places ever. So tell me what you love to take photos of, and what it feels like to take an amazing photo?
Mylo Fowler:
My most favorite subject that I love to photograph is Navajo land. It was a land that we were taken away from at one time, and we're still fighting for different parts of our land. We're still fighting for our resources and continue to have stewardship over these lands that we've been around for thousands of years for a long time. So anytime I get a chance to photograph the land back home, I don't need the most amazing clouds. I don't need to have everything just be perfect, because the more important thing is understanding, what does that land mean? What is that land about? It's our Homeland. It's a part of our relationship. When we refer to the sky or the Earth, it's always Father Sky and Mother Earth, same with the sun and the moon, the animals, the bugs, the things underwater, the walking creatures, the seeds of the plants, the porcupine quills, the hawks, the feathers, even all the way down the microscopic things like corn pollen, we're all related to these things. In our culture, that's how we view it.
Mylo Fowler:
One family reunion we had was out in the middle of nowhere, in an open area, and my daughter, Bubblegum, I think she was two at the time, running around, playing around, just having a blast. She started crying like crazy, and she was itching her arm, and I looked at her forearm and she was stung by a bee. I was like, "Oh, where's the meds?" Then I showed my mom, and my mom told my older sister, "Hey, go behind this hill and look for this plant. When you get it, pull it out and then spit in your hands and do this to the plant, and then it's going to create this yellow, green type of a juice, and that's what I need." So my older sister did that, came back, and had a little bit of that in her palm, and my mom just put her finger and her thumbs in there, put that around my daughter's forearm, where the bee sting was at. I kid you not, within five minutes, this kid went from screaming, her head off to calm.
Mylo Fowler:
So what do I photograph? Yeah. It may just be a bush. To somebody else, it may be a shrub. To me, it's something a lot more. With photography, there's some places where I go that, "Oh, man, I wish I could photograph this." However, just the sacred nature of the area, the cameras stay away, whether that be designs and patterns or songs and landscapes and locations, sacred places where we gather herbs for our ceremonies. As epic of a location may be, just the most amazing sunset or sunrise or whatever. For us, what's more important and critical is maintaining that balance of respecting the land for what it is, and to just be immersed in that moment and really, in a humbling way, say like, "You know what? I am here and I wish I could take a photograph of what I'm seeing here. However, because this land belongs to somebody else, I'm going to respect that and not do so."
Shelby Stanger:
For Mylo, there's much more to photography than capturing a scene. His pictures represent a rich culture, one that he's working hard to preserve. By photographing his native land, Mylo is reminded to teach his children the stories, the language, and the traditions of his people. This is especially important because so much of Navajo culture has been lost to genocides and forced dissimilation. Just as he was educated by his elders, Mylo does his best to instill Navajo values and knowledge in his children. You're passing this to your children by example, and by getting them involved, and I think that's really important.
Mylo Fowler:
They're the future, right? Like, our daughter Bubblegum, about three weeks ago in school, in her class, some kids were making fun of this other girl because of her name. They're like, "Oh, you're an ugly tree, or you're a silly tree." Her name is Juniper, and our daughter knows that we use juniper in our blue corn mush meals, in our blue corn mush food. We use a tree sap for our bodies to heal ourselves. We use the juniper berries as ghost speeds, as a way to protect ourselves, and we use various elements of the entire juniper tree so that it is... To us, it's powerful, and I shared that lesson with our daughter. I was just so proud of her because she just told those four or five other kids, like, "Her name is beautiful. Her name means strength. Her name means something different to me than to you, and it's not nice to make fun of her just because her name is a powerful and a beautiful tree."
Shelby Stanger:
I love that your daughter stepped in. So not only are you teaching her about her heritage, but you're also teaching her to be strong and stand up for people. That's so cool. So I know you've also been involved in some language preservation projects. Talk to me about Finding Nemo? This is really cool.
Mylo Fowler:
Yeah. Well, Finding Nemo started out as our tribe has been focusing on language preservation with our youth using modern technology and media as well. So several years back, the tribe dubbed one of the original Star Wars into Navajo, and I auditioned for that, and I totally bombed it. Because I never grew up talking about lightsabers in our language as a kid. It's just not it, and I was disappointed in myself. However, at that time I committed like, "If something else, like this comes up again, I am going to focus on this even more, and take it more serious because it could make a great impact." So then the opportunity came up for Finding Nemo. I got a message on Facebook, and the first question was like, "Hey, Mylo, didn't you live in Huntington Beach for a couple of years?", I said, "Oh, yeah."
Mylo Fowler:
So they said, "Hey, because of that and you speak Navajo. We'd love for you to audition and come by." I did, and I just spent the next day there, and then we just all day recording, getting the Navajo words right with the movements of the lips, and it's just so complex. Yeah, they had the world premiere in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I flew down there for that. It's just a fantastic project because the entire film is in our language, for our youth. Then the film was shown in my hometown. We have a single theater and I was invited to be there, and it was just so beautiful to see grandparents and grandchildren sitting side by side, watching this film in our language. I just remember one grandma coming up to me afterwards... I'm getting choked up here, but she said, "Thank you for doing this for my grandson." I just told her, I said, "I am also grateful that they are doing this for our children, too."
Shelby Stanger:
Mylo's preservation work is having a huge impact in his community. It would be pretty incredible if he was just teaching his own kids the Navajo language and traditions, but he's doing the same for so many Navajo children. Mylo shares his language, he shares his art, and he uses his photography to help people living on Navajo land. A few years ago, Mylo started working with Goal Zero, a company that designs innovative, portable power stations and solar generators. Through this partnership, Mylo's been able to help bring electricity to families on the reservation. How, and when did you know you could use photos for a cause greater than just, "These are absolutely beautiful things, and it shows my culture and history and heritage and the land"? But you're now using photos to fundraise for bigger causes.
Mylo Fowler:
The very first photograph that I sold, it was a six-foot print, and I sold that for $8,000. Just that one photograph. For me that was big, going back, 10, 15 years ago. I continued to pursue that, right? It's like, "What image could I create so that I can sell it for quite a bit of money and hopefully get an award?" That was really where my heart was at. Then in 2015, there was a mind spill that happened just right outside of Durango, Colorado.
Mylo Fowler:
Basically, the dam was breached and all that nastiness made its way into the Animas River, and then the Animas flows right into the San Juan River. At the time, I just remember being here in Salt Lake City. I was like, "You know what? Maybe I can sell some of my images for 5, 10 and 20 bucks." Because my whole goal was to sell enough images and go run to one of the big box stores here locally in Salt Lake City and buy a pallet of water. Just throw that in the back of my truck; haul that down to a grandma or a grandpa. Maybe I could do that.
Mylo Fowler:
I set up the website and I took off for a photography assignment. Three, four days later I came home and I looked into the account, and I just remember the first thing I said was like, "Holy cow, holy cow." Instead of just buying one pallet of water to put in the back of my truck, I bought seven semi-trailers of drinking water. At that point I just remember feeling happier. Like, "This was worthwhile. This is what it's about."
Mylo Fowler:
So since then I would sell my images and then just put a little bit of money aside and work with Goal Zero. I would say, "Hey, look like this is for this grandma that lives out all the way over here by Shiprock New Mexico, and she's raising her two grandkids and they've got some medical issues, and a little bit of light, a little bit of power could probably help them." Goal Zero, they would go down like once a year with their staff and then over a weekend, find ways to power homes, and I would lead that or coordinate that. So now our projects really based around powering homes so that kids can recharge their Chromebooks or cell phones or hotspots, and in addition to that have light. The youth are the future. So today we've powered over 500 homes.
Shelby Stanger:
Thank you for making generosity cool. I just think that your message of taking care of your neighbor and everybody is our neighbor and we're all connected. It's a beautiful thing.
Mylo Fowler:
I mean, I've read a few things, some research where for our brains and our body, and who we are as humans, it's so much easier to quickly focus on the negative. It requires less energy and effort than it is to think about and actually taking action to do something that's positive and uplifting for yourself, for your relationships, for your community. What matters is, "When I go to bed tonight, did I help somebody?" It's amazing what you can do when you're walking your path. You have a reason to wake up every morning and it's like today's going to be a beautiful day. In Navajo, we have this closing ceremony, "May I walk with beauty, with things in front of me, with things behind me, below me, above me, and all around me."
Shelby Stanger:
Mylo, thank you so much for coming on the show. You've inspired me to think about the ways that I can give back to the people and to the community around me. Your perspective on community, on traditions, and just on life is really touching, and your photographs are breathtaking. Mylo's book of photography will be coming out later this year. The photos will be accompanied by stories from his grandma and grandpa, as well as more Navajo teachings and philosophies. I'm sure it's going to be beautiful. To stay updated on the book's release date, be sure to follow Mylo on Instagram @navajomylo. That's N-A-V-A-J-O-M-Y-L-O.
Shelby Stanger:
You can also check out his website to see more of his work and a short film about him made by recent guest, Chris Burkard. Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI podcast network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger. Written and edited by Annie Falser and Sylvia Thomas of Puddle Creative, and our senior producer's Chelsea Davis. Our executive producers are Paolo Mottola and Joe Crosby. As always, we love it when you follow the show, rate it, and review it wherever you listen, and remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.