Mastering the Art of Attention in a Distracted World | Tom Sennett

Introduction to the Guest

Jock Putney: A really good photographer, he sees like that out of his ears. So when he's walking down the street and you're looking on your phone and everybody else is adjusting their pocketbook—if you watch people in New York City walking down the street, most of them are not seeing anything about the life around them. You had a near-death experience; before I have a chance to think about it, I've got this thing on and I'm an eagle, I'm flying above the earth. And also, you've seen some pretty tough stuff.

I went right into the most dangerous place in the world, you know, and I was going along the road around 8:00 in the evening and they looked like bumps in the road. One threw up a hand and they all had machine guns. Tom Sennett, welcome to the Pathway to Peak Performance. It's so great to have you in, my friend. Welcome to the show. How are you?

Tom Sennett: Well, how are you? And thank you so much for inviting me over. You're a kind person.

Jock Putney: You know what? It's an honor to have you here and thank you for making the time. So, we talked and your charity is Doctors Without Borders. Great charity. Seems to be the most unselfish organization I've ever seen in my life, and they're risking their lives every day. We will put them in the show notes and let them know that the episode is out. In this show, this is about your pathway to peak performance. We go all the way back and talk about your life, and you do have such an interesting life and story to tell.

Early Life and Family Background

Tom Sennett: I grew up on the East Coast in Schenectady, New York. Schenectady made those big beautiful locomotives and they also made tanks during the Second World War. I remember climbing up on the toilet when I was three or four years old and looking out because the tanks came up the road near my house and they went around in the fields and were tested. My father had one of those gardens you grew your tomatoes and lettuce and everything during the Second World War—I forget what it's called. He was from an Italian family and he liked to grow things, liked to drink red wine.

My parents had several wonderful things about them; they had a raging curiosity about life and about people. They loved all people. My father had a business—he had five stores that sold industrial supplies—but one of the stores was managed by a black man. Now, this is in the 1950s. He had identified this person through baseball; he was interested in baseball. I remember his name, Joe Spurrow. So, he became the manager of one of my father's businesses. Very unlikely, isn't it? So you can see what they felt about people. America was an insular kind of place even though we had been in the second war.

He had a work ethic, and so I was about seven or eight years old and he had the broom in my hand and I was down there in his warehouse picking up. Then I got a paper route, and it was a long route on a bicycle. Sometimes there was a blizzard, so I had to push the bicycle along and stay with some of my customers overnight because of the snow. I grew up in an interesting neighborhood with a bunch of kids. We played cops and robbers. We probably couldn't do that today because we had very realistic guns. It took a long time for us to be interested in girls; there was one of us that was more forward and he told us these stories and we were shocked, knowing nothing about it at 16 years old.

But I collected things. I collected stamps and the British Empire. In 1953 the British Empire was still together, and I had stamps from all the colonies, so I knew the world through that. Then I had little collections of English Dinky Toys, little cars. Again, I knew all about cars and where they came from. The urge to know about things was there. Another wonderful thing: my father was not well educated, but he said, "There's a bookstore in the department store; you can go over there and get any kind of books." Well, I went over there and I got the four or five bound copies of The History of the English-Speaking Peoples by Winston Churchill and I read them all. My parents instilled that reading thing in me; it’s never left me. I’ve probably read or listened to 15 books already this year, and we're only in January.

Adventures and Near-Death Experiences

Tom Sennett: A wonderful thing happened to me because of John F. Kennedy. He talked about the world and his wonderful speeches about our responsibilities, and the Peace Corps had been founded. I decided that was for me. I thought I was going to Africa, but one day they called me and said, "We have an opening in a group going to India." I thought that was pretty exotic. So off I went to India for three years of my life.

Mind-blowing. I actually drove home from India. I got married to an American woman like myself, and we had a little baby. We drove home from India to Europe in a Volkswagen bus across Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey in the wintertime, and Eastern Europe.

Jock Putney: Wow, so you came all the way up through places like Croatia?

Tom Sennett: Correct. We came up to Frankfurt. A friend of mine lived on an airbase in Germany; it was totally unprotected. You could drive on the base and if you knew how to fly one of those fighter planes, you could climb in and take off. It was a really relaxed situation. I came home to America with a baby and a wife and no job. But people are always trying to take care of me—they still are.

Career Beginnings and National Geographic

Tom Sennett: People got me an appointment with National Geographic right off. At the time, it was the top of the top. I met the director, Bob Gilka, and I'm sitting in his office. My sister was down in the car on the street waiting; she thought it would be 15 minutes. He went out a couple of times and came back looking very stern. I said, "Mr. Gilka, I'm taking a lot of your time. Maybe I should take some more pictures and come back." He said, "No, half of what you've showed me is impossibilities. I'm not letting you leave until I figure out what I'm going to do with you."

I was screwed to the chair. He finally came back and said, "Do you want to go to Southeast Asia?" Just like that. I said, "But my sister..." and he said, "Have Miss Sennett park her car in the lot and come up here." He identified me very quickly as one of those people that travel the world and either write about it or take pictures.

Jock Putney: The interesting thing about you is that we have conversations that feel like a 30-layer lasagna—thousands of feet of substories within that run-up to being in the office at National Geographic. At that point in time, there were two publications that were the top: National Geographic and Life Magazine.

Tom Sennett: Yeah, and I photographed for Look. They made stories with those pictures. I never really fully appreciated that; I wanted to simply take pictures, and it's much harder because you're constantly looking. It’s a wonderful thing how you set up your body for doing that. A really good photographer sees out of his ears; he sees everything in that front. When most people in New York City walk down the street, they aren't seeing anything; they're looking at their feet. I would see something happen on another plane instantly and identify if it was a possible scenario to photograph.

A lot of times I was working for people that gave me no time. We would fly into a country, take pictures, have lunch, and fly back out. How do you get something out of that? Well, you look at the people—the people bringing you lunch, the people in the kitchen. If the assignment was for myself, it was much more hanging around, letting time build.

Jock Putney: Instead of making pictures, you're observing and getting a sense of what's happening, and then the time comes and you take the shot. You've been in what, 163 countries?

Tom Sennett: No, 134. I don't know where 163 came from.

Jock Putney: At what point are you going through passports so quickly that they don't last?

Tom Sennett: Believe it or not, I only went through one like that once where it was stuffed and they kept gluing pages in. At that time, the State Department didn't give you a new one. But I had an incident in the last six months. I flew to England and my passport had been through a washing machine. It was looking a little tatty, but that information page is sacrosanct. The woman didn't like it and called the big chief. I was sat with some Nigerians and Afghanis in the "hoosegow." He didn't like the look of it even though the information was there. I finally said, "You're discriminating against me. Either deport me or let me into England." Finally, they put a page in with her stamp and said, "Don't come back to England with this passport." Of all the places I've been in the world, to have that happen in England!

Challenges and Triumphs in Photography

Jock Putney: Let's talk about photography. First camera?

Tom Sennett: A folding Kodak. I think I was in ninth grade and I took pictures of the cheerleaders and the players. It was very hard to make pictures; the film was so slow in those days. I dragged my feet for a long time about lighting; I didn't like it, though I eventually started carrying six bags full. My father took me to the Olympics in California in 1960. We rented a couple of cameras. That was mind-blowing—the skiers, the teams, the romances. It was my first jet flight across the United States.

My father was the person who would just get in the car and drive. We’d end up four hours away in a different city and call my mother. She’d say, "Tom, what are you thinking? He has school in the morning." And he’d say, "Well, we're thinking about driving down to Florida." He had a stressful business, and hanging out with me was his way of ditching that stress.

I eventually went to the Peace Corps in India and realized I needed better equipment. A diplomat flying to Hong Kong bought me a camera and lenses. My sister worked for the USIA and she would sneak bricks of Kodachrome film into the diplomatic pouch to New Delhi. I had these pictures of an elephant roundup in southern India, but I didn't know how bad they were. I sent them to a man in Japan who developed them, and two weeks later I got a check for $500. Then a USIS photographer came through and saw my work. He had five Leicas hanging down and was with a beautiful blonde. I looked at that and said, "This is what I will become." I had no idea how difficult it was. All along that search, people were pushing me along—mentors who put the wind in my sails.

Reflections on Photography and Life

Jock Putney: You're a true master. Your pathway went from taking photos of cheerleaders to using some pretty elaborate equipment. How does that mastery develop?

Tom Sennett: I've been very lucky that I had the vision. I’ve had trouble with my eyes and I just have one now, but I haven't lost that. I still see it instantaneously. I never was well paid because I never asked for the money. I thought they were doing me a favor by giving me the money to go there! I never thought about it as work. The equipment got very expensive—I think I've had 30 cameras—so I lived from job to job. My father didn't understand it until I showed him a check for $20,000 from an assignment. He looked at it and said, "They gave you this for that?" For a lot of people, what they do is just joy.

Jock Putney: It’s hard to find what gives you that joy. Your dad put this thirst for adventure into you. Does the need to keep moving ever become addictive?

Tom Sennett: It starts really young. My parents used to drive me from New York to Florida through states with the Ku Klux Klan and prisoners in striped suits. There were questions my parents were reluctant to answer, but the curiosity came early.

Later in life, I had wealthy clients who let me do anything. One day I was driving to Kennedy Airport for an assignment and I wasn't sure about it. I called the client and he said, "I told you to rent a limousine, fly West, and I’ll see you in a couple of weeks." He was a character. Another time, I was doing a story on ingredients. I went to New Zealand to photograph the apple and pear board, then to Ireland to a dairy company. I said to the man, "Don't you want to save money and let someone else do the Ireland part?" He said, "There's airplanes, you know." I never took advantage of it; if I could take the bus, I would.

Travel Tales and Curiosity

Jock Putney: You say you don't "make" pictures, you "take" them. Today we have digital, filters, and AI like "Nano Banana," but the stuff you did was real and raw.

Tom Sennett: It is wonderful that we started in the film days because we have that in our head. Now I can use digital in a more creative way because I know what I could develop. My digital pictures are probably only 25% done in the camera and 75% in the computer. But in those days, there were no interventions.

People ask me what it takes to be me. I say you need to be a plumber, a travel agent, a geographer. You need to know that if you want to go to Timbuktu, this is how you get there. I remember a Pan Am woman at the counter who knew the four ways to get to Timbuktu off the top of her head. Today, people at the airport don't know where London is.

Jock Putney: Of all the countries, is there one that stands out?

Tom Sennett: Italy. A friend once told me there are three answers: "There's Italy, there's Italy, and there's Italy." It’s the people who are incredibly hospitable. I could tell you 20 stories of total strangers going out of their way for me.

Adventures in Central Africa

Tom Sennett: I was down in Central Africa at Christmas time coming up from Dar es Salaam on a Russian transport plane. It was primitive. I was in the Rabat airport in Morocco. I had a case with five cameras and 30 lenses. The woman checking me through tipped the whole thing upside down on the counter. I got excited and said, "What are you doing?" She called the police to arrest me.

My friend saw the trouble and asked a man with a diplomatic passport to help. He was an American in a handmade suit who spoke perfect French. He told me, "You've insulted the inspector. How much French do you have?" I said I could say sorry and excuse me. He said, "I would use it all." I was subservient, and she finally said, "Get him out of here." I asked my friend who that was, and he said, "The American Ambassador to Morocco."

A Close Call in North Ireland

Tom Sennett: I’m a bit of a naive person. I don't think about danger particularly. I went to the office of English Vogue and they liked my pictures but told me to come back in a couple of days. I decided to go to Ireland. I rented a car in Dublin and headed north into the most dangerous place in the world. Around 8:00 PM, I saw bumps in the road and men with machine guns. A soldier asked where I was going and said, "Yank, you're driving a car they love to smuggle arms in. Get off the road."

I found a guest house. When I came out in the morning, every house on the street had been bombed and there were soldiers in sandbagged positions. Later, I was in the countryside with my tripod. A farmer on a tractor asked what I was doing and said, "It's really not a good idea." I realized he had a .45 in his hand. I said, "I think I'll drive back to Dublin." He said, "What a wonderful idea."

Photographing Egypt Post-Six Day War

Tom Sennett: I was in Egypt after the Six-Day War. It was intense—hills with crashed helicopters and earth berms the Israelis had put across the Suez Canal. I was there for an oil company, Aramco. I fell in the canal with all my cameras. I have a picture of me being pulled out, water dripping, and I’m smiling. I had a couple of mechanical cameras that were soaked, so I went to a guest house and stuck them in the oven for an hour. The salt solidified and they worked for three or four more hours. I got the pictures. You couldn't do that today; electronic cameras would just be fried.

Near-Death Experience Paragliding

Jock Putney: You had a near-death experience in your personal life. Are you willing to share it?

Tom Sennett: It starts with curiosity. A fellow in New Zealand was pushing paragliders off a small hill. He asked if I wanted to do it and I said, "I'd be killed." He just put the thing on me and pushed me off. Suddenly I was an eagle. It’s one of the most dangerous sports because you can't see wind. One day I was in the desert mountains behind San Diego. I was flying in a place I didn't have experience with. I didn't know there were rotors over the escarpments. I got a full collapse; my sail pushed down and shut the slots that give you flight.

Down I came. I had a parachute but no time to pull it. I hit the ground in a second and a half—about 50 feet. I was aware immediately that I was seriously injured. I was paralyzed below the waist and in abject pain. A guy came by in a motor glider and radioed it in. A little helicopter came with two paramedics. They told the hospital, "He's dying, he's bleeding internally." They couldn't get me out because the rotors were too close to the cliffs.

I was going in and out of consciousness. I asked a third man there if he knew any prayers. He didn't, but he sang the Lord's Prayer in that canyon. It was the most beautiful thing. Around 3:30 AM, a search group arrived with morphine. In the morning, a Coast Guard helicopter came. A man came down like someone in Star Wars with blinking lights on his helmet. He put me in a basket and I spun around like a top as they pulled me up. I had a broken pelvis in four places and internal injuries.

In the hospital, my brother-in-law brought two bottles of wine. I was on 100% morphine. We killed both bottles before a nurse caught us. She said, "You'll kill him!" I took hard stuff for six months, but I don't have an addictive personality, so when I didn't need it, I stopped.

High-Speed Car Adventures

Jock Putney: You've had some close calls in the water and in cars, too. You once told a story about driving a friend's car that left him in terror.

Tom Sennett: I really love to drive fast. I have a fighter pilot buddy and I took him to a BMW school in South Carolina. We spent two days with professional drivers in M5s. He was my passenger once and said, "Just leave me out over here, I've had enough." I had an M5 myself. I once drove it 183 mph in western Oklahoma. The car was lifting a little bit, which made me nervous. I saw a policeman, but there was no way he could have caught me at that pace.

Concluding Thoughts and Gratitude

Jock Putney: As you think back, do you ever feel a "flow state" where everything just happens effortlessly?

Tom Sennett: A lot of times I was terrified. I didn't know how to start an assignment. But most of my life was film; I didn't know what was happening until I got back to New York and looked at the slides. Authenticity is a big part of it. I never apologize for being me.

I'm still enjoying life, even though I'm one-eyed. I don't think any of us really figure out old age, but it gives you compassion for others. Everyone is struggling in some way. One of the wonderful things about living here is having this extended family.

Jock Putney: Tom, I’d love to digitize some of your photos and do a supplemental episode to show them. You're one of the most interesting people I've ever met. Thank you so much for coming.

Tom Sennett: It’s a pleasure that you would take interest in me talking about myself—my favorite subject!

Jock Putney: Thanks everyone for watching. Please remember to like, comment, and subscribe. We'll see you soon.