Mud Reflections

What the heck am I even doing right now?!

Yelled the voice inside my head. That same head was tucked between the gunnels of an Alumacraft canoe, currently carrying it through waste deep muck somewhere deep between lakes in Canada. This wasn't a question of desperation. Rather, this was a question of astonishment. Here I was on a random Tuesday in July, multiple days into a week-long canoe trip, on a film project for what I tell my parents is my "day-job". That same exclamatory question has been muttered more often these days. 40 feet up a mast in Svalbard, deep inside the depths of a Great Lakes cargo ship for a PBS show, talking with local villagers off the coast of West Greenland, or in this moment, trying to wrench my sandaled foot free from the grasp of the bog I was standing in. It is in exactly those moments I remember why I started Fram Studio Company. Its not for the glitz, the glamor, or the easily permeable facades. Rather, its for the real stories. The ones that take effort and grit to capture. The ones that will leave you with as many bug bites as stories. So as I reflected in that moment on the last couple months of projects, I was incredibly grateful. Grateful for the companies and organizations that have trusted us to tell their stories, and grateful that the bog gave me my sandal back.

I was exactly where I wanted to be.

Ryan

Aug, 2026