- ANNOUNCER: The Texas Parks and Wildlife Television Series is supported in part by Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation -- conserving the wild things and wild places of Texas, thanks to members across the state.

Additional funding is provided by Toyota.

Your local Toyota dealers are proud to support outdoor recreation and conservation in Texas.

Toyota -- Let's Go Places.

- NARRATOR: Coming up on Texas Parks & Wildlife... - You have to work for something like this.

You can't just walk out your front door and see this.

- Just figuring out what oyster farming would look like in Texas and that's actually a way more complicated question than it sounds.

- I try to generate an image that somehow captures the feeling of the place.

[theme music] ♪ ♪ - NARRATOR: Texas Parks and Wildlife, a television series for all outdoors.

[phone vibrating] [phone vibrating] [phone vibrating] [phone vibrating] [phone vibrating] [phone vibrating] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [dramatic music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - Out here, the first two hours of my day, I don't have to worry about all the stress and the hustle and bustle of the city.

I just wake up [gas hissing] and I'll go fix myself some breakfast, and just pack up my gear, and then wait and see how the day hold.

So I'm not like in a rush.

[uplifting music] - BIKER 1: Hope, you gonna go.

- BIKER 2: Yeah.

- BIKER 1: All right.

- BIKER 2: Yeah.

[gravel crackles] - Bike parking is absolutely the perfect speed to experience nature, because you're going slow enough to where you can enjoy everything around you, you can look up, and look at the mountains and the vistas, but you can look down right in front of your tire and look at the rocks, or you can look at the cacti, and you know, little animals that are scurrying by.

You have the opportunity to like experience all of that.

[mellow music] - So, I just found a fossil.

Um, I was just biking along right back there and I looked down and it was right to the left of my tire.

I like really love learning natural history of places.

So this is cool cause like all of this used to be underwater.

So I get excited when I find stuff like this cause it's like, you know, relics of that different time period when Big Bend looked a lot different than it does now.

[wind howling] [mellow music] ♪ ♪ - We started off with the blue bonnets were alongside the highway, like we saw them before we were even entering into Big Bend State Park.

And so it's really cool to start, you know, off the highway, just like where the blue bonnets did and we see what they go through.

Like, we follow the river down and we know where they land.

♪ ♪ - I mean, I can sit down and write about the copper colored jagged rock that meets the earth where it crumbles into the runoff from Madrid falls.

And I mean, that's been written and you can over the top, and nobody really wants to read that at this point.

I'm more interested in how the land affects the people and the people that love it and what it means to them.

- On Monday, I fell 17 times.

[gravel crackles] Ow.

And on Tuesday, I felt eight times.

- Oh.

[bicycle smacks ground] - MAN: Woah!

- And on Wednesday, I fell six times.

Oh, I didn't know that it was there -- blood.

Then today, we got through and I've fallen once.

So, I'm pretty proud of myself.

And it was on gravel so it was a nice soft landing like feathers.

[mellow music] - A year from now, I think I definitely will remember the friendships I've made here.

- It's just crazy like how much fun for this whole group is.

- MAN: Also this is a super hard.

[laughing] - Third time's a charm.

- It was like here is the trail, here is Cody.

It was like zoom.

[indistinct chatter] - Yes, the pain of the riding and the exhaustion of the riding will go and fade away into memory.

But the thing that'll stick the most is, I think the people and the stories and the friends you meet on the way.

[mellow music] ♪ ♪ - This morning, we were all the way over there on the other side of that mountain, right there.

We've gone a little over 20 of the worst miles that we've done the whole trip.

- Sick nasty!

- Sick nasty bro.

- But man, it was a lot of fun.

And this view right here is just, this is the best one that I've had so far.

I'm tearing up right now.

This is just huge and like, oh, this is awesome.

It's fantastic.

[guitar music] ♪ ♪ - When I look out into this, that's when I kind of realize like, this is what we've been given and this is something that you have to go out and seek, like you have to work for something like this.

You can't, you can't just walk out your front door and see this.

[upbeat music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [wind blowing] - I consider myself an oyster tourist so when I go to other cities, I like to try all the different, unique boutique oysters that you can get.

And I think it's really cool that, Texas might have a boutique oyster scene.

Like some of these other metropolitan areas do.

[slow upbeat music] - The coastal economies are very impacted by fisheries resources, not just directly by a commercial and recreational fishermen.

Those things also bring business.

- You have local economy, you have coastal economy, you know, the fishermen themselves, the restaurants they're selling to, the entire industry that comes up around that.

So it is a, it's a fairly large umbrella.

And even the culture, coastal culture, it's gonna have a place in that as well.

[bird chirping] - Texas recently adopted legislation to bring oyster mariculture to the Texas coast.

- And that's basically gonna be oyster farming, in Texas.

And so, our deputy director started that program, and I was on the work group, helping them figure out various aspects of program design.

But then when he retired, nobody really championed the program.

And for some reason I did.

[laughing] - ZACH: Yeah, Emma was involved with this, really from the beginning.

She plays a big role in terms of habitat monitoring, and management along the Texas coast.

And it became pretty clear that this oyster mariculture program needed a champion.

- Emma just picked up the baton and ran with it.

And this is a huge task, that she just emerged as the person that was gonna take this to the finish line.

And she did an outstanding job.

- Just figuring out, what oyster farming would look like in Texas.

And that's actually a way more complicated question than it sounds.

There's a ton of moving parts and a lot of things we had to figure out along the way.

I have made it my own personal task to know this information, because I feel like if we're gonna regulate it, we really need to understand it.

So I've looked up all of the gear.

I've gone to these trainings.

I've gone to the research farm and learned how the gear works and talked to Sea Grant.

- The commercial oyster mariculture program, allows individuals to start up private oyster growing operations, in the bays of Texas.

There's a lot of pressure put on the natural resource.

That being oysters harvested off of natural reefs.

We view this as, hopefully the solution to maintaining that as a sustainable resource, and supplementing the total oyster harvest out of Texas, with these privately grown oysters.

- The first application for cultivated oyster mariculture actually came to the bay system that I oversee into Aransas Bay.

That was a huge, huge first step for the program when we actually received that application.

- We've had an amazing team working on this, and I just wanna make sure that comes through is that it's been a group effort.

And I do hope this does take some pressure off of the wild oyster reefs.

And one thing that I kind of hope for as a consumer is that we have a little bit more of that seafood culture and that connection with our seafood in our restaurants and coastal communities.

[upbeat music] - My first love of photography is probably wildlife.

When I was a young photographer that's really what I concentrated on was shooting pictures of wildlife.

But really as my career has evolved, I'm becoming known more now for capturing the Texas culture.

You know, in trying to capture those people and places that really epitomize what it's like to be Texan, and what it means to be a Texan.

This country was built on the backs of cowboys, and Comanche Indians, and bison hunters, and early on I learned about all the history of all three of those groups and how they tie in and how they really interweave into the tapestry of this country in the Texas Rolling Plains.

Because of that I became enamored with the history of the buffalo hunter and the history of the bison in Texas and on the South Plains.

I was at Caprock Canyon State Park early one evening shooting pictures of the buffalo and the buffalo herd there at the state park, and this one single bull was grazing and at the very last minute, the very last light, he turned and looked towards the sun and I was able to capture a moment that's really become iconic.

I know when a lot of people talk about pictures I've taken they talk about that one photo that was taken probably 12-years ago.

When people ask me the secret to taking great photographs, I tell them there's really not a secret at all.

It's really about, if you can think of anything you want to be, you say, "I want to be good at blank."

If it's basketball or if it's baseball or if it's making quilts or if it's photography, it all boils down to doing a few key things right every time and understanding the elements within that discipline so that your results become predictable.

Like in photography, I tell people a couple of things they need to think about all the time, you need to think about light first and foremost, whether its natural light with the sun or artificial light if you are introducing some strobes.

Composition is a key component of it in my mind.

You know, composition is one thing if you learn it and learn it well you can transform mediocre photos into great photos almost overnight.

It makes a huge change in the way your photographs look.

I get asked a lot about what kind of equipment someone can buy that will make them a great photographer.

You know, really being a great photographer is a little bit about the equipment but it's a lot about inspiration.

It's a lot about understanding your subject and understanding how to interact with that subject, whether that subject is a landscape, or whether it's people in the outdoors, or whether it's wildlife.

It's just taking the time to do all the background information and understanding what it is that you are taking pictures of.

I spend as much time researching a subject, or twice as much time researching a subject as I do actually photographing it because when I go into a situation, I've got a finite amount of time, and so I want to know all I can about what I'm taking a picture of.

Whether I'm traveling to the Big Bend to shoot pictures of great landscapes or whether I'm traveling to the northern Panhandle to take pictures of prairie chickens, or whether I'm traveling to someone's farm to shoot a picture of their hard-earned labor and hard work and what it means to be a farmer in Texas, I try to know as much as I can about the subject.

And to me, more than equipment, that's the secret to being a great photographer.

[grass rustling] Whoa, you didn't get that, did you?

- CAMERAMAN: Uh yeah, actually I did.

- I was born in Dallas.

Got to experience the Midwest, the Northeast... quite a few years in Houston.

- NARRATOR: Billy Hassell lives in the urban world.

- BILLY: Didn't move back to the area until about 15 years ago.

Then, I've made Fort Worth home ever since.

- NARRATOR: But Billy has always been drawn to the natural world.

- Reconnecting with nature in a small way, in a very urban environment.

It calms the soul somehow if you can slow down.

We live fast-paced lives and we're kind of conditioned I think to think we have to live in rush all the time.

- NARRATOR: But follow Billy to work, and his interest in nature becomes most apparent.

- BILLY: Here we are in my studio.

[light switch clicks] [gentle piano music] - I am a full time artist.

My work has always been inspired by nature.

I grew up in a time when there were still some open spaces and creeks and I got to experience a little bit of nature even though I grew up in a pretty urban environment.

I guess my love of nature was born from those experiences, and I've been kind of searching for that throughout the rest of my life.

I have been seeking out opportunities to be out in nature and find places to inspire my work.

[car passes] You see these oak groves from a distance and they are sort of their own little world.

- NARRATOR: In early fall, a new project finds Billy seeking natural inspiration along the coast.

- This is a cool spot.

This might be a spot to come back to and set up a chair and watercolor.

- NARRATOR: Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation has commissioned Billy to create a series of prints celebrating wildlife habitat conservation statewide.

- BILLY: We decided on five land projects around the state of Texas, Powderhorn being kind of the jewel in the crown.

- NARRATOR: Billy's first lithograph will feature Powderhorn Ranch, 17,000 acres of newly-conserved coastal prairie and marsh on Matagorda Bay.

[bird chirps] - BILLY: It is very heartening to me to see large areas of land like this preserved for the future.

[dramatic music] - If you had to put it all into one picture, you could not fit it all.

That's the challenge.

Hmmm.

Prickly pear and a rattlesnake.

The more you look the more you see.

[laughs] It is cool to watch them move.

I find a lot of inspiration as an artist in a place like this, and as I learn more and more about it, I am fascinated by the complexities of it and how practically every plant and every little creature plays a role in the overall balance of a place.

[dramatic music, frogs croak] If I sit down to do a watercolor, I have to sit the chair down, find a spot, commit myself to at least an hour, an hour and a half of time.

In a pencil sketch I can frequently get at least a contour of the shadows.

The cactus I got a little more detailed on the shapes.

The line drawings kind of help me put it into a bigger context.

The length of time it takes to do a watercolor, by the time you are three quarters of the way finished, the light has changed completely.

That is the advantage of having a photograph to refer to, just for the light and the color.

[scraping] - For years, I did not even own a camera.

If I take a picture, I let the camera be the memory, and if I draw it, I think I have to remember it in my head.

There is something about the process of visualizing something and processing what you're seeing that burns a more indelible memory.

[gentle music] Just being in a place, just walking through a place and hearing the wind blow and seeing things, it seeps in.

I try to generate an image that somehow captures the feeling of the place.

[gentle music] - BILLY: Let's see, I want a nice blue-green.

- PETER: Pick a color, any color.

- NARRATOR: One month after his field visit, Billy has an image for his print.

- So I am here at Peter Webb's shop in Austin, where we're turning my drawings into a color lithograph.

- NARRATOR: With his printer, Billy builds the image one color at a time.

[uptempo music] - PETER: Everything is by hand.

He has to basically take his image, deconstruct it, and then reconstruct it.

The artist has to draw each and every plate.

He is actually drawing the whole print right here.

The drawing is transferred, by light, onto the plate.

- BILLY: Traditionally, lithographs were printed from limestone.

Aluminum plates have replaced the limestone, but essentially it is the same process that it's been for 300 years.

I hate to call it a dying art form, but I feel like by doing the lithographs I am somehow keeping an old process alive.

You said we could take it out later.

- Oh did I say that?

- BILLY: Each color is hand-inked, hand-printed, and usually there are about 12 to 15 colors, so that's 15 passes through a press to get one image.

[press running] All my drawings are done in black and white so there's sort of this magic thing that happens when we assign colors to each plate and then we combine the colors and we achieve this end result.

Each color is printed one on top of another and when all the colors are printed, you have a finished print.

- PETER: It is a one shot deal.

- BILLY: I think it is somehow appropriate to be celebrating these places as a limited edition work of art.

- Ta da!

We did it!

- They will be editions of 30, and once they are gone, they are gone.

And in a way it is like the land that is inspiring the prints.

[gentle music] [dog sighs] - NARRATOR: Back at his studio in Fort Worth, Billy completes other work to be shown with his lithograph.

- BILLY: So, I am working on a group of paintings for a show that is going to open in Fort Worth in a couple of weeks.

I have got a few oil paintings that are in progress.

- NARRATOR: Billy's time at Powderhorn has inspired much more than one print.

- It has kind of evolved into almost a whole show of work based on that.

I make my gallery owners a little nervous sometimes because I'm down to the wire usually, but I always deliver.

[laughs] [car passes] We are at the William Campbell Contemporary Art Gallery here in Fort Worth.

- MAN: Wonderful show!

- WOMAN: Beautiful!

- BILLY: Tonight is the opening of a show of new paintings and the unveiling of the Powderhorn Ranch lithograph.

This has generated quite a stir.

- MAN: Pulled in the crowd tonight.

[crowd murmur] - BILLY: This is kind of the culmination of weeks of work and sweat and anxiety over getting it all done in time and my only anxiety now is that there is not any wet paint that anybody is going to bump into inside there.

- I like the one in the back that is Powderhorn.

- BILLY: The paintings have sold, and the prints have sold.

And I think there is going to be a lot of interest in the Powderhorn Ranch lithograph.

And I do think people make the association or think about the coastal prairie of Texas and also the fragility of nature.

[quail call] - NARRATOR: While preserving nature in paint and ink has a beauty all its own, proceeds from Billy's print will also help Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation keep places like Powderhorn Ranch wild forever.

- BILLY: When this was proposed to me, I was thrilled.

- NARRATOR: With more lithographs in the series... - BILLY: It will be about a three year project.

- NARRATOR: ....Billy Hassell has more natural inspiration to look forward to.

- BILLY: I hope the prints reach people, and make people aware of Powderhorn, but also just aware of the world and how precious it is.

[water flowing] [water flowing] [water flowing] [water flowing] [water flowing] [water flowing] [water flowing] [water flowing] This series is supported in part by Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation -- conserving the wild things and wild places of Texas, thanks to members across the state.

Additional funding is provided by Toyota.

Your local Toyota dealers are proud to support outdoor recreation and conservation in Texas.

Toyota -- Let's Go Places.