A conversation with Ben Eriksson (EP221)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:25] Speaker B: Well, g' day everybody and welcome back to the Camera Life podcast. It is Thursday, the first first of October. Pinch in a punch for the first day of the month, everybody. And of course, being a Thursday morning, we have an amazing guest with us in the studio today. Today we're joined by Australian nature, wildlife, landscape, astro, portrait photographer, not greedy at all, as well as workshop and tour operator Ben Erickson. Ben, it is such a pleasure to have you on the show. [00:00:51] Speaker A: Welcome. Good morning guys. It's good to be here. I'm Thursday morning at 9 o'. Clock. Normally I might still be lying in bed, but no, I'm up, I'm dressed and I'm ready. [00:01:03] Speaker C: Really? Are you, Are you not normally an early riser? Because I would imagine, you know, with the nature of your photography, that you would be up at the crack of before dawn every day. [00:01:14] Speaker A: No, I'm not a sunset guy, but that's because I'm an astro guy. I'm up until like 2 o' clock in the morning doing astrophotography. So you have to sleep at some stages. I don't mind a sunrise now and then, but yeah, yeah, give me a sleep until 7:30, 8:00 clock in the morning and I'm happy. [00:01:34] Speaker B: Okay, well that, yeah, that is a sleeping for me too. A very early waker. Chromies. What does my mom say? My mom says the chromies are fouls, not owls. So we're up with the sun, not with. [00:01:48] Speaker C: I like that. I can get that on a T shirt for you, Greg. [00:01:52] Speaker B: Thanks, mate. Thank you. I really appreciate that. I can't wait for my growing T shirt collection. The amount of T shirts you're going to make me, it's amazing. And of course, yes, obviously, we're joined by the founder of Lucky Straps and the head honcho of the camera, like podcast Justin Castles. Good morning. Just a little quick segue, Jay. We ran a podcast last night, the fourth booking podcast for befop, and it just feels like I haven't left this seat. How are you doing? [00:02:18] Speaker C: Look, I. I'm okay. I still feel like a fish out of water in this new office. This, like, temporary new office. The lighting's weird. [00:02:26] Speaker A: I'm not. [00:02:27] Speaker C: My desk isn't comfortable, my chair isn't comfortable. I don't know, it's just. I don't feel quite right. But anyway, we're getting there. [00:02:35] Speaker B: You'll get there. Plus you will get. [00:02:36] Speaker C: The house is full of tradies too, so if anyone hears any hammer drills or anything like that, I apologize. [00:02:43] Speaker B: Yeah, okay. All right, let's crack on. Ben, thank you once again for joining us today. It's. Oh, what happened there? I just lost my screen. Sorry. Immense pleasure to have you. We've heard so much about you from some of our friends and folks in the community. So we look forward to learning a little bit more about you. But, you know, given that before we went live, we were chatting about, you know, the genres of photography that you practice in. You know, we talked about landscape, nature, wildlife, portraiture, astro, the whole works. But you revealed to us that, you know, the whale photography which you run workshops and tours for, that that's your passion. Tell us a little bit about where that began for you. What was your first whale shoot like or how did that become an interest? [00:03:33] Speaker A: Years ago, I jumped on a whale tour boat and went out there and had a fantastic experience seeing humpback whales go past the boat pretty close, saw a nice tail throw and a petrol slap. For those who know what whales do, they'll understand what those things are. And I got back off the boat and just thought to myself, wow, that's amazing. Seeing this mammal which can be between, well, when born somewhere between around about 1.2 tons and up to about 55 tons in size, coming and interacting with a boat and then when it's ready, just going, see you later under the water. And next thing it's 500 meters away from you and doesn't want to have a bar of you sort of thing. So, yeah, it was amazing. And since that moment, I've just been absolutely hooked. It's my favorite thing to do in the world. [00:04:40] Speaker B: Yep. And that first tour, was that a photography tour or was that just an observation tour? [00:04:45] Speaker A: That was just an observation tour. It was actually off Phillip island with Wildlife Coast Cruises. And these days I actually do some citizen scientist work them, which is a volunteer role in collecting fluke details out on their cruises with a bunch of other citizen scientists and also some other citizen scientists work for another organization called Two Bays Whale Project, which is down on the Mornington Peninsula. [00:05:18] Speaker B: Tell us a little bit more about the citizen scientist aspect. Is that someone that anyone can get involved in, what does it take to, you know, inquire and become involved in that sort of program? [00:05:30] Speaker A: Well, I guess in the whale side of things, you obviously have to understand your camera, but there are different citizen science roles out there in all different aspects, where some of them obviously don't involve being able to, one, be on a boat which, you know, you don't want to get seasick, obviously. Number two, it's moving, you need to hold your camera with both hands, so you need to be able to balance your body and not fall over and, and then obviously have the right gear to be able to get the shot. Obviously not telephoto lens and things like that. So with what I do, generally speaking, the, the organizations are looking for people who have maybe been on their boats a lot before, have a passion for whale photography and understand also how to deliver an image that qualifies for their citizen science needs so that it can be a validated sighting. And also the amazing thing is there's a platform called Happy Whale that if you get a valid sighting of a whale's fluke, which is the underside of its tail, if you put that, load that up onto Happy Whale AI now, but it used to be all manually done, can match if anybody else has taken the same whale's fluke. So it's like our fingerprint. You can actually see where that whale's been photographed before. [00:07:06] Speaker C: So for instance, yeah, there's tracking it essentially. Maybe like it was cited here, it was cited there, and it's like crowdfunded kind of tracking or whatever. Crowdsource tracking. [00:07:18] Speaker A: Yep, yep. So if, for instance, you're the first person to actually photograph that whale's tail, then when you upload it to Happy Whale, they'll give you an option. You do have to pay for it, but they'll give you an option to actually name that whale and that whale has been named by you for the rest of its trapped life. [00:07:38] Speaker B: Wow. [00:07:38] Speaker C: Have you named any? [00:07:40] Speaker A: I haven't. I haven't named any. [00:07:43] Speaker C: What would you name your first whale? [00:07:47] Speaker B: What a question. [00:07:49] Speaker A: Well, you know what my first boat was called when I was a youngster? It was a little minnow. It was called Slippery when Wet. So, you know, I recognize maybe what I'd call my first whale, maybe after my. After my first boat when I was a little kid. [00:08:03] Speaker C: That's a good boat. [00:08:04] Speaker B: So obviously you've been boating for a long time. Was that a family pursuit or did you learn that through, you know, something like Sea Scouts or. Where did that all come from? [00:08:14] Speaker A: My dad sailed as a, as a kid and we were lucky enough. My grandparents had a house down on the Mornington Peninsula and we would come down each summer and over some of the other school holidays. And my dad had a Hobie, 16, which he sailed and in the various other boats. But obviously for me at, you know, the right old age of a roundabout sort of eight or nine when I first started sailing on my own, you know. Yeah. That the Little Minnow was my first boat, followed by a, a Pacer which was called Small but Game. So I always had big dreams of that. I get my Pacer and like sail down to Tazzy or something like that. But it never happened. [00:08:57] Speaker C: No, not yet. [00:08:59] Speaker B: Not yet. Not yet. And do you still, do you still go for recreational boating without camera these days? [00:09:07] Speaker A: I, I do, I actually sometimes. Well, I haven't sailed this season but I've got an international 420 which has just ceased as part of the Olympic Training Fleet, but that trained the, the sailors up to the 470. So it's a two person boat, but being six foot one and, and fairly long arms and that I can sail it on my own. So when my daughter's not around and willing to go for a sale with me, I get out on my own. And sometimes I may have slipped my mobile phone out when I've got like dolphins right beside my boat and I'm sitting there trying to sail and get video footage of the dolphins. [00:09:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:50] Speaker C: Wow. [00:09:51] Speaker B: That actually just sparked a memory for me when I was in university. This is like 30 something years ago. A friend of mine, we're in design school and his family had a yacht and we motored out to the middle of Port Phillip Bay and on the way he said, go up to the bow and tap on the side. And I did that and all of these dolphins just suddenly appeared and were cruising along next to us. And it was, it's one of the most magical things I've ever experienced in nature. So I can, I can certainly appreciate the appeal there for you and the obsession with it. And so, you know, if, are there organizations that people can get in touch with if they want to become a part of a program like that, the, the citizen scientist, whale watching side of things? [00:10:39] Speaker A: Well, there are obviously in different places there's orca, which actually run courses in how to help stranded whales. And then obviously you've got two Bays Whale Project down on the peninsula and there's other ones around the place obviously up in Queensland, Harvey Bay, which is the, the breeding or mating grounds and also birthing grounds for the humpback whales. There's organizations up there which do a lot of research obviously in whale numbers and, and the migration and how many calves are being born each year and all those type of things. So yeah, look at, you know, it's one of those things, if you put it into Google, it's bound to throw something up in your, potentially in your local area or you know, sort of semi local area. Obviously, it just depends. You know, there are lots of people who are interested in it. So it's, it's not something where the organizations are sitting there saying we need an infinite number of people. It's a matter of just making sure they've got the right people and, and also reliable people. That's, that's one of the biggest big things. To get valuable data, you need people who are willing to make that commitment to what they're, you know, to what they're sort of saying they're willing to do and happy to do. [00:12:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Yep. Jay, it reminds me of when we spoke to past guest Scott Portelli about his work because he, I think he was also contributing quite a lot to conservation programs and through his images. And so it kind of, it sparks a question for me, Ben. Do you think that nature photographers, you know, so landscape, seascape, wildlife, sea life, all those sorts of things, do you think that there's an element of obligation to. I, I guess because I, I like to say that, you know, I photograph what is before it becomes what was. That's kind of my mantra about photography as a documentarian style street photographer. Do you think that nature photographers also have that sort of obligation of, of documenting what is in, in the natural world before it becomes even more rare? [00:12:53] Speaker A: I think it's, that's a, that's a tricky one. I think when it comes to animals that we can play a really big part in how we are looking after our wildlife. With nature, I think we can do exactly the same thing. But I think a lot of that comes back down to a human element of us actually doing thing in nature. And what I mean by doing the right thing in nature is the amount of trash that you see at locations which is dumped in beautiful places. And you sit there and you think you've come here to enjoy this beautiful spot and yet you've thrown, you can or you've thrown your rubbish on the ground. How does that make it the beautiful spot that you came to see and view? Yeah, so I think in some ways the human race needs to have a really good look at themselves or the people who want to go and throw some trash on the ground and, and actually sort of make sure that they sit there and they take it with them. You know, there's, you know, there's take three for the sea. You know, we've got Clean Up, Australia Day, all those type of things. You know, one of the big things that I've always sort of said to my daughter is that, you know, when we've Been out sailing is, you know, everything that gets thrown on the ground or lots of what gets thrown on the ground can end up in the water. [00:14:21] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:14:22] Speaker A: Nobody wants that. If you're out enjoying it, why would you want that? [00:14:27] Speaker B: Yeah, it's baffling. [00:14:29] Speaker A: Towards the other, though, I definitely think that, you know, as photographers of nature in the sense of landscapes and things like that, we play a part. Years ago, I photographed a beautiful arch that was down on the Mornington Peninsula. And about two or three weeks later it had collapsed. So I felt very lucky that I got to. I photographed it before, but I felt very lucky that I got to photograph that because nothing lasts forever. The very slowly but surely everything, obviously, you know, with the wrath of Mother Nature will, over time sort of, you know, recede. [00:15:11] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:15:12] Speaker C: Yes, that's exactly. I might just check in with the live chat because there's a few people here this morning, I think, to see you, Ben and I want to remind everybody that these shows are live and obviously lots of people, most people listen back later. But if you're here with us live, you can just ask a question in the live chat and if it's a good question, we'll bring it up and ask Ben and see what he has to say. [00:15:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:33] Speaker C: Who is with us? Philip Johnson. Good morning. Paul's here. Felicity Johnson. Very excited. Morning, everyone. High Bend. Julie Powell is here. Rodney Nicholson, a fellow ocean man. Loves the ocean. [00:15:48] Speaker B: Sea dog. I like to call him Sea Dog. [00:15:50] Speaker C: Sea Dog, the old sea dog. Claire Cooper. Stuart Lyle. I do have the lights on. I don't think I like it. I feel exposed. [00:15:59] Speaker B: Very yellow. [00:16:00] Speaker C: I prefer my dark. Yeah, it is yellow too. East coast photography. Good morning, shooters. Did someone say long weekend? [00:16:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:06] Speaker C: We should all take the day off from. We'll take the weekend off from after this podcast. We'll just call it. [00:16:10] Speaker B: You've got our permission. [00:16:12] Speaker C: That's right. Venus Rose Photography. Hey. Hi. Band and all. [00:16:19] Speaker A: Joanne's who I run my. We run together portrait creative portrait workshops in her beautiful studio in Melbourne. So, yes, very close. [00:16:31] Speaker C: Need to hear more about that later. [00:16:32] Speaker B: You. [00:16:33] Speaker C: You are a man of many talents. [00:16:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:36] Speaker C: From. From glowing algae and auroras and. Yeah. Wow. Okay, [00:16:44] Speaker B: here's the photographer's onion. You just keep peeling back layers and there's more coming out. [00:16:48] Speaker C: That's right. Jenny Cooper. And who's this? [00:16:55] Speaker A: Phil is my partner's brother. He's over in Texas. He lives so. And he is an absolutely amazing deep sky photographer. [00:17:05] Speaker C: Really? Should we have him on the podcast? [00:17:08] Speaker A: I reckon that it would be A good one there. So, yeah, definitely it would be worth having on the podcast and so would Joanne too. [00:17:16] Speaker C: Oh, cool. This is great. And so Down south photo show. The other great Australian podcast is Window Bookings Open for Workshops. We've been doing so many shows for the bright festival of photography. He's obviously. Do you reckon that's Cam or Brendan? If you had to guess, Greg, who's logged into the Down south photo account [00:17:42] Speaker B: right now, I reckon that'd be Brendan. I doubt Cam's out of bed yet. [00:17:46] Speaker C: Interesting. I thought it was my prediction. [00:17:48] Speaker A: I thought that was like me then. He likes. He likes. [00:17:51] Speaker B: He might be. [00:17:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Mornings. [00:17:53] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:17:53] Speaker C: Little sleeping. [00:17:54] Speaker A: Yep. [00:17:55] Speaker B: Little sleepy. [00:17:55] Speaker A: Sleepy. [00:17:57] Speaker C: And finally. Yeah, yeah, finally. Just Nathan's question. Before I do that, I just want to remind everyone this show is brought to you by Lucky Straps. Luckystraps.com head there. Check out our camera straps. They're amazing. Actually, Ben, you bought one of our camera straps. [00:18:09] Speaker A: I didn't even know I did. I bought one for my partner Nay's birthday the other day. It was. I bought it on a Thursday and I got shipping notification on the Friday and it got delivered on the Monday afternoon. How quick's that? [00:18:26] Speaker B: Nice. [00:18:26] Speaker C: So good. That's what we like to hear. Australia Post and us working together to deliver joy around the country. [00:18:33] Speaker A: So that's very happy with it. She hasn't got it yet. She gets it tomorrow. [00:18:37] Speaker B: But she knows it's coming. [00:18:38] Speaker A: She knows it's coming. Yes. So I can say it on here. [00:18:42] Speaker C: I hope she likes it and if she doesn't, we'll fix it. [00:18:46] Speaker A: There's no returns, but she will. [00:18:48] Speaker C: She will. [00:18:48] Speaker B: No returns. [00:18:49] Speaker C: Yeah, no returns. [00:18:50] Speaker B: We won't answer any calls. [00:18:53] Speaker C: Well, thank you very much. Yeah. So Luckystraps.com head there. If you need an amazing camera strap for your camera and you like the idea of beautiful handcrafted leather that's soft and you can even personalize it with your name or your Instagram handle or something like that head there. We've also got beautiful quick release clips on the end that leave no dingly dangly dongles on your camera. They're the best safe, cut, resistant, anti theft lock. Anyway, that's enough of the ads. Luckystraps.com use code Greg if you want a discount. Nathan, how are you? Good morning. He has a question. He says, was that arch down at Diamond Bay? [00:19:29] Speaker A: Yep, that's. Yeah, Diamond Bay, Bay of Islands. That was the arch down there. Yes. Nathan. [00:19:35] Speaker C: Wow. [00:19:36] Speaker A: Beautiful one, wasn't it? [00:19:38] Speaker C: Right. They're dropping. Dropping like flies. [00:19:41] Speaker B: Yeah, like the apostles. How many of those are left now? [00:19:46] Speaker A: We've still got. There's a beautiful arch down here. If you go down to Bushranges Bay and at low tide, if you sort of, you know, cross over the little river and head hard over to your left, there's a beautiful arch over there that you can get to. It's more a low tide than a high tide. That's really the only arch left. You know, some would sit there and say that there's London Bridge at Portsea, but I don't know if I'd really call that an arch or just a hole in a rock. It's not that big and it's not that classification. [00:20:23] Speaker C: We'll have to clip that. That's fine. Before we. Before we dig back deeper, I have a question about how is it, how is photographing for the volunteer science work that you do, how does that differ from when you're just going out to take photos of Wales for your own. For your own art, your own photographs and, and like, what do you have to do differently in each of those situations? And has working with that science organization, has that in any way enhanced or informed your personal photography of Wales? [00:21:02] Speaker A: I've learned so much from doing that in the sense of my own research, even just into understanding the migration of whales, the, you know, the anatomy of whales. I am very. And anybody who's done one of my whale tours will know this. You're not allowed to buy anything that is a whale unless it's anatomically correct. There is so many, you know, pieces of gift wear out there which are not anatomically correct and it's just like, nah, can't buy it. Look at some of them. They look great, but they don't have a dorsal fin on the back. And it's supposed to be a humpback whale. It's like, can't. Sorry, can't buy it. [00:21:45] Speaker B: Just cheapifies it all, doesn't it? [00:21:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:48] Speaker C: So that one in your. In your beautiful background there, that's anatomically correct? [00:21:52] Speaker A: It is. This is. I won't get the big one, but this is just sort of the small one here. It's got its petrol fins and it's got its dorsal fin up the top here. And that's an anatomically correct whale. [00:22:06] Speaker B: Wow. [00:22:07] Speaker A: That's one of my favorites. These two here, they're actually. They weren't a set, but my partner bought this for my birthday and it just so happens that it actually matches this one perfectly. So it's like a mother and calf now, where they sit together that's very cool. [00:22:22] Speaker C: Does it ever, does it ever, like if you're in gift shops and stuff, does it make you want to like accidentally slide one off the shelf onto the floor if it's not anatomically correct? You know, like, like an angry cat where they just slide something off and it smashes on the ground? No, just me. Okay. Never mind. [00:22:43] Speaker A: An uncomfortable camera strap would make me want to throw it on the ground though. [00:22:47] Speaker C: Hey. [00:22:50] Speaker B: Yeah, we like that. We like that. [00:22:52] Speaker C: Do you, do you use camera straps, Ben, because you're, you know, like so much. I assume you're using tripods a lot. You know, you're, you're sort of doing a lot of different genres of photography. Do you use a camera strap or do you find that with tripods you need to get rid of the camera strap or. [00:23:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:10] Speaker C: Well, how do you work? [00:23:11] Speaker A: I do and I don't have a lucky strap, but it's something which I wouldn't mind talking to you about. I'm Fairly, I'm only 6:1, but I'm fairly broad shouldered, wide front to back. So I've sort of looked at and always thought, oh, I don't know if even your longer length might be quite long enough to sit properly on my hips but, or on my side. But I, I do use a black rapid. I've got double but I generally have it as a single. I just generally use it as a single on the boat. And I do like, you know, the big thing for me is that it also attaches obviously to the, you know, the tripod, sorry the, the mount on my lens sort of. Which is quite handy for me. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I'm always wielding a telephoto lens when I'm on the boat. [00:24:01] Speaker B: So. [00:24:02] Speaker A: But yeah, I must, I must admit it is something which I've thought of like a nice leather strap but it's that thing of. I think maybe I need something a little bit longer than that maybe. [00:24:12] Speaker C: Well, I, I think you'd find, I mean, look, we got a few things in the works but I think you'd find our regular straps would be fine lengthwise because Jim, Jim isn't super broad, but Jim is about 6, is 64 and he wears our normal long strap and it sits across his body at his hip. So I like, I think you'd find the length would be fine. It's just they're, they can be. We use ours like a sling style, but they don't. You can, they're not like a black rapid where it slides along the strap you just, just use it like a fixed sling, which we, which we like. But we do have, we have some things in the works with some sling styles. So we'll, we'll keep in touch. [00:24:54] Speaker A: We might be excited about that. [00:24:56] Speaker C: We've got to keep it on the download though, because every time we mention a dual strap, we just get pizzled with people wanting them. [00:25:02] Speaker B: And by pizzled you mean Lucinda Goodwin. Yeah, already said another one. Oh, yeah, Another one for the harness. Yeah, we get it, Lucinda. All right. [00:25:12] Speaker C: I know, we know. We've had it. We've had it. We've. Jim and I have been using them for six or seven years now. Our prototype dual harnesses anyway, shooting weddings and stuff with them. Where was I going? [00:25:25] Speaker A: That got off topic quick, didn't it? [00:25:27] Speaker C: It did, yeah. [00:25:28] Speaker B: It happens. [00:25:29] Speaker C: Oh, I know we usually save gear for later in the show, but you brought it up. What length telephoto do you normally use on a boat for whale whale watching? [00:25:40] Speaker A: So I've got the RF100 to 500 and I've also got the RF200 to 800. But generally speaking, if I'm, if I'm on the boat by myself, I would use the R5 2 with the 100 to 500. If my partner comes along with me normally, I'll give her my R7 with the 100 to 500 and I'll use the 200 to 800 on the R5. And that way there's no arguments of who got closer to the whales because we're both effectively shooting at 800 mil. [00:26:17] Speaker C: That's awesome. This is perfect. So I, I recently got to go on a safari in Africa. I was very, very lucky. I got to join Matt Crummins on one of his South African wildlife safaris to Kruger National Park. And I got the 100 to 500, which had been on my list for a long time. But I never had the, you know, the thing that made me actually fork over the cash. I needed a trip booked or something like that where I really needed that focal length. But one of the other guys on the tour had the canon 200 to 800. And I must say I was envious of his reach sometimes. Can you tell me between those two lenses, what are your thoughts on the trade offs, the pros and cons and image quality and how they compare? [00:27:09] Speaker A: Look, I'd, hands down, I would reach for the 100 to 500 over the 200 to 800. But honestly, bang, for Buck, the 200 to 800 is an absolutely awesome lens. And I remember Watching a review by a South African photographer over, you know, over in the wildlife parks when it first came out. And I think one of the biggest things is actually understanding how to use, number one, how to hold the lens, use the lens in the sense of shutter speeds and things like that. But also then one of the most important things when you're using a big telephoto lens is understanding the conditions of the day that you're in. You know, if you're in 40 degree heat with a 200 to 800 mil lens and you're trying to shoot or photograph, I should say, you should never say shoot when you're actually talking about wildlife photographs and wildlife from a distance. If that elephant's 500 meters away from you and you've got rippling heat, atmospheric conditions through your shot, it's going to be soft. So, you know, what sharp, what soft? You know, if we're on a whale boat and I'm running a tour, one of the biggest things that I say is I look for, especially in the first one or two trips out, is I look to see how steady you are on the boat and then I'll adjust what I want you to photograph the whales at as, say, the minimum shutter speed based on how rough the conditions are or how calm the conditions are, whether or not I see, whether you're stable standing with two hands, whether or not maybe I need to put you somewhere on the boat where you can lean back against the boat. So all of those things come into how you use a lens, coming back to the lens sort of side of things. And I think it's really important to, you know, people want to blame gear when they don't get a shot. And like, in the end, you know, every wildlife photographer has blurry shots. I definitely have some, but I've got lots of keepers, like, you know, Indian. You don't see them on Instagram, obviously. [00:29:22] Speaker B: Yeah, that's in the private. [00:29:24] Speaker C: We should have an international day of posting shots that didn't make it, you know, so every, every photographer puts a photo up where they're like, hey, this is what most of our photos actually look like. Just so everyone knows this is what we're. [00:29:38] Speaker B: Maybe we should run a competition, Jay. Get the ball stuck, get the ball rolling and get viewers to send in their worst shots. [00:29:45] Speaker A: On a whale tour boat. Let's say you have a day when the conditions are rough and you're on a smaller boat or not even a whale tour. Just if I'm out on a tour, you know, out on a boat Somewhere, like literally some days you could be like up, you know, you're on high speed continuous. I've got 20 shots of the water, five shots of the whale, 10 shots of the sky. [00:30:10] Speaker C: You literally, it's, you know, like, it's [00:30:14] Speaker A: not generally that bad, but it can be, you know, it can be. And the thing is, actually the whales are generally more active. On really windy, windy days, they tend to be more surface active. So, you know, some people could sit there and go, I don't want to be out on a boat like that. But it's generally when they kick up the best. [00:30:32] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:30:32] Speaker B: Do you still, you know, people that come on your workshop or, or maybe do whale photography on a boat for the first time, you know, do they find that navigating a moving platform that they're standing on, do they find that the most challenging part of the. Or is it more about framing up the shot? [00:30:53] Speaker A: It can be a few things, definitely. Obviously getting used to the boat. So, you know, do I get my camera out on a tour and get some photos? Yeah, I do for sure. But my first couple of tours where I'm at with my group, generally my camera either sits in my bag or it sits on my side and it doesn't get used. Why? Because I'm sitting there assessing what everybody, how everybody's feeling on the boat now, you know, obviously, you know, I occasionally get somebody who goes, oh, I don't feel so good on the boat. Lucky for me, I never have that issue. And I can help a person if they are feeling that way on the boat without all of a sudden it turning me on to be turning green. Doesn't happen often, but it can. But yeah, definitely, you're sitting there looking at what each person's abilities are and how you can help tweak those abilities to make sure that they're getting great shots. But it's also a matter of, as I say to people, this too is. You can be out on a boat and this doesn't, doesn't matter if you're with me or anything. Sometimes we get the whales that close to the boat, it's like, don't worry about taking photos, just look at what's in front of you because it's absolutely epic when you've got potentially a 30 or 40 ton whale sitting there looking at you from the water and you're just above it going, hey, you're like three meters, four meters from me and all of a sudden it blows and you get whale snotted on. And like, that's a rite of passage. Once you've been whale snotted on, you're not going back. [00:32:32] Speaker B: Yeah, well, my privilege. [00:32:34] Speaker C: You're hooked for life. [00:32:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:37] Speaker B: And genetically, you know, pretty. Yeah, pretty much. That's really fascinating. You know, I'd never really. A friend of mine, Claire Cooper, who I think is in the chat, she's. She is a diver as well as a photographer and I know that she's done a couple of whale tours. [00:32:55] Speaker A: She did one of my wild tours a few years ago. [00:32:57] Speaker B: Oh, there you go. You know, I think, you know, Claire's had a sea legs for quite some time because she spends most of her time in the water whenever she can. And. Yeah, I was just interested about how other people fare. You know, I don't know how I would go. I mean, what about you, Jamie? I know you spend most of your summers on a boat, but that's in a river. Do you have any issues getting out on. On ocean waters when you. When you do or have you not done that? [00:33:20] Speaker C: I do. I do. I have to. I have gotten seasick a few times and I have to pay a lot of attention to what I do before going on the boat and what I do on the boat. And even then I find myself at risk. I. Yeah, I've got. I got seasick a couple of times. Like deep sea fishing on a fishing charter. I don't know, it's. It's really bizarre because I'm around the water all the time. I drive boats, all that sort of stuff, but I've never been into, you know, sailing or anything like that. And then, yeah, even just going out on the bay in Melbourne. I've gotten seasick on a decently rough day when I wasn't looking at the horizon enough. I was. I was trying to, you know, change. Change tackle and stuff on a rod and I was looking down for too often. Then I. And then once, once I'm sick, it's done, I can't come back from it. You know, like, I've just have to throw up for a while and then just curl up somewhere in the bottom of the boat and just, yeah. Ride it out. So since then I. Yeah, I always take quells and I remember those. [00:34:29] Speaker B: My folks used to give you those for car sickness. [00:34:31] Speaker A: Nausea Cam. Nausea, Cam. So one of the boat, One of the boat photographers, Sophie, she's a pharmacist and she gets seasick and that's what she takes. And she said that if she. If she doesn't take it, she gets sick if she does take it, that she doesn't but it is one of those ones where you have to go up to the pharmacist and they ask you a couple of questions before you can buy it. But it's supposedly the Holy Grail. And on one of my tours this year, one of the girls got some of that and. And she was fine on the boat once she'd had it. [00:35:12] Speaker B: So. [00:35:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:35:14] Speaker B: Yeah, there you go. Nausea cam works awesome. [00:35:19] Speaker A: Margaret was on my last tour when you had the beef up. Meltdown. We're supposed to be going out for dinner, but we ended up getting takeaway Chinese food inside. Girls were at computer trying to. Trying to get their tickets. [00:35:34] Speaker C: It's, I think. I think on. On one of those nights. So I think Adam Edwards had someone on his tour trying to book stuff. [00:35:41] Speaker B: Yeah, he did. [00:35:42] Speaker C: Lisa Leach was on a tour in Scotland or somewhere with Murray Livingston. And like. So you had something like there was all these people out on tours, you know, shooting sunset or something like that, trying to book their workshops for Bebop. [00:35:58] Speaker A: I've had other years when we've been out for dinner and they've. And people have had their laptops at the pub sitting there. [00:36:05] Speaker C: It's crazy. [00:36:07] Speaker A: And of course their Palmer turns up right when they're trying to book, doesn't it? [00:36:10] Speaker C: So Murphy's Law, of course, Murphy's Law. [00:36:13] Speaker A: Just so you guys know, they leave their Palmers and they book their. Their beef op spots. [00:36:18] Speaker B: So that's obviously they're loyalists. [00:36:21] Speaker C: Yeah, it's. Yeah, I mean that. It is quite a festival. Here's. [00:36:26] Speaker B: Actually, here's a comment from Felicity. I've booked BFOP on a Ben tour at the pub. Nice work. [00:36:32] Speaker A: Yes. He was one of the people I was talking about. Yeah, there you go. [00:36:35] Speaker B: And this Claire is still in the chat. G', day, Claire. That's me. Ben's well, tour was fantastic. Hopefully 2027, I can organize BFOP and a Benzo tour. October is a happy month. [00:36:47] Speaker A: Indeed. [00:36:49] Speaker B: Indeed. Now, Ben, as we often like to do here, we tend to roll back the clocks a little bit and look at where photography began for you. You know, we're always keen to understand whether, you know, you grew up in a family of photographers, whether you were an artsy kid or you had an artsy background. You know, what inspired you to pick up your first camera? Where did this journey begin for you as a kid? [00:37:14] Speaker A: I was never somebody that. Or kid that wanted to have an actual camera in my hand, but I always. When I was going off to do something as, say, a holiday or as I got Older I always would go and buy a disposable camera and I would take photos on a disposable camera. So I remember going to New Zealand at the time I was actually in the, in the Rovers. So it's, you know, in the older section of the scout movement. [00:37:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:37:41] Speaker A: And I was there to, to, and I was going over to do my Baden. Oh no, what was it? My, yeah, no, my Baden Power. One of my sort of badges for my Baden pal. And I think I went through about six disposable cameras over two weeks or three weeks over there of taking photos and things like that. But I never sort of was one to sit there and say oh I need a camera. [00:38:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:06] Speaker A: But I really enjoyed a disposable camera. I think I've always loved just the freedom of trying to be in the moment more than always sitting there saying I have to photograph it. You know, it's, it's sort of, it's different but it's social media. I've always said social media is not really social. The social part of anything is actually being out doing something with others, not sitting behind a screen scrolling and, and that's sort of how I've always looked at it. But yeah, as I got older I had some friends who were getting out and doing a lot of photography and I was just taking photos with my very basic, you know, camera phone and. Or my dad gave me a little Canon power shot that he had and I would take that with me and, and get some photos and then that's, you know, a few people were sitting there going I'd like some prints. And I was like, oh, like don't think I can blow my photo up that big. So I ended up going and buying myself a 6D was, you know, my first digital camera so to speak or DSLR and Wow, that's a good place to start. Well, I wanted something with low light for. Based around what I, you know, my, some of my passions are of my, you know, night sky sort of stuff and I used to do a little bit of urbexing and things like that, which was low light sort of things. So the 6D was kind of considered to be a really good low light camera. [00:39:39] Speaker C: It really had that fear for quite a few years that the 6D like that low light kind of astro. If you didn't need speed, that 6D just stuck around for quite a long time. Was there a mark? There was a 6D Mark II I think. [00:39:55] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:39:56] Speaker C: And between the two of those it was quite a long span. While Canon was dragging their heels on, on making mirrorless cameras. Yeah, they, they really, they sold a lot of those cameras. [00:40:09] Speaker A: Yeah, no, it was a terrific camera. So, yeah, I love having a camera in my hand, but to be honest, sometimes when I go out and I know I'm going to somewhere where maybe there's a photo opportunity, sometimes I am just happy having my, my phone in my hand and whatever. And I always say to myself, it's okay, whatever the opportunity is. I don't necessarily have to have got the best photo of it or the best video of it. If I've got my camera in my hand and, and I get something in that moment, that's okay. Because not everything has to be, you know, Instagram worthy or website worthy or things like that. [00:40:47] Speaker B: It's more about the experience and the observation, isn't it? [00:40:50] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fair. [00:40:54] Speaker B: And you know, obviously these days, as we talked about at the start of the show, you know, you cover a lot of genres of photography. What, what was the first one that you kind of thought, actually, this, this, this fits me. This is a, this is a genre that I can pursue a bit further. What came, what was, what was first the chicken or the egg? The landscapes or the, or the nature, you know? [00:41:16] Speaker A: Well, astrophotography was, was the thing which I fell in love with early on and as I said, I did a bit of urbexing, which is sort of exploring old buildings and things like that when I was younger. But yeah, astrophotography was just something that, you know, I absolutely love. Being under a clear night sky and looking up is something which everybody in this world should do. And also travel to a spot where you're not heavily light polluted. You know, get out into the country and, and look up, because I guarantee you you're going to see billions more stars in a dark place than what you are. If you're walking through Melbourne cbd, you'll only see the very brightest stars there. That could be me walking down the street joking, sorry. [00:42:11] Speaker C: You know, so I, I just, I just moved 10 minutes out of Bendigo. Obviously Bendigo's Knock Knock, nowhere near as big as Melbourne, so light pollution is not as bad, but. But we're pretty close into town and yeah, you couldn't really see stars. There was like other houses and trees and things like that. There wasn't a lot of space. And then when, when you did get to some space, just the light pollution, you didn't see much, but. And even just moving 10 minutes out of town now, like the last few nights when I walk outside, it's been clear and you can just see stars everywhere. And then that's. That just goes to the next level again when you go, you know, go somewhere further, further out into sort of a darker sky environment. But even just seeing it on a daily basis makes you feel. I don't know what the word is. I don't know if it's karma or more something. I don't know what, I don't know what the word is. When you look up at the sky at nighttime and you just feel kind of more at peace for some reason than you do when you're in town and you look and you look up and you just kind of see lit up haze or something and a fuse. Yeah, it's weird. [00:43:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I remember we talked about scouts earlier. I went through from Cubs to rovers as well. And one of my favorite things about going camping, whether it was a competition hike or just going out, you know, for a long weekend with the, with the team, was finding a nice open space away from the campsite, away from the fires and the lanterns and just lying on the ground staring up at the sky just. I, for me, the word is humbled, Justin. And I still feel humbled today by it. Yeah, you know, just how much of an insignificant spec we are in the scheme of things, of what you look up at in the night sky. It's quite humbling to realize just how odd it is that we have this space, that we really, in this way, [00:44:06] Speaker A: you know what, do you know what the really special thing about what you've just said is though? [00:44:10] Speaker B: What's that? [00:44:11] Speaker A: What you experienced is totally different to what any child born today will ever experience at the night sky because we didn't have hundreds of thousands of satellites going through our sky. We didn't have Starlink going, you know, all this sort of stuff. So what we got to experience when we were younger was actually a night sky. Not filled with, you know, as, as much space junk as what it is today. Not saying there wasn't some, obviously depending. Depends on how many years we want to go back, obviously. But yeah, let's not do that. Yeah, if you, if you think about it like, it's sad that, you know, our night sky is never going to be the same as what it was and even what it is today, it won't be like that in 10 years time. So, yeah, it's one of the things I say to people on my astrophotography, you know, workshops or, you know, even if I'm Just out by myself or with my partner or with some friends shooting it. Sort of like what we're looking at is pretty special right now because it won't even be like that in 10 or 15 years time with all the planned stuff that's still going up in the sky each year constantly. [00:45:22] Speaker B: How do astrophotographers like yourself, how do you account for or accommodate, tolerate, whatever the word may be that that level of traffic in low orbit around Earth, does that get in the way of clean images? Does it impact deep space images? [00:45:39] Speaker A: Look, I guess the thing is, well, with deep space images, obviously you can crop frames out of a stack of images, so you can obviously keep a deep space image clean. For me, I've always been someone who likes to get the most out of my camera as a single shot. So I'm not somebody who's really. Do I know how to go and stack an image? Yeah, I can do. I do it 99% of the time. No, I don't. There's the very occasional image where I might do something like that. For me, I've just had to embrace it and I look at and say it's part of what it is. And you know, the funny thing is, one of my favorite spots or favorite spots where people want to learn how to take astrophotography shots is at Cape Shank Lighthouse down on the Mornington Peninsula, which is a big bloody lighthouse with a huge, big beam of light which comes out not standing in front of it, shooting back, either side of it. So, and it's beautiful because it, it's fantastic to teach people about leading lines and, and you know, how to frame up a shot because you've got this, you know, this structure there that looks absolutely beautiful in a photo. And you know, you're even lucky because it's got stars all around it. So, you know, I, I say to people, you've got to embrace light pollution. And, and the funny thing is if you think of it this way, right, and not that it's light pollution because it's a natural phenomenon, but everybody sits there and goes, you don't go out and photograph any astro images where there's any moon, but if there's an alert for the aurora Australas, everybody's out whether or not the moon's bloody 100 or if it's 50. So, you know, if it looks like it's going to be big enough, everybody's out and they don't care about the moon. So, you know, from that perspective, yeah, [00:47:32] Speaker C: that's one of the reasons why I've never gone out to photograph the aurora because I just, you know, I don't like light pollution in my night sky images and I refuse to take a photo with the aurora. No, I'm just kidding. I've just meant never ever. It's never lined up for me to get an aurora photo and I feel like it's never going to. But I like that excuse that I just don't like any kind of light pollution in my shot. I'm gonna use that. [00:47:58] Speaker A: You're a morning person. You're a morning person. You're up at 5am is where I'm [00:48:02] Speaker C: up at 3am so that, honestly that has made it hard a couple of times because it's like you see the alerts and they're like yeah, it should be really strong around 3am and I'm like, nah, yeah, I'm not staying out till 3am it's tough. So this is the lighthouse you were talking about. Yeah, that's great for teaching Cape Shank. Yeah and a couple of really nice aurora shots there. So. So those would be single. Single captures? [00:48:30] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah those ones are that, that actual night, if that's May 2024. I think it was. I actually is, yeah, that, that I had a sold out. I had six people on a astro workshop and they were lucky enough to get what was what has been one of the biggest aurora Australis, I think it was in the last 20 years or something like that. They also got to see Cape Shank at its busiest because by the time we finished I think there was probably four or five thousand people there as we're normally it's me and my participants. So yeah, it was pretty busy. I actually I said to everybody at the end of the night I said I felt like a shepherd who had lost his flock of sheep because there's that many people around and people were trying to move to get shots because by the end of it there was that many people. It's like where are the people in my workshop? [00:49:21] Speaker C: You might need to start employing some of the techniques that they use on like international tours and things. You might need, you know, like a flag or something or you know, so you can get everyone's attention. Be like, follow me through the crowd, you know. Yeah, yeah, right, so. So really thousands of people in there. [00:49:40] Speaker A: Or like that night when my partner actually came along that night to just, you know, be in the background getting some shots and enjoy the night too. And when we left at about 2:00 clock in the morning or maybe yeah, 1, yeah, 1. 1:30 maybe in the morning as we were driving out. Now I don't know if you've ever been to Cape Shank, but that road's about 3 and a half, 4k long. There was cars banked back almost 2km either side of the road. And when we were turning it took us about 30, 40 minutes to get out of there. It was so busy as we were turning out, there was two 72 seater tour buses because they had said that it was going to be a big night. Somebody had gone and organized for some tour buses to come of Melbourne. And I'm sitting there, you know, literally saying to my partner Nay going like, holy, there is no way they are going to get down there. Like there's cars either side of the road, there's cars trying, you know, either way sort of thing, it's like this, that is going to be a nightmare. I'm so glad we got out of there. Right, right at that moment. Yeah, yeah, it was actually a nightmare. I felt sorry for any of the locals who lived on that road that night. So Sleepy Little Hollow was. Yeah. Crazy. [00:50:57] Speaker B: So the swamped. Yeah, yeah. [00:50:59] Speaker A: But one of the biggest things tip and obviously everybody here loves their photography and if they like their night stuff. But you know, if I was to sit there and say to anybody is that you don't need a dolphin torch and if you want to see the aurora, don't leave your dolphin torch on and be sort of sitting there aiming it around everywhere where lots of people down there that night. We're sitting there walking around with their head torches on, their headlights. Yeah, everything in the end it was just like, oh my gosh, it's like just turn your lights off and enjoy. Look up looks out, you know, even look up right above you. Because most of our auroras are obviously happen on the horizon. They're not as big as that. So literally the aurora was overhead. [00:51:39] Speaker C: Wow. [00:51:40] Speaker A: I think they had it up in Townsville that, that, that night people captured the aurora. Townsville. [00:51:45] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:51:46] Speaker B: I remember how, because it was a whole sort of period where it was just, you know, these, these amazing auroras would pop up and we were seeing people, you know, taking shots from really far north in Australia and capturing stunning aurora shots, which is something you don't traditionally see, you know, from, from that far north. Ben, when, when did, when did the idea of running workshops become a part of your, your overall business plan to, you know, to elevate what you do and what you offer? When did that first kick off for you and how did that first experience go, [00:52:25] Speaker A: I guess through my scouting, I was, I was a scout leader and a Cub Scout leader. So I was teaching and you know, helping people or kids obviously at that stage to understand aspects of, you know, of getting out in nature and all that sort of thing. I was actually. We had a family furniture business and I was the operations manager in that and, and we'd been there for a long time and we actually had, were approached to sell our freehold. So we decided that that was financially a good thing to do. So at that stage I was taking photos and, and I was sort of, you know, helping people, teaching people a little bit, you know, in between doing my work there. But I also was having a lot of my stuff because we had a furniture store. I was having a lot of my work printed up and I put it on the walls in the store and was selling lots of my photography there. That's cool. We got rid of that. My sales and prints dropped massively. [00:53:30] Speaker B: Having a furniture store with all your [00:53:32] Speaker A: stuff on the wall works really well. [00:53:35] Speaker C: That's actually, that's brilliant. Just before. Yeah, before you go on. So do you remember the first print that you sort of set up on the wall in the shop to sell and what that like? Do you remember doing that and why you did it and how long it took for that first one to sell? [00:53:50] Speaker A: I, I had some landscape ones on the wall, but probably the one that took off the best and you'd have to scroll a long way down. My Instagram was my wet night Flinders Street Station image and I did it at first as a black and white and literally all I did was I walked into the middle of Flinders Street Station just before, you know, say just before the Green man sort of went so I could be in the middle of the road. And I was shooting, I think at about 1/40 of a second, maybe 1/60 of a second and I waited for everybody to cross the intersection. And it's got all those beautiful, beautiful reflections on the road and it's just a moment in time. And I printed it up 1500 by a meter. So nice big stretch canvas. And I remember someone saying to me, oh, have a look at that sign in the background there. And it was for Patoki Hams. And anyway, it was right before Christmas that I put it on the wall at the shop and I reached out and I sent an email to Patoki and said, oh look, I've got this know shop that I absolutely love. I'm doing a limited edition. Would you be. Yeah, would you Be interested. And they got back to me and said, look, you know, we're about to go on Christmas break, but we've shown the owners, and yes, they would love additions. I did it as limited edition of 50, and they were like, we'd love editions one and two, please. So I was like, oh, fantastic. I sold a couple over Christmas as well. And then when they came back in early January, they said, oh, we actually want to put one in each of our factories. So I think they ended up buying around about 10 or 11 of them, and they wanted a few color ones. So I did a color edition as well in a slightly different size. So there's a color. [00:55:52] Speaker B: That's amazing, isn't it? [00:55:53] Speaker A: Yeah. So that. That was sort of, I guess, you know, after that it was like, oh, you can make money off selling your prints. So then I was like, what else can I print on the walls? [00:56:05] Speaker C: That's brilliant. [00:56:07] Speaker A: Yeah. I love it. In this shot here, there's no mobile phones in anybody's hands. [00:56:12] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:56:12] Speaker A: And doing their thing. That's sort of what made it a little bit more special was again, you know, that's that whole thing with connecting, you know, just in a moment that. Yeah. It's. It's obviously not what I'd sit there and say, a timeless period shot sort of thing, but, you know, it could have been 10 years before, because nobody in that foreground sitting there with their phone right. Up to area or anything like that, necessarily. Yeah, yeah. [00:56:37] Speaker C: And even with the. The cars and stuff that are in it, there's nothing that. That is overly modern to date it, really. Yeah, I agree. [00:56:45] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you'd have to. You'd have to know Melbourne and its landmarks. [00:56:50] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:56:51] Speaker B: To. To really be picky about it in terms of trying to. Trying to place it in time, you know. [00:56:57] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And I had lots of people who said, I love it, but I don't want a photo of a. Of rain, rainy Melbourne. That's not what I want on my wall. Well, it's like, that's cool, but, you know, that's what the shot is, so. [00:57:09] Speaker C: Yeah, that's right. Don't buy it. [00:57:11] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [00:57:13] Speaker A: I like it. That's all that matters. [00:57:15] Speaker C: That's right. Exactly. [00:57:16] Speaker B: Yeah. If you like it, other people should, too. So the. The furniture side of things came to an end. You lost your free gallery. What came next? Did you decide that then? Okay, well, I need to start selling these online, or did you put the sale of prints aside for a bit? You know, how did. How did you sort of recover from that change. [00:57:36] Speaker A: Yeah, Tried to go online with some, with some things. But look, you know, I, I was being asked about, you know, helping people with their gear and people love the astrophotography, so I was like going, hang on a minute, you know, why don't I look into sort of running some workshops and, you know, start up a business, sort of trying to teach people what my passions are. So which was at that stage, you know, you know, mainly the astrophotography and landscapes, you know, using filters and all that sort of stuff. You know, there was those areas of photography that I enjoyed, which I was just enjoying for myself, like whales and, and birds and things like that. But yeah, that sort of stuff came, you know, later in it. So. So yeah, it's. It started with astrophotography and long exposure and then sort of went from there. You know, I think sometimes you have those things which you keep for you, which was. Which is my whales and my birds. But then I was like, you know what? How can you not share just how amazing nature is and how amazing wildlife is? And I sort of felt that I was keeping that and it was something I sort of wanted to share with people because there's something pretty special about seeing, for instance, a humpback whale mother with her calf that's just been born maybe five, six, seven weeks ago up in the warm waters of Harvey Bay, making its first migration back down to Antarctica for, in its life. And the average humpback lives somewhere between 80 to 90 years of age. So you're watching this baby humpback next to its mum make its first migration back down to Antarctica, the first of many, and each year they make that migration. So if you get a fluke image of that baby, if you're lucky enough to get a fluke image of that and you upload it into happy whale, potentially, you might be the first person to actually have ever photographed that whale. And with technology, it's pretty amazing of where that whale fluke will come up in the life of this whale. Obviously I'm almost 50, so, you know, in, in my life, it's, it's tail might come up well after. I'm not in this world anymore, but I've contributed to that. That's pretty cool. [01:00:09] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's definitely a goosebump moment. Most definitely. I think Felicity dropped a comment. Yeah, let's go through the chat for a sec. [01:00:18] Speaker C: A couple in the chat just. This was a little bit earlier, just. But right on this subject, Margaret Metcalfe says, I cried on the Whale tour. It was a soul touching experience and highly recommend these tours. His birding tours are also great adventure too. The hunt and training of the eyes, ears to identify birds. And then Felicity Johnson goes on to say, I cried too when the baby whale breached. And agree, bird tours are amazing. And the giant bullets. What, what are the giant bullets? [01:00:46] Speaker A: There's a little, there's a little shop down here that sells giant bullets. They're chocolate licorice bullets. They're huge. They're about, they're about this. Whenever Felicity is coming on a workshop, I normally buy an extra one or two bags because, you know, she, she likes to live on bullets. Don't you flick? But yes. So I, I generally try to bring, unless they're out of stock of them. I try to bring chocolate bullets along to all of my workshops and my2. [01:01:14] Speaker B: Nice work. [01:01:15] Speaker A: If it's my whale tours, I also bring Mentos so I can give people that because having a Mentos and that minty sort of freshness also helps open up all of your nasal cavities and things like that. And it's really good when you're on a boat too. [01:01:29] Speaker C: So is that why they sell Fisherman's Friends? Remember Fisherman's Friends, there's strong mints. [01:01:36] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm not sure if that's a reason, [01:01:39] Speaker C: but it could be salty Fisherman. And one more from the chat, Jorn Molder. Hello all. I'm saving money to get a move, shoot, move and a Viltrox 16 mil. 1.8 for my Z8. Wish me luck. It goes on to say I love astro photos. I also follow Nightscape Images, which is Richard Taddy, who has been on the podcast a couple of times. He's another, you know, local, local to us photographer that puts out a lot of content about Nightscape images. He's probably leans, I guess, away from your direction a little bit, Ben, when Richard really leans into like stacking and, and how can I get the most out of my gear? [01:02:24] Speaker A: You know, I actually recommend people to. Well, Richard's obviously not running his workshops, I think at the minute, but I actually recommend a lot of my people to Richard's workshops because I'm all about the single shot and wanting you to be able to understand how to get the single shot. And the best shot you can get maybe a bit of light painting in there to light a foreground up and things like that in a single shot. And you know, what Richard does is phenomenal. So I've, for years I've sort of, you know, pushed people going, hey, if you want to learn a totally different aspect. 100. I'd sit there and say, go and do his stuff. [01:03:00] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And also there's a truckload of stuff on his nightscape images, YouTube channel. Heaps of just free videos that you can just watch till the. Till the cows come home. John, if you want one other one. You mentioned light painting here, which is Richard sort of does a bit of light painting. I want to see if you do that too, Ben. Light painting of, like, elements in the image. But if you want to. If you want to see some light painting of a different style at night, go to. What's Dennis's YouTube channel called? What's it, what's it called again? The Something Light. [01:03:34] Speaker A: The ball of light. [01:03:36] Speaker B: The school of light. School of light. [01:03:38] Speaker C: Lost my brain for a second there. So go to the school of light. Check out Dennis Smith if you want to see some light painting from a completely different angle from that style. And that might give you some creative. Get your creative juices flowing. Anyway, back to it. Do you do a bit of light painting, Ben, in your astro stuff? [01:03:55] Speaker A: Look, mine is more just a lighter subject. I know Dennis's work. I've, I've seen that. And one of Dennis's good mates is a mate of mine, which I've done some light painting with Rob over the years and things like that. So with all the blades and stuff like that, it's a lot of fun. That's. I, I did run light painting workshops years ago, but it wasn't something that sort of pulled me to keep on running those. Yeah, I, I enjoy the night sky workshops more than sort of, you know, the light painting workshops. [01:04:33] Speaker B: So [01:04:36] Speaker C: tell me about this. [01:04:39] Speaker A: Oh, ghost fungi. That is one of those things where I get lots of people messaging me going, ben, I want to do a ghost fungi workshop with you. When can I do it? And I go, I have to find the ghost fungi first. And it has to be ghost fungi season. The ghost fungi generally happens around about sort of later in April, May and early June. And it is a fungus that is bioluminescent, so it glows. So you can go out, though, and it not glow one night and not glow the next night. But then you might go back out there again and all of the stuff, sudden, it's popping. It can last for a few days. It could last for a week. It could last for only a night or two. [01:05:23] Speaker B: So. [01:05:25] Speaker A: But it's, it's fun to go out and try to find it. And that's the thing. You can't just go out. And it won't just be there. You actually have to go out and do a lot of looking to. To find stuff. And then generally, before I would ever run the workshop on it, I'd go out that night and photograph it and then I might put it up and go, hey, found some ghost fungi globe last night, if you want to come along, you know, then obviously happy to, you know, run a workshop. And I get. People go, oh, it's Monday night, can I do it on Saturday night? And I go, no, because the fungi might not be glowing then. So it's one of those things that, you know, it's like the aurora. If you want to capture it, the aurora is potentially happening that night. Your best to do it that night. Night, you know, or the next night after I've maybe, you know, photographed it and things like that. So, yeah, I'm very lucky. Down on the Mornington Peninsula, we. We do get a fair bit of ghost fungi around, but, you know, there is some up your way, Justin, you know, and Heathcote way and things like that. Some of the Bendigo Camera Club. [01:06:30] Speaker C: Yeah. I reckon Felicity found some. [01:06:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:06:34] Speaker C: Yes, he did, yeah. Because she sent an image into the. Into the show for us to check out. And I was like, I didn't know we had this. I've lived here my entire life. No one told me we had this. [01:06:44] Speaker A: You might be a little bit too busy to go and spend three or four hours walking around a forest. Maybe you need to talk up Felicity, you know, and sort of go, when you find somebody, [01:06:56] Speaker C: take me out. That's genius. That's. [01:06:59] Speaker A: You're welcome to come down here, but it's a bit of a drive. [01:07:01] Speaker C: So, Felicity, please, please let me know when you find the ghost fungi. I'll get some chocolate bullets for you or something. Whatever you want. Yeah. That's brilliant. I had no idea. And I think it was the first time I'd seen it when Felicity sent image through and then I saw it on your Instagram while I was scrolling back through and I was like, wow. [01:07:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:07:25] Speaker A: But even with the ghost fungi, you know, you photograph it and these days I've got to find. For me, I've got to find ghost fungi, which has got a point, a point of interest these days if I'm going to photograph it. So I'm looking for ghost fungi on a tree where I can get up there and photograph the stars behind it and things like that, you know, it's one of those things where I've got a. I've got a shot somewhere on My socials, which is one of my favorite. And it's. There's a old tree trunk which is, you know, obviously rotting in the center and it's got some ghost funk in each year I go there and I go and look to see if it's going up. And I think it was not last year, but the year before. I got there and it was like, oh, there it is. Came back the next day, you know, to photograph it the next night, sort of things. I couldn't that night it was raining. I got there, the bloody slugs had been all over it and eated it. Eaten it. [01:08:11] Speaker B: Oh, no. [01:08:13] Speaker C: Stupid slugs. Does that the only thing would glow? [01:08:16] Speaker A: No, well, they don't. But they then poo it out and that. That they pull out the spores and then next year. So you. Generally speaking, this tree, I know, always generally has a bit of ghost fungi on it. Because. Because obviously being in sort of the hollow of this tree, it quite nicely, you know, ends up with the spores in there from the, from the. From the. [01:08:40] Speaker B: Slight. Fascinating, isn't it? But I love Justin's question. Do the snails now glow? [01:08:46] Speaker C: Well, I mean, you just, I think [01:08:48] Speaker A: maybe smiling because I use the word poo. I think that's why. [01:08:51] Speaker C: Could be that [01:08:54] Speaker B: Felicity Johnson has come to the rescue. Jay, we have them in the Wellsford Forest around Bendigo. I'll take you out. We have them on our property at King Lake too. [01:09:04] Speaker C: Thanks, Felicity. [01:09:05] Speaker B: I'm always amazed by the. The images that Felicity takes just being at home often in her veggie gardens. You'll get amazing macro shots and obviously shots of plants and flowers and things like that too. And then you'll see us, you know, photographing a bird and saying, oh, this is on our property today. And, you know, I hope that you get that similar sort of experience with your new place, Jay, being that little bit more removed. I mean, you had an echidna on your doorstep the other day. [01:09:31] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, we had my new house. Ben, you walked out like the second day we were here and there's an echidna on the. The steps at the front of the house, just like looking for ants or whatever they eat. I was like, well, this is different. Yeah, so that was pretty cool, but it's not. Yeah. Sorry. [01:09:49] Speaker A: As long as they weren't looking for what, ants? You. Fine. [01:09:52] Speaker C: Well, that's a good. It's a. It's hopefully not. It's a. It's just like a cinder block kind of house. So it should be. Yeah, hopefully. Mostly. Okay. [01:10:03] Speaker A: The thing is interesting with what you said, Greg, about like, flick and what she gets so close to home. There's a amazing diver down on the Mornington Peninsula and I'm lucky enough to print some of Jules as images. But one breath diver. And you know, when Jules is in a studio picking up some of her prints, which I do for her, you know, I always sort of say to Jules, so how many times have you been in the water this month? And you know, Jules often will have been in the water. One breath dive is her name or Instagram handle. But, you know, one thing that Jules always has done is she's in the water probably, you know, 20, 25 times a month. So if you talk about like Felicity getting all these shots. [01:10:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:10:48] Speaker A: And people often say to Jules, oh, how did you get that? It's like, because I'm consistent, I'm there every day or almost every day. So therefore, if something cool is going to happen, I've got a chance of seeing it. You know, some of her photos are absolutely phenomenal. That's another person you should get on the podcast, actually. [01:11:06] Speaker C: What was her name? [01:11:08] Speaker A: Jules. One breath diver. She's a Mornington Peninsula. I will add a. [01:11:15] Speaker C: That'd be great. [01:11:15] Speaker B: To the list. [01:11:17] Speaker C: Yeah, one breath diver. [01:11:19] Speaker B: While I'm making notes, who are the photographers you mentioned earlier? [01:11:24] Speaker A: Well, there was Phil, who does Phil Astro over in Texas, and also Joanne, who is Venus and Rose Photography. So Joanne and I run those creative portrait workshops together. [01:11:37] Speaker B: Yep. Amazing. I will certainly look into that. Just before we move ahead, I just want to do a very quick ad read for the Camera Life podcast. That's right, we are the Camera Life podcast and we Do Live to YouTube podcast twice a week, every Monday evening at 7:30pm Australian Eastern Standard Time. That's soon going to shift into daylight savings time, but we'll worry about that later. We have our random photography show where we talk about industry news, product releases, what we've been up to with our photography, but also more importantly, we look at viewers images. You can send in your images to us, we'll bring them up on the show and we can provide you with feedback, encouragement and critique if that's what you're after. And then every Thursday morning, such as Today, where we interview an amazing Australian or international photographer to learn a little bit more about their journey, what inspired them to pick up a camera in the first place, and where they're at with their craft today, the best way to support us is to a give this episode a like. It lets YouTube know that we have content worth seeing, but also subscribe, it doesn't cost you anything. And if you tickle the bell icon, you'll get notifications of our upcoming live podcasts directly to you in your time zone. So that is the Camera Life podcast. Let's get on with the interview. I did have a question before and it's. It's disappeared from my mind. Did you have a question or a follow up, Justin? [01:12:59] Speaker C: I had something brilliant and it's gone as well. I don't know what happened when we detour to do a, you know, subscribe to the podcast thing. And then my mind just went blank. I want to talk. So you mentioned printing and I saw that you, you've got some big printers, is that correct? [01:13:18] Speaker A: I've got a Canon program 2100, which is their 24 inch. And I've got a Canon program 4100 which is the 44 inch. They're both the archival printers. [01:13:30] Speaker C: Yes. What made you get into when, like when did you printing the images become part of your workflow? Like when you were, when you were putting them on the walls in the furniture store, was that you printing them or were you getting that done elsewhere? And at what point did you say, hey, I need to do this, I want to do this? [01:13:47] Speaker A: That was a dirty wits, dirty words, see things. So Covid. I obviously couldn't get out and run my workshops and I'm not an online person. I didn't want to sort of enter that online teaching space. That just wasn't me. It didn't feel authentic. So I actually had the people that I did my printing for me reach out and, and ask me whether or not because they were going gangbusters, like covert hit. And of course everybody was doing zooms this, that podcast. So what they have to do that had a pretty picture behind them. So they were going bonkers. They were busy, really busy. And so they asked me if I'd come in and run the printers. And I was like, I don't know how to do that. And they were like, well, we need somebody to do it. We'll teach you. And it was a very quick, deep dive into understanding the printing world. And they. I ended up some weeks to give you an idea of just how crazy it was, some weeks I'd be sitting there getting in there at 7:00 o' clock in the morning, 6:30, 7:00 in the morning, and leaving it at 7:00 clock at night. And I was just running the printers. We had two 44 inch printers, two 60 inch printers and one 24 inch printer. We didn't use the 24 inch as much. But yeah, I'd have four printers going for that entire day, you know, apart from when I was having a bit of lunch, they'd be sitting there printing. [01:15:27] Speaker C: What. What percentage of prints in a business like that fail? Because I have a. I have a wonderful Canon Pro 1100 that has been both great and horrible while I've been trying to get used to how it, how it works. And I've had smudging and like, weird stuff happening at the end of print. You know, it'll print perfectly and then the final sort of centimeter of the print, it just smudges off, offline and. Or does something stupid. So does that happen? Or those bigger printers kind of so well calibrated that once they're running, they have very few issues? Or are you running into issues regularly when you're sort of doing that volume of printing in a print shop? [01:16:15] Speaker A: So I don't try to run my printing full time because obviously I'm off doing other things too. So I've got a really good client base and, and I have people reach out to me who want printing. But all of my print business, or probably 95% of it's, all by recommendation, so my printers could definitely have more use. And I think that's the key thing is if you want your printer not to have issues, it needs to be used. And a lot of people go out and they do. They, you know, go and buy a, you know, a Canon or an Epson printer, whatever it is, they use it for the first couple of weeks a lot and print a lot of things. And then they all of a sudden go, oh, shit, that paper's expensive. Yeah, expensive. I better not print as many prints. But then you don't go and print for a month. You go and start it up and go to use it and the head's blocked, so therefore you have to go and do a cleaning on it and this, that and the other. I've had some moments where I've cried in my studio. [01:17:17] Speaker C: So it's not just me, okay? That's actually what I really wanted to hear, was some validation that it's not just me that sheds a tear every now and then trying to print something, something. [01:17:27] Speaker A: I can remember having a. A print roll off my printer for one of my mates, Glenn, and it was, I think, roughly, you know, two and a half meter long print. It's a big one, big cat, big canvas, you know, not cheap. And I think about three quarters of the way through it, it wasn't the ink or the, the printer, but there was actually a fault in the canvas. [01:17:53] Speaker C: Oh, no. [01:17:54] Speaker A: And all of a sudden I've looked over and I've seen this fault in the canvas and I might. Looking at all the canvas which is rolled out already and I'm like going, hit the stop button and had to reprint it now. Wow. The only thing is I obviously, you know, you can tell that I. I love nature and all that sort of stuff. I didn't throw it in the bin. I looked at it and I was like, actually, Glenn can trim this down and he could still make something out of this as a one only. So I said to him, you know, printed it and then I gave it to him and said, oh, look, you know, this has got this, you know, you can do it, you can still use it. So I gave it to him. You know, some places probably would have just gone and put it in the bin, but I can't put it in the bin. I'm like, nah, it's usable. He can do something with this. So I just gave it to him as like, okay, here you go. But it does happen. So, you know, when I am off running my tours and my printer might not get used for, you know, two weeks, when I come back, I have to do, you know, nozzle checks and maybe a head clean, make sure that it's all up and happy before I actually hit that print button and start printing people's prints. [01:19:05] Speaker B: So. [01:19:06] Speaker C: But, you know. Well, yeah, so, yeah, you know what I've had the most. The most problem with, I think, is I don't like any of Canon's papers yet. I don't. I assume you don't like them either because they're not very good. Sorry, Canon. Just truth. And so using other papers, I. I especially like Canson. I always pronounce this wrong and people laugh at me. Is it Burrita? Burrita papers? Yeah, like brighter prestige and stuff like that. And it seems like I need to register all of the thicknesses and everything manually on my Pro 1100. There. There isn't a simple. I never used to have to do it on an Epson and now on this Canon, I've got it. All that stuff you seem to have to. Otherwise. I think that's why I'm getting some of the issues. What papers do you use? [01:19:59] Speaker A: Well, there's ICC profiles and things like that for each paper. So some, some papers you might actually need to create your own. And if you, if you're creating a profile, you actually need the right correct, the right gear to do that. So I don't have that. I, I've had my profiles created for me by a professional in that, in that area, in that space. But other papers, some of the big paper brands, create their own profile. So they will create a profile for the Canon 2100, the 4100, the 6, you know, the 6100, so you can download off their website that profile potentially. And you're gonna have, you know, look, in the end, every printer, they sit there and say, has got obviously ever so slight differences and things like that. But you know, you're going to get a very good profile if you do that. Papers I use, I use Moab, which is an American paper. [01:20:54] Speaker C: Okay. [01:20:55] Speaker A: And they, you know, they've got some nice papers. But the trick, the tricky thing is with printing and again, I don't sort of sell myself probably that well with this. But you know, I look at and I sit there and I say, you've also got to decide what you're doing with the print. Because a lot of people, they talk about archival papers and archival inks and this, that and the other, and my, my inks are archival. But one of the big things is, is if you're selling a print only to somebody and you go and print it on an archival paper and they go and put it in a Kmart frame. Nothing against Kmart frames, but you know, they're not fantastic. You know, in that sense. You're going and putting a print that has been printed on a, you know, it's say a cotton rag paper with inks which will last the tenths of time. And then you're going and dropping it into an A3 frame which cost you $15. That frame is full of all the things that the print paper and the inks are saying that you shouldn't be mixing to have that archival quality. So, yeah, I'm a big believer in. [01:22:05] Speaker B: Sorry, I, I just said, wow, I hadn't realized that. That's, that's, yeah, quite interesting. [01:22:10] Speaker A: So. Well, if you think about it, you know, when you, when you're framing something archivaly, it's, you're not supposed to use things with any type of acids in there or things like that. So when you're framing up, you know, archival, for instance, you know, they might use an acid free board to stick it down or they might tape it down on the edges. But when they tape it down, that tapes an acid free tape and things like that. Yeah, I've got a framer that I send my clients to. I'm on the Peninsula. She's up in Nutter Wadding. But she does a fantastic job. Yarnie made it dye. And you know, as I said, you know, whether or not you put standard acrylic or if you go and put art glass in there or museum grade, you know, glass or acrylic in there, there's all these different things. So I sort of say to people, you print to what your market is. So if you're selling at markets, there's no point, you know, I can sell you an archival paper and you know you're going to pay a premium price for it. But realistically, your clients at a, at the local market aren't wanting to go and pay $200 for an A3 print. Let's say, you know, they want to pay. They might pay $50 for it, so. Or $60 or $75 for it. So print it on a paper that's appropriate to the market that you want to sell into. So when you've got people who have got galleries, obviously, and they can present what they're showing in a, in a different way too, then obviously a lot of those galleries, they're there for framing and printing and then framing in a way that's representative of how they want to showcase their photography. So, yeah, yeah, it makes. [01:23:53] Speaker B: Fascinating. It does. [01:23:54] Speaker C: Do you have a favorite Moab paper? [01:23:58] Speaker A: I like the bright white Cotton rag. It's a 290GSM paper. It's, it's got just a little bit of texture on it, but not too much. I also use some seal papers and SIL is a, it's a German paper and I actually use a Barrata paper in the SIL range. [01:24:18] Speaker B: So. [01:24:18] Speaker A: But yeah, the bright white cotton rag 290gsm is one that I enjoy using, but I don't buy it by the sheet because my, my printers are commercial printers. I buy it by the roll. So a lot of my papers come, you know, in 12 or 15 meter or some of them come in 30 meter rolls, just depending on what the, the density of the stock is and things like that. So, yeah. [01:24:45] Speaker B: Oh, that's fascinating. It's a whole world that I haven't, I've never, I mean, I printed images when I was back in art school, but I don't think we used words like archival, that's for sure. But yeah, it's always fascinating. But something I've never, I've always felt a bit scared to get into printing because it feels like a foreign, complex concept to me. [01:25:05] Speaker A: Yeah, you've got to print like we've lost what we had from, from film days, we've got people who have got cameras where they're buying a 5 to 10,000. You know, let's keep in that sort of realm of cameras. We know there's a lot nearer ones out there, but we've got five to $10,000 cameras with two and a half to $7,000 lenses. And there's people out there that have never printed one of their images off that camera. They've got a hard drive full of, full of photos and they've never printed one. Like you sit there and you go, that's actually a travesty like when you really think about it because back in the film days we used to have to go and put that roll of film in. [01:25:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:25:50] Speaker A: And, and, and have it printed. So it's, it's something which everybody should do. You know, I'm not sitting there advocating for going and getting cheap prints from some places but you know, you don't have to necessarily get the most expensive prints either. But to print, to actually feel it in your hand, see it on the wall. You know, I've got images on my walls which are some of my favorite photos from over the years. So they're not necessarily my best photos, but there might have been a beautiful sunrise or a beautiful sunset or I've got a beautiful, in my spare bedroom, a beautiful whale tail shot. They're just stuff which I love. And yeah, it's made it onto my wall because it makes me happy. [01:26:40] Speaker C: I think that's a big one as well. There's one thing is like printing for the joy of kind of bringing your photography to its finished point because I don't think Instagram is its finished point personally. But the other thing is, yeah, just, just decorating your house with images that you really like. I'm the same. I finally, I had had. I was walking around the house one day thinking I've got no photos on the wall. And I'm afraid top like I've, I've delivered, I can't remember what I added it up but like too many photos to clients to even count. Like hundreds of thousands of delivered images to clients and tons of photos that I've taken for myself and I didn't have anything on the walls. I was like this is insane. So I think I ended up spending in one go $3,000 with. It was when we were using Queensbury in New Zealand for a lot of our wedding photography stuff when I was, you know, Jim and I were running the wedding photography business, which I don't do anymore. So I just ordered everything through them because they were really good to deal with with albums and stuff. And they did finished framed prints. And I was like, cool, I want this one. This one, this one, this one. I think I spent three grand on finished frame prints and just hung them all around the house. And then I got some cheaper frames, too, and printed some of my own things and just put them in cheaper frames just to fill in spots around the house. I've got a. In our, in our previous bathroom, I'll be putting one in this bathroom. A photo of my, my, my old, old dog Ted, who's not with us anymore in the dog bath, just getting sprayed with the hose, like getting showered. And he's just got this look on his face like he doesn't want to be there. So that was the thing that I looked at every day while I was having a shower in the morning was, was my pooch getting, you know, getting showered. And it was just like fun things like that that you can do to bring your photography into the real world and actually use it as memories. [01:28:34] Speaker B: If. [01:28:35] Speaker A: If everybody just looked at Justin's face when you were talking about what you were just talking about, you had a big smile on your face. [01:28:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:28:43] Speaker A: Why? Lit up. Because you're sitting there thinking about the memories of what it is. So, you know, and, and what it is. And that's the thing, you know, when you look at what you've photographed and you've got it there and those special moments, it is a reminder, you know, if you're married, how many people go and pull out their wedding album and look at their wedding photos? Not against wedding photographers, but I'm just saying, like, in the end, it's important to, to document the day. But how many people are going and pulling out their wedding album every, you know, every 12 months alone, every five years? They probably don't yet. It's a, it's a special day. But then you look and you sit there and you go. When you, if you went to my Instagram stories, I'm not saying go to them. Like last night I was doing printing for people, but the, the last story is of two dogs, which the guys coming to print the pin pick the prints up tonight of his two dogs. And, you know, and he sent me a message when he saw the story, because I don't share my print jobs on my wall, but I share everything that I print in my stories and tag the person I've printed for. It's a great way of people going, oh, that's Right, Ben? Print. I need to get some printing, you know, ashes, just like going, I can't wait to see those. And any photo. And there's a photo of a horse, which is also his horse, which I printed. And, you know, he's ecstatic. You know, he's like, I can't wait to see these photos. He's seen them online, but seeing them in the real, having them in your hand, not putting your oily fingerprints all over them is a really good idea, but it's special. [01:30:18] Speaker B: Yeah, [01:30:20] Speaker C: there's a little printer printing question here, Greg. Just from. From John, our new friend, John Moulder, from. Was it Norway? Netherlands. Where are you from? Somewhere snowy. There was a good photo print shop in my town or there are some good photo print shop in my town. The ink is expensive nowadays, so I don't know what is cheaper to print yourself or go to a print shop. And just before you answer that, Matt Palmer from Alpine Light over in Bright, who we'll get to see soon, hopefully next week. Next week says typically still cheaper to print with a lab, unless you're printing a lot and have your processes set up well to avoid wastage. What are your thoughts on that, Ben, in terms of like, when should people look at having their own printer at home versus using a lab or. Yeah. What are some of the pros and cons? [01:31:12] Speaker A: I've got one of my clients, I do her bigger prints, Josie Cole, she's got a gallery over Bayside Way. She has a Canon program, I think the 1100, so the A3 plus printer. And she does, she does all of her small stuff, so a fives, a, you know, a 4s, a 3, a 2 type stuff. And then I do all, everything above that. So I do her A1s and AOS and you know, 600 by 9 hundreds, all the canvas stuff. Now she runs markets and she's also got her own gallery. So her husband Rob, you know, will be at the store and she'll be out at a market or he'll be doing a market and she'll be at the store. Josie uses her printer lots. So therefore I'd sit there and say it's worthwhile for her to, to do those smaller things herself. And the other thing is obviously for her, she doesn't need to trim everything because she can print it edge to edge on those. When you're using rolls of paper and you're doing a rip and you're putting maybe, you know, 10, 15, 20 prints into a rip to print off continuously and then trim it's a little bit different, but yeah, definitely. Look inks A deer. The inks on my. My Canon Progress have got 12 inks and the inks I think are around about $420 for a 700 mil ink each. So I've got two printers. So you got 8 or 9 grams worth of ink sitting in two printers, plus having a couple of spares of the inks which drain more out of the printer than others. So it's, it's a big investment. [01:32:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:32:53] Speaker A: If you're not using it now, that's obviously the level I've got. But I. I had someone a little while ago contact me and they asked me whether or not they needed five A1 prints done, whether or not they just wanted to get rid of it. They offered me their, their Canon program, the one that you've got, Justin. They offered me it in exchange for the five A1 prints, which was definitely a win in my. In my terms, in a sense, if I'd taken it. But I don't want to. I didn't want it. [01:33:21] Speaker C: They. They obviously had some similar experiences to me and trying to get the thing to do their papers problems. [01:33:30] Speaker A: Yeah, Color profiles, all that sort of stuff. [01:33:34] Speaker C: It had some weird quirks, this thing, one of them being color, like color. Handling from Lightroom, not possible. Cannot print direct from Lightroom. I used to be able to print through on my Epson 3880 direct from Lightroom. I had everything dialed in the right profiles. [01:33:52] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Macs also are the best with. I've found with. With the Cannon printers. [01:34:01] Speaker C: Yeah, it's just some weird quirk with Canon where. So I had all this trouble and I was like this, you know, I. I sort of. I'm not a printing wizard by any stretch of the imagination, but we had that. We used to print every wedding that we shot. We would deliver, you know, around 15 A4 prints on Canson paper just to give them something physical with their USB in this nice box kind of thing because we wanted them to have some physical prints. And so we'd done that for a lot of weddings and a lot of different shots, black and white, color, different aspects of the day or whatever. And we had it, that print, that printer and Jim still uses it now. Whatever it looked on my. Like on my screen is exactly what come out of the printer. Like we had it just it only for that one paper because that's all we used. But it was dialed in. It was dialed in for that one paper to do that one thing. And it worked great. [01:34:50] Speaker A: Well, that's the thing. If you can do one thing. Great, that's good. [01:34:54] Speaker C: Exactly. It's all we needed. But then yeah, I just had so much trouble getting it dialed in and yeah, it turned out I have to use Digital Photo. No, what's it called? Digital Photo Professional. Digital Print and Layout. Print and Layout Professional. Whatever cannons software is for that printer that I have to print from that. Otherwise it's not accurate printing straight out of lightroom and. And then. Yeah, that solved the problems. But I'm still having some, some like tiny little banding issues. Like little, little. You can only see it if you look really close in smooth gradients. But some banding every now and then week. It's almost like you can see where the head goes. Stuff like that. Just things that I hadn't had to deal with. [01:35:37] Speaker B: There were a lot of. Disappointing though, isn't. [01:35:39] Speaker C: Is. I mean it's, it's. I understand it's kind of to be expected. It's a complete complex sort of piece of equipment and I'm asking it to do something very accurately. [01:35:50] Speaker A: It's shooting at hundreds of thousands of little tiny dots of ink onto a paper. [01:35:55] Speaker C: Exactly. It is complex and, and it's. I, I think it's just got, it's got a level of control in it that I'm just still getting my head around. It's probably got a level of control that was. Is normally reserved for the sorts of printers you're using. Ben, where it's like everything like what I was talking about the, you know, setting up exact thickness of the paper, print head height, things like that. All of that seemed to be automated in the Epson, whereas with Canon it's automated if you use their papers, but if you're not using their papers, you know, you're downloading not just ICC profiles, but I think they're called A1X files. For each paper, you're selecting those in multiple different spots and things like that. Anyway, just. I can see why this, this person got to the point where they were like, you know, what would be better just five A1 prints would be better than this printer. [01:36:52] Speaker A: Well, they obviously couldn't print the five A1s. They needed me to do the job anyway. [01:36:56] Speaker B: But I wasn't. [01:36:57] Speaker A: They're exchanging it for the printer. I was like, hey, I, I need, you know, I need my printers to be doing as much as the workers have got so that they're running efficiently without having a. Another one. [01:37:10] Speaker C: No, especially that, like it's not a roll printer. It's not. Yeah, you don't you don't need that, the smaller one. So. So you run the edit to print workshops. [01:37:22] Speaker A: Yes. [01:37:23] Speaker C: In your, in your. Sort of. You do that at your studio, your house. [01:37:27] Speaker B: Hey, can we. [01:37:28] Speaker C: I know this is supposed to be your interview and all I'm talking about is my printer, but if we can dig even further away from you. What sort of lighting do you have in your studio for your house? Lights like for your. Just if you had lighting in the roof, if you were doing a new one, what would you put in there? [01:37:47] Speaker A: Oh look, I don't really worry about that because to be honest, when I'm in my studio and I'm running my workshops, I actually turn the lights off. I've also got a block out blind and I actually show people, you know, sort of get people editing in a very constant, you know, sort of dull lit sort of space when they're actually editing their photos. Just that, you know, one of the things with that when you're editing is actually doing editing. A constant lighting space. Yeah. A lot of our devices these days, be it our laptops, our PCs, our phones and things like that, they've got this thing where they want to change the brightness of the your screen unless you turn it off depending on the light changing. Yeah, I've got two blinds behind me, you know, where it's, you know, as the light comes through. Cuz sun rises over in the east here and sunsets in the west over here, that that light changes. So you, you're really wanting just to make sure that you've got some consistencies in, you know, in what you're doing when in your editing. Yeah. The other thing is, is a lot of people go and edit their photos with the screen brightness up at 100% and they send it off and they wonder why the photo looks dark again. You know, you've got to make sure that you're, you know, you're editing. A rule of sort of thumb I say to people is, you know, is to sort of dull your screen brightness down to around about sort of 40 to 50%. Should give you a reasonably good accuracy as to what you print will become, will come out like on paper or canvas because obviously our prints aren't backlit, our screen is. So we want to, you know, obviously sort of try to have a good figure. Like the one thing, and this is the other thing where again I sort of say this to people too is you've got to remember this with printing, the digital age is bought around pixel peeping like nothing else. Everything's got to be sharp. If it's not sharp, if it doesn't cut your eyes when you look at it, is it really sharp? So the thing is though, right, is that you might have a 10 year old phone, I might have a brand new phone. I might have even been a tech person who got. It has already got the iPhone 18, which I don't. I might be Android and you might be an Apple user. You might like a PC, Hewitt and Packard and I like Macs. All of these brands and all of these devices and different ages all have different contrasts. So you can go and set up your website. You can put your images up there. You can go and have everything that the shop tells you that you need to get accurate colors and the best rendition for your prints. And someone could still message you when they, when you sell them a print go. That's not what it looks like on my phone. Why? Yeah, because you don't know what they're looking at. They could, they could be an accountant with an, with a, with a computer that is based around, you know, you know, doing, you know, accounting, which isn't sitting there with a whole lot of color pro, you know, with the color profile of what somebody who's, who's got a gaming monitor or an editing monitor. [01:40:56] Speaker C: It's. Oh, that's such a good point. Isn't it crazy when you see some of your images on other people's, especially those like cheaper office type monitors and things like that and you see it and the sky's all blown out and you're like, that's not normally blown out. Yeah, yeah, or a cheap phone or something. And you're like, no. Did you think this is what I do? Like, were you looking at this going, oh, that's their photography? You're like, no, no, no, the skin isn't supposed to be orange. [01:41:27] Speaker A: When I started running my edit to print workshops, I was lucky enough that the company. This is obviously during COVID when we were allowed to be out, I was running. So I was running some one on ones in this, in the studio there. And they, and I bought myself a TV going, oh, I can project onto a bigger TV rather than somebody looking at my, you know, my 24 inch screen. So even my naivety I went and just thought I don't want to spend a fortune on a TV. I don't actually watch TV. I have a TV in my house. I watch YouTube. I like watching around the world sailing. You know, people who are going off and sailing around the world and, and things like that. And obviously the, you Know the Camera Life podcast, but with. With the tv, when I went and hooked my. My computer up to it, the color looked nothing like. [01:42:17] Speaker C: Yeah, TVs are crazy. [01:42:21] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. But it was a Kogan special. It was like 499 Kogan TV. I didn't want to spend a fortune on it. Yeah. [01:42:28] Speaker C: And. [01:42:28] Speaker A: And that's the thing. So, you know, I guess what I'm saying to you again is that we've become so thinking about, you know, things being sharp, the colors being accurate, is that if you go to a good printer and you get them to print your image, it might look a bit different to what's on your screen. That doesn't mean that the image is wrong. What it means is that the paper and the profile and everything like that doesn't match up to what's on your screen. Now, one of the ways you can get around that is, you know, yes, you can sort of go down the path of asking for profiles and trying to do all that sort of stuff, but you then have to. That's a learning curve in itself. The other thing is just to sit there and do a couple of test prints so that you get it right at your end and then you sort of understand what your monitor is giving you, that you find that you get pretty good accuracy with what is being edited and what's sort of coming off at the other end. Because in the end it comes down to, you can go to all this work and the person could still contact you and go, it's not what it looks like on your website, the actual print, because of what they are looking at. [01:43:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:43:37] Speaker A: So. [01:43:37] Speaker B: And on the topic of monitors, what. What brand and monitor do you use when given that you are doing so much printing? Is there a brand you recommend? [01:43:47] Speaker A: I've got ISO monitor, but I'm not. You know, in the end, there's plenty of good monitors around there. Yeah. So I would sit there and say, yeah, that BenQ do good monitors. Yeah. I've got something where it has got the ears around it so that it helps cut light pollution or, or, you know, glare off the side of my screen and things like that, you know, so, you know, I remember watching one of your podcasts with Peter Coulson and, you know, I think. I don't think he's got something sitting on his screen, but he's actually sort of built out. Whatever he's got was built out. I noticed in the podcast there, right around, you know, if it was a podcast or one of his episodes, which he. He does. And, you know, his, his monitor was set quite a fair way back and the reason is that helps remove that side glare. [01:44:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [01:44:36] Speaker C: You know, it's, it's funny, I've. I got a BENQ monitor, calibrated it when I switched to a MacBook Pro from an imac. And like I said, we. I was running the imac for years, shooting weddings, printing every wedding, calibrated the imac. But it was, it almost didn't change when I calibrated. It was just like great. I don't know what was with those 27 inch iMacs, but the monitor was just, it was very out of the box. [01:45:04] Speaker A: They were very good. [01:45:05] Speaker C: Yeah, it was very good. I was really surprised. No drama for years. Got this BENQ monitor and like calibrated it and, and it just, it never. Things were, it took me a while to figure out, like my edits looked weird. It was just, it was a bit of a learning curve. It was bizarre and it was a, like, it's not an expensive BENQ monitor. I think it was two or three grand. So expensive, but not like some crazy one. But it's supposed to be very, very good as far as the, the capabilities. But yeah, I didn't know, it just, it was weird. I don't know whether I just had good luck with the imac that I got, but it was just seemed very easy for me to go from edit to print on. It was just. Yeah, yeah, quite strange. [01:45:51] Speaker A: Well, I think one thing you've got to remember with when it comes to gear and monitors and things like that is, yeah, I remember when I was setting up my studio and I was looking at monitors and you know, there was monitors for $2,000, $4,000, 6,000, 8,000, 10, 12 grand sort of things. And you're sitting there going. And what I looked at in the end is it's like, well, I definitely didn't want to spend 12, I didn't want to spend 10 or 8. You know, I ended up, I think my monitor was maybe about three and a half thousand dollars. Now I'm not a videographer, so therefore, you know, going and getting an ISO monitor which is, you know, great for, for video work, wasn't something what I needed. But I remember one of my mates saying to me, he goes, ben, he goes, how good of a photographer are you? And I said, well, what do you mean? Well, he goes, do you reckon you need the monitor? Which is, you know, so freaking good that it's, you know, that it's absolutely bloody amazing. And it's like, well no, not really. Do I like, I need something which is really good, suitable for what I need and it's going to do the job without being crazy stupid price wise. So I ended up spending, you know, three, three and a half thousand dollars on, on my monitor. I didn't go for something which was, yeah, a video editing monitor because I don't edit videos. So I made sure I got a really good monitor that was very accurate. The other thing which I was told which is by industry professional in, in the print space was that monitors generally, their color accuracy is only good generally for around about three years to four years and then it will drop off. Now the ISOs supposedly are a bit better and will last a bit, a bit longer. But you know, generally speaking if you're working on a, on a, you know, monitor which is say five or six years old, you do need to regularly calibrate it because it won't keep up its calibration like it does when it's new. So it's, you know, food for thought. Again like anything, you know, dear can't drop unless you got 12 grand to drop the young drop 12 grand. Well maybe if you're editing videos and you're editing photos yet. Okay, maybe you do and you've got the dollars but you know, buy something which fits your budget which is good, decent because you've got to remember you're gonna have to replace it at some stage anyway. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Most definitely like buying good glass, isn't it? You buy your glass because you're going to replace your camera generally in a, you know, within a couple of years [01:48:28] Speaker B: and keep your glass. [01:48:29] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:48:30] Speaker B: Always invest in glass just in the interest of time. I just wanted to change tact on questions if you permit me looking through your website. One thing that I picked up on and I find this in a lot of photograph pro photographers who will do especially Astro and landscape. You know, you, you are an ambassador for a number of different accessory brands for camera gear. I don't know if this is up to date but we've got Samya, Moktics, Tenber, Benro, Tripods, Nanlite for lighting and Athabasca filters. I've never heard of that brand. When did, why did you decide to start, you know, that sort of ambassadorship with these brands? Did they approach you or was it something that you sought out through developing your business? [01:49:23] Speaker A: Look, Athabasca make some great filters but they never took off. I still use their filters today and I've got About three or four of their kits. So I run some workshops with, with those kits. You know, there's some great filter kits out there in, in different brands. You know, these days a lot of the, the filter kits which are popular, say the magnetic brands or the magnetic ones more than the. Yeah, screw on one. Well, screw on ones where you're sort of, you know, screwing them on and then putting a holder on and putting square filters and rectangular filters in there. Oh, look, I've been lucky enough over the years, you know, to, you know, meet people and have conversations with people and, you know, those conversations, you know, have, have come to life, I guess I would like to think. I, you know, I always say to people everybody's got an ego, but I like to think my ego is wrong. Kept pretty in check. And, you know, I sort of look at it. I speak pretty plainly to people in what I think I can offer. And, you know, I think that has come across to some of those brands, you know. So with Athabasca, you know, Athabasca is not actively sort of trying to sort of sell their kids into Australia these days. But I, you know, they've still, there's still some stock here and if people wanted to buy one, they could. Yeah, Nanlite. But one arm, another arm of my business, if you want to throw it in, is social media management. [01:50:51] Speaker B: So. Really? [01:50:52] Speaker A: Yeah. So if you're looking at Nan Light Australia, I actually do all the social media management for Nanlite Australia on Instagram and I run that account for Protog and I also run Protog's Instagram account. So that's another arm of what I do. So lighting is, is something which, you know, I've still got lots to learn, but I've learned it very quickly too. And I've had lots of good conversations with professionals in the field and meeting people like Joanne where I run those, those workshops with her where we use Nan, like constant lights for our sets. So again, you know, that's, that's something where, you know, again, it's come through what I do. I talk to a lot of creators and industry professionals within Australia. With Tenber and Samyang, they're through Maxim, which is out in Sunshine West. And I've known Glenn, the owner, for quite a few years and he's a fantastic guy. And yeah, I've just been lucky enough with. Again, what I do is I've got, I've got about six or seven Samyang lenses in my kit and I take them to my Astro workshop. And if you've got a Camera that works to, you know, one of the lenses I've got, you can borrow it. And I've got about three or four Benro tripods. And again, the idea is I just have them there and if you don't have a good tripod and, you know, sometimes I do get people rock up with the $49 Special and it's a bit windy and it's a special sitting there shaking like anything. Yeah, they can borrow a Benro tripod so it's not so salesy. But, you know, people then reach out and they're sort of like, hey, where can I get it? Well, you know, head to the Maxim website and you can grab that or obviously through a retail store too. So, yeah, it feels like, it feels [01:52:51] Speaker B: like a professional relationship that's a bit symbiotic, that everyone benefits from it. You know, it's just interesting seeing, you know, like Richard Taddy, he had a whole bunch of different products on his site, he's got a huge shop front. And other astrophotographers we've spoken to and landscape over the years, it just interested me that that particular genre or grouping of genres around natural or nature photography, a lot of people tend to, you know, to become ambassadors off of the products. And I was just curious whether it was a beneficial revenue stream for a working photo photographer such as yourself, or if it's just more that. It's nice that it's there, but it doesn't really generate anything for me. [01:53:30] Speaker A: I'm not, I'm not pushing it like maybe some others are. So if you want to buy a Benro tripod, jump online, you know, you can use a discount code I've got on their website. That's cool. I've got a discount code for people to get 10 off. But, you know, in the end jump online because sometimes, you know, I, I run some workshops, shops for, for Camera House, Croydon and, you know, Ringwood, obviously, you know, with Danny and Nigel and things like that. You know, I run some workshops for them and in the end, you know, I would sit there and say, you know, go and support, you know, camera, you know, Camera House in Croydon or Ringwood before you go and use my discount code because I might get an affiliate 5% off. Like it's more beneficial for everybody to have retail stores there because if we don't have those stores, stores there, then, you know, then what are we doing? You know, it's the same. I've got a, a smart telescope, which I've got an affiliate code for. But again, you know, it's such a small little amount. Like in the end, if you want to buy one and you want to use it, use it. But in the end, sometimes there's better deals out there. Look for what the best deal is and go grab it. [01:54:38] Speaker C: Yeah, that makes total sense. A thing just come up. So we're talking about filters. I do want to ask you about sort of filters versus Photoshop, I guess, but before we do that, John says any filter in front will degrade the photo. I think. What are your thoughts? Because that is a common one that you see. There's sort of two schools of thought. And, and there is a very common school of thought that is if you put a filter. Why would you ever put something on the front of a $4,000.50mil prime lens? You're only, it's, it's only going to make the lens worse. Obviously those people have never shot in the conditions I shoot or treat their gear the way I treat it. So there's also that. I also put some photos up. I showed some photos on the podcast a couple weeks ago that I took around Johannesburg that I'm really, really happy with, which I shot all of straight through the car, the window of a car, which obviously isn't quite as optically perfect as a high end UV filter. You know, like it was, it was just through glass. And they look great. They're probably, it probably has degraded the image quality, but not enough that I was in any way concerned with the shots that I got. What are your thoughts on whether putting in a protection filter or UV filter on the lens? Is that something that you shy away from or you think it's like, hey, it makes almost no difference. [01:56:11] Speaker A: I don't put any screw on filters to protect my lenses. I'm touching wood right now. You can see the table bumping a little bit. [01:56:20] Speaker B: Saying that because I am in a [01:56:22] Speaker A: lot of precarious situations where I could damage my things. Thank you. But look, I, I don't. And, and, and that's because I try to be careful with my gear now in saying that when it comes to ND filters. Well, I'm going for a particular look and I don't believe that I lose sharpness from that. I've got more chance of losing sharpness because I potentially kick my tripod or if I'm on the beach, I stand too close to my tripod on the sand and my foot goes into the sand and then the tripod moves right beside it or I get hit by a wave coming in. Because no adventure is an Adventure without wet feet at the end of it, when you live by the water. So things like that are what generally gives me a blurry image, not my filter. In saying that, and this comes back to this whole quality gear thing we were talking about, and even quality of paper and stuff like that, you go and buy yourself a four thousand dollar lens and you go, that's a lot of money. And then the person in the camera shot goes, oh, do you want to buy something to protect the element? And you go, oh, how much is that going to cost me? So what do you do? You go and buy the $50, you know, lens protector to go and put on a 4, $5,000 lens. If you're gonna invest in a good lens, invest in a good, you know, UV filter or, you know, or just gorilla glass, you know, because most of our lenses these days don't actually need a UV filter in them because all the technology and good quality lenses, you don't cut it in. But a good quality gorilla glass will just protect the element if you bump it. [01:58:03] Speaker B: Yeah, that's my take on it. I mean, I don't use big expensive filters because I'm just a grungy old street photographer. But whenever I buy a new lens, I always buy a good quality filter, either whether it's in store or online. And if I'm in store, I will take the lens out of the box and put the filter on before I even leave the shop. It just feels like, almost like taking out insurance on my lens. I'm just protecting that front element from an accidental bump or knock or mishap. You know, it's just something that I've just done methodically because like you've just said, you know, you spend so much money, relatively speaking, on your gear, it makes sense to spend a little bit more on, on insurance, so to speak. [01:58:44] Speaker C: Can I make a confession? I. I fell for this. I felt I fell for this. You know, when I bought my dream camera and I bought the, the Leica Q3, I bought the Leica filter for it, which I'm sure was hideously overpriced compared to a comparative, really high quality filter from one of the, you know, the good filter brands. But, you know, I was exactly what you were like, well, I've spent this much money on this thing and this is the one that, you know, is designed for it. Oh, and then I did it, but also now I'm glad I did because I actually have. I've. This filter's got a mark on it. That mark would be on the Front element of the lens for sure. [01:59:32] Speaker A: Yeah, it. [01:59:33] Speaker C: I've. I've knocked it because I never put a cap on this. It's got a hood on it and I carry it everywhere. Gets trashed. Sort of not trashed. If I ever resell, it's great. It's a good camera, but it's never [01:59:45] Speaker A: been near salt water. There's no rust. [01:59:48] Speaker C: Only used on Sundays by a little old lady. But yeah, if so now, now I'm hoping that that filter did its job and it still, it doesn't sharpen the images. So I'm going to leave that filter on there. It's a tiny little mark, but now one day I can take that off and the lens is perfect and it's like, I, I don't know. I know it probably does something to the image because you can't put something in front of an element. Have nothing happen. You know, like we had, we had Wayne on from Imaging by Design. He explained so much about how like, the tiniest little differences can make a large change in image quality when it comes to putting things in front or particularly behind a lens. But, you know, I also don't want to have to spend however much it would cost to replace the front element. I like a Q3. So. Yeah, yeah. [02:00:41] Speaker A: We've got to remember. And this is, this is the thing with photography. It comes back to that whole thing about when I was talking about images being so sharp they'll cut your eyes through a screen. Like in the end, it comes down to these days is, and I say this to my customers with their printing. If you've got something that you love and it's special to you and maybe you've missed focus and you know, we're not talking about something which is totally blurry. [02:01:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:01:06] Speaker A: Printed. Because in the end, if it makes you happy and it's special, print it again. We've got so far down this track of everything having to be so goddamn perfect. And it's like we don't live in a perfect world. [02:01:20] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:01:21] Speaker A: So, you know, in the end, it's like, it's okay to. It's. It's okay just to enjoy your photography for what it is. It's okay that. To post something which maybe you didn't nail 100 sharp focus as that whale breaches out of the water, but it was a double breach or something like that. You know, it's okay because if it's hanging on your wall and it makes you happy, it's all that's important. [02:01:47] Speaker B: I'm going to go into One of my old man anti capitalism rants here just for a second. Again, I've warned everyone this time, Justin, but again, you know, there's. There's this whole thing in the industry about sharpness, about absolute perfect clarity, you know, from cameras and lenses. And it really overlooks, you know, when we take photos that have character, you know, it eradicates all that character, you know, and sometimes you'll have a bit of softness where you didn't intend to, but the image, like you said, the image is still great. But, you know, the cameras and lenses were sold on sharpness and clarity and resolution and, you know, precision and all of that sort of stuff. And, and then we get it again, you know, in our social media feeds, you know, where people will call out an image that might be soft and say, oh gosh, you missed focus on that one. It's like, well, that's, you know, it, it is interesting how that really implants itself in us thinking that we need sharpness all the time, you know. [02:02:48] Speaker A: Yeah. In the end, I think my parents have been married for over 50 years and their wedding photos. Not every wedding photo. Photos. Sharp. [02:02:56] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [02:02:58] Speaker A: Like in the end, back in, back in film days, you know, you. If we went through and looked at our parents wedding photos, assuming that all three of us have parents that got married and had. And had photos taken, none of those photos will all be sharp. They'll all be a bit soft. They'll all be about a bit out of focus. Like in the end, it's. It's the digital age that has changed us and it's technology that's changed us. And in the end, that's part of where the fun of photography can get lost. It's just like editing. You know, people sit there and go, I love taking photos, but oh, I hate editing. Well, okay, take JPEGs then just post. Yeah, Pegs, if you really hate editing, maybe, maybe take your raws, but just share your JPEGs. Because in the end it's about. This is something that I'm massively passionate about. And people who've done my tours, my workshops know because I talk about just that whole factor of the enjoyment in the moment. It doesn't always have to be about the photo and stuff like that. You know, on my last tours, my two whale tours that I had in September, I can say that because it's now October. On my first tour, I had a wife come along. Now she had her phone, but she wasn't a photographer. Her husband was. Now they were both 77 and they'd come along and their, you know, their expectation, they were blown away by it. They, they couldn't believe what it was. And sue was like going, this is amazing. Like, you know, have a look at all these, these babies. She was great advertising for the boat because she was telling everybody about the other tours that she, we'd done the days before and how great they were. And her husband was getting the photos. On the next tour I had a, a husband along and the wife was the photographer again. And it was actually the husband was Alan and in the other one the photographer was Ellen. And then on the next one the wife was Yvonne. And Yvonne's a fantastic photographer. And Ellen was sitting there just going, this is amazing. This is absolutely amazing. And he didn't have a camera. Well, he did. He used his phone. [02:05:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:05:06] Speaker A: And took some video. But he was absolutely amazed. And why? Because nature's amazing. Being out in the fresh air is amazing. Doing something cool's amazing. And you sit there going, holy cow. As where? You know, sitting on your couch at home. Isn't that fun? [02:05:24] Speaker B: Yep. [02:05:24] Speaker C: No. No, it's not. [02:05:26] Speaker A: I can take photos of my TV and they can be sharp photos, my tv, but you know, that's going to be off because I've got no aerial on the roof or I'd be watching videos. But YouTube. But, you know, it's like in the end, it's okay for something not to be 100 sharp. Yep, yep. [02:05:43] Speaker C: I think that's, it's, it's a great cure for the other. Like it's not, not totally related to sharpness, but a great cure for. If you're sort of lusting after newer gear, starting to feel like your gear's a little bit. Not if it's, you know, if it's not focusing on fast moving subjects and things like that, maybe that's a little bit different. But if you're just thinking, I just need some more megapixels or whatever, a great cure for that for me is photo books. Invest in some photo books. I'll find myself going through photo books. And then you look at the year that it was printed or the year the photos were taken, things like that, and you go wonder what camera this was taken on. Because it certainly wasn't taken on an R5 Mark II and I've got an R5 Mark II. So it's far advanced, more beyond anything that's in. This was taken, you know, used to take anything in this book. And these photos are amazing and I wish I could take photos like these and they were taken with a camera that was made 15 years ago or whatever, you know, like, it's the ultimate cure for like I want new gear is to look at a 10 year old photo book and go, well, my camera didn't even zoom in exist when this was out. I can't possibly need a new one if. Yeah, that's, that's what I like to do. [02:06:56] Speaker A: Yeah. A good one for me would be thinking back with that wet night, Flinders Street Station. I had somebody reach out and they wanted it as a wallpaper on their bedroom wall. So I think it was about 5 meters by, you know, two point, you know, what was it? You know, say two point, you know, 4 meters, 2.6 meters high sort of thing. And that was taken on a Canon 6D. So you sit there and you go, that was a 20.2 megapixel camera blown up, you know, the file was blown up to 5 meters long by, you know, 2.6 meters high or something like that. Yeah. Canon PowerShot. I've got a, you know, meter square photo of the Nilex clock which, you know, which I've printed and you know, it looks absolutely cool, you know, a little, you know, power Canon power shot print. You know, printing at a meter square on canvas. Canvas is a little bit more forgiving than paper, which is good. So. Yeah, but still, but still we're, we're [02:07:59] Speaker C: over two hours, so Ben, if you have to go, just sing out. But do. [02:08:05] Speaker A: I mean, I'm good if you guys. [02:08:07] Speaker C: Okay. [02:08:08] Speaker A: People aren't bored because everybody chewed out. How many people are here? [02:08:12] Speaker C: Well, look, no, no, the chat's been firing. What I would like to know a little bit more is what did I want to know so do? Okay. I've noticed that a lot of landscape photographers have been less and less. You were talking about filters and they've been using them less and less because of how advanced editing is getting. Like how fast it is to mask a sky in light or mask every part of an image in lightroom now automatically and, and you know, manipulate it even in a single capture. You can do really fast manipulations. Do you still use things like nds, polarizers and that sort of stuff when you're out shooting? [02:08:58] Speaker A: Yep, yep. I use. Yeah. When I'm running my filter workshops, generally speaking, we go out and we run through using a 3 stop nd, a 6 stop nd and a 10 stop nd and use a soft grad and also a reverse grad to show what those, those grads do and also what a polarizer does, you know, obviously with a polarizer, you know, you gotta have the right spot and the right, you know, spot for where the sun is to where you're also, you know, framing up and things like that. But that's a lesson in its itself. So, yeah, look, definitely I enjoy, you know, getting out and using my filters. Like for me, if, if I'm being totally honest, I enjoy that. But my, what I love doing is getting out and photographing my wildlife more than, than that and my astrophotography more than sort of, you know, getting out with filters. But that's only because I sit there and I look at, you know, I look at what a landscape is in front of me and yes, it's beautiful and it's cool, but you know, having an interaction again with wildlife is more cool for me at least. [02:10:07] Speaker C: Yes. What other, what other? Just sticking on gear just for a second. What other lenses are you using with your Canon system? [02:10:16] Speaker A: Oh, so I've got the, so I've got the 20 mil 1.4 Canon for my astrophotography and then I use the Samyang 14 mil 2.8 RF and then I've got the 24 to 72.8. I've got the 70 to 202.8. Then I've got the 100 to 500, I've got the 200 to 800 and I've got the 15 to 35, 2.8 as well in there. [02:10:45] Speaker C: So you do have the 15 to 35, but you gravitate towards the 20 mil. [02:10:52] Speaker A: Well, I, I called my 20 mil my intimate Astro lens. I love that slightly tighter frame than the big frame. I think it just delivers more magic. Like, you know, canon do a 14 mil 1.4. [02:11:09] Speaker C: I was gonna ask you, I might [02:11:11] Speaker A: add that to my, to my list. But you know, honestly, I gravitate to the 20mil 1.4. I did have a Samyang 20mil 1.8 at one stage. But you know, yeah, I, I just love that 20 mil for Astro. For my landscapes, if it's during the, you know, during the day and D stuff, I use my 24 to 70. That's my favorite landscape lens. So, you know, my 15 to 35 probably gets the least use in my kit. It's a fantastic lens though. It will, it will often be on my camera, my spare body, when I'm doing my whale stuff just in case the whale is right up beside the boat. That nice big wide lens. Yeah. When you've got a 16 to 18 meter whale potentially right beside the Boat, you need something wide. So. And then, yeah, obviously my, you know, my 70 to 200, I love it's. It is. It is sharp. You know, I hate talking about sharpness, but, you know, I feel like if that's a lens that's going to cut your eyes, that. That one is definitely good. But, yeah, then obviously my telephotos. Yeah, I'm heading to Eden tomorrow for a few days and the R7's got the 100 to 500 on it and tomorrow it will be sprouting the lucky strap on it as well. And then, you know, the, the R5 Mark II's got the 200 to 800 on it. [02:12:39] Speaker B: So. [02:12:40] Speaker A: So. And then. And then I've got an EOS R, which I shoot my Astro on. So the original mirrorless for cam. Yeah, I like that for my Astro and then the R7 for my wildlife as well. So, yeah, nice. If I want to reach the R7 with the 200 to 200 to 800. Oh, my gosh. [02:13:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:13:02] Speaker C: That's insane. [02:13:03] Speaker A: Yeah. So my dad and I don't know if he's listening. I think they were maybe going to check. Tune in. When I'm up on the river, I've got a kayak and. And I put my camera in between my legs and I paddle around and go and find wildlife on the banks to photograph and birds and things like that. And my. Because I'm a bigger set guy, my dad goes, you always look like you're a, you know, like you're a frigate or something like that with the big [02:13:30] Speaker B: cannon out the front of you. [02:13:33] Speaker A: Barrel out the front. Front sort of as you're going along low on the water, sort of going along the line. [02:13:37] Speaker B: Yeah, nice. [02:13:39] Speaker C: Oh, that's funny. Yeah. Bigger than. [02:13:44] Speaker A: The kayak has never sat on my lens, though. [02:13:52] Speaker C: I didn't get that reference for a second. That's funny. Yeah, yeah, that's. Oh, that sounds fun. So you do a bit of wildlife stuff up on. [02:14:00] Speaker A: Is that on the Murray river or up that way? Yeah, so up sort of a Chukaway and things like that. Birding. Birding. Wildlife stuff. So birding. [02:14:11] Speaker C: Do you run workshops up there? [02:14:12] Speaker A: Birding tours to do some tours up there? Yeah, run some tours up there. So the three nights and I try to get people photographing rainbow be eaters and azure kingfishers and sacred kingfishers. And then obviously up around there, there's some good raptors. You know, wedgies are always hard to find or if you do, they tend to not be in a great spot. To photograph, you know, you can get lucky. But yeah, there's lots of whistling kites and black shouldered kites up there and, and all sorts of wildlife up there, you know, and, and I even learned, yeah, I had Felicity do one of my birding tours and you know, she hasn't. And she knows her birds like, you know, and she's like looking up going, oh, look at that, that's a dollar bird. And that's, you know, migrated from Peru. You know, I've always say, I'll admit it, I love birds, but I'm not a tweaker. If you put a hundred birds in front of me, I could name 25 to 30 of them and the other 30, 70 I'd have no chance of, of naming. I just love capturing them. And that's, that's what I love. It's, it's not about knowing every, every bird species. I've got Google for that. So that's true. To find out, to find out that info afterwards and things like that. But yeah, it's, it's, it's awesome up there. I enjoy it. So I've got birding tours coming up there in November, December and January this year. So very. [02:15:37] Speaker B: And just on that, what other tours have you got coming up? [02:15:41] Speaker A: Well, my boot. Well, I've got my whale one. So I've got done three whale tours this year. So we've got the last one of that in a couple of weeks and then my birding tours will start in November and I think I've got about six or seven of those booked there. Three, three days, just two or three people. So they're really small. I'm a big believer. And you can't, you know, you don't want to overcrowd spots and, and also you don't want to overcrowd the wildlife. So it's a matter of, you know, it's a matter of keeping it small from that perspective for me, at least that's small of my belief. And then I also do astrophotography tours up in the same region during the, the Milky Way season. So sort of, you know, April, May, June, July up there. And again they're sort of three night tours max of sort of three or four people with that I can obviously have it a little bit more because we're not, you know, that's not the wildlife aspect in those ones. So where we sort of get out and we just shoot some inland landscapes during the day, do some editing during the day and then get out after dark and yeah, enjoy the night sky. [02:16:50] Speaker C: That's very cool. Very, very cool. It's a beautiful part of the world. [02:16:54] Speaker A: It is, it is. I've been going up there for around about sort of 19, 19 years now. It would be up that way. So, yeah, it's a beautiful park. [02:17:07] Speaker C: What, what else haven't we talked about, Ben? What. What aspects of your life have we not touched on that we should. [02:17:15] Speaker A: Oh, I don't know if there's. I don't know if there's anything, really. We've, you know, we've had a good chat, haven't we? [02:17:20] Speaker B: We have had a good chat, yeah. [02:17:22] Speaker C: What have we missed? You're a man of many talents. I'm worried we've missed something. [02:17:27] Speaker A: I don't know. Look, I think. Look, I guess if I was going to talk about anything again, it would be about my whales, if I'm allowed to, and, and I guess to instill this bit of information with people. So currently, we whales were almost wiped out during. When we were going to have potentially, you know, the Cold War, Russia came down into Antarctica and killed lots and lots of whales because whale oil was an economic advantage that they didn't want the rest of the world to have. And we almost brought them to the point of institution. [02:18:03] Speaker C: So [02:18:05] Speaker A: the humpback whale is considered to be one of the, or the most successful recovery of any species or mammal in the world. We're now on the east coast. We're back to probably somewhere between sort of 50 to 60,000 humpback whales and they believe that they were hunted down to maybe three to 500 whales on the east coast, on the west coast of Australia, we're back up to around about sort of maybe 60 to 70,000. So been a huge success story. One of the things which is currently happening is people are using krill oil tablets and krill is very high in fat little, little type of prawn. And we are sending ships down there to catch them live and bring them back to feed bloody salmon and tuna, to fatten them up quicker, to send them off to market, to. To other countries. So we're taking the main food source of the humpback whale away from them. So we've got this massive success story, but we're at a turning point where they're taking that much krill now that are we going to see a turn. Every animal sits there and migrates and, and breeds based on the availability of food and things like that. These ones were taken down at Wilson's Prom a few weeks old, maybe a month and a bit ago of some Feeding whales. Generally, whales don't feed during the migration, but if there's a big enough food source that is warranted them to feed, they will do a little bit. And then they're feeding on small bait fish. A humpback whale, as I said, it's about, you know, 16 to 18, maybe 20 meters, depending on the age of the humpback. And it can weigh up to about 55 ton. Its throat's about the size of our fist. [02:19:58] Speaker C: Oh, wow. [02:20:00] Speaker A: So when you hear about people being swallowed, they can't. They might go into the gullet of, like into the actual mouth of the humpback, but they can never be swallowed because [02:20:10] Speaker B: animations. They lied to us. [02:20:12] Speaker A: Yeah. So. But, you know, it's pretty amazing, you know, the recovery of the humpback whale. You know, I guess, you know, the, the joke I sort of say to people is that they're the randy whale of the sea because they, you know, obviously appropriate, you know, breed quite, quite well. And the reason I say that is we've got the southern right whale and the southern right whale, it was considered to be the right whale by whalers to kill back in the day because they log on the surface just outside the back of the breakers a lot of the time. So most southern rights, when people see them from the beach or even from the boat, will see them just out the back of the surf breakers. So the southern rights were considered to be the right whale. They actually can weigh 60 to 80 ton. So they can be up to, you know, around about sort of 30, 40% heavier than a humpback whale. And yeah, we're taking their food source. So, you know, coles and woolies not long ago just said that they're going to stop selling krill oil tablets, which is fantastic. But we've got to make sure that we put pressure on people to, you know, stop using krill oil and look for alternatives. Because in the end, if we want these beautiful creatures to, to sort of, you know, flourish, then we need to make sure that we are, you know, doing the right thing by them. So that's a huge, big one of mine is that the other thing is make sure that we throw out rubbish in the bin. Our ocean is full of plastic and, you know, from that perspective, we're ending up with lots of microplastics. They believe that whales are ingesting credit cards worth of microplastics every day and they believe humans are now ingesting about a credit card's worth of microplastics plastics every week. So you Know, if we look at why the world's getting sick, plastics aren't good and not meant to be inside us. So, yeah, we've all got to do our bit to try and make sure that, you know, we're looking after the ocean and we're looking after whales and we're looking after dolphins because all these beautiful marine creatures that, you know, we might like looking at. Like, you know, you were talking about the boat and the dolphins earlier, Justin, you know, they are in that, you know, they're not after the krill so much, the dolphins, but they're ingesting microplastics as well. So, yeah, one of the things I'd say to people is this, you know, it's great what you're showing. You're not showing every single shot as a breach when you're out photographing whales, sometimes people say to me, oh, why do you run, you know, five or six tours, you know, trips out on the boats? Is he not going to get every day with the whale sitting there breaching and tail slapping and peck slapping and doing amazing things for you? In the end it's part of what they do, you know. That's where you've got your cursor on, that one next to you. Well, that's a breaching one. The one next to you is actually a baby southern right whale. Yeah, that one there, that's a baby southern right, which I photographed off Eden about 4. That was actually Claire Cooper. Claire was on that workshop with me. Oh that tour with me and that little one. If you scroll across, I think the other shop there might be a one of the breaching. So that was my, that was my first ever shot of a baby breaching, of a baby southern right breaching. I've photographed lots of southern rocks, but that was the first breaching Southern right. Which my mind was squealing inside like a five year old schoolboy at photographing this, it's pretty special. I've had lots of southern ROTS encounters. I've been very lucky. Yeah, last year I was really lucky. I had two killer whale experiences. One was on my October tour we saw killer whales off the shore and then last year, I think it was last year we had killer whales off the boat. If you scroll down a little bit, I might be able to find those for you. Had killer whales off our Wildlife Coast Cruises cruise off Phillip island and we had a pot of five whales and one of the whales was a calf and the calf came within about sort of 5 meters of the side of the boat with Its mother, which was, you know, I had tears. So you talk, you know, you heard Margaret say and Felicity say earlier that they had tears. Well, I can tell you right now, sorry, it's still a bit further down, but it was absolutely and utterly unbelievable. [02:24:48] Speaker C: So I know this isn't the photo we're looking for, but I just had to. This. That's crazy. Yeah, look at that thing. That is insane. [02:24:56] Speaker A: That's a calf. So that there might be around about eight weeks old, six to eight weeks old now when they're born, they're born somewhere between around about 1.2 times ton to about 3 ton depending on how many calves the mum's had. Poor mama, she's had. Yeah, she's had more. Then she'll have bigger calves. They put on between 20 to 60 kilos of body fat a day because mum's milk is about 60 to 70%. 67, 60 to 70% fat. So you know, if you think of your own body weight and you sit there and you go, they put on, you know, 20 to 60 kilos a day. So let's go to that 60 kilo mark. You know, basically, you know, for a lot of humans they're putting on in a day potentially, you know, their body weight and a little bit sort of thing. [02:25:42] Speaker C: Yeah, crazy. That is. Yeah, that's. That's insane. Just an insane natural thing that happens that it's just, it's not even comprehensive. [02:25:54] Speaker A: So that size where you've got the people there. If you go to the right side, I think it is. If I'm going near that side. The killer whales which I saw last year. No, sorry, a bit. The next one across. That's a nice shot. But yeah, that's a killer whale experience he had. It was five minutes that it was a land based one. Five minutes literally. And then they were gone and they just swam, swam past us. It was actually one of the ladies on my tour birthday and I'd sort of jokingly said, oh, we might see, you know, killer whales today for your birthday, Dim. And she's like, oh, wouldn't that be cool? They were all taking sunset and I turned around, was looking back down and all of a sudden I'm killer whales. I didn't believe you. We've got the photos to prove it. [02:26:37] Speaker B: Yeah, well that's very cool. [02:26:40] Speaker A: But yeah, there's some. There might be a little bit further down from that. But there's the other interaction, like if I was to share. So if you were to have a look at those, like the other ones, if you click out of that one, scroll down just that little bit more. Keep going down. [02:26:59] Speaker C: Just amazing. [02:27:04] Speaker A: Yeah. So, yes. So that's a mother and a calf up beside the wildlife Coast Cruises boat. [02:27:11] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [02:27:12] Speaker A: And like, I can tell you right now, my heart, like, I love my humpback whales, but, and I've had lots of mums and cars of humpbacks up beside the boat, but that was just an incredibly special moment because there's people, you know, there's, there's scientists who have spent years with humpback, with whales in general, and, and orca and killer whales who have not necessarily had, you know, a calf right up beside their boat, you know, four or five meters off the boat. So it's special. It's, it really is special. [02:27:47] Speaker C: Yeah. That is wild to see. [02:27:50] Speaker A: And they're quick too. You know, humpback whales, when they get pushing through the water a bit slower, you know, you're sort of, you sitting there tracking it, you can see there's a bit of swell there, it's a bit rough, you know, trying to get the shots sometimes. You know, this is that thing about perfect shots. Not every shot in here is perfect, but it doesn't have to be because it's, it's a moment and it's, it's, it's a moment I'll potentially never, ever experience again. Not necessarily seeing or, or killer whales, but having an experience with that calf so close to the side of the vessel. [02:28:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:28:21] Speaker C: Would you, would you say that, [02:28:24] Speaker B: Would [02:28:25] Speaker C: you say that the more interesting and unique the content of the photo is, it's sort of like proportionally the less important the technical perfection of the photo is, you know what I mean? It's like if the photo doesn't have something that's insanely interesting, if it's fairly normal, people expect it to be. If you're a professional, they expect it to be done really, really well. And then as it becomes more and more rare, like, you know, you've spotted Bigfoot, people will accept a 5 pixel blurry image and say it's amazing because it's Bigfoot. [02:29:03] Speaker A: That's, that's true. I guess the thing is, if you think about it though too, like, you know, it's like anything, you know, the more interesting it is, you know, it is then potentially, you know, as to what people, you know, you know, what people, you know, sort of see that it, it's going to be so, you know, you're looking, it's like bird photography and, you know, people sort of sit there and they go, oh, it's just another, you know, photo of a bird sort of sitting there. You know, they call the. The four. Have you heard of the four F's of. Of bird photography? [02:29:33] Speaker C: No. Tell us. [02:29:34] Speaker B: No. [02:29:34] Speaker A: Feeding, flying, and then there's fighting. And then the other one. Well, the PG version is mating, but it's called. [02:29:45] Speaker B: Yeah, got it. [02:29:49] Speaker C: Fornicating. [02:29:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Or fornicating. Yeah. Yeah, but, yeah, so again, you know, it's. It's that whole thing. Yeah. If you're going to make it a portrait, make it close up and really make that bird stand out if it's environmental. And that's a thing too, is. Is. Yeah. Everybody thinks that they have to be as close up to everything as possible. One of my favorite things is getting photos of albatross out on the water with the mountains in the background. Or, you know, or for instance, I was out on the boat the other week and I got a nice shot of the albatross coming over one of the old whaling station lookout spots at the boy tower, you know, so environmental, you know, environmental sort of shots where it tells more than just the. The actual animal. [02:30:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:30:33] Speaker A: On its own in the shot. Yep. [02:30:36] Speaker B: Give it context. [02:30:37] Speaker C: Yeah, I think that's great advice. Like. Yeah, don't. Don't just except the one standard shot that you think it, you know, close up, standard, and then move on. [02:30:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:30:49] Speaker C: Like, think about the environment, think about where it is, and then also, obviously, try and get it in action. But I tried to do a little bit of bird photography in Africa in between sightings of lion cubs and all the other amazing stuff that we saw. And God, it's hard. It did give me a better. A bit of respect for bird photography because you're like, there's this amazing bird and you're like, quick, get a shot of it. And then just as you get your settings right, it's gone. And you're like, ah. Or, you know, or there was one bird we sat there for. I think we sat there, all of us, with our cameras pointed at it, trying not to breathe for 15 minutes, waiting to get like the, you know, because again, no one just wanted a shot of the bird sitting there. We all had that. We wanted to get it taking off, had these beautiful. I can't remember what it's called, these beautiful rainbows, feathers. And when it took off, you could see in, you know, it in full, beautiful color. And, yeah, sat there, sat there, sat there. The thing didn't move. A couple of times it looked like it was going to move. Didn't move. And Then, yeah, we were like, all right, let's move on. And then, you know, as usual, then it takes off. [02:31:54] Speaker A: It's like you didn't try coughing to see if that would stir it to take off. [02:31:59] Speaker C: There was a few, like, yeah, I think Matt was like, you know. Yeah, yeah, but no, it was. Yeah, but bird. Yeah, bird photography is hard, man. That's hard. [02:32:10] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a. [02:32:11] Speaker C: It is a real skill. [02:32:12] Speaker A: Shutter speeds, everything. Yeah, photography. And that's. That. That's. That's the biggest thing. You know, it. Shutter speeds, everything. If. If you don't have your shutter speed, right, you end up with a blurry image. And that's understanding the difference between small birds, medium birds, and big birds and the different shutter speeds and things like that. You know, if you. If you're looking at that sort of thing, that's half of it. Yeah. And it's amazing how many people, they've gone online and they've gone, oh, bird photography. Oh, shutter speed. 1 2,000th of a second, and they go out and they go and try and photograph a, you know, a fairy ring, and they wonder why all of them are blurry. You know, it's like 1 2,000th of a second. Yeah, that's fine. If it's sitting there and doing nothing. But the minute it wants. If you want to try and get in flight shot, it's too slow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [02:33:00] Speaker C: Crazy. All right. Two and a half hours we've dragged out of your day, out of your morning. We got you up early. Anything else? Anything else, Greg? [02:33:11] Speaker B: No, I think we've. We've covered. We've covered a lot of ground today. Obviously, we've traced much of your history and celebrated where you are today with your craft. Final question from me is, you know, now that you've sat in the hot seat of the Camera Life podcast, you've already given us a couple names. Is there anyone else that you would recommend would make an amazing guest for this show and for our viewing audience? [02:33:38] Speaker A: Oh, look, the names I've given you are some great names. One of my friends who. I do a lot of printing for, Glenn or Glenn's lens, you know, Glenn, you know, is in, you know, trying to get his stuff out there, and he run. He does lots of markets, and he's, you know, got stuff in different retail stores of, you know, like, you know, artesian type stores where they're, you know, trying to do local sort of suppliers. He's. He's a great guy, you know, and someone who, you know, he's on his way here. He might be sitting here in 10 or 20 minutes if you want to hold on the line. No, I'm joking. You know, pick up some prints. So. But, you know, he's somebody else. Look, there's, there's lots of people. But, you know, as said, the, the others that I mentioned earlier are great, you know, are great people. So. Look, there's lots of people out there that I admire and, and they don't. Then it doesn't. You don't have to be a professional photographer. All it comes down to is you just got to have passion. And, you know, and the people who've got passion are my favorite. So, you know, because they're people who, you know, they, they're my people. People who've got passion for. For the environment and, and, and for, you know, for what they're doing. That's freaking cool. [02:34:49] Speaker C: Yeah, very cool. [02:34:50] Speaker B: Absolutely. [02:34:51] Speaker C: That just. I'm just going to say this before I forget. Greg, can you write down. We should, we should try and get Glenn's lens on with Felicity Johnson and, and so, because she does a lot of markets and, and stuff as well as selling prints and just kind of do a, a session focused on that, like selling your prints and what's it like? What have they experienced? Yeah, do. Do something and focus. That'd be fun. [02:35:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:35:19] Speaker A: My one tip with that is, is it's not a matter of how good a photographer you are with selling your prints. It's a matter of how well you understand marketing yourself. [02:35:28] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, agree. People need to know that it's more than just a bit of paper with some ink on it. [02:35:36] Speaker A: And Instagram, your Instagram followers aren't your market who are buying your prints. [02:35:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:35:41] Speaker C: Yes. [02:35:42] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [02:35:43] Speaker B: Fair call. Look, I think that's a good place for us to tie a knot in today's episode of the Camera Life podcast. Ben, thank you so much for joining us today and for sharing so much of your story and your passion and your craft. You know, you. You've. You've got many. What's that term? Many rods in the fire. In terms of. When it comes to photography genres and what you're doing with your craft, the printing, the workshops, the tours, and also the environmental considerations around that, and we certainly celebrate that for you and about you. If people are looking to get involved in one of your workshops or tours, what's the best place for them to go? [02:36:25] Speaker A: They can either head to my website at www.BenjaminePhotography.com, which is a mouthful and a half. I do apologize. [02:36:35] Speaker C: It's linked in the show notes too. So if you listen to this on YouTube or it should be on any podcast platform, you'll be able to link it below. Just click on that and you'll get there. [02:36:43] Speaker A: Or Instagram. Look, you know, I must admit, even though I do social media management, I sit there and say I'm probably one of the worst people in actually promoting myself. I look, the thing is like if you wanted to find information on my bird tours, they're not on my website because to be honest, I get that many people reaching out to me and I don't mean it to sound dicky, I get that many people to reach out to me, they're sold before I've even got time to put them up because they're so small too of only two or three people. So, you know, a lot of the time they're not even on my website for you to look at. So I put a post up on my social media and they're normally all Snapdragon up pretty quick. So, you know, from that perspective I'd almost sit there and say reaching out to me on my socials is better because I can sit there and go, hey, this is what I've got coming up. But yeah, my W2, there's some info there and I can then send out PDFs. I've got a couple of tours for one for September and one for October next year and they're already half full. So Great. I've got some spots available on those if people want to, want to jump on so and come and see something which is absolutely mind blowing and unforgettable. [02:37:50] Speaker B: Yeah, it's very cool, that's for sure. [02:37:53] Speaker A: Thank you for having me, guys. [02:37:55] Speaker B: No, thanks for joining. Pleasure. [02:37:57] Speaker A: And for those who joined in and listened, yeah, we've got a, we've got [02:38:02] Speaker B: a good, good audience today, that's for sure. But we'll, we'll call it a day. Justin, you want to say goodbye to some peeps and roll a little funky music for us? [02:38:11] Speaker C: I do. Before I do that, I want to say if this is your first time listening, don't forget we also do our Monday night show where you can send one of your images in. Just email the image to the cameralifeuckystraps.com and we'll bring it up on the show. So thecameralifeuckystraps.com include a little bit of info about the image and why you sent it in and we'll bring it up on Monday night's show. Thanks Lucinda. Always great to have you here. Our new friend John from the Netherlands. Yes, Netherlands. Philip Johnson, as always the biggest fan. Paul is here or has been here. He says thanks so much, guys. A really enjoyable morning. Well, thanks for joining Flick. Who else who was here? There was tons of people here. I got to go back. Go back to the start. Cindy Townsend was here. Nev Clark was here. I missed this comment. He said Murphy's Law. If you put filters on, you fall over. So I've never used filters. Okay, maybe I should try that. Margaret Metcalfe was here. Who else? Who else? I don't know. It was crazy. Roy Bigsby. Lots of people. Matt Palmer. Anyway, thanks everybody. Thanks, Ben. Thanks, Reg. See you on the next one. [02:39:22] Speaker B: Thank you. Yeah. Thanks, guys. Be safe. [02:39:26] Speaker A: See you later, everybody. Bye.