EP124 Ben Maze | Landscape Photographer

[00:00:06] Speaker A: Crank it up. Plus. [00:00:10] Speaker B: Snapping frames chasing light Shadows dance day to night Lens sharp, soul in sight the camera whispers hold it tight Click click moments breath the camera light. [00:00:29] Speaker C: The flash ignites flame the world see. [00:00:32] Speaker B: It right. [00:00:37] Speaker C: I told you. [00:00:39] Speaker A: I know. We played that just for you, Paul. Just to keep that ear worm digging into your ear. Good morning everybody. Welcome back to the Camera Life podcast. It is the 16th of October, 9am Australian Eastern Standard Time, episode 124. Now for the keen eyed and eared amongst you, I did call one of our previous beats, you know, impromptu early morning podcast, episode 124. That was a, that was, that was a fake 124. This is the real 124. And of course today we are joined. [00:01:08] Speaker C: Hey, we can't count, that's the problem. [00:01:10] Speaker A: We can't. No, it just, it was a very messy weekend. But today we are joined by award winning landscape photographer Ben Mays. G' day mate, how are you? [00:01:19] Speaker B: Hey mate, good to be here. Thanks for having me on. [00:01:22] Speaker A: Oh no, look, to be fair, we'll get to this in a moment but to be fair, Lisa Leach had a lot to do with you showing up today. So we'll, we'll talk about that in a few moments just before. Oh, g' day Justin, you're obviously. [00:01:34] Speaker C: Hi. No, I just wanted, I am here. Hi. Hi everyone. I just want to know, do you prefer Benjamin or Ben or does it not matter? [00:01:40] Speaker B: Ben's fine. [00:01:41] Speaker A: Yeah, Ben's fine and Greg's fine for me too. But just before we, we, we, we celebrate Lisa because we spent a lot of time with her on the weekend and she is a bloody champion. But we'll get to that in a minute. Ben, can you just give us a 60 second version who you are, what you do, what you're known for? [00:02:00] Speaker B: Yeah, see I'm Ben Mays, I'm based in Sydney. I am a landscape photographer and I also do a bit of other like property photography and stuff during the week to balance that stuff out as well. But yeah, so I, I love unique landscape photography. Everything from the grand scenes through to the intimate sort of abstract details. So I'm often carrying everything from my 14 to 400 mil with me on most hikes that I'm not going on, which is pretty brutal. But I love flexibility and I'm really passionate about the wilderness sort of area. So I don't think you'll find any photos in my portfolio where you can see human elements. I'm really going for the landscape that is untouched by man and Showing the beauty of the untouched landscape preserved as it is. And I'm also really passionate about helping people sort of finding their connections with nature as well in their photography. So, you know, running workshops and mentoring programs and online tuition and all that kind of thing as well. So just to help people, you know, find their own artistic voice and connect with nature as well. [00:03:06] Speaker A: Well, thank you so much for sharing that. We'll get into a bit more detail in just a moment and how that mentoring program is working for you and Lisa. But before we get to that, boss, should we say good morning to some people? [00:03:17] Speaker C: We should. They were here early this morning. We weren't even that late. It was already, it's already firing up. Of course. Always first. Philip Johnson. G' day, Beef poppers. [00:03:25] Speaker A: This time. [00:03:26] Speaker C: Is this the Monday show or the Thursday show? Log. Good morning, Ben. Definitely the third. [00:03:31] Speaker A: We're not sure yet. Is it? [00:03:32] Speaker C: We had to skip the Monday show. [00:03:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:34] Speaker C: But we'll catch up on it next week. But yeah, I was a little, I was a little busy driving from Bright via Bendigo down to the Yarra Valley to do a, a pretty crazy two day shoot that will. [00:03:43] Speaker A: And also dropping me in Seymour along the way. [00:03:45] Speaker C: That's right. [00:03:46] Speaker B: That's right. [00:03:46] Speaker C: It was, it was busy. [00:03:47] Speaker A: I had to walk home. [00:03:50] Speaker C: Lisa Leach, star of the show. Good morning, guys. Big hello to Ben ltk photo. Hey, David. Mascara. Hello from Kentucky. Yeah. [00:03:59] Speaker A: What are you doing in Kentucky? [00:04:00] Speaker C: He's, he's visiting. Oh, it's on the. Someone he's visiting someone. He sent me some good photos for Monday's show that we didn't do. But we'll bring him up on the next one. Very cool photos. Neil Leach. Good morning. Sorry about the theme song. It does, it gets stuck in your head. It's kind of, it was a gag. But it's becoming, might be becoming a real theme song. We'll see. Stuart Lyle. Good morning. Nick Fletcher. Good morning. Hello boys. Rodney Nicholson. Morning, fellows. Okay. [00:04:29] Speaker A: G', day, Rodney. Great to have you as always. Let's talk, let's, let's talk about the mentoring opportunity that you've got going at the moment. So this is one of the services you offer. You've obviously you've been doing this photography, landscape photography for about 10 years, am I right? [00:04:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I think I first picked up a camera when I was probably late 2013, early 2014. So yeah, a bit over 10 years now. [00:04:53] Speaker A: A bit over 10 years. And you've obviously built up quite well. And we'll get to your work in a moment. Tell Us. What led to you wanting to become a mentor for people? [00:05:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean it kind of felt just like a very natural flow on. So I've been doing workshops for a few years now which are awesome. I love, you know, I loved running them and showing a group of people around and getting onto into the field. Like it's an amazing way for me to still get into the field and you know, take a, you know, a group of people and have them see their, you know, these places, you know, for the first time through their eyes and all of that kind of thing. And then sometimes they're like, you get clients that they want more to sort of learn about from you and spent maybe a bit longer time and don't necessarily need all of that fill time. And so it just was a bit of a natural flow on from that where. Yeah having people that want to be like spend a bit more time with you. Because obviously a workshop you've got, you're limited to what anything from four to seven days is typically the duration that I'm running. And then like you can I offer sort of follow up, sort of editing sessions and stuff. But aside from that, that's kind of your time done until you book the next one. Whereas a mentoring session, it's. Yeah, it's not getting into the field but it gives you the sort of. Yeah. The long term sort of application to be able to really challenge yourself and yeah. Try and really grow as a photographer over the space of a year rather than the space of a week which is really like intensive and intentional and it means we can really deep dive into maybe personal things that this person is hoping to get out of. So it can be totally customizable compared to you know, running a group environment where you're sort of mostly tailoring it to a few other people as well at the same time. So yeah, just a really personal one to one long term experience which I think is really powerful for long term growth for sure. [00:06:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I'd have to agree. [00:06:54] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:06:55] Speaker A: It's like because. [00:06:56] Speaker C: And imagine say for landscapes for example, like imagine doing that, doing a year and then also if you can, if you can get on a workshop with yourself once a year or something like that as well get into the field. But you've had that like you really know each other, how everything works and then you can, you'll get even more out of the workshop as well. It's actually it's. I'm surprised it's not a more common structure in the, in the photography world to have. Yeah. Whether it's monthly these days especially. [00:07:23] Speaker A: I mean, I know we've had, we've had guests that have, you know, been doing this sort of gig for 50 years and some of them have mentioned about having mentors and I think it's a really. Irrespective of what the agreement is, I think it's a very selfless thing for a photographer to do, to impart their knowledge on others. You know, obviously you do workshops and that's, that's one delivery method. But I think a one on one mentoring program is really great for someone who needs to build their confidence, have someone to fall back on, say, hey, I went and did this but it didn't work. Can you help me unravel that and work out what went wrong? Yeah, I think there's a lot to, lot to be said for it. Have you ever thought of doing it, Justin? [00:08:00] Speaker C: Offering mentoring or is that why Jim works? No, no, I want to find a mentor. I don't think I'm, I'm not really at the offering mentoring stage. I would maybe do it. [00:08:12] Speaker A: No, I think you want to sell. [00:08:13] Speaker C: Yourself a bit of business, maybe for the business side of things. Potentially more so than photography technique, but. [00:08:22] Speaker A: So you heard it here first, folks. If you're looking for a mentor on how to run a photography business, Justin has just put his hand up. [00:08:29] Speaker C: Sure. [00:08:29] Speaker B: Hey, I'll book you in. Justin. [00:08:33] Speaker C: Maybe we can do a trade because I am ghastly at landscape photography. I don't know what it is, but I. It just doesn't. [00:08:40] Speaker A: Well, you've got a Canon open for me. [00:08:42] Speaker C: I don't know. Yeah, maybe it is. Maybe it's because it's. [00:08:44] Speaker B: Yeah, go get yourself a nick on and then we'll talk. Exactly. [00:08:47] Speaker C: I mean. [00:08:47] Speaker A: CHEERING at this stage, a lot of. [00:08:50] Speaker C: Landscape photographers do seem to be. I mean a lot are on Sony but a lot of them do seem to be on Nikon. [00:08:54] Speaker B: So they know where it's at. [00:08:57] Speaker C: Yeah, they know where it's at. They know. We'll. We'll dig into your camera gear later. Yeah. So Jim's in the chat, he's like, yeah, Nick on. He loves it, so he should have been on. Jim's busy this morning, unfortunately, because he dropped me off at my house at 11, 11pm last night and then still had to go home to his house and unpack and everything. And now he's probably busy sorting out lucky straps orders for everybody, so, you know, there's that. [00:09:22] Speaker A: Love you for that, Jim. Thanks for taking one for the team. Oh, we just sort of Sit around and talk all day. Yeah. [00:09:29] Speaker C: So mentoring you, your mentoring. What we were talking about before the show is what the potentially the best one year end photographer that anyone's ever seen. Lisa Leach. [00:09:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So Lisa, she's done a few workshops with me now and yeah we got chatting during a Kiama workshop that was running back in June and she was keen for something like this. And yeah, this is her progress over the last year has been amazing. Like she came on first one with me was a Tarkine one in November last year which I ran with Paul Holland and we were both very surprised at that point had been only six months and we were like oh man, like you've skipped the like intense clarity slider stage and you've done the, you know, the whole garage editing completely bypassed that. And yeah, very, very quickly and intentionally thinking you know a lot about her compositions and all the. All of that kind of thing. So. And picked up technique especially quite quickly too well in camera stuff. So yeah, no, it's been really cool to see her progress especially over the course of a few workshops. And now this program that I'm running with, it's just. Yeah what we're able to do now is dig a lot into like the mindset stuff and you know, intentionality. You know we like a lot of what I'm talking about with her and all my workshops in general is like. Is intention and you know, you can have a bad messy photo and a really good messy photo like or chaotic photo. I would say most of the time it comes down to good intention plus good execution and having that sort of understanding of what you want to do and then honing and finding fine tuning that in the field and in post processing is such a big part of coming away with really good work and having the a. The confidence to try that and the patience to know that it's okay to take a bad photo as well. I was saying my mentoring session with it just a couple of days ago that creativity is kind of like failing upwards. Like if you're not taking bad photos it generally means you're not really. You're kind of falling into. Onto crutches rather than being creative. It means you're not necessarily trying new things. So if you're taking bad photos that's a good thing. Means you're challenging yourself. You're trying to find new ways of interpreting whatever you're photographing. And so. And you know, I think there are lots of people out there that put a lot of pressure on every frame that they come away with to be brilliant and it's just not how it works. [00:12:07] Speaker A: Yep. [00:12:08] Speaker B: So, yeah, that's, that's been a cool. Sort of like you can sort of touch on that stuff on a workshop. But again, diving into this sort of, you know, every month we're spending a few hours together on a, you know, focusing on a different theme and all of that kind of thing. Working on a long term project. It's just been really good to, yeah. Sort of break through some of those barriers. [00:12:28] Speaker C: So, yeah, you know, it'd be very cool. What, just live streaming those mentoring sessions so that we can all learn. Go on, go on, Lisa. Just let it, let it just go out into the world. [00:12:40] Speaker A: Imagine why do you steal her moment and make it about you? [00:12:44] Speaker C: No, I want to hear and learn from the. I just want to steal the information into my brain. [00:12:50] Speaker A: I'll take, I'll take you under my wing. All right. [00:12:53] Speaker C: Don't hassle my photography. What do you want to talk about? I want to find out how did you, when did that in your journey? How did those ideas evolve and become part of your photographic process? Do you remember when you started trying to be more intentional or push yourself more creatively to make images that maybe aren't, you know, that the perfect shot instantly, but they take you to the next level by failing upwards? [00:13:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I think for me, I mean my mindset with it all has like, has always really been very intentional. And I think part of that is like I, I draw a lot from like inspiration. Like it's something I'm very, very open about is I love the work of other photographers. You know, there are people that photo, that practice sort of photographic celibacy where they deliberately don't engage with other people's work so that they're only producing their own voice and stuff. I'm. I wouldn't say I'm the opposite of that, but I just, I love absorbing a huge, huge range of work and that really inspires me to shoot. Which is probably part of why my style is quite diverse in terms of like. Yeah, everything from the grand through to intimate abstract stuff. And so I think when I was learning how to shoot, because I was a teenager at the time and I couldn't afford to go on workshops or anything like that, the best I could do was look at other people's work and go like, all right, how did they do that? What have they employed here compositionally? What have they employed post processing wise? You know, I've used this sort of lens of they, you know, whatever it was. And so A lot of my sort of teaching, my sort of trying to educate myself years was, yeah, really drawing on other people's work, figuring out how they might have done it. And then it kind of helped me to break through those barriers myself. And because I was just obsessed with it. I'm one of. One of those people that I'm, like, obsessed with it, with this kind of thing. I love it. And so even though. Yeah. And so even when, like, I photo maybe didn't necessarily work out, it just kind of motivated me to keep giving it a crack rather than getting bummed out, so to speak. And I don't think there was anything to take credit for. That was just how it just happened to work out for me because I just. I liked it. I had no motivation to, you know, make it, like, financial at the time because, again, I was in, like, high school. I was in, like, year 10. [00:15:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:23] Speaker B: When I was at that, at this stage. And so it was just purely a enjoyment of it sort of motivation. And so I think that really helped. And, you know, Instagram was only sort of had been big for a few years, and I wasn't trying to compete with other people or whatever. I was just trying to grow myself. And so, yeah, I think it kind of just depends on your relationship with it. And some people start with the wrong relationship with it, realize that, and then are able to grow past that. I think that's really great because Instagram and social media can have some poor influences on how we approach creating art, especially when everything's so algorithm driven. And. [00:16:08] Speaker A: And I think there's also that, you know, it's a false economy in a way that, you know, all people put up on socials is their best shots for the most part, you know, and so we feel like sometimes we feel like it's this unattainable. [00:16:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:22] Speaker A: Level of skills. Like, oh, they're so good. Like, every shot they have is just amazing. It's like. Yeah, but for every one of those good shots, there's 150 ones. [00:16:30] Speaker C: Imagine if your Instagram feed was literally every shot you've taken on your camera, you know, like. Like your Lightroom catalog. Imagine if that was just live, first. [00:16:41] Speaker B: Of all, there'd be about 200, 000 photos on my profiles. [00:16:47] Speaker A: I think we would crash Instagram, to be fair. [00:16:50] Speaker B: Yeah. But, yeah, there's. I don't know if, you know, many, like, American landscape photographers, but Alex Noriega, who's a American landscape photographer, one of my inspirations as well. And he. He's said before, I think probably just being a bit self deprecating but also probably true to a degree is that how important, how important curation is and that yeah, he says like if, if he was less careful with curation people would think he was a much worse photographer. Which I find hard to believe because I think he's incredible. But you know, being selective with what you put out there and what you publish is like just as important. Like just when it, as when it comes to you know, composing an actual photo, what you don't include is just as important as what you do include. And then that exact same process applies to then curation and publishing. So it's all of photography is being selective about what you show and what you don't show. And that's. Yeah both, both your composition and what you actually put out to the world. [00:17:49] Speaker C: It's interesting. I've heard both of those ideas but I've never had. Yeah, no one's ever sort of said that it's essentially the same thought process. But I've heard people talk about what you include in the frame and not. And then also people talk about, you know, pulling together a set of images or curating it, you know, a show to go in a gallery or something like that and how important it is. But yeah, it's, it is, it's the same thing just in a different, a different level or a different part of the, the production process I guess. What's he going to ask about? So Alex Noriega, is there any other major influences that come to mind from the early part when you were learning like high school years? Like were you doing, were you just trying to reverse engineer what you were seeing from people's final images? Or were you, were you jumping, was YouTube at that stage? Were people doing the like, you know, come with me and I'll show you how I'm shooting this landscape scene and things like that or creating sort of stuff. Did you ever go on Creative Live, the website with the big video courses and things like that? [00:18:55] Speaker B: So I did get some. My editing tutorials. That's those what I did sort of invest like what I could afford and what I bought some of. And that I think helped a bit. Yeah, def. Definitely helped with my post processing and kind of getting those advanced techniques and helping me sort of get through any barriers I might have with editing to achieve what I wanted to achieve. I don't think YouTube was really at the stage where people were doing much of the sort of come with me behind the scenes. This is like yeah, between 2014 and 2018, I think, 2019 at the latest. And from there, 2019 was my first year out of school. And from at that point I was kind of knew what I wanted to do and was going for it, just myself. But sort of, yeah, 2015 to 2018 were those sort of main formative years and there wasn't much of that behind the scenes stuff. [00:19:45] Speaker A: I think a lot of that behind the scenes point of view stuff came about as a result of COVID like, people were looking to be creative within the, you know, the confines of lockdowns and travel restrictions and. And so, you know, people were starting to be a bit more creative about. Oh, let me just talk to you about this stuff. And yeah, and then here's the. [00:20:02] Speaker B: And it was also a nice, like, immersive way for people to feel like they were still getting out into nature kind of. [00:20:06] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:20:08] Speaker B: It's like, oh, this person's getting out there. I can kind of imagine being there with them, that kind of thing. [00:20:12] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, definitely. [00:20:13] Speaker B: But, yeah, so, yeah, the editing tutorials is probably about the most sort of like, understanding how these guys were maybe, you know, putting things together. And so earlier influences, I mean, when I was like, yeah, at that sort of 28, 16, 2017, 18 stage, I. I wasn't really shooting much of the details. I loved just the grand landscape stuff and a bit more of like the heavier processed stuff. So Ted Gore was a big one in the early days. He doesn't really practice anymore. He's another American photographer. He sort of blended landscape photography with a tiny bit of, like, digital art, but really tastefully, like, he'd do some creative processing and with coloring and a little bit of, you know, putting in clouds and all of that kind of stuff, but in quite a. Not just a drop in the sky by default kind of way. Like, he was really quite creative with his application of, you know, perspective blending and shifting the light to what was there in real life and all that kind of stuff, which did mean that my earlier sort of stuff was definitely more heavier process than it is now. These days I'm, you know, kind of aiming to have it pretty perfect in camera and, you know, showing what I saw. And. But I think that that stuff was just. I still love that work and, you know, I don't deride heavier process landscapes at all. I think it's just a different way. As long as you're not deceitful about it and trying to tell people that this is what I actually saw. When you didn't see this lightning bolt perfectly hitting this tree or Whatever it was, and that was dropped in a Photoshop then, you know, that kind of thing. As long as it's like people understanding it's an artistic, yeah, slightly fantastical interpretation of nature. I have no, I think Enrico Fati over in Italy. I think he's brilliant. He does really creative, fantastical processing as well and I think is very authentic from him. But then I really love very natural, hardly processed stuff too. And I'm kind of in the middle of those two at the moment. So. Yeah, Ted Gore for like the wide angle stuff. TJ Thorne is another American photographer. He was much more my early influence for getting into like the intimates and abstracts. I think he's, he's still one of my favorite photographers. I think he's absolutely brilliant and he's one of those people that is always just kind of that step ahead in terms of being out of the box. Like he started playing with street photography and cityscapes in the last couple of years, which is a total, total left of field for him. But he did it brilliantly and yeah, just really creative interpretations of nature. And yeah, it was a big influence for me playing around with, you know, oh, how can I make cool looking photos in the middle of the day with harsh sunlight in the forest or in the stream or in that kind of thing? Like. Yep. So yeah, those, those are the two early ones. But I could list a hundred of people that like, you know, my Instagram, I, I still love, you know, some people deride Instagram these days because it is very algorithm driven. But I, I really like my Instagram experience because it's just full of photographers who really inspire me. So same. [00:23:22] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Every now and then I have to retrain Instagram because I'll, it'll somehow get stuck on American politics and I'm like. [00:23:28] Speaker B: No, no, no, no, no, no. [00:23:30] Speaker C: You know, bring it back to the cats. [00:23:32] Speaker A: Bring it back. Yeah, please. [00:23:33] Speaker B: That's usually when I delete it for a week and then later. [00:23:37] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Oh, well, I saw one of our friends of the show who's been on Pete, Pete Mellows. He's recently decided to get out of the Instagram game because he's just, he just doesn't want his images contributing to something he doesn't agree with, which is obviously AI image harvesting, which is a fair call, you know. You know, when we all started Instagram, you know, that wasn't a thing. I'm sure it was happening at some. Not at all, you know, but all of a sudden here we are, we've all you know, we've all been sort of baked into this software and now all of a sudden they're sort of flipping the game, which is. Which is incredibly disappointing. [00:24:15] Speaker C: There was always talk about, you know, Facebook's terms and conditions early on where they, like, you know, you do realize anything you upload they technically have the right to use or whatever. And we're all like, well, that's. As a photographer. But we couldn't really. We didn't know what they were going to do with that. Yeah, it's like, yeah. And then now we know. [00:24:38] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think at the time, you know, it was all web resolution, so we're like, oh, there's not much they could do with it anyway. Whereas now it's a bit more insidious, isn't it? So. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:24:51] Speaker C: I might. If you've got another direction we're going to head, Greg, I might quickly just pull up a comment or two. [00:24:57] Speaker A: Yeah, go for it, man. [00:24:58] Speaker C: I just. I like this one. Bruce Moyle says. Morning, all. Hey, Bruce Moyle. Listening while walking to a job, already enjoying Ben's pov. And I think that was back when you were talking about failing upwards and that kind of stuff. And I. Yeah, I think that would resonate pretty heavily with Bruce. Being creative, pushing yourself. It doesn't matter if it doesn't work, you're gonna. [00:25:18] Speaker B: Bruce is awesome. Bruce's work is. Yeah. I think Lisa actually showed me Bruce's work. I wasn't familiar with it before and then I had a look, I was like, oh, man, these are some of the coolest portraits I've ever seen in my life. These amazing. Yeah, so, yeah, no, thanks for dropping in, Bruce. [00:25:33] Speaker A: Yeah, we spent a huge amount of time with Bruce over the weekend at bfop because he was an instructor and he was, you know, he was hanging out with us. [00:25:40] Speaker B: That bit. [00:25:40] Speaker A: He appeared on the morning show and he gifted Justin and I each a print. A beautiful. Yeah, so. And my partner Sash picked up a frame for me yesterday. So that's part of today's to do list, is to frame Bruce's art. Thank you, Bruce, once again. I know I cried on your shoulder when you gave it to me, but, yeah, really touched, mate. Very, very touched. Can we roll back the clock a little bit now? I've done a little bit of reading about you and in the early days, you were also a bit of an artist. You were a drawer and a painter. Tell us about that for you. Was that something that was inherent for you or did you have family and friends? Who are artists that inspired you? What led you down that sort of artsy path? [00:26:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean my family isn't like particularly arty. Like I don't have you know, a mum that works in graphic design or a dad that's like a professional musician or anything. I think. Yeah, I just like from when I was a little kid they, I mean they just got us like you know, when you're, you know, early 2000s growing up and like there wasn't iPads and stuff at that point. They still were giving you nice creative things to do. Yeah. So yeah, out on the sort of back patio where I had a little, you know, table and they just give us, you know, paper and cheap paint to have fun with and Yeah, I think I was probably honestly the, the first start of it. So I just, I like ever since I was like a toddler and could barely speak, I was just loving making like art. Like I say like painting and drawing and you know, in my spare time, you know. And then when I got older and were allowed one hour of, or half an hour of screen time on Saturdays or whatever, I would use that to like watch videos on how to draw cartoons and then go back and draw it from memory like that while my siblings were playing like, I don't know, Snake or whatever it was. And so, yeah, and so like that, that kind of thing is just. I loved it like right from the get go. Yeah, I don't know where that came from but I think it's just, just who I am is I love to. [00:27:52] Speaker A: Create art and so the transition from, from drawing and painting to, to photography, I'm really keen to understand that step. You. Because I used to be an artist. I, I went to art school, I studied industrial design. I did a folio prep year at an art school but I also studied photography at that art school and that, that started to lean more to that. How did that go for you? [00:28:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I think so. I kept drawing and painting through high school. So I did it for my like my visual arts HSC in New South Wales. So I, you know, I did some large scale oil painting and charcoal and all that kind of stuff. So I did mixed media for that kind of thing. But I think it was 20, like. Yeah, I think it was probably 13. My dad had like an old, I think it was a nick on. What was it? D70. It's like a six megapixel. [00:28:47] Speaker A: I like how you say that's old. [00:28:49] Speaker B: Yeah, people show up on this show. [00:28:51] Speaker A: With 100 year old camera. [00:28:52] Speaker C: Greg. [00:28:53] Speaker B: Well, I guess for digital. For digital. It's very old. It's, yeah, literally six megapixels. Yay. Yeah, true. So it was like. Yeah, he just had that as like a family, like, camera and I picked that up and started taking photos of like the dog in the backyard. And yeah, we, for a few years when I was in high school, we'd sort of go into the city close to the Christmas time and take photos of the big tree or they just go visit the big sort of decorated tree and stuff. And I took the camera in and I just like very, very quickly clicked with it. I really, really liked playing with the camera and taking photos and we'd go on any sort of outing as a family and I'd take it with me. And so, yeah, it just kind of very soon became something I really enjoyed doing. And then we, we'd go on like a holiday. So I think 2014, I like, got my own camera, so split it with my parents, which is a D5200, which I used up until sort of 2019. [00:29:54] Speaker C: What lenses did you get with that bad boy? [00:29:57] Speaker B: Like at first, the classic kind of kit lenses and then the, the Takina 11 to 16. [00:30:04] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:30:04] Speaker B: There was my, my first wide angle, which is like the classic kind of budget, you know, 350 kind of crop sensor, wide angle lens. Yeah. So that was my point, I think 2015, I got that and that was a whole new sort of world for me, which was awesome to play with because so much of the photography I was sort of looking at was. Yeah. Was like wide angle stuff. So I was like, I gotta get a wide angle lens. [00:30:31] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Whereas the kits were, the kits were like 18 to 55 or whatever. [00:30:35] Speaker B: US usually that. [00:30:36] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:30:36] Speaker B: And then like if it's 5, 200. [00:30:37] Speaker C: So you're essentially getting 24ish mil, you and you're probably seeing other people's work and you're like, I can't get that. [00:30:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I was saying these American guys and stuff shooting at 14 mil. And I was like, oh, man, how do I do that? [00:30:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:50] Speaker B: So thank you. Yeah. So I got that for like, as a family holiday to, I think like Fraser island is when I first had that camera. And then 2015 we visited Tassie in the autumn. Sorry. Yeah. The sort of April holidays. And then New Zealand in the September holidays, which is my first ever overseas trip and first time, like seeing proper mountains like that. [00:31:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:15] Speaker B: And I just got my wide angle lens and I was like, yeah, now this is, this is what I want to do. [00:31:20] Speaker A: It's very cool when, you know, when you start photography, we've all started with a kit lens of some sort at some stage. And once you get your first kind of outside of that 18 to 55, 55 to 200, like if you, if you know, when you get your first wide angle lens, it's like, oh my God, there's so much more to see. You know, like, it really. It literally opens your eye to a much broader opportunity to capture content and fill your frame. To quote Andrew Chapman. And the same with telephoto lenses. You know, you drop it, you Drop your first 400 on your camera and you know, and you're just blown away by. But just that, that experience, you know all about the experience. [00:31:59] Speaker B: And then it's like you got to then realize that it's a totally different approach. Like if you're. If you're on the, you know, a 16 millimeter composition, you've got to get a lot closer to your subject matter than you do if, you know, with a 50 mil composition and all that kind of thing. So it's just. Yeah, that learning experience of how to work with different focal lengths. [00:32:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:17] Speaker B: But I mean, like I, I use that, that kit for probably five years and like I have one of my most well known photos I've ever taken and which won a few awards was on that kit, which is like, what. Plus, including my tripod, probably cost about 800 bucks total. [00:32:36] Speaker C: Which photo was that? Let's. Let's pull it up. Let's. Which. Yeah, I can do it. [00:32:41] Speaker A: While you do that, I'll just bring up this comment from Paul. Throwing to 16 to 35 Alam I cannon for 450d for the first time was an absolute revelation. You said it far better than I did. Thanks, mate. [00:32:56] Speaker C: Can I. Yeah. Is there a quick way for me to get to it on your website or. [00:32:59] Speaker B: Yeah, so if you go to. It should be probably in the mountains category. So if you go to my gallery and browse by theme, it's an image called Mutant. [00:33:09] Speaker C: I was gonna say. I think I know which one you're. [00:33:10] Speaker B: Gonna say, but yeah, it's like a cave with a lightning bolt. [00:33:15] Speaker C: It's insane. [00:33:17] Speaker A: I know. I don't have that one. I don't think. [00:33:23] Speaker C: Got it. [00:33:23] Speaker A: Yep. [00:33:25] Speaker C: Have a look at that. That is. [00:33:30] Speaker B: Yeah, that was. [00:33:31] Speaker C: This was when. What year was this? [00:33:34] Speaker B: This was like January 2019. So I was 18 at the time. [00:33:38] Speaker C: Wow. [00:33:39] Speaker A: Shut up. Stop showing off. [00:33:41] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:33:42] Speaker A: Ridiculous. [00:33:44] Speaker C: It looks like a movie. Yeah, that's. That's been made with cgi. Or something like, it just looks. It looks like a spaceship would fly through this scene, you know? Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful. [00:33:59] Speaker B: It was a pretty mental experience. It's a good story actually, if you wanted me to tell that. [00:34:05] Speaker A: Please. [00:34:05] Speaker C: Yes, please. [00:34:06] Speaker B: So, yeah, so my. So my grandparents actually live in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, which I think is another part of me enjoying like nature and landscape stuff is before I got the camera we were bush walking with them and all of that kind of thing. And so I'd finished my HSC my like year 12 a few months beforehand. I was loving sort of being able to, you know, get out and shoot whenever I wanted to because I wasn't really working full time at that point and just had a, you know, few savings and stuff. So I saw that there was a bunch of storms, like stormy weather happening up in the Blue Mountains. And I really wanted to get a lightning bolt over the three sisters, which I didn't end up getting on this trip. So I just went up and stayed with them for like four days, which was really, you know, I'm very lucky to have been able to do and that I could still can do if I want to. And so, yeah, I was staying with them and kind of. We noticed that on the bomb there was this big sort of storm that was building out to the west. We could see the cloud on the radar was just really growing out to the west. And I knew that this cave faced west. So I was like, okay, well I wonder if I can frame the storm from the cave. And so went out probably 2:30 in the afternoon sky was already kind of turning black and went down into the cave. You got to kind of climb up a couple of meters to get into it. And I just sat in the cave for a bit watching the storm develop. And I was like, I just told myself very foolishly, I was like, oh, if the storm hits before I can get out, I'll just wait, wait it out in the cave and I'll be sweet. It starts, it really develops. As you can see, the lightning wasn't playing around. It's just, you know, being sent straight down into the valley. It wasn't crawling across the sky or anything. It was very, very aggressive. [00:36:02] Speaker A: That's what eye level. Like it's right at you pretty much. [00:36:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And so, yeah, it just sort of, yeah, turned into this, this monster kind of coming through the valley. And then when it hit, it just. It hit like a freight train and was blowing rain in sideways at me. It was blowing grit from like a sand and Stuff from maybe the cave, maybe from elsewhere that picked it up. And so I just kind of 18 year old me with my camera in like a sling bag, sitting in like a puddle in the cave for like half an hour while this like lightning raged around me and the wind like just absolutely drenched me in the space of like five minutes. It was a pretty terrifying experience. And then there was like this, a slight lull in the rain came through, so I was like, all right, now's my chance to get out. So I like clambered down from the cave, I think I lost a filter case to the wind out into the valley and then sprinted out. And as I'm kind of like running across this exposed, like totally exposed clifftop, I realized as I'm carrying, I'm carrying an aluminium tripod and an umbrella. And so I'm just a walking lightning rod going across this exposed cliff top. And so I just sprint over to my car, chuck my stuff away from me. And as I'm fumbling with the keys, a bolt of lightning hit the cliff top probably 50 meters away from me. Oh, what? Yeah, so that was. I. I was shaking for a few hours after that. Yeah. [00:37:31] Speaker A: So you then stepped into a fully metal car. [00:37:33] Speaker B: Yes. [00:37:34] Speaker A: From the relative safety of a cave. [00:37:36] Speaker B: Yeah. So shot off from there. Yeah, I mean the road was just like, like a, like a bomb had hit the place. Like it was just trees and litter like scattered across the highway. There was SES vehicles sort of racing by. And I found out later as well that being in that cave was very stupid because apparently when lightning strikes a cliff top and there's a cave underneath, the cave almost acts like a spark plug. So I was, I was not in a second. [00:38:05] Speaker A: Doesn't it. So it just passes through. [00:38:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:38:09] Speaker B: So I honestly, I was lucky to come out of that unscathed. But I came away with a pretty cool photo, so I was happy with that. [00:38:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:38:18] Speaker B: So. [00:38:19] Speaker A: And I think, you know, it's interesting listening to people's stories. We, for those of you watching that don't know, we just returned from B flop and we'll cover that in on a Monday night episode. But so many stories that about landscape photographers. Like I spoke with Mika Boynton and Matt Palmer who have the Alpine Light Gallery in Bright, and it made me really understand and appreciate the experience that landscape photographers go through to get these shots that we unfortunately more often than not just flick past in a moment on socials. But that experience, that storytelling like you've just taken us through is so valuable to understand, I think they almost go in partnership with the finished image. You know, that experience that you had to get there, the. You know, the storm and how that impacted you. Because often we say these amazing photos and we think, I wonder how they took that. But realistically, they probably risked a little bit of life and limb to get it. And I love that about landscape, that there's. There's more than just the image always, you know. [00:39:20] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think it also goes like. So this image one, a couple of competitions, and so it's not technically perfect like it was on, you know, like I said, pretty cheap kit. So it's not the sharpest photo I've ever taken, just because of the quality of the lens and all of that kind of thing. But it goes to show that, like, what people connect with is the photo. It's like you can get into the weeds of technique and perfect F. Like, not shooting anything out, like, higher than F11, because otherwise you'll start to get slight lens diffraction or, you know, having slightly blown or clipped highlights or shadows or whatever, which, you know, if you can avoid those things. It's good to strive for a technically good photo, but what's more important is the photo itself. And no one's gonna look at that photo, be like, oh, it's a little soft in that corner. Ben. Not a fan. [00:40:10] Speaker C: No. [00:40:11] Speaker B: You know, like, it's just not what people care about at all. [00:40:14] Speaker A: Well, people online who say that, but it's just not worth listening to that noise, is it? [00:40:19] Speaker B: No. [00:40:19] Speaker A: No. [00:40:20] Speaker C: You know, and yeah, it's always. It's interesting, too, because obviously when you. When you're a professional photographer, you often the edge of. Of trying to get the most out of your gear, and you want the best gear, and that's totally normal. But it's always fun to look back deeper into someone's career. And it's like the. All of the changes of cameras and camera systems or whatever all just melts away when you look at someone's portfolio and you're like, you know, this could have been, you know, you could have said, oh, this is back when I shot on Canon or this. You know, this was a whatever. And it's like. But we get to the point where we're worried about whether you're on the Mach 1 or the Mark 2 and which one's got better, slightly more shadow detail or something like that. But you look back through images like this. It doesn't matter what camera it was shot on. Yeah, you would have got this shot on any camera. Yeah, it's always interesting going deep into someone's iconic photos. [00:41:19] Speaker A: I do that sometimes in lightroom. You know how you can choose which camera you shot something on and you go right back to some of your early cameras and look at your catalog and it's. Yeah, it's quite amazing. It's just interesting to reflect sometimes I think. Speak of the devil. Matt Palmer from Alpine Light and Bright. Well said, Ben. [00:41:38] Speaker B: Hey Matt, what's up? [00:41:42] Speaker C: Yeah, and, and we had this up before. But David Skinner says what is so well done is just the right amount of detail in the cave as we look out to the magic. And I think that's, that's really important too because if you, if the cave was dark, obviously, you know, if you went for just a sort of a single exposure look, maybe the cave would be, would be pretty dark and it would still be a really cool photo. But being able to see some of the texture in there but without it being too pushed and starting to look, you know, HDR ish. I think the balance is, is perfect. [00:42:13] Speaker B: That's a big part of what I like with like, with Loki style dramatic landscapes is like dark but detailed. [00:42:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:42:21] Speaker B: And which I think that's a big part of the American influence of. They like, they love that sort of, you know, at least, you know, that sort of phase. This is very sort of, you know, Ted Gore, Ryan Dyer type photo influence. Is that sort of the details there, but it's not in your face. Yeah. [00:42:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:42:39] Speaker B: For a low key dramatic landscape. [00:42:41] Speaker A: Well, the thing when I see this image is that it draws my eye straight to the center of the frame and then you kind of pull back a bit and then you start to see the detail of the, of the surrounding cave. But the cave, like even some of the, the line, some of the directional kind of indicators of the cave push you back out to the storm, you know, it's, it's a really very well composed shot, I must say. Well done. [00:43:03] Speaker B: Thank you, man. [00:43:04] Speaker C: You keep searching for more in the, in the picture. [00:43:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:07] Speaker C: You keep getting drawn around into different elements and stuff like that. It is, it's really beautiful how much post processing work is involved in an image like this. So how much time and what do you have to do for something This. [00:43:22] Speaker B: I guess. Yeah. So I think this was like slightly in my more like slightly heavier editing phase. So it's a little bit more glowy, I think than I would take it today. You know, I think there was a little bit more color shifting with like that sort of orange bit on the left. There was some warm tones there. But I think I put push that a little bit. There's a little bit of dodging to sort of bring out a touch of the. Some of the shape in the clouds and in like sort of emphasize that texture that was there again, all there, but sort of brought out a little bit more with post processing. A bit of targeted light clarity and dehaze and that kind of thing on the clouds again, to bring out their shape and textures. Some targeted vignetting as well, to make sure that the cave was all quite uniform in darkness. Whereas I think realistically the floor would have been a fair bit brighter than the roof of it. So, like, things like that balancing it out so that there wasn't. That the cave didn't feel like a distraction, things like that, so that the. Yeah, there's no points of luminosity that were distracting because the cave otherwise acts like a very natural vignette into the. Into the image and so helping it be that with the processing as well. [00:44:36] Speaker A: And I think it's fascinating because you're right, it does act like a bit of a vignette because the frame is so organic and irregular. You know, that in itself draws you around it, you know, tracing the. The very fine edge of the cave as you look at the image. It's. Yeah, it's very masterful, I must say. [00:44:51] Speaker C: The top right corner, it's. It's. It's. I always end up back up there. That little. That little extra cut out, that little cutaway. Yeah. Anyway. Podcast. [00:45:02] Speaker A: I know. So, Ben, what came next for you? So you, you know, you finished vce. You clearly got realized that you've got an eye for photography, you've got the bug. What came next? [00:45:17] Speaker B: Yeah, so. So 2019, first year out of school that, like, just. I went to town that year just, you know, if I had $50 to my name, I was spending $30 on petrol so I could go down to Kiama and catch the sunrise, you know, that kind of thing. I just loved it, so. And because again, when I was in high school, I could kind of knew of all these places that I wanted to get to, but didn't really have the means to do it. I was kind of restricted to, you know, being taken out by the family or whatever. And so I just really went to town, did heaps of. And heaps of shooting and, yeah, just really honed myself in. And I think probably halfway through 2019, early or maybe I think it was. I think it was a visit to Bermagui in, like, April. It's like, you Know Camel Rock and Horsehead Rock and all that kind of thing with another Aussie photographer who was a mate. Haven't seen him in a while because he moved overseas. Guy called Jacob Lewis. He, he'd done some workshops with some, a couple of people, one of which was Eric Bennett, who's another international photographer. And he loved that, like, loves that sort of intimate, abstract stuff and shooting with him, he was doing a bit of that stuff. And so I was like, I started to play around with that kind of thing too. So kind of halfway through 2019, I was playing around with not just the wide angle, grand, grand scene kind of thing, but more of the textures and patterns and all of that as well. [00:46:40] Speaker A: Yep. [00:46:42] Speaker B: And then I think it was October, I went down to Tazzy with Luke Sharkey and that was an awesome trip. You know, Luke's a great guy and we had a, had an awesome time. He was gracious to show me around for about eight days, I think, and to a couple of his favorite haunts. And yeah, we covered a lot of ground and got some really special conditions as well. So my first trip to Tassie, actually I forgot to mention this. In 2018 for my HSC, I went down to Tassie with my dad and we went and hiked up into the mountains at the back end of the overland track. And that was my first like kind of overnight or multi day hiking experience in Tassie, taking photos. And I think that really sparked the love of both of those things, the Tasmania and the real wilderness stuff. Just getting to see, you know, what you could photograph when you go into that extra effort to get into the backcountry. I was like, oh, this is, this is great. So yeah, that was a big part of, for school. [00:47:46] Speaker C: That was like part of like one. A project that you wanted to do. [00:47:50] Speaker B: Yeah, well, so I was doing my visual arts, visual arts for one of my subjects for the HSC and I wanted to do like a landscape photography slash painting slash drawing project. And so my dad kind of did like a fun trip with all of us when we were in our 12th year and that was ours, so it could help me sort of do that. And so yeah, going down to Tassie for that sort of experience was really, I think, quite a big shaping thing for me as well. And I think it's a big reason why I love, I love hiking and you know, multi day camping and getting into the wilderness and photographing it. [00:48:27] Speaker A: I want to ask you about that because you, you mentioned, I'm not sure if it was on your website or in the article that you wrote for the photography magazine. But you talked about that intentional mindfulness of when you arrive at a place, you don't rush to get the tripod and the camera out and you, you just sort of take a wander and not worry about the gear and explore the scene and almost forest bathe for a little bit just to get your head in the game. And you know, Levin Barrett, who goes under the banner of rear view photography, he, he talked about a similar thing. When they, they would fly into, on one of his workshops in New Zealand, they'd land on a glacier and they'd all get out of the plane and pull out all their gear and then he would get them, he would do it the other way. They would get the shot out of the way because, or the shoot because they were so excited. But then he would encourage everyone just to put your cameras away and just sit. [00:49:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:49:18] Speaker A: And just, just actually reflect on how amazing it is that you're sitting on top of a glacier in the middle of New Zealand at all. You know, it's that whole. What is that like for you? What, what, what, what compels you, I guess, to, to not think about the gear until you've sort of settled in and absorbed your scene a little bit. Can you tell us about that? [00:49:38] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean I'm also not necessarily, I'm sometimes pretty quick to bring it out as well. Like if I see something that I. [00:49:46] Speaker A: Want to show you. [00:49:48] Speaker B: But yeah, I think, I think connection to the landscape is so important as well. Like if you're actually going to shoot something you should be connecting with. All right, this is, I actually resonate with this and I think hiking is like a really good way to do that. Like to force you to do that because you know you're not going to be bringing out your camera every two seconds when you've got 12Ks of uphill hiking to do with a 20 kilo pack on your back. So you kind of, I mean you're suffering a bit while you're doing it, but you're also like just forced to, like as you walk, you're looking around. Like I, I try to be quite intentional when I'm, you know, when I have the physical capacity to do so, to not do anything but just look at my feet and trudge along is to look around and just really absorb these elements that I'm going past and walking through and around and what's happening in the distance. And you know, you do that for half a day or whatever, several hours. You're going to generate some ideas of what. What you resonate with, what is happening in the landscape, what you connect with and what you want to shoot. And so, yeah, and I think when you first get to a low, like if you get to a location for the first time ever, like, you're not familiar with it. I think you really got to have. You got to do the groundwork. For me, when I'm like, visiting a location for the first time and I'm. Especially if I'm like, if it's a vast area and I really want to get a grand landscape sort of air shot from it, I will do a lot of scouting. I'll like, I'll be walking all around the place and trying to find unique foregrounds, unique perspectives, unique ways to interpret the scene, especially in a way that hopefully other people haven't done before. And I mean, that's quite intentional for me. That's like, with the goal of coming away with a photo, but it's also. I'm absorbing the landscape at the same time. I'm kind of. That's a lot of what I might do, a lot of incidental, like, intimate and abstract shooting is while I'm scouting for my grand scene. [00:51:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:51:48] Speaker B: Or hiking in even is. I might notice these little scenes along the way and pull out my. My mid range of my long lens and snap that and then keep on scouting. [00:51:56] Speaker A: Yep. [00:51:57] Speaker B: And so that's kind of that. That scouting process is a lot of how I. Yeah. Then resonate and connect with the landscape and I figure out what I, you know, what I enjoy and, you know, just bringing out the phone and being like, all right, well, what does this look like with my. Just if I go to my 0.5 zoom, will this actually look good in camera? Is it one of those things just doesn't translate and it's just good. [00:52:18] Speaker A: It's a better way to do it. Yeah. [00:52:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Because it's so much more like. Like the phone's just so much more freeing than like, my tripod's a big, heavy. Like, it's as tall as me, and I'm about 6 foot 5. And so it's like, it's holy with shoes on. [00:52:34] Speaker A: It's as tall as. [00:52:35] Speaker C: You don't look very tall on this screen. Yeah. [00:52:39] Speaker A: Actually there's a. There's a photo from the weekend of Lisa up on a. I think when she went and did one of the landscape workshops up on the mountains around Bright. There's a photo of her holding a tripod. And the tripod is no I mean Lisa is, you know, she's, she's compact but the tripod like stuck, you know, stuck up above her head by about a foot. I thought, how are you going to take a photo with that? Yeah, step by the two. Lisa. Sorry. You know, I love you. I'm just having a bit of fun. [00:53:08] Speaker B: So, yeah, it's just like bringing out the tripod first thing is just like so clunky and it just immediately ruins that sort of flow of like finding the shot. So I love to. Whether it's my actual camera or if it's. There she is, there's the actual dimensions. [00:53:25] Speaker C: Five foot. Actual dimensions. Five foot in a smidge. I don't know if that's, I'd like to measure to see how much of a smidge that is. [00:53:36] Speaker A: And then. [00:53:37] Speaker B: Yeah. So whether it's my actual camera or it's my phone, it's. I will be doing that freehand. And just like literally if I, you know, if I find a foreground that I think has potential, I'm then, you know, seeing what it looks like. You know, if I step back two steps or if I go to the right or if I, you know, I'm shooting at 24 versus 16 mil and all of that kind of thing. And then once I've like found that spot, then I'll like hover there and then set up my tripod because I, I like to get the technical sort of perfection that a tripod can provide. You know, if I want to do a two second exposure then I can do that and you know, focus, stack it and exposure blend it. But getting to that point, it's hard to do that with a tripod attached. And so yeah, that sort of free flowing interaction with the landscape I think is really important as an initial step before you get bogged down in the weeds of setting up an image. [00:54:29] Speaker C: Completely different genre. The last couple of days I've been shooting action sports like adventure, Moto Challenge, then the Arrow Valley. But most of the photographers are running around with multiple cameras and, and I've done that plenty of times before in the past shooting events and things like that. But I ended up shooting a ton of the weekend getting up close with my, like my R5 Mark II which is a smaller body than my R3, and a 28 to 70 lens which is a really lightweight 2.8 lens that Canon make. And like it's ditching everything off my body. So this is more like kind of closer to what you're talking about with the phone. I could move so fast around the space to find different compositions and stuff. Even just ditching that second body off me that would normally, like, move around and stuff. And it would. I didn't realize how much it was slowing down, me trying to find different perspectives. And then. Yeah, once I just ditched everything, you could move around the scene, find different angles, and I was getting stuff that. [00:55:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:35] Speaker C: That I think I definitely wouldn't have got if I had. Even though having multiple bodies makes you feel like you've got more options of focal lengths ready to go at any time, but it was giving me less options of variety around the scene. So, yeah, I think it's kind of a similar. Similar thing to say where you put everything aside, grab your phone and just move around as much as possible. [00:55:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:57] Speaker C: Before you start to settle in and hone in on that precision of. Of. Of the shot you get. [00:56:03] Speaker B: Yeah. You'll find like hundreds of photos on my phone that are like a near identical version of an actual final portfolio shot I have on my website, both for intimates and wide angles as well. So my chair is sinking a bit. I'm just gonna put my chair up. I need to replace this chair. But yeah, like, it's. There is. There's. Yeah, like a whole bunch of photos that are like, for both small and wide scenes, you know, thankfully, because you've got the three lenses on the iPhones now as well. And so both the zoom and the wide is good. [00:56:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:37] Speaker B: And so. [00:56:37] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:56:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Having that as like a scouting tool is invaluable for me. [00:56:42] Speaker A: I remember seeing some, we'll say more senior photographers in the past where they've got. I think filmmakers use them and it's like a. An eyepiece with. With a. A particular focal kind of range in it. Yeah, it's that. It's that whole thing. But it's just, you know, let's. Let's be real. We all. We all carry a phone. It's a great composition tool just to, like you said, just to see if the light's there, if the. The composition is going to work the way it is. Neil Leach has just chipped in to say that Lisa is being a bit generous about. [00:57:14] Speaker C: Yeah, so just under five, maybe. [00:57:16] Speaker A: Maybe. Just depends on what shoes she's wearing. Obviously that makes a difference. [00:57:21] Speaker C: So I still want to get. I want to dig through a lot of your images in the show at some point, get you tell us a few stories and stuff. But I also want to talk to you about some trips that you've done, workshops that you've done, favorite locations and that sort of thing. But I think now might be a good time to. Because we've been talking about it, dancing around it. Let's just nerd out on everything that you take on a landscape shoot. Because you mentioned, I've heard you say 20 kilo pack, I've heard you say carry from 14 to 400 miles of focal length options and the world's biggest tripod. Tell us, tell us about everything that, that you take on a shoot. [00:57:57] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:57:59] Speaker C: Details, brands, everything. [00:58:01] Speaker A: The bag as well. You like your pack? [00:58:02] Speaker B: Yeah, one bag. [00:58:03] Speaker C: You pack it all in. I want to hear it all. [00:58:05] Speaker B: Yeah, cool. All right, well, so I'm a Nikon guy. Nikon. I have been since day one. So ever since that D70, I've never left Nikon. So yeah, started with a D70 and then it was the D5200, then it was a D750, then the D810 and now the Z72. And the Z72 is an amazing landscape photography camera. I've said before, and I'll say it again, that if I had to repurchase my whole setup today, you know, bar going to like Hasselblad, I would buy the exact same setup again. [00:58:38] Speaker A: Wow, that's great. [00:58:39] Speaker C: So you don't, you don't. Plus you don't lust for any, anything out of, out of the system. You're like. I'm pretty content with, with. [00:58:47] Speaker B: The only thing that I would like that would be nice is like the 5 axis screen so I can flip it when it's in portrait. Outside that, there's not a thing that I need because most newer cameras, most improvements that they're making are in video or sport shooting capabilities, which I just don't need at all. I don't need more advanced focus options for a completely static landscape. I don't need an extra 5fps for. Per second for. Again, like, for a landscape. I don't need, you know, 8K video because I'm not a YouTuber. Yeah. [00:59:23] Speaker A: I just listen to the shooter. [00:59:27] Speaker C: She's my. [00:59:27] Speaker A: We don't like. [00:59:32] Speaker C: That's true. [00:59:33] Speaker A: Sorry, sorry we interrupted. Ben. [00:59:34] Speaker B: Sorry, sorry. I, I missed it. So, yeah, I, I think the Nikon's awesome. It's got, I think the best greens out of all of the sensors, I think, which is great for my rainforest work that I do. I think so. They have amazing dynamic range on par with Sony, but Sony's color science is a little bit more off and then they're really good. Yeah, I mean they've gotten better. But you look at some of the earlier A7 models and it's, it's, it's pretty whack. [01:00:04] Speaker C: It was a, it was a big thing with weddings we found. Because with weddings it's a little bit different. The, it was all about skin tones obviously. And Canon was always the best with skin tones. [01:00:16] Speaker B: And still is, I think. And still is available. [01:00:18] Speaker C: Yeah. And Nikon had better shadow recovery, like more dynamic range and it did have better greens. It really did. Because I switched from Canon to Nikki Nikon back to Canon again, not for any reasons other than. Well, Canon took too long to update the Canon 5D Mark III. That's actually why we took way too long. So switched to Nikon and then ended up on the beautiful D850. So did you not have a D850? You said you went. [01:00:48] Speaker B: So I had the D810. That's precursor. But I, I never got to experience it. So like again when I, when I got the D810, I, I was only. I was. It was in 2020, so I was a year and a half out of school. I was actually working at George's Cameras and the CBD that year. So I had a one year stint. Oh my God. [01:01:08] Speaker A: Sorry. Segue. Just for a second. Ben, when I was researching you, it came up with all these old emails with your, with your name and email address. It's from when you worked at George's. Because I used to do content for George's. [01:01:21] Speaker C: Oh really? [01:01:22] Speaker A: Content to their website and their blogs. We used to do my, my, back then my, my partner lead pros and I started up a blog writing business and we, we did a bunch of work for George's and we even went up to Sydney to visit them and yeah, small. [01:01:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I might have been there at the same time. So I was mostly working in like stock receiving down the bottom. On the bottom floor. But yeah, so 2020, I was working there and. Which helped me to get a bunch of gear at like at cost price, which is nice as a staff member. So yeah, someone brought in like a really good, like high quality, good condition, like secondhand D810 and like I could, I, I think I was able to get it for like 800 bucks or something like that. And so I was like, oh, this is, you know, I was on the D750 at the time, which was great. Amazing camera. I just wanted a bit of extra resolution. So 36 is funny. [01:02:14] Speaker C: Yeah. Sense to go to that D810. I had it. I had a D810 I used it as a, a second body. It wasn't quite fast enough for wedding work, but it was beautiful for like the bigger shots that we would do on a wedding day, like a big group photo or sunset photo or something like that. It was a beautiful sensor. [01:02:30] Speaker B: Yeah. So great camera. And like you know, it was either spending 800 bucks in like the secondhand one or several grand on the D850. And I was like as obvious choice. I didn't. I was going for already going from 24. So 36 was already a big jump for me. So. And then I used that until I went to the Z72. [01:02:51] Speaker C: Matt yeah says D810 was a great workhorse for many pros. D850 was more of a good thing. And the Z8 is a beast. That gets me to this question. Have you two questions. It's a two parter. Have you played with the Z8 and if so or just based on specs or whatever. In your opinion, why would say a landscape photographer like yourself choose either the Z72 or the Z8 today? [01:03:16] Speaker B: So if I was doing so, I used to shoot weddings for a few years as well. If I was doing anything people related, like anything fast, like sport, wildlife, whatever, I would get the Z8 immediately. Like is it just not. Not even a question. Because again that speed, that autofocus capability, all of that incredible. And definitely a good step above the Z7 too. As someone who's only shooting purely static subjects, that doesn't need the speed, doesn't need the autofocus Z72 because all of the improvements, like all the things that I would actually be using the camera for are identical if not slightly better on the Z7 II. [01:03:56] Speaker C: That's what I was going to say. [01:03:57] Speaker B: So the Z72 is a little bit quality, so image quality. So the Z8 has a stacked sensor. So the dynamic range is actually maybe half a software worse. And it means that the noise performance is just a tiny, tiny bit worse. Again, not noticeable, but it is technically slightly worse than the Z72. Sensor wise it's heavier. So for my hiking and stuff, that's a, that's a. That's not good. It's the same batteries that the Z72 uses, but it's a much more battery intensive camera. So it actually chews through batteries faster as well. So then you've got to carry more batteries with you if you're hiking into the wilderness. It does have the flip the, the five axis tilting screen. So if you're mostly doing car shooting and the, the batteries chewing through isn't a problem and you do a lot of low angle stuff. The Z8 is really great for that. But for, yeah, for what I do like the sensor and the Z72 is like they haven't improved on it and I, I feel like most of them are at that point they're kind of plateauing with, you know, they haven't really breached past 15 stops of dynamic range. You know, Sony has a 61 megapixel sensor, but otherwise 45 has kind of been topped out for a while now, ever since the D850. And so I like their, their color science is great for what I do. I do just sometimes have to do a little bit of shifting yellows and oranges slightly more towards red because, because it handles greens really well then sometimes means those warmer tones a tiny bit too green for my liking. So it's a slight compromise that I play with. But yeah, like it's just everything that I need it to be has not been improved on on since it came out and so I, I would very gladly do it again. And it's such good value for money compared to the other options. I think you can get Z72 for like under four grand these days, which is amazing value for the quality you're getting in the package that it is and like quite ergonomically comfortable as well. People I've chatted to a lot of people that have used about a range of camera brands and held, you know, Sony's and Canons and stuff. It's incredibly light and I think it might be the lightest of the bunch out of the Sony and Canon and Nikon as well. And it's. Sorry, I've just lost my train of thought and comfortable in the hand. So it's just, yeah, it's a great package for me and I really love the lens choices too. [01:06:18] Speaker A: I picked up Jim Z8 on the weekend. I didn't do anything with it. I just picked it up and oh gosh, it's just such a phenomenal feeling camera. Like it just feels like the grip, it just, you know, you've just got real control there, which is great. I shoot with smaller Fuji cameras so purchase and like, you know, the grip of it is tiny and you sometimes you feel like it's a bit finicky. But yeah, you pick up a Nikon Z7 or eight or one of. What have you got? R5. Don't pick up an R5. [01:06:48] Speaker C: Yeah. Hey, the Nikon ergonomics have always been really good as I find Canons quite. Really good as well. Yeah, I didn't have a problem shooting with either system in terms of ergonomics, but particularly compared to Sony's earlier stuff. And I thought substandard ergonomics, but yeah, Nikon's always been right on point with that stuff. [01:07:09] Speaker B: I think what the Zed series does really well is it has a good ergonomics while being so light too. Like the Canon has amazing ergonomics, but it's so super heavy for a muralist, which again, for one year hiking is. [01:07:22] Speaker C: I disagree. [01:07:23] Speaker A: It's because they pack a whole bunch of stupid attitude into them. That's why it's going to prove you wrong. [01:07:29] Speaker C: 746. Hang on. Well, I need to see, I need to know. [01:07:32] Speaker B: The Z8 is heavy. The Z8 is definitely heavy. [01:07:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:07:37] Speaker C: Which is actually good for some. Like, it feels pretty cool, but it is. [01:07:41] Speaker A: Yeah. And for a mountain of a man like Jim, I'm sure it feels like nothing. [01:07:46] Speaker C: It is. Okay, so it's, It's. It's only 40 grams, but yeah. So it's 705 and Canon 750. The, the Z72 said 72's 705 with the battery and, and memory card. I guess it's 615 camera body only. Actually. Just make. Let me see, what does it say with The Canon? Yeah, so 656 for the Canon, 615 for the Z72. So they're pretty close. The R5 Mark II is pretty. [01:08:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:08:18] Speaker C: Considering. [01:08:19] Speaker B: Okay, maybe it's the lenses that I'm thinking of. The lenses. [01:08:23] Speaker A: And they're working to reduce that with this new range that, that Justin's been picking up. [01:08:27] Speaker C: I've been buying a lot of the, the lighter cannon, but their early RF stuff. [01:08:32] Speaker A: Not getting any younger, Jay. Not getting any younger. [01:08:35] Speaker C: The, the 15 to 35 is a kilo. The 24 to 70 like the first RFS. [01:08:40] Speaker B: Okay, well, so that's where it was. [01:08:42] Speaker C: A kilo. Like 950 grams, but near enough. And it's like they feel, they feel beefy in the bag and then you put them on the front of the camera and it wants to tilt forward and you're like, oh, you know, like they, it's a lot better now, but those first series they brought out, they really went after like optical quality, but maybe at the sacrifice of like a bit of weight. Yeah, for sure. [01:09:02] Speaker B: Yeah. And keep in mind. Yeah, I, I'm seeing the like, you know, the Z8 perfect way. It is. It's a great way. I'm thinking Very specifically for like those counting grams for hiking and stuff. So the weight in that. But where, where Nikon does have, in terms of the weight, like my 14 to 24. 2.8 Z series is I think 650 grams, whereas the, the FX one was I think 950. So they cut, they shaved 300 grams off this thing and it's the best, it's the best wide angle lens I've ever worked with with. It's incredible. Like, it's super sharp. [01:09:34] Speaker C: The F Series 1, that was a beast that it was, it was a base, it was quite heavy. It was big and wide. It was hard to fit in the back. So what'd you say it was? Six hundred and something? [01:09:43] Speaker B: Because I think 650 grams. And they, they, they reduced the bulbous front element to the point where you can now just screw a filter into the lens hood which saw 112 millimeter filter. So you don't have to use these big 150. [01:09:58] Speaker A: That's a 400 filter. [01:09:59] Speaker C: I was gonna say that's a big, it's a big filter. [01:10:03] Speaker B: They're not cheap, but it's, you know, compared to those aluminum like 150mm systems that you used to have to use for a 14 millimeter lens, it's a pretty incredible, you know, weight savings and convenience. And you never actually have to take it off the lens. Like I have my polarizer just permanently in my lens hood because there's a lens hood sort of cap that goes over the top of that and then so you can just take that off if you don't want to use a polarizer. So like it's pretty, pretty brilliant sort of system for that. [01:10:32] Speaker A: We were talking about what you carry. [01:10:34] Speaker C: Yeah, I was gonna say we'll get to, we'll get to filters. We'll get to filters because I have that written down to find out. But let's, let's continue on now because we're kind of. So Z72, just one body in the bag or do you take a backup as well? [01:10:46] Speaker B: Yeah, unless I'm like on a job and like it's really important that a camera doesn't fail, then I'll just have the Z72 with me. But I do have a Z62 as a backup, which I got during, while I was shooting weddings and stuff. So I still have that with me as a, as a backup. So yeah, lenses is 14 to 24.2.8. Nikon also has, you know, just finishing off the sort of lightweight content they have the, I think the 14 to 30 F4 and I think that's about 450 grams. It's amazing. [01:11:16] Speaker C: Jim just bought that as like because he's had. He shoots a lot of primes and stuff and he was like, I should just get it a quick like a wide zoom. He tested that. That was the F4 one, I think. He. [01:11:25] Speaker B: F4. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:11:27] Speaker C: But he tested. They have a 2.8 option as well. That's kind of not as good for some things, but it's also quite small. But he ended up with that F4. [01:11:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:11:36] Speaker C: Okay. [01:11:37] Speaker B: I'm not sure. So I just got the four. Yeah, yeah, they might have a 16 to something. Yeah, they have like a Tamron sort of partnership, I think, where Tamron kind of like makes rebranded versions. I'm not as across those options. Options, but yeah, so they're. They're 14 to 30 F4, if you don't need 2.8 is like insanely light and compact. But then I like to be able to have the option for quality Astro at times. So I have the 14 to 24 2.8 and then my mid range is the 24 to 120, so you get a little extra 15 mil compared to the Sony and Canon options, which is nice. Which is 24 to 105. So yeah, 24 to 120, which is my just sort of workhorse, like. Like walk around scouting lens. [01:12:18] Speaker A: What's the next aperture that? [01:12:20] Speaker B: Sorry, F4 all the way through. [01:12:22] Speaker A: Yep. [01:12:24] Speaker B: Yeah. And then my Z100 to 400 as well, which is a base that's probably 2 kilos. [01:12:31] Speaker A: And what sort of bag are you using, just out of interest, what are you. What are you carrying all of this stuff with? [01:12:35] Speaker B: Yeah, so I'm an F stop ambassador. I probably shouldn't call myself that. I haven't really done much work actually to be that. [01:12:43] Speaker A: Just own it until they tell you to stop. [01:12:44] Speaker B: They kind of just brought me on and then just, just, you know, it's just. I think they've onboarded a heaps of people at once at some point. So I was just in that wave. [01:12:54] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:12:55] Speaker B: So I've. I've got a date. My day pack is the Anya, which is the 37 liter pack. And that's great. It fits in, you know, my three lenses, you know, two bodies if I need it. More room for like jackets and stuff up the top. So that's, that's great. And then I used to have the. For my hiking, the F stop shin, which is 80 liters, but it's just like that like they're camera packs that are trying to be parking packs. And so I think the owner of F Stop says if you're doing multi day stuff, you shouldn't be using one of our packs. Yeah, it's more for like being able to carry heaps of stuff. So I recently, just a few months ago, bought a dedicated hiking pack from Seek Outside. They're an American company and so they work kind of in that ultralight style of backpack. But a lot of ultralight packs are not great for anything more than sort of 14, 15 kilos. They're made to only carry ultralight loads and then once you get above that, they become very, very uncomfortable. So these guys, they kind of, they cater a lot towards hunters and stuff, so who are carrying very, very heavy loads. And so they're using ultralight materials, but then they have like a, you know, full, an aluminum frame and stuff that helps, you know, carry really heavy loads. So I was using that in Scotland just a few weeks ago and I was carrying, I think on the workshop on the first day. My pack was 24 kilos plus my camera sitting on the front here. And it was the most, easily the most comfortable hiking back I've ever used. So that was amazing. [01:14:31] Speaker A: Just on that bench. Just a question about carrying heavy loads. So a couple weeks ago we had Dr. Michael Coyne on and he talked about, you know, and he's a senior photographer now. He talked about his gym routine and his, you know, he plays a lot of tennis, but he also does gym so that he can carry the weight when he goes on assignment. Do you do any of that sort of thing or is the hiking the exercise? [01:14:53] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I don't hike enough for that to be like my way of staying fit. So I used to be pretty like in and out of routine with fitness. Like I've gone through phases of, you know, swimming and just like trying to go to the gym and sticking to the stairs and stuff like that. And then I just, if I go on a trip, I just like suffer for the first few days and then it kicks in and then you're good for the rest of it. But the last kind of year and a half I've been, yeah, doing like kind of squad training at a gym which actually simulates like high altitude oxygen levels. So that really, really helps. So you're in a room that sort of, I think they increase the nitrogen levels. So it's like you're training at 3, 500 meters elevation. Oh, wow. And yeah, it's. You get dizzy the first few Times. [01:15:42] Speaker C: And what's a gym called? What's. [01:15:45] Speaker B: Do you know what the franchise is called? Combined Air. I think that there's a few in Sydney. I don't know if they're multi state, but that's. I've, I, you know, I started running a few months ago as well and it wasn't until I did that that I realized how impactful that altitude training is. Because whenever I tried running before I would think I was borderline asthmatic, but it just turns out I had poor anaerobic fitness and there's just doing this thing just meant that like I, I was able to straight off the bat start doing 5, 6, 7Ks and my lungs were absolutely fine. And so that's been really helpful for the anaerobic fitness and then doing a mix of strength and cardio sessions helps with both having. Yeah, especially like, yeah, squats and stuff like that is really important. Like having the glute and quad and calf strength for. Yeah, like my, my, my body is disproportionately stronger in the bottom half than it is in the top half which is pretty funny. But yeah, being able to do especially stuff like squats, being able to pick up a, you know, 25 kilo pack and haul it around for six hours is. Yeah, yeah, you gotta have, you gotta have some training behind you for that. [01:16:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's important for people to hear. Yeah, I think it's important for people to hear because you know, even just over the weekend people were going up to the mountain. What mountain did they go to, Jay? Was it, it wasn't Buffalo was it? That's. [01:17:09] Speaker C: No, they couldn't go to Buffalo so they were going up to Hotham and I can't remember else. [01:17:13] Speaker B: Beauty. [01:17:14] Speaker C: Yeah. All around the place. [01:17:16] Speaker A: But yeah, people were coming back from that. Not only, you know, suffering from the minus 11 wind chill that day but, but also just the, you know, the sheer exhaustion and effort required, let alone, you know, they took a bus most of the way up. So. Yeah, I just think it's an important consideration when you, when you're taking on a genre like this that you know, you can't just take, you can't just shoot from the car park. It's, you know, it's, it's going to be a bit of a walk to get to locations. Just looking at your Scotland photos, which we'll go through in a minute. You know, I imagine getting to some of these locations is, you know, there's not an easy, there's not a 7 11, you know, behind the camp behind you at a car park. It's you know, you really are in the rough. [01:17:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:17:58] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:17:58] Speaker B: And I mean there is, there are like. Sorry, you go. [01:18:01] Speaker C: I was just going to say you hit the nail on the head with, with squats particularly something that a lot of people think squats as a leg exercise. But if you want to protect your back long term and you, and you can do this with a coach and whatever safely squats, putting load through the spine will. Will help you immeasurably for carrying heavy backpacks long term deadlifts and things like that. So yeah, 100 agree if. And you can. It sounds, it might sound crazy to anyone that that hasn't exercised. Like oh, I couldn't. Couldn't do that. You definitely can find a good coach. You can start, you can squat the, you can start. You can squat with the, the lightest weight in the gym. You can squat with a 1 kilo or we start with broomsticks at our gym. Like you can squat with anything. So everyone can, everyone can get started and give it a try. But, but 100 find a coach if you can so that you. [01:18:52] Speaker B: And the back thing is massive. Like yeah, because especially because I'm like pretty tall and lanky and then because I have disproportionate like sort of strengthen my lower versus upper half of my body. I like what I could, I kept twinging my lower back because what I could manage with my lower half was different to what I could manage with my top half. So then you know, having core strength as well is super important as well because then yeah, you know it might have the strength to be able to do 100 kilo deadlift but then like in your, in your glutes and your thighs and stuff. I know this is very off topic. I'll move on in a sec. But then no, no, this is. No, not at all. But they're not having the core strength to be able to maintain the right, you know, technique and everything will then mean you're doing in your spine. So it's really is an all inclusive thing that you need to be able to do. But that said you don't need to be a gym base to be able to do landscape photography as well. Like there's so much that you can do within very short walking distance and just means yeah, you might not be able to get those wild mountain stuff but there's so much beauty that you can access quickly. So I just wanted to make sure no one's hearing me say oh yeah, you need to be going to the gym several times a week to be able to even do this stuff. So. [01:19:57] Speaker C: Yeah, no, I, I think it's more. There's. No matter where you're at, you can always maybe do things to try and make it easier on you when you want to go and do something. So even if you are at the point where you're sort of limited with mobility and that sort of thing, and you're only doing shorter walks, there are things that you can do to make those walks feel a little bit easier. Not, not come back feeling sore and that kind of thing. So you could. [01:20:25] Speaker B: There's. [01:20:25] Speaker C: Yeah, it's like it doesn't matter whether you're trying to do well. Nick Fletcher's trying to climb a 7,000 meter mountain in three weeks. He's been training for that. But you also might be just trying to be able to walk a little bit further up a hill that you'd like to take landscape shots at in the morning. And either way, training can help increase your, increase your abilities, I guess. Yeah. Oh, speaking of Nick Fletcher. [01:20:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:20:55] Speaker C: That little Nikon Tamron wide angle lens is a super small, cheap option. It is. And that's coming from the guy that on the weekend was. I saw him playing around with the Nikon F. There is, sorry, the Z35 mil 1.2. Have you seen that thing? The new 1.2? [01:21:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:21:15] Speaker B: So I love. When I was doing weddings, 35 mil was like 1.4 was my absolute workhorse. Like, I would take most of my photos on that thing and yeah, to have a 1.2 would be incredible. But like, I can't. I don't even know how heavy it is, but I know it'd be enormous. [01:21:31] Speaker C: It's massive. He's rocking around, swapping between that and the 35 1.4 and he's like, he's like, oh, it's gonna be, you know, they're almost, you know, the same and look at how much smaller it is and what. And he's taking some test shots with it and he's like, they're not the same. That 1.2, he said it was problematically good. [01:21:52] Speaker B: Yeah. So, yeah, I'm surprised it hadn't been done before. So, like. Yeah, it's. Yeah, it's cool. It's very cool. [01:21:59] Speaker C: There's rumors of Canon doing one as well, I think, but I wouldn't be surprised. Nikon beat him to the, to the punch on that. But it's massive. It's so big. It looks heavy even on a Z8. [01:22:12] Speaker A: Yeah, there's a couple more comments there after next. You want to cover those off while we've got a moment? [01:22:17] Speaker C: Absolutely. David Dare Parker. It was awesome to meet you on the weekend. [01:22:21] Speaker A: Hey, David. Good to see you, mate. What a. [01:22:23] Speaker C: What a legend. The Z8 is stunning at a Z63 for low light. Yeah, exactly. Beautiful combo. Roy. Roy Bixby says heavy loads. That's what assistance of before. [01:22:34] Speaker A: Oh, must be good for some. [01:22:36] Speaker C: Yeah, that's the goal. [01:22:38] Speaker B: Hey, start earning enough from this stuff so you can pay someone to shirt for you. [01:22:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:22:43] Speaker C: Imagine having a landscape photography assistant. You're just like, here, grab all my stuff. We're going over there. You're just rolling with no gear on your back. And if you could set my tripod up over there. Okay. [01:22:54] Speaker A: Perfect. [01:22:54] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:22:56] Speaker C: Roy also says I find the Z8 the perfect weight. Weight makes it steady enough, but wishes it had the button layout of the day at 50D5. The DE50D5 combo was. Yeah, was a ripper. That was the last. The end of my Nikon run was that combo. And that were epic ergonomics. Now Matt Palmer says Mount Buffalo is back open next time. You heard just after I did it. [01:23:25] Speaker A: Just after we finished. [01:23:26] Speaker C: Just after pfap. Yep. All good points regarding gear bend. David De Parker says. And we have a question. I work in the dark. From Roy Bixby. I work in the dark. Does anyone else miss LED illuminated buttons when they don't have them? Heck yeah, I do. Do you? Do you. Does the Z72 have led? I think it has buttons, yeah. [01:23:50] Speaker B: No, I don't know. I think that. I mean the screen, you can do so much just from the screen screen that I don't really miss it. Like you can pretty much control every setting you want beside like obviously besides dials and stuff. Just from the screens. I know. Like I. I've been able to use my camera in the dark blind for years now that it doesn't really bother me. Like it's just. Yeah. [01:24:11] Speaker C: Muscle memories all there. [01:24:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I suppose the one thing I hadn't mentioned yet was the tripod. Oh yeah. So the tripod I'm using is the FLM CP34 L2 or L3, I think, which is a base. So yeah, like I mentioned, it's. Yeah. I think the base of it gets to about my eyebrows and then once I've got the head on it and then the tripod. Sorry the head and then the camera, it means it can get to about, you know, 2 meters off the ground, which is great because I'm often seeing things at my eye level and so it's quite frustrating to not then be able to shoot something at my eye level and just also being able to like extend like let's say you're shooting on like a steep hillside. Maybe you only need it at like your sort of. Yeah, there it is. [01:24:59] Speaker C: It's cheap. Not but a good truck. [01:25:02] Speaker B: I mean compared to its equivalence in really right stuff and pro media gear and Gitzo, it's actually very cheap. [01:25:11] Speaker A: What does it weigh? [01:25:14] Speaker B: I can't remember off the top of my head. You'll probably be able to find it. [01:25:17] Speaker C: So load capacity 33 kilos. Oh my God. Maximum. Maximum height 173 centimeters. Wait, yeah, 1.95. But that's with no ball head. [01:25:34] Speaker B: So the, the reason I got this one is you can actually add a center column to that middle area. So that's got like a, like a bowl in the middle there. So usually I have that. So usually I have the leveling base in the middle which you can see in the next photo down. I find that to be really, really helpful. So you can sort of level level it with that, which is quite cool. But then yeah, if I wanted to get even higher for like the property photography stuff that I do, I just wanted the option to be able to put in a center column. They what I would, I wouldn't actually recommend this one. I would recommend the. It's smaller brother, which is the exact same height. It just doesn't have that big bowl in the middle and it's the CP30 L42. So the, the 34 means the diameter of the legs is 34 mil. The CP30. So just has slightly thinner legs which is, you know, 30 mils and that'll be lighter. You'll get be able to get the exact same height. It'll be almost at the exact same like stability. [01:26:39] Speaker C: CP42. Yeah, that's the one 845 in Australia. [01:26:46] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the one I would recommend if anyone wants that level of height from these guys. You'll see 1.4 kilos. So you're shaving off, you know, half a kilo and weight there. [01:26:56] Speaker C: Still a big load capacity. [01:26:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:26:59] Speaker C: Oh look, it goes flat. I like that. [01:27:01] Speaker B: Or almost. [01:27:02] Speaker C: Almost flat. [01:27:04] Speaker A: Lisa says I would not be able to reach to put the camera on the tripod. But we've all had a chat before the show. Lisa, We've all agreed to chip in and buy you a little short aluminum step ladder. [01:27:16] Speaker B: That's where that assistant comes in, right? [01:27:18] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [01:27:19] Speaker B: They're gonna put Lisa on the shoulders. [01:27:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:27:23] Speaker C: Are you, are you sponsored by flm? [01:27:26] Speaker B: I'm not, I'm not. I would, I mean if they're open to it, I will be. But I think they're amazing. [01:27:33] Speaker C: I didn't even know these existed. [01:27:35] Speaker B: Yeah, so they do like zero marketing. They're a Canadian company and they just make amazing quality tripods. But because they're a smaller operation and a smaller name, they're just not as expensive as. Yeah, you really write stuff and you get so and stuff which are pretty inflated in my opinion. So yeah, like, for this level of like, you know, pro level last you a long time tripod. This is about the best value for money you'll get in my opinion. I've been super, super happy with it. And so I, I pair this with a Leo photo G4 geared head. So I was on ball heads for years and I often found them very frustrating. And like, you know, you go to fine tuner composition and like you slightly move it too much, you lock it in, it slightly moves. When you lock it in, the horizon is no longer straight and the whole and then you got to re unlock it and try to do it again. That process was always really infuriating to me. So a geared head where you can just like dial the horizontal and vertical access to the most fine tuned degree that you want is I found to be a game changer. I love, Wow. [01:28:43] Speaker C: I love this, this one that's. [01:28:45] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's basically just a rip off of the Arca Swiss D4 which is like 1500 bucks. So yeah, I love, I love this head. It's really, really good. And obviously again, it's heavy, pretty bulky, but you know, it's one of those things where I, I, I, every time I use it, I'm grateful to have it on there. And same with the, the height of my tripod. Like it's heavy, it's bulky. I could definitely have something smaller and lighter. But many times throughout, you know, just even my most recent trip into Scotland, there were times, like many times where I'm shooting at full height at that thing and I couldn't have shot a composition at any lower to get the fine tuning that I wanted. So yeah, I just kind of sacrifice weight and convenience for knowing that I'll be able to get whatever, whatever I want to get without any compromise. [01:29:36] Speaker A: And look, if it works for you, then you know, go for it. You know, if it ticks all the boxes for you, then there's no need to look for something different. [01:29:44] Speaker C: Yeah, good comment here from, from Roy. A tripod needs extra height in case you're on a slope or stairs. Obviously stairs out in the bush, but the slope particularly. Yeah, you, you lose straight away, you lose that height. [01:29:55] Speaker A: Oh, some walking tracks have stairs. [01:29:57] Speaker C: Oh, that's true. [01:29:58] Speaker B: That's a good point. [01:30:00] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Okay, very cool. [01:30:03] Speaker B: Yes. That's the setup. [01:30:05] Speaker C: What, what about filters? Tell us about. [01:30:08] Speaker B: So I, I don't use many filters, so I've got some NISSI filters. I. Yeah, I'm often using a CPL that'll be sort of like probably 50, 50 in terms of how often it's on my camera. Yeah, I don't do much nd work just because I like, I'm often inspired by like what the, you know, clouds and water are doing, like the action of it and the, the texture and sharpness of that. [01:30:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:30:35] Speaker B: Something I like, I have, I want to play with more. So like I bought those jet Mag filters from NISI earlier this year for my mid range of my telephoto lens. Yeah. And then I also bought like some like a 6 stop and a 10 stop for my wide angle this year as well. So I had the capacity to play with it more. I should play with it more. But I just often don't find myself like gravitating towards that. I think I just really like sharp textured and I think part of it was when I was getting into photography. That kind of ultra long exposure, super smooth water stroking clouds was just coming out of fashion. Everyone had kind of gone to town with it for a while. It's kind of like the early 2010s and that kind of thing. Late 2000, late 2000s. It had its time being novel and was kind of going out of fashion. And then everyone was kind of getting into the more textured like half a second water rather than 10 second water, that kind of thing. And so I think that being sort of the phase that I was getting into photography and learning my like in developing my style probably has influenced that too. So it just means I just don't gravitate towards it much. That said, I like there's a lot of photos that do utilize it that I love and there are times where I see people's work with it and I'm like, oh man, I do need to open that up for myself more because I just don't think that way when I'm in the field. [01:31:57] Speaker C: And if you don't have those filters in your kit in the bag, then you won't Even have the option to experiment with that in the field. So I guess that's exactly the first step is like get the gear, have it in the bag, and then see if you're inspired to take it out and give it a try. [01:32:11] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Yep. So, yeah. But for the most part it's just nothing if not a cpl. Yeah. [01:32:18] Speaker C: Do you carry a drone at all for. For anything that you do? [01:32:21] Speaker B: No, no, I'm. I'm intrigued especially for like some creative applications for it, like with trees and stuff. But no, I haven't really made that dive yet. I've been just sort of focusing on the ground based stuff. But the, the kind of stuff that I would want to take with the drone is the kind of thing where you can't immediately tell that it's a drone. Like it might just be like an elevated ground perspective. Like it might be 3 meters off the ground, 4 meters off the ground. [01:32:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:32:54] Speaker B: Not, not sort of top down stuff. So that's like, that's the kind of thing that I am interested in with drones is just to get a slightly different perspective that I just is a little bit out of reach for me. Yeah. Actually there was a pretty funny behind the scenes photo of me in Scotland on the last morning of our hike. There was this composition that I was shooting and there was these big boulders and stuff in a lake in the distance. And at ground level, even at full height on my tripod, there was this boulder that was just jutting into this lake at a really awkward way. And I was like, ah, I like this comp, but I just don't like how this boulder is sort of interrupting the lake here. And then sort of realized that there was a rock just behind me that I could like really precariously perch on and like set my tripod super narrow. So my camera ended up probably being three and a half meters in the air. But it just meant that like it got above these big boulders, the one in the distance wasn't like interrupting with my background anymore. And so yeah, yeah, that would have been a good application for it. But thank goodness that rock was there. [01:33:56] Speaker C: That's awesome. [01:33:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:33:58] Speaker A: Should we dive into some images there, Justin? [01:34:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:34:00] Speaker C: I was wondering so could we do like a bit of a combination of checking out some images but also talking about trips that you've been on, workshops that you've run, that sort of thing maybe at the same time, if that works. [01:34:10] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. [01:34:12] Speaker A: I don't know. [01:34:12] Speaker C: Where should we start? [01:34:15] Speaker A: And I've also got a bunch of images from Scotland's recent trip. Yeah, they're not on his website yet. Let me start with that. [01:34:24] Speaker C: Yeah, do you want to start with that? [01:34:26] Speaker B: Yeah, let's do that. Well, these are all brand new for everyone to see, so it'll be fun. [01:34:30] Speaker C: Oh, the reveal. You got them there, Greg. Yeah. Okay. [01:34:40] Speaker A: Can you take your media off? [01:34:42] Speaker C: Sorry. Yeah, I'm running a new way of doing this. Let me add that on and then bring it to us and then. Yeah, there's any way I can make yours bigger? All right, we are up. [01:35:00] Speaker A: Where is this? [01:35:01] Speaker B: Cool. So, yeah, so basically this recent workshop, it was with Murray Livingston over in the uk. So basically what we did was we had a. Our group of clients and we hiked in to an area called the Great Wilderness in the Northwest Highlands of Scotland, which is between the areas of ascent and torridon on the west coast. And basically our goal was to summit camp on the most remote Monroe in Scotland, if when measured by road, which is just sort of out of frame on the right hand side. So our first day in was about 17 and a half Ks, so it's a pretty big day. And actually what we did was you can't, you won't be able to see it here, but on that little causeway with that little lock in the back of the photo, there's like this slight juncture between the two locks there. Our tents are actually set up right there on that beach. So high res photo you'd be able to zoom in and see our tents down there. So we're there, we're there for two nights and on this day, this was day two, we hiked up to this, most of the way up this, this mountain. We didn't quite get to the peak. We got hailed on, I think six times. [01:36:15] Speaker C: We. [01:36:15] Speaker B: We had, you know, mixes of total sunshine, total socked in with cloud. It felt like, you know, the true sort of Highlands experience with just, yeah, very, very quickly changeable weather squalls kind of just coming in and out. So you can see in the background those sort of, you know, curtains coming towards us that, you know, socked us in about 15 minutes later. So, yeah, it's just a very, very dramatic day of interplay with light and cloud and dramatic weather, which was quite cool. And it really like swelled up the rivers that ran off the mountain as well. So running off that background mountain, you'll see if you see them sort of rivers flowing off there, which just kind of really swelled up and then calmed back down a couple, couple days later. So, yeah, no, that was really cool and that Was then the same day as I think the next photo that you've got there. [01:37:05] Speaker A: This one. [01:37:07] Speaker B: Yeah. So that was. Which is my background actually at the moment. [01:37:10] Speaker A: Oh yeah, that's just. [01:37:13] Speaker B: So that's. Yes, that's looking further out to the left of that same sort of area. So we hiked in all the way through that valley on the left on that first day, which is quite cool. And so, yeah, there's just this really dramatic again that, that dappled sort of midday light. And when you get that sort of light, you can just shoot throughout the whole day. It's. It's so, so cool. You can see the textures of the wind blowing on the, on the lock down the bottom there. [01:37:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I was just looking at that. It's crazy, but just the expanse of it, like, it's just absolutely stunning. [01:37:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:37:45] Speaker A: And you've got that little cloud dancing on the mountaintop on the right. [01:37:49] Speaker B: Yeah, that was my little independent of all the other. [01:37:51] Speaker A: Yeah, completely independent of the. Of all the other clouds going on. It's magical. [01:37:56] Speaker B: So yeah, that was my little sort of cherry on top of that little cloud there. [01:37:59] Speaker A: Yeah, literally. [01:38:00] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And then some very different weather a couple of days later. So yeah, the clouds totally clear. Different sort of pressure system moved in and we got this amazing clear sunset. So that's actually the other side of that same lock. So that's the, the same block there in the, in the background before that peak. So yeah, this is the day after we sort of summit camps on top of that big peak and we made an impromptu change to the plans to get up to a slightly higher vantage point so we could catch this beautiful clear sunset. And yeah, we had this amazing sort of Louisian nice or nice. I'm not sure how it gets pronounced sort of. Yeah, playing with the mountains and stuff. I think that rock is one of the oldest types of rock in the world. I think it gets up to 3 billion years old, which is pretty sick. Yeah, we just had this amazing, you know, especially after a couple of cloudy days, this amazing clear still sunset and we, you know, we camped about 100 meters further down from that, which was, yeah, just really, really special way to make sure we got some lovely golden light for the clients and for ourselves as well. Of course. Yeah. And I think this next one is later that night actually. So this is sort of that last sort of alpen glow that comes through before it gets dark. So I think this was about at least one minute exposure here. Oh, wow. Yeah, so you can see like this, the hillside in front of me was in shadow, which has. That gives it that natural sort of cooler tone. And then the light is hitting the peak in the background, which is called Ruad Stack Moor, which translates to the Red Mountain. And you can see that, you know, it's red color, not. Doesn't come just from the sunset or the last light hitting it. It's actually a totally different type of rock. So you can actually see the fault line where it transitions from that gray Louisiana gneiss to Torridonian sandstone. So just at the bottom of that mountain, it goes to that gray sort of rock again. And we actually hiked up that fault line. So the, the big tall peak that we camped on is just out of frame on the right hand side there. Again, the balance. So, yeah, there's a weird kind of like transition like between this old Louisian, nicest, totally different reddish kind of rock, reddish purplish rock. And that just really, you know, makes the name quite clear, you know, the Red Mountain. Yeah. And so, yeah, and then that last light just really amplified that, which I found quite nice. And we got lucky to have such clear still conditions as well. To get that reflection in the lock. Yeah. Beneath it as well. Yeah. [01:40:37] Speaker A: This shot has absolutely beautiful balance and I love the way that you've gone a one by one ratio. [01:40:44] Speaker B: Not a common ratio for me to use. [01:40:46] Speaker A: No, it's not. But I think it's. I think it's fun and it adds interest and it, you know, it just changes the story up for. For the viewer, which is wonderful. Beautiful. Let's jump on to the next one. [01:40:57] Speaker B: Now this is very like the same view. So that's the same mountain in the background there, but this time it's much wider. So this is the one where my camera was about over 3 meters off the ground, actually. Oh, wow. Which gives you a taste of how big those boulders in the foreground are. Because I was shooting this at about 16, 15 mil. So we got a beautiful clear morning the next morning. And yeah, so that's the sun just peeking over the hill, sort of illuminating. Ruinstackmoor on the left and then on the right is evasion. You wouldn't think it's called that from the way it's spelled, but that's how it's pronounced. Which is, yeah, the most remote Monroe in Scotland by distance from road. So. Yeah. [01:41:41] Speaker A: Sorry, what's the Monroe? What? Can you explain that for us? [01:41:44] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. So Monroe's I think mountains that are above 914 meters, which is, I think is a 3,000ft something like that. So they have like. Like 200 of them or something like that. And so bagging. Bagging Monroe's and sort of hiking and sort of trying to complete them is a big sort of thing amongst Scottish mountaineers. [01:42:08] Speaker A: Ah. So, like, ticking them off that list. [01:42:10] Speaker B: Taking them off. Yeah, yeah. So we, We. We hiked all the way up to the top the previous day and summit, camped up there, which was a pretty amazing experience because you just got this incredible expanse of mountains all around you that you could just see super, super far. So, yeah, we didn't quite, like, really get too much light when we're up there, but even just being able to see the mountains from up there was incredible. So. Yeah, no, really, really, really cool. And then so we came back down there and camped around here the following night, which is our final night. And. Oh, yeah. [01:42:47] Speaker C: I think that's. I think that's. I think that's my favorite from this series. So. [01:42:51] Speaker A: Yeah, that is spectacular. [01:42:54] Speaker B: Yeah, it's probably one of my favorite moments for the trip as well. So this wasn't on the workshop. This was a different area when Murray and I were just hiking around doing a bit of our own photography before I had to fly back. So this is a little bit further south in the torridon area. This is that Torridonian sandstone, like, which gets this really cool, like, sort of pancake sort of formations almost to it. And, yeah, they just make for such amazing foreground elements. And so on this morning, we'd had just the amazing, incredible, like, red golden light. And so I'd actually shot a different composition earlier with that red light. But I came away to not actually like it as much as I thought I did in the field. But then as I was walking back from that, there was. These beams were just dancing through the valley. It was absolutely incredible. And they're actually. You can see it's kind of like spotlighting my foreground too. Yeah, yeah, that's like, not dodged up at all. That's very, very genuine, the way that. That's in. That got that golden light hitting it. [01:43:57] Speaker A: That's amazing. [01:43:58] Speaker B: Very authentic scene. And so, yeah, I just. I'd shot this composition for hours the previous day, getting different interplays of light. And then as I was walking back and saw this happening, I was like, all right, this is. So I knew exactly how to really quickly set up the shot and get that going. So, yeah, that was. That was pretty special. Yeah. [01:44:18] Speaker A: Have you printed any of your works from Scotland? I mean, I know you've only just returned but is that the plan? Do you print work? [01:44:24] Speaker B: No, I mean, I don't have my own printer and I don't really sell many prints. I think it's pretty hard to sell prints without a physical gallery space to showcase them in, or at least I've found that. So, yeah, you know, if anyone wants to get some, let me know. But yeah, I don't really get heaps and many chances to print. There's a few that I would love. [01:44:43] Speaker C: To, though, recently reinvent, like invested in a print. We always had one while we're doing wedding work. And then when I backed sort of away from the wedding work a bit, I didn't have one in my office anymore. Jim's got it, so I sort of stopped printing and then I just bought the. I just bought the Canon Pro 1100, which does up to A2, but mainly to do like this size print. And I've just been loving just getting them in in front of, you know, like that feeling of printing your own workout and just having a look at it. It's so good. [01:45:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd love to do more. Yeah. I just. At the moment, but eventually. [01:45:22] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. Let's jump to the next one. Oh, nice. [01:45:28] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, this one's actually ended up being one of my favorites from the trip. Just like a. A bit of a woodland scene. So after that previous mountain shot, the. The weather really just started to close in on the mountains, so most of them were socked in with cloud and they were getting really quite windy. And so we just. We had a few plans for more mountains, but we just pivoted to the, to the woodlands instead, which is a very good call. You know, I love trees. Rainforests are like kind of my thing over here. So it was, it was nice to be able to shoot something that was my. My usual wheel and I love my mountains too, but it was nice to get into the. Amongst the trees and the foliage and shoot some of this stuff. So, yeah, we were just sort of. Thanks, Matt. [01:46:17] Speaker A: What's nlpa? [01:46:18] Speaker C: Nlpa? Watch out. [01:46:20] Speaker B: Matt says landscape Photography Competition, which requires like realistic processing and does raw file verification and stuff like that. [01:46:29] Speaker C: Nice. [01:46:30] Speaker A: Okay. You've impressed Matt. [01:46:35] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks, Matt. Appreciate it. But yeah, it was pretty cloudy for most of this day, but as I was exploring this sort of hillside in one of the glens around the highlands. Yeah. Found this amazing, big, quite shapely boulder with this birch tree growing out of it. I think it's a birch tree. [01:46:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:46:54] Speaker B: And I was like, this is such a cool subject. And then the sun just kind of broke through the clouds for a bit and gave me this lovely lighting through the scene. And so yeah, like I hadn't had the time to fine tune. It was a very impromptu sort of scenario. So I just, you know, the light broken through and I just sort of shot handheld a. A bunch of like a variety of frames for about two minutes before the light disappeared. Thankfully was bright enough for me to easily shoot, you know, f. F11 and a comfortable shutter speed and ISO 200. So I did. I could just get it all in one shot without having to set up anything. But yeah, like it's just a. One of those cool like just very fleeting unplanned moments. That's ended up being one of my favorites from the trip. [01:47:38] Speaker A: That's great. And one last one that you've sent us. [01:47:42] Speaker B: Yeah. So I. I didn't know until this trip that Scotland has aspens. You know, Colorado over in the States and stuff is well known for its aspen trees. And I felt like a little bit like I was joining them in this. It's much less widespread and I think that's one of the species that they're trying to slightly reintroduce into some areas. But it is a native. Native tree in the. Their native sort of untouched woodland areas. [01:48:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:48:08] Speaker B: So yeah, we were just driving through one of the glens early one morning and spotted this nice little grove of them with full autumn color. Because we were a little early for proper autumn color. Like that previous photo in a couple weeks time would be full gold, whereas it was still mostly green. But this little patch here had some. Yeah, lovely. Just full golden colors which I quite liked contrasted against the green in the background. [01:48:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I was just going to say that it actually works in your favor because you've got that beautiful contrast. [01:48:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I love it. And. And then the bracken fern down the bottom had. They're all full sort of orange and red. [01:48:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:48:41] Speaker B: So yeah, I was thought I'd just send through a bit of a mix. I've got a bunch more that I'll be editing and putting into a gallery release on my website. But that's what I've got sort of sorted and ready for now. [01:48:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:48:52] Speaker B: So yeah, the debut for pretty much all of those Beautiful. [01:48:57] Speaker C: And just quickly I've got a backtrack to a question on the David Dead Parker had in a second. But before we do that. So you ran this workshop. Was this the first time you've ran this workshop? [01:49:07] Speaker B: It was, yeah. Yeah. So went really well. Really happy with it. And we are Planning to do it again next year, if that's what you're asking. [01:49:14] Speaker C: SCOTTISH I spotted it on here. It says coming soon, so the dates are a TBC, but October 2026, you could have the. [01:49:22] Speaker B: Well, actually we do have dates. It actually is going to be in September. Now that was a previous iteration, so I actually, I need to slightly rejig what's coming soon for next year. But again, no, no official releases yet. But they will. Instead of that fration A and B fires workshop, there should hopefully now be soon be two Scottish workshops in September next year. [01:49:47] Speaker A: But I'm just, I'm just putting this out there. Lisa Leach can't join you, I'm afraid, because we need her as our head cheerleader for bfop 2026. So just when's. [01:49:55] Speaker B: When is beef up still October? [01:49:57] Speaker C: Yeah, early like she'll be fine. [01:50:00] Speaker B: She'll be fine. [01:50:00] Speaker C: Yeah. You can do both. Lisa. [01:50:03] Speaker B: Lisa's actually, I talked to Lisa about the second one. I think she's probably going to be joining us for it. So. Yeah, if there is a clash, I'm going to be stealing her away. Sorry. [01:50:13] Speaker C: So what should people do? Obviously there's other workshops on here as well. We'll touch on that in a second. But what should people do if they're interested in any of your coming soon workshops? How do they make sure they get an opportunity when they're, when the dates are released? [01:50:27] Speaker B: So my newsletter is the best place to be. So my newsletter will always get workshop announcements a week before the public full week. So gives you a chance to book in. If you also expressly register your interest in something that you know is coming out, then I can, you know, make sure to send it to you as well. But otherwise, yeah, just the newsletter is where I'll put things out for a full week before it goes to the general public. And I have had, you know, a couple workshops sell 75 to 100 within that sort of week before. So yes, let me know. [01:50:59] Speaker C: Click. If you click on Coming soon there on the, on the workshop page, it'll take you to the. Yeah, to the sign up spot and then you can just pop your email in and, and get on the newsletter. Plus you probably get lots of nice images delivered to your inbox, I would imagine on a regular basis. [01:51:15] Speaker B: Yeah, so whenever I put out a. I mean I don't send out heaps like probably at most once a month, maybe twice if two things come up. But yeah, I'll also send, you know, whenever I put out a new gallery release that'll Go straight to your inbox, all that kind of thing. So usually get a bit more. A little bit of insight into what happened as well. So. Yeah, great. [01:51:38] Speaker C: And yeah, there's tons of other. Tons of other opportunities on here as well. Cradle Mountain, Freycinet Bay, Blue Mountain, Sapphire Coast. Multiple Sapphire coast dates. I think. [01:51:48] Speaker B: Yeah, this needs a rejig. I'm abandoning one of the Sapphire coasts for next year. So I actually, that. That page needs a little bit of reworking, actually. I should have done that before this interview. [01:51:59] Speaker A: We all suffer. We all suffer from, you know, not updating our websites. It's the last thing that we want to do when this. When there's light to chase. One other little thing I just found. I can't remember if you sent me this or if I found it on your website, but you wrote an article for Australian Photography a couple of years ago and it's about. It's called Tree Therapy, how to Photograph Rainforests. And it's a really deep dive into, you know, your methodology, what you're looking for. I think that's where I read about the fact that, that, you know, you get there, take it slow, just look and watch. And you know, as you said earlier about using your phone to play around with framing before you even open your camera bag, but we'll link that in the show notes later for anyone that wants to have a look at it goes really deep into everything you do, which is wonderful, you know, and again, wonderful that you're sharing that knowledge with anyone that's, you know, prepared to listen, which is great. [01:52:54] Speaker C: Quick question. Backtracking a little. This is from David de Parker, but in the market for a new head. Tripod head. Not. Not his actual head. [01:53:02] Speaker A: No, we like your head. [01:53:03] Speaker C: He's wonderful. What plate do you recommend for your LEO photo? Head bin. [01:53:10] Speaker B: I think they send out a plate with it. Is that the one? I think it is. But otherwise I'm not really very fussy with plates. You know, if it's Arca Swiss and it's not, you know, made of plastic, I'm generally okay with it. [01:53:23] Speaker C: Like, you don't use an L plate or. [01:53:27] Speaker B: Oh, I do use an L bracket. I do use an L bracket for my. Sorry, yeah, that's worth. Actually. Sorry. I do use an L bracket for my camera, so I use the Sunway photo one that's made for the Z72. Sorry, yeah, that was misleading. [01:53:44] Speaker C: Then. [01:53:45] Speaker B: I have the. The plate on my. Just the foot of my 100 to 400. [01:53:50] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, the one that comes with the ball head you just use. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, it's really funny one that I guess fits well with. Yeah. With that camera body. I mean they all do like everyone. Everything from like really right stuff and three legged thing all the way through or make kind of customized to your camera L brackets which is far better than getting a generic L bracket because it's going to block something. [01:54:16] Speaker B: Yeah. It'll block your battery compartment or your little, your jack to plug in your intervalometer or whatever it is. So yeah, that's what I'd recommend. But I mean the semi photo ones are not too expensive. I've used and abused these things. They're sturdy as you'll see how scratched up mine is and it's still functioning perfectly well. So yeah it's, that's, that's just what I've used for years and I've got that for both my Z62 and my Z72. [01:54:40] Speaker A: Nice. [01:54:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:54:42] Speaker C: He also says gorgeous images by the way. [01:54:44] Speaker B: Thank you David. Appreciate that. [01:54:48] Speaker C: All right, should we look at some more? Some more images? [01:54:52] Speaker A: Yes, please. [01:54:54] Speaker C: Just anything. Anything. [01:54:57] Speaker B: My newest gallery release was Cryotherapy. There was like some snowy Aussie trees. One that might be like some recent photos there. I saw that. [01:55:06] Speaker A: Is that on the new release if. [01:55:09] Speaker B: You go to cryotherapy. [01:55:11] Speaker A: Found it. [01:55:12] Speaker B: There you go. Yeah. So this was a really cool M.O. like I think there's what, 14 photos, something like that. I think all but one were captured on a single morning back in July. Wow. So yeah, I, I drove, made the five hour drive to Kosciusko, took a day off work and off like my real estate work that I do and, or real estate photography and because I saw that these conditions were sort of possibly going to be the case and I've been wanting to shoot snow gums in ice and snow for years and I just never had been able to make it happen. And so one of my housemates, he'd just been down to the snow, he mentioned it'd been raining a lot, so which meant there was going to be lots of, lots of moisture around. I then saw this big freeze was coming through, lots of snow and also like a lot of low cloud as well. And so I was like, oh, this could be, this could be really good. So I was like I'll just screw it, let's go for it. And so I drove down on a Monday morning and yeah, drove down the hallway, did a bit of snowshoeing that night. And then the next morning I actually met up with local photographer Luke Hazard. He lives in Jindabine and like knows this area like the back of his hand. So I did sort of half of the track that we then did the full sort of area of the next day. And not, not a track, it's pretty much off path. But I just knew the area because I'd had, I'd hiked through there before and yeah, so we met up and he was gracious enough to show me a couple of his favorite specimens, which was really cool. But yeah, we just had these incredible conditions where like there was this thick, thick fog that kind of came in and out combined with like the, the rain that had sort of snap frozen and given those icicles that you could see, there was really thick rhyme ice on a lot of the trunks as well, which is that kind of encrusting ice that you see. [01:57:10] Speaker A: Wonder what that was. [01:57:11] Speaker B: So that's rhyme ice just there. And yeah, it was just amazing conditions. I couldn't have, have, couldn't have really asked for better if into the like high key textural portraits of these amazing snow gums. [01:57:27] Speaker A: How cold was it while you're up there doing this shoot? [01:57:30] Speaker B: I, I didn't measure it. I don't know what it was, but I was. It was cold. It was, it was proper cold. It was snowing on us. It was like snowing on us, like through it for a lot of it. So yeah, had the waterproofs on and gloves and all of that. Yeah, it's a good sort of close up sort of example of the, the rye mice on the amazing sort of tiger stripe type type bark of these snow gums. So yeah, it was a really, really fun morning. And yeah, so that was my one photo that was captured on the night before and everything else was on the same morning. So a lot more snow sort of came in overnight and just made it even better for the morning. [01:58:12] Speaker A: It's amazing. [01:58:13] Speaker C: Beautiful. [01:58:13] Speaker A: Absolutely amazing. [01:58:14] Speaker B: Yes. There's a few of these little textural ones in there. [01:58:17] Speaker A: Yeah, I really love those. I really appreciate it because it just sort of. It gives you a bit of a blended feel of what was going on. It's not just all trees, you know, it's. And even if it was, that'd be great because they're bloody beautiful shots. But just, just to get these little details here and there, it's just. Yeah, I love it. Well played. [01:58:33] Speaker B: That one was a nice little moment where there was a like a touch of sun that was trying to break through. You see there's a little bit of warmth. Yeah. So that was cool. And then eventually it just, it all kind of cleared a bit. But yeah, having, having that depth, especially with such a chaotic sort of subject matter, like these are super sort of straggly, sharp, chaotic branches. That depth was really important to help just them stand out from their backgrounds and be isolated as subject matter. So the conditions were awesome. And you can see how thick some of those icicles were, like on the left hand side of that one there. [01:59:12] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [01:59:14] Speaker B: It was amazing. [01:59:15] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Beautiful shots. What a morning. [01:59:21] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was one of the mostly handheld. There was only a couple that needed like focus stacking, which then brought out the tripod for the most part. Like, it was so bright that there was just no need to. If it didn't need to be focus stacked, then just didn't need to bring out the tripod. And it's so annoying setting up a tripod in snow that I was just. [01:59:45] Speaker C: Gonna say, yeah, getting it to settle. [01:59:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So only brought it out when it was necessary. [01:59:52] Speaker C: How often do you think, ballpark, would you focus stack in your work? [02:00:00] Speaker B: I mean, it depends a lot on the subject matter. Like if, if it's a, you know, a near, far wide angle with a close foreground. And every time for that, pretty much, unless the light's happening super, super quickly and I don't have time, in which case I'm just bumping it up to like F18 and trying to get it with hyperfocal distance. If it's like a macro subject matter, like a small textual detail that isn't just on a flat plane, then pretty much all the time for that as well. But I mean, a lot of these, like, most of these, because they're handheld, they're like most of these are single frames. So it. I'm not always doing those kind of subject matter that need it. So I know probably at least 60%, 70% of my work isn't focus stacked because I'm you. You can be quite productive when you're not going around setting up the tripod and focus stacking for every shot. If you, if you. The conditions allow you to be handheld, getting single exposure image images, then you can just take a lot more photos. And so that kind of higher volume then means that like, yeah, all of these would be single exposures. That's probably my favorite from the gallery, actually. [02:01:08] Speaker A: I think that's my favorite too. It's just absolutely mesmerizing. [02:01:12] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:01:12] Speaker B: Thank you. Just. Yeah, I've. The last kind of year or two, maybe I've been quite actively seeking out like chaos and trying to work with that and not being afraid of chaos, but then trying to organize it at the same time. Like, I think it's like, it's kind of been a stepping process of learning how to simplify. I think that kind of comes first and then learning how to work with chaos after that. Because you still need to be able to convey a single idea with. Within a chaotic image. But it can maybe be visually chaotic, but still clear and concise. So having that concise image that still has an organized chaos to it is, I think, kind of that thing that I've been trying to really challenge myself with. You know, that failing upwards thing. Right. I'm trying to not sort of lean on crutches of, you know, nice minimal styles that. [02:02:09] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [02:02:11] Speaker B: You know, this. A wide angle, whatever it might be. [02:02:14] Speaker C: A single frozen tree in a beautiful landscape always looks beautiful. I mean, not always. [02:02:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:02:20] Speaker C: With your work, I'm sure you could make every one of those look great. Yeah. Whereas this. This looks like it's got an intentional direction, like it flows from left to right. [02:02:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:02:31] Speaker C: I found, like, it's like it's. It's draining across the right of the image because of the direction of the branches. And I'm assuming that if you had. If you had altered your frame a little bit, then maybe it would look more chaotic because there wouldn't be that direction. [02:02:48] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think, like, there was. All these trees were all around the place, but sort of noting that central tree, which has that sort of fanning, twisting look to it, really provided the bulk of that structure. And then there was that one in the bottom, on the bottom left, which kind of points in, could have been detrimental because it was like quite a big, heavy left, you know, cutting off the body. It could have been like something that just totally cut off the bottom of the frame. But trying to work with that in a way that complemented it rather than being detrimental. And so, yeah, that's another one of those things where the. The inspiration is like, Han Strand is one of my. Sorry, I keep knocking my mic Hans drawn one of my biggest sort of inspirations at the moment. And he's like, isn't. Is a master. He's been doing it for years and years and years. Is from Sweden, I think, and just one of the best at like, harnessing chaos into something that just works. And you're like, how does this work? But it just does. [02:03:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:03:47] Speaker B: And so that. That kind of thing, like my. Who I look up to photographically shifts a lot and then that tends to like, make a Little bit of an appearance in what kind of work I'm producing too, because it influence how I'm enjoying and interacting with nature in a visual sense. So stuff like this is one of the ones I'm more proud of from the shoot because it. It works with those chaotic elements and tries to bring it into something that still looks cohesive even though there's so much going on. [02:04:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. I think you nailed it for sure. Question for you, how do you cope with not letting your. Or preventing your gear from freezing when you're in some of these locations? Is there. Do you have some tips for people on the best way to care for your gear when it's clearly, you know, below freezing? [02:04:36] Speaker B: I don't think it was quite cold enough for, like, the gear to, like, freeze. Like, I don't think it was the kind of, you know, you know, northern Canada or Greenland type thing where it might be like minus 20 and it's going to freeze. [02:04:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:04:49] Speaker B: So, yeah, what I did have was one of my, like, my lenses kind of fogging up a bit because we'd been snowed on or rained on a very. Yes. Snowed on at various times, which had gotten a wet. And then I put it back in my gear, sorry, my bag, kind of wet, without drying it off properly. And then that kind of then condensates and gets into it and stuff. So without drying it off properly. And then when the sun kind of slightly came out at times, and then that slight change in temperature, that just meant that my lenses kind of went in and out of being a little fogged up. So keeping a year dry is one of the biggest things, like in. In the Australian environment, where freezing is less of an issue. But getting wet is very easy to happen. If it does get wet, it's fine. The camera is going to survive. But drying it off as quickly as you can, if you. And maybe drying it off before you then like, zoom the lens back out and bring that moisture into the lens, you know, like, if it catches on the bit that's. That's extended, and then you zoom it back in and then it goes inside. So trying to do that, which I'm not very good at doing, I'm not very diligent with, but, yeah, I find the fogging up is probably one of the easiest things to happen in areas that I shoot in, like Tasmania and, you know, Kosciusko and the snow and all of that kind of stuff with very wet, changing temperatures. Yeah, yeah. So just trying to keep you having a cloth, like a microfiber cloth that sits over the top of it. And something I've ordered and is on its way is actually like silica gel packets that you can just like sit in your bag and stuff and tries to absorb moisture. [02:06:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Smart. Yeah. [02:06:22] Speaker B: Kind of thing. Yeah. But besides that, I'm pretty. I'm pretty rough and rough and tumble with my gear. I don't. I don't coddle it. [02:06:31] Speaker A: It's a tool. Yeah. It has to be out for it to work. [02:06:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:06:35] Speaker C: Should we look at just a few. I know it's so. We're two hours in. So mindful of your time. We don't want to keep your. [02:06:41] Speaker B: No, I'm relaxed. I'm fine. Yeah. There's no rush from me. [02:06:45] Speaker C: Okay, perfect. Because then there's one other subject I want to talk about after we have a look at a few more images, but we won't keep you too long. I just wanted to bring up a couple that grabbed my eye and just get some quick thoughts on them from you. This is pretty cool. Tell us this is. Explain this photo, please. [02:07:05] Speaker B: So this is. This is the Dolomites. So I got over there February last year. Not intentionally, originally as a photography trip. I was doing a. [02:07:16] Speaker C: My. [02:07:16] Speaker B: One of my brothers lives in London and so we had a little. The guys of the family kind of went over and caught up with him and we went skiing in the Dolomites, which was really cool. And so while I was over there, I was like, I'll just, I'll extend this into a trip because, you know, what a waste would it be if, you know, when I first got into photography as like a 14, 15 year old, the Dolomites just really captured my imagination just because they seem so whimsical and otherworldly and dramatic. And so getting there at winter was an interesting, like, first experience of the area because, you know, I don't know the area. And then you're quite limited with what you can access and what you know that you can access as well, when most of it is limited to snowshoeing or chairlifts. So it meant we did a little bit more roadside stuff than I usually would on a trip. But then there were a couple of spots where we hiked in and did an overnight camp. You. Technically, overnight camping is technically illegal in the Dolomites, but what they allow you to do is make up like a. If you have to camp and it's, you know, you're allowed to. It's kind of like a rule of thumb that if you're out of sight and you're only doing it for one night, then it's kind of okay because you're allowed to like emergency camp or whatever. And so as long as you're not in the way of full tourism and you're not camping there for multiple days on end, it's fine. Which is how most people are doing it over there. Whenever you see the wilderness stuff in the Dolomites. And so we snowshoed in very iconic stone towers here. This mountain, the Tre Chime de Lavaredo and which is the Three Towers. So very, very dramatic spot. So we, we snowshoed in here and camped overnight. And the snow, like we got a big dump of snow like kind of halfway through the trip, just as I was starting the photography portion of the trip. But then it just didn't really snow again after that. So it was really good at the start. And then the photography kind of gradually got harder throughout as the snow kind of packed and melted and got footprints in it and everything. This was a few days after the snow dump had happened but thankfully there was still some nice access drugi that was happening like you can see on the right there. But there wasn't much sort of foreground elements to work with. Which is why I chose these two foreground sort of rocks here because they a kind of blocked our tents that were further down as well as just providing what would otherwise just be plain snow as my foreground. But yeah, I was hoping for, I mean you can see all the high cloud around in the sky. So I was hoping for a really nice high cloud sort of sunset but it just fizzled out. So nothing really interesting happened, which I was a bit disappointed by because I was like, oh, I found this comp and we got out here. So I pulled out photo pills and just was like, I wonder what the moon's gonna do later on tonight. And yeah, lo and behold, I think at about 2am it was going to be setting to the right over here. So I was like, oh, okay, this might be, this might be something to work with here. [02:10:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:10:13] Speaker B: And so yeah, got up out of my tent a few hours later, snowshoed back up, knew exactly where to set up my tripod. So I set that up and yeah, it's just magic. Especially when you have the moon shining through. High cloud always looks so nice because it just softens it and really helps with this lovely glow. It was really technically challenging shot to create because, you know, this is a near far composition at night. [02:10:35] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:10:36] Speaker B: So it required, you know, focus stacking at F 3.5 or something like that. And then doing an aggressive like, exposure blend for the moon. Because again, when you're shooting at high ISOs, your. Your dynamic range is reduced and then you're shooting into this, you know, big ball of light in total darkness. And so, yeah, I think focus stacking blind because it was too dark for me to autofocus. And then, yeah, doing this like, really challenging blend both for the editing as well, getting that blend sort of sorted for the exposure blend for the moon. Because I hate big balls of overexposed, like clipped. I like it to get down to the tiniest little pinpoint that I can for both, whether it is the sun or the moon. So, yeah, technically challenging. And then a bit of AI noise reduction and different techniques for both the land and the sky because the AI noise reduction works well for the land, but doesn't work well with stars or anything like that. So I had to do different techniques for different parts of the image. And yeah, all of that. So very technical shot. But I'm really happy that I put in the effort because, yeah, it was one of. One of my favorite shots from the trip, for sure. [02:11:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I mean, and rightly so, it's. It is pure sorcery. And I come back again, Ben, to my. One of the comments I made at the very top of this show that the experience that you've just described to us to make this shot happen is just as important as the finished product. You know, the whimsy involved in getting out of your tent in the middle of the night and, you know, snowshoeing up a mountain to find the right spot and then going through technical process, as you said, blind. It's just phenomenal what you've been able to achieve. So, you know, well done. That's. That's incredible. Absolutely incredible. [02:12:18] Speaker B: I appreciate that. Thank you. [02:12:20] Speaker C: Yeah, great shot. And it's funny too, because you said the Dolomites were so. I think the words you word you used was whimsical but. And otherworldly. And it's like that's exactly what this shot. [02:12:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:12:31] Speaker C: Shows. It's almost like this could be like a sci fi movie. Like you're. It's like. [02:12:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:12:36] Speaker C: You know. Yeah. Another planet. [02:12:38] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's beautiful. Yeah. [02:12:41] Speaker A: So I don't know, whereabouts are the Dolomites located? Is that in Italy? [02:12:45] Speaker B: Italy, yeah. Northern Italy. [02:12:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. [02:12:47] Speaker B: Because as, I mean, like, it was an interesting experience being there because like, I'm. I'm used to really immersive landscapes where like, it's totally wild, whereas over there, because it's like they get like 2 million people through there in winter alone. What for? Like, the ski tourism and stuff. So it's very, like. It's quite built up so you can drive in summer. You can drive right to the base of that mountain. It's hard to look around and not see a chair lift somewhere. So that, like, at times kind of took me out of it. I was like, oh, this is not what I'm used to. Like, I'm not used to seeing chairlifts in the distance or having roads or, you know, light pollution from this town or whatever. Yeah. So, yeah, and there are. There were times where I was like, I miss Tassie, ironically, you know, this incredible mountain range that I'm sitting in. But it did make me grateful for the. The suedes of. Of untouched wilderness that we have over here. Whereas, yeah, especially some of these mountainous areas in Europe. Like, it's hard to avoid the touch of man, I think, which. So, yeah, it was interesting to sort of see that dynamic play out and how I was experiencing the landscape, but nonetheless an incredible place to visit and photograph. Like, it's just the. The mountains are incredible. [02:13:57] Speaker A: Was it Luke Sharkey who loved photographing Tasmania so much that he moved there? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [02:14:04] Speaker B: I think it was, what, 2017 that he moved down there. He was in Sydney before that. [02:14:08] Speaker A: Yeah, Lovely story. Just, you know, the way that a place can do that to you, you know, make you just pick up everything and move. [02:14:15] Speaker C: It's just. [02:14:16] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [02:14:18] Speaker C: Lucinda says. All I think of when someone says Dolomites is the Commonwealth bank accounts at school. That's right, yes. The great. The great Australian scam to get. Get kids into their banking system early. And that was, of course, spelled dollar mites, like the. [02:14:32] Speaker A: They did have the best. The best money boxes. The best tin money boxes, I must say. [02:14:37] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, it was very well played. Commonwealth bank, you got us. [02:14:40] Speaker A: Thanks for that blast from the past, Lucinda. [02:14:43] Speaker C: What was I gonna say? All right, a few other. Oh, that's right. So you mentioned Photo Pills. I just want to say to anyone that if you don't have an app like Photo Pills, that. So either photopills or I think the older one was the photographer's ephemeris or something like that. But I think Photo Pills is probably the best all rounder. You mentioned it. It gives you tons of information, but one of the best things it can do is it gives you augmented reality of the night sky, the moon. We use it all the time for the sun. We're even using it. Yeah, we use it all the time. We were using it just a couple of days ago for action photography because they want to be group shot and we're like, right. And of course they set up the giant banner and the group shot stuff so that everyone would be staring directly into the low morning sun. So anyway, so we had to change that and. And photo pills allows you to basically stand there with your phone, see where the sun's going to track through the day, or the moon or the night sky in the Milky Way or whatever. I think it's. What's it like 10 bucks or 20 bucks or something like that? [02:15:42] Speaker B: Maybe. I think when I bought it was like 14, something like that. Okay, One time purchase. [02:15:46] Speaker C: One time purchase, exactly. They're not like you're on the drip forever. Sorry. If you like it. So, yeah, I would highly recommend checking out that app if you haven't got something like that already. That helps you figure out what's going to happen with the sun, the moon, the stars and everything. Plus it's got heaps of other little tools built into it as well. [02:16:05] Speaker A: Yeah, it's pretty handy. Just. Just a little quick cheeky comment from Yelena. I'm 34 and my commback app tells me I've been the user of Commonwealth bank for 30 years. See, they. They've got you for life now. [02:16:17] Speaker C: I think they actually kind of got in trouble for it a little while ago. Like, hey, you can't really hook kids into your banking system. Like that's not really. Anyway, moving on. [02:16:29] Speaker A: Sorry. [02:16:30] Speaker C: Who knows, one day they might sponsor the pod. I've been not. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Give us some money. I really like this image. This is really cool. [02:16:40] Speaker A: Cool. [02:16:42] Speaker C: Is it called the Vault? The Vault. No. [02:16:44] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [02:16:47] Speaker C: It's just so dark and moody. I love it. [02:16:52] Speaker A: Tell us about this shot. [02:16:54] Speaker B: Yeah, so this was. What was it? I think it was like one of the second. I think the second day of a taron workshop with Paul Holland last year. So this was after sunrise. We'd kind of driven up the. To this vantage point and it was, yeah, one of those times where the sun gets that sort of dappled light through the clouds. And yeah, I really love working with when. When you've got direct light. Working with underexposure because it produces the most bizarre looking abstract effects, especially with water and like anything that like is translucent. Water, clouds, foliage. Yeah. And so I, I really liked the way that it's. It kind of had this at this particular point, this pattern on the. The water and then there's this tiny little gap where the clouds weren't sitting between the water and the clouds, which is why I called it the vault. It's reference to like biblical creation, sort of Bible verses. And then up above that you've got the clouds, like sort of that separation between sky and sea. And yeah, like I, it's. It's a pretty different photo for me, but I love this kind of thing. And this is the kind of shot where like I can point out direct influence from people like T.J. thorne. This is very much in his sort of style of that minimal, like simple color palette bit, sort of working with harsh light and under exposure and that kind of thing. Yeah, it's one of my favorite sort of abstract, detailed, intimate sort of landscapes as well. So I'm glad you picked that one out. Actually. [02:18:24] Speaker C: It, it caught me as soon as I was having a look through. It just. It grabbed me. That's the sort of thing I would, I would love to have printed on my wall. It's just. Yeah, it draws you in. It's. Love it. [02:18:36] Speaker B: It's actually full color as well. It's not black and white conversion, is it? [02:18:39] Speaker C: I can see a tinge of blue like on my screen. But yeah, I kind of. [02:18:45] Speaker B: So like again, when you're working with really, really dark, direct light and you underexpose for the highlights enough, it just, it pretty much converts to monochrome in camera. So like the photo was pretty much black and white straight out of camera, even though I was working with in full color. And then I think I just gave it a slight blue tinge and processing. So just slightly cooled down the white balance because I prefer that sort of silver tone look. But yeah, there's. There's no black and white conversion here at all. [02:19:11] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Beautiful. I'd love to, like, this is what's hard. You know, I can only imagine what these images look like in full res or printed or whatever because obviously this is, you know, it's had to go on a website, which you can't put in enormous photos on a website. So it's like. Yeah, I bet they all just look. Anyway, now, before I get to our final topic, I wanted to ask you about, are there any other images you think we should check out? This. I could look through these all day. [02:19:39] Speaker B: There's tons. [02:19:39] Speaker C: I had quite a few more that I want to bring up, but is there any that you would like to show us? [02:19:46] Speaker B: I think, I mean, that top left one right there, I think it was the photo that we used for the promotion. Yeah, it was my favorite favorite, like grand landscape photo I've taken. [02:19:58] Speaker A: Amazing. [02:19:59] Speaker B: And also recently got a highly commended in the NLPA which Matt mentioned earlier, which is a nice little inclusion. [02:20:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:20:08] Speaker B: But yeah, I think like one of my other influences would be, you know, Peter Dombrovskas, the classic iconic Tasmanian landscape photographer who just really shaped the Tasmanian style and I think is truly one of the greatest landscape photographers to have ever done it. And I think there'd be many around the world who would agree with me. And you know, there are people today who are considered some of the best, like Joe Cornish over in the UK. There's several video, YouTube videos going through various books of Peter Dombrowska's work, citing him like, and describing how much he loves his work and draws inspiration from him. So he, you know, did sort of medium large format 4x5 film decades ago into the depths of Tasmania's wilderness and just had. Was so ahead of his time. And it's got many images today that absolutely hold up and outstrip what people are producing today with digital cameras and far more knowledge. And so I was in this area and I felt like I just kind of stepped into one of his photos. Like it's. It was a really beautiful. I hadn't seen this composition before, so as I was sort of hiking through, I found these really nice patches of Vegas which still had like, hadn't been stripped off their branches yet. And yeah, I just kind of fine tuned this composition for like an hour and a half and waited for the light and was eventually ready for this little tendril of mist to drift through that valley in the background. [02:21:35] Speaker A: Yeah, it's amazing. [02:21:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I just, I loved that. Just big rectangular boulder on the left. There's something about it just drew me in. And so it's not a typical like, composition like in terms of how it's framed up, but it just is another one of those ones where I was trying to push myself a little bit in terms of like breaking some, you know, it doesn't have your classic sort of, you know, three leading lines coming in from your corners or whatever it might be, or a particular mountain peak in the background. Like, there's no. You kind of get bounced around the photo, but it still works. And so, yeah, I'm probably one of the photos that I'm most proud of in my gallery as like a grand landscape because it's grand, but it also feels intimate at the same time. Like it doesn't feel like it's Throwing conditions in your face. Yeah. And so, yeah, it's probably one of my favorite photos I've taken. [02:22:27] Speaker A: I think just some high praise here from Matt. One of the most. [02:22:32] Speaker C: Sorry, going to Greg, I was going. [02:22:34] Speaker A: To say one of the most interestingly composed images of a Tasmanian grand landscape, in my opinion, rightly in consideration for the top spot in nlp. So it's high praise indeed. [02:22:47] Speaker B: Thank you, Matt. [02:22:48] Speaker C: Also, while we're here, Lisa had to go. Thanks, Lisa. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for leading us to, to Ben's work because I'm sad to say I hadn't really come across your work much, but I'm not, I don't, I'm kind of a hermit. I don't, I don't go on the socials or anything. So it kind of, unless someone shows me things, I often don't get exposed to people's work that much. So, yeah, I'm really glad that we got got. [02:23:13] Speaker A: I think Lisa meant. I think Lisa mentioned your upcoming episode about four times while we're in Bright, you're really excited to have you on and she felt really proud that she'd been the one to recommend you and that obviously we wanted to spend some time talking to you. So that's great. [02:23:29] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:23:29] Speaker B: No, I'm glad she was able to join. She mentioned that she might not have been able to jump into the episode. So. Yeah, yeah, she's probably jumped out now, but yeah. Thanks, Lisa. [02:23:37] Speaker A: Not many people have the amount of time that Justin and I have just to sit around talking all day. So, you know, that's, that's fair. [02:23:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:23:45] Speaker C: All right. I did want to quickly ask. So you. Basically we sort of glossed over this a little bit, but basically you're in high school. Then you, and you were, you were doing this, you went on a trip, you met Luke Sharkey, who's a professional landscape photographer. He's doing this thing and, and that was about the time that you were like, all right, I'm not going to go get a real job. I'm going to be a professional landscape photographer. What did your parents. Careers person at school, all of that sort of. What, what did they say when you were like, yeah, I'm going to make money taking landscape photos. How did that go? [02:24:26] Speaker B: Yeah, actually this is kind of a story in and of itself as well. So 2019, it was my first year out of high school, so I was just kind of doing some hospitality work to earn some money and, and that kind of thing and shooting whenever I could. And so I had in high school like from like school. Gotten early acceptance into National Art School here in Sydney. So I was one of their top applicants for that that year. So I got into that. But then I was like, oh, I think I'll just defer for a year and do photography stuff and make sure I still want to do it in a year's time. And decided I didn't want to do it. So I pulled out of that and then I enrolled into UTS photography course as well. University of Technology Sydney enrolled into that and then, you know, after my sort of year off, I. I made it two hours into orientation day and decided it wasn't for me. [02:25:22] Speaker C: What? [02:25:22] Speaker A: So why was O week is like the best week of university? [02:25:25] Speaker C: Exactly. It was weird. [02:25:28] Speaker B: Day one should be, I don't know, I was like sitting in this auditorium and there's this guy who's like trying to be like talking like he's trying to be a WWE announcer, but he's like 60 and is like trying to hype up the kids and stuff. Like it just feels patronizing. And he's like, yeah, please welcome. He's like gripping the podium and it's. [02:25:49] Speaker C: Like, please welcome up this person. [02:25:51] Speaker B: And this lady just comes up. It's like blank, like the most boring. Like it's just like this just feels weird. This is not the environment for me. And like I was already kind of like, I know how to take photos at this point. So I was like at the moment, like it might be good for like industry connections or whatever, but I kind of just quickly realized now what I'm going to be doing is like studio lighting and relearning how. What I've already learned and maybe figuring out how to do commercial client stuff or whatever. And I was like, that's not what I want to do with photography. I don't need someone to really teach me how to do it. And I don't want to learn how to set up a three light photo just because that's not what I'm interested in. And so. And I don't need to spend 15 grand a year doing it either. And so it was like, I don't. Yeah, I just didn't want the hex debt. And I was like, I think I can do this myself. And so I actually walked out of that. Went straight to George's cameras without a resume and was like, hey, I'd like to work here. Could I like talk to someone about that? I knew someone that worked there was like, oh, I know this guy. They gave me an interview on the spot and Then I was working there a week later, which was kind of. Yes. It felt like just a real like sort of fate moment. Yeah, this is meant to happen. [02:27:07] Speaker A: But I think also, Ben, we need to take into account that, you know, at this time you were 19 and you, you had a very clear idea of who and what you wanted to be. You know, when I was your age, I was just running around bumping into stuff, like I had no idea what I wanted to be. Mostly because of poor career guidance from high school. But, you know, full credit to you that at the age of 19, you're like, Nah, actually this is the direction that I definitely want to take it. And I think, you know, you should be, you should take a lot of pride in setting a course and walking. [02:27:40] Speaker C: In and asking for an interview that is 100%. Like, if you, if, if anyone's listening to this, if you're young and you're like, I want to go and get a job somewhere, don't just sit around waiting for something to pop up on. [02:27:52] Speaker B: Seek. [02:27:53] Speaker C: Yeah, walk in. Especially if it's a customer facing role or something like that. Even if it's not, don't worry about it. But like, I, I worked in the car industry for a little while and if people walked in and asked to. [02:28:07] Speaker A: I don't think washing cars counts as car industry. [02:28:09] Speaker C: Funny, that was no show. That was my first job. All school holidays I hosed and shammy 300 cars a day. All school holidays when I was like 16 and it was awesome. I had a great time anyway. But yeah, if someone walked in and even if they didn't have a position, if someone walked in and asked if they could talk to someone about getting a job, they got to sit down, usually on the spot if the manager was free. Because it means they were confident enough to, to just come and ask the question. And they just want someone that's confident enough to walk up to someone and say, hey, do you need help or what? You know? [02:28:43] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's what. [02:28:44] Speaker C: Yeah, that's epic. [02:28:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:28:46] Speaker C: So cool. [02:28:46] Speaker B: Yeah. And I mean, I had been in, handed in my resume there before because I was like, it would be cool to work here. But I think it was just a combination of elements that just meant it worked and was, you know, giving things a crack a few times is important too. [02:29:01] Speaker A: Means that you took charge of your own destiny. [02:29:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:29:04] Speaker A: You know, rather than wait for someone to hand you an opportunity, you just went, oh, stuff this. I want to be a photographer. I'm going to work in a camera store. Because that Makes perfect sense. [02:29:11] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:29:11] Speaker A: You know. [02:29:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I love it. It's great. And so. Yeah. And then. So I worked there throughout 2020, obviously. I had had about a month or two off with COVID obviously, but then they were able to sort of bring us back into the store. And I worked mostly in like a sort of stock receiving and sending out orders role. So that was fun. And yeah, got to sort of replace some gear that less than I would have had to otherwise, which was good. But then I kind of was like, okay, I think. I don't think I can stagnate here. I need a. It'd be so easy to just stay here for years as a safe option. It's like, oh, it's kind of photography adjacent. Like it's. If it's a store. But I'm still actually working in hospitality. And so I did that year I did like a little weekend away with another Sydney photographer called Jose Luis Cantabrana Garcia. It's his full name. I don't know if he likes to be called Jose. [02:30:03] Speaker C: I'm gonna Google Jose Lewis. [02:30:06] Speaker B: Jose Cantabrana is. Should get you part of it. Yeah, he's a great photographer too. So he. We did a little weekend away with him and he does real estate and architecture photography as well. And I was like, do you, like, do you reckon you'd be able to give me an in? I like, I just want to work in any photography. And he was like, yeah. So he introduced me to one of the people that he worked for and then, yeah, 2021 came around and like, they trained me up and I was working in real estate photography. So that was my first kind of full time like doing photography as work. Yeah, sort of thing. [02:30:46] Speaker A: I just want to jump in there. That email I mentioned earlier, where I knew. I knew your name from somewhere. It was from George's. I just had a quick squeeze at the email. It was 2021 and you were doing a real estate shoot and Lee and I were creating content and like CR Kennedy were involved and a whole bunch of people. Yeah, right. [02:31:01] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, yeah, right, yeah. [02:31:04] Speaker A: Sorry I cut you off. Sorry. [02:31:05] Speaker B: No, that's all right. So, yeah, 2021 I was doing that. And then 2021 I also ran my first like workshop as well, which is just like a little weekend down away in Kiama. And yeah, that was kind of my first like in with the workshop stuff was my first sort of experience with that. I was there, barely made any money from it and I probably. I messed a couple things up and I realized like probably I'm not a good enough cook to be cooking for the clients and all that kind of thing. So like those sort of early mistakes that you learn very quickly and like during COVID as well, I'd sort of been able to use that chance to build up like my website and try and you know, offer editing tutorials and that kind of thing. So, you know, while I wasn't really able out to. Able to go out and shoot in that period, I realized I was very fortunate in that I was. You know, because I was young, I was still living at home with my parents, so I didn't have rent to pay or anything like that. So I was quite lucky through covert in that like I did lose work but I. It wasn't a big deal for me because just of the position I was in. So because I was able to make the most of that, I then could sort of come back into being out of lockdown and stuff and being able to, you know, having slightly sort of started to position myself as someone who did like photography education and that kind of thing. And so like workshops was always the dream. Like being able to do, you know, go in the field and take people around to these beautiful areas was like. I was, when I was like 16, 17, I was looking at people doing that, I was like, oh man, how good would that be? So I feel very grateful and blessed to be able to do that today and you know, to have people that are willing to join me in some of these far, far fletched or far fetched places and you know, come along and trust me with them and you know, want to learn from me. So it's, I'm very, very grateful for what I'm able to do. And then I just balance it out with yeah, the real estate and other proper property photography when I'm back on trips because renting in Sydney is, it's not cheap. I'm getting married next year as well and weddings. Aren't you? [02:33:01] Speaker A: Congratulations. [02:33:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:33:04] Speaker C: Oh, you're gonna have to find an epic wedding photographer for two. [02:33:07] Speaker A: I know. [02:33:07] Speaker B: We did, we did. We found a guy that I'm absolutely stoked on, so. We both are. There's a guy called Oliver Hartley. He's been in like Vogue weddings and stuff. But he was like, we get him on the budget. I mean he's a, he's a lovely guy. I think he likes a bit of landscape stuff as well. So he knew some of the guys that I know with landscape stuff. But he, he's an amazing wedding photographer. He's absolutely Excellent. He like, you know, does digital and film. Like we're sort of paying a little extra to have him do a few film roles. Yeah. [02:33:35] Speaker C: Nice. [02:33:36] Speaker B: So no, he was, it was an awesome find. We were like super stoked with him. Yeah. [02:33:40] Speaker A: So cool. [02:33:41] Speaker C: Check him out. Oh, that's. [02:33:42] Speaker A: And are you, are you, are you getting married at an epic location as well or you, you kind of. [02:33:47] Speaker B: Yeah, we got the two things we splurged on was the venue and photographer and then we're sort of DIYing everything. [02:33:53] Speaker C: Else and we're making our own suits and wedding dresses. [02:33:59] Speaker B: Yeah, not quite to that degree. Yeah, we are like my fiance's get like doing own flowers, she's going to do her own hair and makeup. Like all that kind of things. Like not no extravagant honeymoon or anything like that, so. [02:34:13] Speaker A: But you'll have your photos forever, so. [02:34:15] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [02:34:16] Speaker A: Well played. Very well played. [02:34:18] Speaker B: So that'll be. Yeah. So I just do that stuff to help just the, the steady sort of work come through and you know, sort of working towards a point where I can do less and less of it with, you know, digital sort of, you know, like this mentor program that I've got going now, all that kind of thing. More of that will mean eventually I hopefully could do full time landscapes. But honestly I'm pretty happy with the blend regardless because you know, getting to shoot some nice houses is always fun too, especially for like interior stylists and all that kind of thing. Yeah, it's like it's the same but different. Like it's still tripod, multiple like exposure bracketing, similar sort of framing approaches, but it's also very different at the same time. And so it's kind of like a slightly different creative outlet. Keeps it fresh. [02:34:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:34:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:34:59] Speaker C: Just on the workshops quickly if, if anyone is interested. The other thing I think I saw on your website, maybe it's not available anymore, was bespoke workshop experiences from like one day, one on one through to potentially like build your own workshop or and your own group adding extra people. So reach out if there's something that you want to learn or you're in the area or even potentially a different area. I assume that that's, that's a possibility. Like me and three photographers could be like, could you take us here this time of year or whatever. So, or even just a one on one, one day experience. So I love that. That's, that's an option too. [02:35:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:35:42] Speaker B: Yeah. I got to do a really fun one a couple of years ago. I think it was late 2023. Went around with someone for in Tassie for like six days. And that was awesome because we basically just had like a rough idea but then just chase conditions and you know, because Tassie's so small, you know, there was one point where the conditions weren't working out in the northeast and so we weren't totally, you know, one in one day went down to the southwest and chased rainforest conditions down there instead. And so yeah, that kind of thing. I love that kind of thing. So yeah, and something I want to work on is kind of like pre formulated sort of formats that people can just book on that that are just, you know, as a one to one or two, like small group tailored workshop. Yeah. But like here's, here's what we could do. And so like it's just a matter of booking it in at that point. [02:36:32] Speaker C: And then just figure out a date that works with them rather than having these like. Well, I'm doing in October 2026. I've got this one thing. It's more like, look, there's a two day. We can do this one overnighter in this location. Let's figure out when it works for you or whatever. That's very cool. I love that. [02:36:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [02:36:51] Speaker C: All right, should we finish off with final question? The most important question of the whole podcast. [02:36:57] Speaker A: Everyone's waiting for it. [02:36:59] Speaker C: So I've heard if it was the end of the world and now I know you try and keep any human elements out of your OR frames, but let's say it's a zombie apocalypse or something like that and you had to run for your life, take out into the Scottish Highlands or something and you could only take one camera and one lens with you to document the landscapes during the end of the world. [02:37:24] Speaker A: Because that would be your first priority, obviously. [02:37:28] Speaker C: Clearly that'd be the most important thing. What, what's your like one camera and one lens if, if that's all you had. [02:37:35] Speaker B: That's very easy. Like so Z72 and the 24 to 120. Nice. Yeah, I mean I could get, I mean I could maybe do like a 24 to 200, like Super Zoom. Oh yeah, I could do that. But then I meant the quality, like it's pretty good. But I mean I, I love, I love the 24 to 120. Like it's super sharp. The range is awesome. 45 megapixels is enough resolution to be able to DX crop and get to about 200 mil close equivalent and still have what, over 20 megapixels of resolution. So yeah, that'd be my, my sort of instant go to for that. And 24 is still pretty wide. 120 is, you know, decently telephoto, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [02:38:22] Speaker A: It's long enough so the zombies don't get too close. That's the truth. [02:38:26] Speaker B: Quick. [02:38:26] Speaker A: If all you're. If all you're rocking is a 14 mil prime. Well, yeah, it's going to be a very short photo session, but yeah. [02:38:34] Speaker C: David. David Mascara says mic drop or mike. Yeah, that's a good microphone. Like 24 to 120. It's funny, I actually asked. I call him Nick on Ross because I can't remember what Ross's last name, but Ross from Nick on. I don't know if you ever. Have you ever met Ross? He's from the pro division. [02:38:50] Speaker B: No, I don't think Julie a lot. [02:38:52] Speaker C: So Nick on Ross, he's got like beautiful long hair. So he's up at the Bright festival photography and I was asking him, like, what's the most underrated Nikon lens that people. Because people always come up for the crowd pleasers when they're asking to borrow lenses and stuff like that. And I said, what's the most underrated Nikon lens? And he goes, I don't know if it's underrated, but it's the 24 to 120F4. He's like, it's just great. It's just a great lens. Slap it up. [02:39:17] Speaker B: It's just. It's a workhorse. [02:39:19] Speaker C: Exactly. [02:39:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:39:20] Speaker B: Absolute workhorse. Like you, you can't go to like, say like F16 as easily as you could if you're on like the 24 to 70. Obviously, like with that sort of amount of range, you've got to be a little bit more particular with the aperture but like within, you know, anything that's like a reasonable aperture, like f6 to f14. You've got a super sharp photo and that kind of range is just amazing. So, yeah, that's. That's a pretty easy decision for me there. [02:39:49] Speaker A: Nice. [02:39:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:39:49] Speaker A: Good answer indeed. Well, I think on that note, we might wrap, boss. What do you reckon? [02:39:55] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Where should people track you down? [02:40:00] Speaker B: Where. [02:40:00] Speaker A: What do you want? [02:40:01] Speaker B: Yeah, so I mean, my website there just www.benmazefineart.com. that's B N M A Z E F I N E A R T dot com. Fun fact. That name came from when I was like 18 and still like doing drawings and paintings and stuff. So I was like, I wonder if I. If I label it as this, people might be able to commission me for stuff when I'm still doing paintings and drawings. And it very quickly became just photography and it just sort of stuck because I kind of shoot in a slightly finite photography style. So that's where that name came from and it's just kind of stuck from there. So yeah. Benmazefineart.com on Instagram, I'm just Benjamin Mays. My last name is sort of unique enough I think that you should be able to find me. All right. [02:40:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:40:44] Speaker B: And Facebook, Ben Maze Fine Art. But yeah, Instagram and my website's probably the best place for it. I'm also in the. There's a. There's a. If anyone's into Discord, there's a Landscape Photographers Worldwide Discord Server. [02:40:58] Speaker C: Cool. [02:40:58] Speaker B: Probably like 1500 people in there now. I helped start that back in covert. I'm not an admin anymore but sometimes you can find me chatting away in there with other people. Matt Palmer's in there. There's a bunch of heaps of international people in there. Some pretty big names. It's a. Yeah, pretty cool server. So if you know the platform Discord and you want to chat with other people about all matter of things landscape photography, then jump into the Landscape Photographers Worldwide Discord Server. [02:41:25] Speaker A: I have so much trouble with Discord. My, my, all of my kids are gamers. I'm a gamer too, but I don't use PC and I, I just, I can't work it out. It just baffles me. Have you tried to use it, Justin? [02:41:35] Speaker C: No, not really. [02:41:36] Speaker A: Why are you laughing at me? [02:41:38] Speaker C: Because it's funny. Because I'm old. I don't know how to use it. Meanwhile you're sitting in a gamer's chair with a blue background. You look like you're about to start streaming on Twitch. [02:41:49] Speaker A: Acting confident. [02:41:52] Speaker C: All right, I think that's probably it. We should let you get back to work. We probably should mention. I don't know if we mentioned. Mention it all Lucky Straps sponsors. [02:42:00] Speaker A: I was just about to do that. [02:42:01] Speaker C: Yeah, you're about to do. We sort of. I think we're both just tired from be. [02:42:05] Speaker A: I think we. Yeah, we've had a big. And we're going to talk more about that maybe Monday night. I think next week we'll have a bit of an unpacking party but this has been the Camera Life podcast proudly brought to you by Lucky straps. Head to Luckystraps.com we make premium Aussie made handmade leather camera straps and we've just spent a weekend in Bright and we've Worked out that our straps fit every single camera that came up and said, I'd like to try a strap. Did you have any? [02:42:30] Speaker C: No, that's not true. Canon stupidly make a couple of tiny slots on their cameras on like. [02:42:38] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, like half size. [02:42:42] Speaker C: No, no, the R6 is fine. Like. No, no, there's a couple of narrow slots. Anyway, don't worry about it. [02:42:47] Speaker A: I stand corrected them. [02:42:49] Speaker C: The R100, it doesn't fit either. [02:42:51] Speaker A: Oh, who wants one of them? [02:42:52] Speaker C: But other than that, everything else. [02:42:54] Speaker A: Everything, everything else. And yeah, so head over there. We've got a whole bunch of different styles. Knack. Knack. That's a new word I just made up neck, shoulder and wrist straps. But we are the Camera Life podcast. We're twice a week, always live, because we'd love you, the community, to get involved, jump in the chat, ask us questions, ask questions of our guests. Our two shows are every Thursday morning at 9am Australian Eastern Daylight Time at the moment. And we also have a random photography show Every Monday evening, 7.30pm Australian Eastern Daylight Time. But if you give us a like for today's episode, it certainly helps a lot. And if you subscribe, hit the bell notification because then you'll get notifications in your time zone so you can effectively plan, you know, when to skip work and when to watch our podcast. [02:43:41] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. When to bring headphones to work. All right, well, thank you very much, Ben. We'll bring up some comments during our awesome outro music, which is the same as the intro music. The worst ever AI song that's growing on me. [02:43:58] Speaker B: I can't say it's going on the playlist, but it was cool to hear it. [02:44:02] Speaker A: That's very nice. [02:44:03] Speaker C: LTK photo. Great podcast as always. I enjoyed listening and seeing all the amazing work. It was amazing work. Stuart Lyle. Thanks, Ben. Really keen to check out more of your work. And yes, thanks, Rodney. Thanks, Lucinda, for hanging out. Yelena, Lisa Leech. She's gone, but you know, she's here. Matt. Matt Palmer. David Dare Parker. Legend, Absolute legend. Roy Bixby, everybody. Thanks, everybody for hanging out. Nick Fletcher. We'll see you guys on the next one. [02:44:33] Speaker B: See everybody fresh out at it. [02:44:35] Speaker C: Thank you. [02:44:37] Speaker B: Life unfold golden hours Tales retold the cat.