Alister Benn, Expressive Photography

Alister Benn lives on the West Coast of Scotland and founded Expressive Photography.  He started his career as a traditional landscape photographer, but over the last 15 years has transitioned to become an inspirational photographer and enthusiastic instructor.

He describes this transition as an epiphany and a life changing event and attributes his time in the Gobi desert to being the catalyst. It is fascinating to hear him tell us how this came about and how it influences his work today.

His passion is for individual creativity and expression and firmly believes we are all unique. Finding your passion is key,  He states creativity is difficult to teach - rather it is not predicable, but an exciting adventure!

Interestingly, he talks about the challenges of balancing creativity with running a business.  We have recently been propelled to working more on an online platform.  Listen to Alister's views on how social media affects us.   

Learn about Alister's concept of 5 triggers of engagement - luminosity, contrasts,  geometry, colour and atmosphere - truly a podcast not to be missed! He finds joy in all landscapes and advocates going in with no expectations and nature will not disappoint.

You can see Alisters  website here 

https://expressive.photography/

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Transcript

I believe every one of us can create beautiful images feel fulfilled and improve our well being through photography. The quiet landscapes podcast explores the life and work of photographers, creatives and thought leaders through mostly conversations that will inspire you. My name is Margaret Soraya. And I'm delighted that you're listening.

So I'm delighted to have Alistair Ben with me today. He describes himself on Instagram, as a life coach and creativity catalyst. And he lives on the west coast of Scotland, and he wins expressive photography. So first of all, I'm just going to ask you maybe to just introduce yourself, and just tell us what it is you're doing. Now, I think a lot of the listeners already know you. But you just give us an overview of what your life in photography looks like, just now.

Ray. Well, thank you very much for having me on the show. It's much appreciated. When you when people quote me with things like my bio, and things like that, always, always squirm somewhat. These things tend to be written on the spur of the moment. I started as a traditional landscape photographer, and went through the same learning processes just about everybody else, where I was looking to others to provide answers to questions that I didn't know what they were yet. So it was kind of a 15 1617 year progression of wanting to do my own thing within a framework of trying to understand what everybody else was doing kind of thing. And didn't get very far with that I got to the point where I could make pretty photographs pretty much anywhere I went, but I didn't have much of a connection with them. So in 20, sort of 2018 I formed a new company called Express photography, because I undergone somewhat something going to an epiphany in the Gobi Desert, I'd been to the Gobi Desert about seven times and had really changed the way I saw change the way I viewed photography changed the way I approached photography, pretty much my entire life changed over that space of a couple of years. And I realized that photography is more than just making photographs photography is a catalyst, it's a tool, it's a way of detaching ourselves from that idiot that forms this constant narrative in our own mind, this idiot that just constantly tries to judge you and compare you to everybody else. And I think social media fuels that idiot, that social media and Instagram and Facebook and all the other kind of platforms where you're being judged, fuel, the voice in your head that says, I'm no good, I'm not popular, the images that I'm making aren't valid, the things I look at and engage with aren't valid. So there was a whole bunch of doubt. So I'll try and keep this a bit a little bit shorter, because I realized it's not a hugely long podcast. And where I'm at right now is, I don't spend huge amounts of time making photographs anymore, because I don't have the time running a photography business, especially since all our workshops have been canceled due to COVID. is about being online. So I'm trying to find that balance know, between having time in the landscape on my own with a camera, and being creative and expressive, versus maintaining an online business.

Yes, so that was actually one of the questions I had for you, because I was trying to figure out, how do you how are you balancing that, you know, is the the chaining side of things more important to you now than the time you're spending out? Or not important, but maybe it's just naturally taking over? Because it does a little bit, doesn't it when it becomes larger? Is that a problem? Are you enjoying that?

Making a living gets in the way of enjoying life. But it's the same for everybody. It doesn't matter if you're an accountant or a dentist or a solicitor or you drive a lorry or work in a factory, it doesn't matter what you do, we spend more time making a living than we do doing the things that we want to do. Now, the you know yourself running a photography business as you do that. The image of what that means is very different from the reality. The the idea that we just spend our entire time in landscape running around in perfect conditions, free as the wind is not the case. Now when I was running, maybe 25 weeks of workshops a year I did spend huge amounts of time in the landscape. That is no not the case. Because I don't make my money from being out in the landscape anymore. I make my money from making education material or coaching or all the various avenues are right Eating education material producing education material. So realistically, when your business's online you spend your entire time online, when your businesses in the landscape, you can get to spend more time in the landscape. Over the last 20 months, a totally disproportionate amount of my time has been in front of the computer rather than in the landscape.

It's that zoom thing, isn't it? It's, it's, it's opened a lot of possibilities. But it's also chapters behind a little camera on computers.

Right? You know, and being able to make a living, and still being still being able to be successful in an online format is a huge luxury. And I'm very, very grateful to everyone who supports our work. But I'm trying to find that balance of spending more time out in the landscape. Now obviously, now we're coming into autumn and winter, we're getting into my kind of soul, landscape time of year where I feel much more at one with the landscape. And we I mean, we're going away 10 days from now, we're going away for two weeks just for photography. So you know, I'm trying to build that balancing a little bit better than I have been so far.

Yes, it is that balances and I I'm always overjoyed when the winter comes in. And I always take December and January, I kind of earmark those two months, because you're not going to be well, I mean, you could be running workshops, but it's a little bit dark in the north of Scotland by three o'clock. And I'm not shooting weddings, which I do in the summer. So I earmark those two months to go away. And I'll have to have done that and good to Tybee and then house so my wife and most of the time. Can't wait. I just love the wind. Love the winter. So yeah, it's beautiful, beautiful light.

No, no, don't tell anyone. It's terrible in the winter don't come.

It's cold, it is cold, cold, cold. But the yes, the thing about the teaching, I think there's something there's something really beautiful about teaching other those. And sharing and, and the words, when I quoted your bio, I only did that because I thought it was actually really interesting. It wasn't it didn't say watering landscape. I really like the words creativity catalyst. And I think that that's what you're doing really well. You're sharing openly new inspiring people. And I think that's also a wonderful thing to be doing. So you have to have that in your heart wants to do that, don't you?

I agree with that. 100% That, that you're lucky if you go into life and find your passion. You know, if you find something that fires you up and makes you get out of bed in the morning and you feel is worthwhile and adds value to other people's lives, then I think that's a win. I, I get far more gratitude these days from hearing the feedback from students or mentees or people who've read our books or watched our videos to to whole life changing that has been for them. People have been very open in the past about talking about mental illness and depression and anxiety and panic disorders and PTSD and all of these things that affect millions of people around the world. And this is why I creativity catalyst sounds very grand. But at the end of the day, a camera is a catalyst. It's something that connects us with the landscape in a way that looking at it doesn't. And I think my role in the contemporary scene is to help people realize that there are destructive ways to be a photographer, and there are constructive ways to be a photographer. And it's really just a case of looking at the other side of the coin. It doesn't require any significant lifestyle change, it just requires a different perspective. So yeah, I feel very happy with what I'm doing. And thankfully, the world somewhat agrees

well, I think you're doing you're doing something very beautiful. And that is showing both the theory and the inspirational side of photography, as well as the teaching. So you've got you've got two things going on. But I just I actually love the way that you speak about photography. And some of the more conceptual videos that you've made maybe the first one actually I saw of you it was just by chance on YouTube, it just popped up. And you were in the midst in Scotland and it was just it was so wonderfully shot and your your your voice is very calming and very nice. So I do think that it's really important that we have people like yourselves out there teaching more than just the technicals because it's easy to teach the technicals isn't it? But to teach there, the heart and the emotion and the reasons why we shoot And that's actually more difficult but so important.

Yeah, you know, the technical side of photography is, is, it's the same as anything, it's like learning to drive a car, you know, if you're, if you're driving a manual car, you know, there's an initial period of, of, on coordination between your, your, your feet and your hands and your vision and, and that's why a lot of people have accidents, because they're not focusing on where they're pointing. They're, they're focusing on how to point. And if you look at that, from a photographic point of view, a lot of people who are struggling with the technicals, get confused with the pointing because they're too busy thinking about the how to point in terms of, you know, composition becomes something else that you kind of think about on the side, while you're trying to control your aperture and your F stops and, or your your shutter speeds and ISOs, etc. Whereas the creative side of photography is very difficult to teach, because, and I've said this many, many times is that if you if you'd come to me saying, Alright, I want help with my creativity, how do I know what your creativity looks like? You know, I don't know, I don't know what's going on inside your head. I don't know the stories, you tell yourself the metaphors, the things that excite you and interest you the way you feel when you see certain things. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't presume to be able to tell you how to be creative, no more than I'd want to come into your office and tell you how to arrange it. You do that yourself based upon your own needs and perspectives. So I use these metaphors all the time, it's like you're listening to your favorite music, and I walk into the room and say, Oh, you don't want to listen to that. That's rubbish. Listen to this. This is good music. So, you know, I think this was the problem with learning material, historically, is that it's telling people how to be creative by following a process that leads to a predictable outcome. Whereas I don't want creativity to be a predictable outcome, I want it to be an exciting adventure of how we describe how we find our own creativity. Because nobody knows what ours looks like. And I get increasing pleasure, year by year by year, seeing how my own vision evolves. But you got to do it yourself. You can. This is the problem with social media is telling us how to make photographs, how to make, you know, things that are going to be popular. Yeah, so um, I wasn't prog rock my entire life. And I'm used to being unpopular. So I'm kind of embracing that joy of being continually unpopular.

Yeah, I get what you're saying that actually. And it's that it's like the idea that when you're slightly different, you're not, you're not going to be as popular on social media, you just know, I'm never going to be I'm an introvert, who really enjoys time by myself, I don't really want to be that sociable. I don't produce in your face videos. I'm never going to be as popular as other people. But it's, it's quite interesting that, isn't it? The idea that, you know, can you how do you gain traction in a business then? If you're going against the grain? I don't know. Do you have an answer to that?

Yes, because I've done it. Yeah. I think it's very difficult. Basically, I think the photography business has exploded in the last five years, really, when I started 20 years ago. And even when I went pro 11 years ago, it was probably easier to do. So there's just less people doing. There was already a lot of people, but there wasn't as many as there are now. And I wouldn't know where to start today if I was coming into the marketplace. But if we I remember reading an article way back in about 2001. That was one of the first articles online I read about photography. It was written by a guy called Dan Heller, who was a kind of he was a successful commercial photographer. He used to make photographs for travel companies. So they'd fly him to Antigua, and he'd photograph the place and they would use it for the promo material. That's that's how he made a living. And that really inspired me just thinking God getting paid to travel and make photographs. But he basically said, if you do the same as everybody else, then everybody else is your competition. If you do something that nobody else does, you have no competition. And I think, you know, the way I've used it in the past would be say, Well, Margaret, you're unique. Nobody does you better than you. So that's the thing. You should do. Because anything else, you know, if I try and be in certainly my photographer, they're, they're already doing it better than I'm going to do it. Anyway. So I just think individuality. I think social media is poisonous for photographers. It's poisonous, it's, it's guaranteed to not improve your life. And, and therefore, you must know that up in Scotland here we have a very famous comedian called Kevin bridges from Glasgow. And he said, if Facebook was a bar, you would walk in, you'd have a look inside and you say, everyone here is an idiot, let's go somewhere else. And that's pretty much you know, that no disrespect to people who follow me on on social media, but it's not where I want to spend my life. You know, I really I have to be very, very strict on myself about how little time I spend on social media these days. Because it's, it's bad for my mental health. As simple as that.

Yeah, it's, it's really nice to hear somebody say that as well. Because because it can be it isn't. It isn't for mine, I think that I approach it from a very solid mental viewpoint, OB, I feel quite I feel quite uplifted by it. And I don't really I don't really like count lights or anything. I just I, I tried to post authentically and just little, maybe stories of what's going on in my life. And I'm not worrying too much. But I can see that for people who, for most people actually who are a bit more needing, which they do people need validate people want validated but they don't they don't need it. We should be we should be using social media for creation, not validation. That's the thing, isn't it?

I think I think what's happening these days is that COVID has has changed online habits. And people are taking a lot of frustration on social media. And there's an awful lot of polarization. And it's, you know, if you're a certain type of photographer, then that's frowned upon. If you're another type of photographer, that's considered okay. You know, so it's the, I want to make everything that I'm trying to do these days unifying rather than polarizing. You know, it's the world is full of polarizing qualities, whether it's faith or religion, you know, politics, what country you live in, you know, nationalization, Brexit, independence, you name it, there's, there's plenty of things that are going on polarize people vaccinated versus non vaccinated. All of these things are polarizing, when realistically, all we're trying to do is survive on this planet and get through life with as few speed bumps as possible, and looking after the people we love and care about and trying to give something back and trying to improve the place, trying to consider things like climate change, and all of these other big issues that are going on in the world right now. And to, to kind of argue over what type of photography is good or bad, or whether we should all be making certain types of photographs versus doing whatever we want. It seems a bit petty to me at the end of the day.

It is, isn't it? And actually, as photographers, I sort of feel that we should all be working together, because we're all photographers aren't we're all. We're all enjoying creativity, and we should be inspiring other people and being open. I feel very strongly about that. Actually, I think that the more that we work together, the nicer it'll be. So that's, that's one of my things. Actually, I agree with you on that topic on YouTube. And I just wanted to ask you about this, because I thought was really interesting. The the questions that you're raising, the new series was about how to make better photographs. So that's obviously just come up. It's about the, the practice to start practicing. And I think that's sort of It's a such a simple, but amazingly powerful. Point, you want to just talk a little bit about that.

Sure. Photography is not different from any other form of art, whether you want to write or dance, or write poetry, or write stories, or play a musical instrument, be at the piano or the guitar. I mean, I have four or five guitars behind me, which I play had been playing since a teenager. So like 40 years now, I think I've been playing guitar. And I've practiced the guitar my entire life. And whether it's theory, you know, so, the three Foundations of Education or theory, practice and reflection. So, theory is the home you know, so you can look at the theory of exposure, the theories of composition, the theories of arrangement and harmony and balance and flow. You can talk about the theories of depth of field, you can talk about the theories of how to process things, and the consequences of our actions. So you can understand the theory, just with fairly simple statements. Practice is the eye, there's no such thing as muscle memory that that has been debunked. But there is a, there is a, a familiarity with the tool that comes from practice. A guitar in my hand now doesn't feel the same as it did 20 years ago, it feels just like an extension of my creative being really, I don't have to think about where I am in the neck, or how to hold it or how to pick or how to make a chord shape, it just appears when I need it. And that's just a function of practice. So when it comes to photography, every time you're thinking, How do I do that? It's a barrier to creativity. So I talk an awful lot in previous videos about barriers to creativity. And creativity is in us the whole time. And we're very, very successful at creating a cage between us and our creativity, or creative minds. And the bars of the cage are all self developed. Nobody else creates the cage between us and our creativity, because nobody else knows what our creativity looks like. It's just us. So practice is a fundamental part. And there are many things. So I think the video I'm putting out on Saturday, the Sunday this coming weekend, is about practicing how to see and practicing how to engage with things. And there are things that we can do to practice that, so that it becomes second nature. And I think practice is a huge way. And then reflection, which is the third pillar of education, really, a photograph is a reflective medium. It's, that's its purpose is to reflect, we can look at it and see and feel and try and understand. Part of its genesis part of its creation. So yeah, I mean, I'm probably gonna make about eight videos over the next couple of months, particularly just focused on practice and different things that we can practice.

Brilliant. That's, that's really, really good to hear. I think it's something that people often forget the, you know, they say, you know, maybe, you know, I go to the beach once a year, I can't make photographs like yours, I can't do the long exposures. So it's like, well, how often do you practice once a year? I am actually practice I've been practicing that for years and years, every possible day, every opportunity and failing a lot as well. And so you know, people don't really realize that they're not all successful them. You just you learn from those failures, don't you but they're really important. So I think that that idea of of practices is really powerful, actually. So can you just tell me a little bit. Just Just going back to you mentioned, the Gobi Desert? Could you possibly just tell me about that period in your life and how important that has been for your photography?

Sure. By about the autumn of 2016, I was really dissatisfied with photography. We were already in that stage where 500 px and similar platforms were really driving popularity as the key purpose of photography be popular, have impact, be dramatic, glorify the landscape. You know, it felt to me at the time like a very ego driven process. And I was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with making what I consider to be formulaic photographs that didn't have a lot of meat in them. So I've kind of put aside a lot of time over the winter of that year to just go out and make my own photographs and the weather. I was living on the other sky at the time. The weather was just horrific. It was one of those winters where it was just horizontal rain, day after day after day, and I think about 40 days of rain, continually with like 100 mile an hour winds. I mean, it was just awful. And everyday, I just wrap up and Gortex and go and stomp around on the mirrors and feel very, very Nietzschean in sort of ranting at the world. So anyway, early January, I just said we've got to go here. I need to go somewhere where it's going to be dry. And we headed off to China. My ex wife was Chinese. And we spent a lot of time in China. I lived there for nearly 15 years. So we disappeared into the Gobi Desert for about three weeks. And it was about minus 26 Celsius so it was really cold. We were camping. Hundreds of miles from the nearest road. Huge, huge sand During the maybe 600 meters high, really big sand dunes. And we were just driving all over them and just pitching a tent and then just waking up to these incredible vistas. And so realistically, what happened was that my whole concept of vision changed. That going in there with a traditional mindset of how to make photographs didn't work, it just wouldn't work. Because there was only one subject and it was all sand. So basically, I kind of in the team, I was there. And then subsequently, over various trips back, I came up with this concept of five triggers of engagements are five things that are present in varying proportions in just about every scene that you will be attracted to. And the five things are luminosity, so the distribution of brightness, contrast, geometry, so the angles and lines and curves and a landscape color, and the transitions between all the different colors and scenes, and then atmosphere. So depth and mistiness, or diffusion, or water, or fog, or snow, all of those different things. So these different five elements are in every photograph, really, in varying degrees and proportions. So I came back and wrote a book about it. And then I wrote another book called The color of meaning, which brings in the color. So yeah, it changed my life in every way possible. The whole concept of an emotional landscape was born for me, the way I see the landscape change, the way I engage with the landscape changed, I suddenly understood why I was attracted to certain things, how I felt about being engaged with certain things. So I have a very joyful relationship with the landscape, even if it's melancholic, you know, even if it's a sad, overcast, flat, light, gray kind of day, but still joy to be found in those landscapes. They're still peace, tranquility, they're still reflection, they're still introspection, all of these different things are present in the landscape. And the only thing we have to do is not go into landscape with expectation. If we go into the landscape with expectation of glorious light and lenticular clouds and auroras, and, you know, all of this stuff that photographers seem to dream about the whole time, and they don't materialize, then there's nothing worse than coming away from a day in nature feeling disappointed, because somehow, our expectations haven't been fulfilled. So, yeah. sounds it sounds a bit Zen really, I guess,

no. Absolutely makes perfect sense. To me. I think there's, I think what you're describing there is there's moments in your life where it may be self awareness and self acceptance, I think all of these things are really, actually really important. To to go through to open up your creativity. I think that's that's maybe what you were, what was happening to you around about that time? Certainly I've I've been through periods of that where I've started to realize that that the self awareness, I think it's really, really important to understand yourself, and accept who you are. And then you start to get except that the type of images you're shooting, and the experience in the landscape is, is more much more important than the end result. Should I say, and being happy with those, those beautiful times that we I mean, in Scotland, some of the morning shoots that I experience where it's, you know, five or six o'clock in the morning, I'm alone in this Mr. Landscape, it's just absolutely such a beautiful experience. And to accept that that for what it is, as opposed to the images you come away with afterwards is it's a wonderful thing to be able to do, isn't it?

I think so I think if you measure if you measure enjoyment of the landscape, or your time in the landscape by the images that you're making, and how popular those images are, you're kind of missing the point.

Yes, yes, absolutely. We should, basically we should just all enjoy our time, the landscape, whether we make great images or not.

One of the metaphors I've used recently is that every photograph that we make that's meaningful to us is like a diamond. It's like a little diamond that we have that we can look at and it means so much to us. But as soon as you put it on the internet, it's not a diamond anymore. It's a grain of sand. And it's a grain of sand amongst billions or trillions of other grains of sand. All of which are little photographs that each other person thinks is a diamond. It's it's it's it devalues photography. And unfortunately I think that's what social media has done over the last decade is devalued for photography. And this is why I guess the concept of being a creativity catalyst is for people to appreciate and take ownership of that self actualizing process where the photography and the act of photography and the Active engaging in the landscape is their awakening, I guess, you know that that kind of self actualizing awakening, that that's priceless. I mean, you can I mean, if, if I could charge for that event in people's lives for the value that actually has, I could retire next year.

Maybe we'll never know. So just just one more thought that popped into my head bear as you were talking about that the little diamonds that we when we create these images that really mean something to us. For me, they always these these images happen when I've had an amazingly beautiful experience. So the experiences remembered through the images, there's, there's more meaning there. So I suppose what you're saying here is that if we if I had been running around on that misty morning chain to make an image that would get 100 likes and be be be liked by other people, that experience wouldn't have been the same, because all I would have been feeling would be pressure. And whereas I wasn't, I was just enjoying it actually, and being in the moment and then creating some images. And and, you know, accepting them for what they are. Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah, well, one of the things that I've talked about quite a lot over the last couple of years is, if you go into the landscape, looking for a certain type of photograph, two things are gonna happen. One is you're either going to find it and feel very chuffed with yourself, or you're not, and you're going to feel genuinely quite disappointed with yourself, you're either going to doubt your ability to find such things, which is the first thing we do, because self doubt is always the first person that comes knocking at the door, when we start to question our abilities. Can I do it at all? And it's not the fact that they weren't there that doesn't come to our mind is I didn't find it. So I think the problem is, is that if we go in with a certain level of expectation about what we're going to do, we tend to miss the million other opportunities that would present themselves to us if we were just genuinely open. And I think that's where the five triggers come in, is if you just go into that landscape and allow the landscape to tell you where to point your point your camera, or tell you are your intuition. I mean, people forget about how powerful intuition is. And as long as you've got a solid foundation of technical ability, your intuition can drive. I mean, when we talk about driving, I mean, if you were to jump in the car and drive off down the Glen, and you know, you could drive for 300 miles without thinking about how to drive. Because you've been driving for, you know, quite a few years, I would imagine. So we don't have to ask, Oh, you know, what gear? Do I need to be an AR You know, what, how do I turn on the indicators of the light, so the windshield, the windscreen wipers are all we don't have to know, we don't have to think about steering, we just steer. So realistically, all you're doing when you're driving these days, as you're just looking, feeling receiving information. And that's what we do with cameras, we look, we feel we receive information. And we intuitively lift a camera and point it at something. And we don't need to know why. We just need to experience that moment. And that that's all there really is. You know, yeah, I mean, I could talk about this literally for hours.

It's wonderful, there isn't it is a really nice subject, I think that we all need to, I think that most of us have spent like our lives on learning on natural intuition. And that's through years of critiques. Needing validation, and etc, etc, it just get goes, the longer you live, the more it continues until you realize you need to break that. And I think that that's one of the problems that people have, for my natural instincts. And my intuition was always to photograph the sea, and to go swimming and surfing. And I did that very early on and then stopped because people were telling me not to, and life got in the way. And you know, and then this period of self awareness came in and I was like, now I'm going back to it. So I'm just back doing the same thing that I would was starting to do before before I lost my skills of intuition. So interesting, isn't it?

We learn to be square. Yeah, we learn we spend most of our we spend most of our younger years trying to fit in to just be part of a group of people who we don't really like or admire.

Yes, this is true. And that's that's one of the great things about getting an order, isn't it?

I guess, I guess I mean, I you know, I'll be 55 at the end of the year, and I'm loving it. I'm happier now than I was when I was 20. That's for sure.

Oh, totally. Absolutely. Yeah. I wouldn't get back though, if you told me. Anyway, I think that was that was a wonderful conversation. And thank you so much for joining me. It was a real pleasure to have you

And thank you, thank you very much for asking me it's a, I've been aware of your work for a long, long time. And it was it was nice when an email came out of the blue it was it was really, really touched. So, thank you very much for the opportunity. It's it's always a pleasure.

Great, lovely to speak to you. That's for listening today. I'm truly grateful for you taking the time out to listening. If you feel inspired in any way, I'd really appreciate it if you could share or review the show. You can also share it on Instagram and tag me or reach out with any thoughts at Margaret Soraya and I look forward to seeing you on the next episode.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai