A Conversation with Ben Horne
Ben Horne is a nature and landscape photographer based out of San Diego, California. His work, shot primarily on large format film cameras, showcases the natural beauty of the American Southwest. Ben has also been active on YouTube for over a decade, producing video journals of his various trips to Death Valley, Zion National Park, and other wilderness areas.
At this point I should probably acknowledge that I am a bit biased. Ben is one of my favorite photographers. I’ve enjoyed his work immensely and his photos and videos have inspired me to seek out different subjects in my own photography.
I recently had the privilege of meeting and chatting with him on a video call. We discussed his introduction into photography, the satisfaction of making repeated visits to familiar locations, the ethics of photo editing, and much more.
Note: The following conversation has been edited for clarity. Ben was kind enough to let me repost some of his images below. All photos in this post are his.
Calvin Chiu
Thanks for chatting with me. I really appreciate you making the time. I guess we'll start off with the most basic question. Can you tell us a bit about your story and how you got into photography?
Ben Horne
I remember, as a kid, going on family camping trips, and having this little point and shoot film camera. It wasn't a 35mm one, it was it was an older camera. I just took that along on camping trips and stuff. But I didn't really do too much with it until high school when took a photography class, where I shot black and white on a 35mm camera. Digital was coming out at the same time too so I kind of dabbled with that. In terms of landscapes, probably 2008 and 2009. I was working at a camera store, Nelson's Photo in San Diego, at the time. The economy wasn't doing so well, so I took some unpaid time off to go on my first solo photography trip. That was when I started shooting large format at the same time, so my interest in photography grew over the years since been introduced to it as a kid. It's kind of crazy that I can actually make a living at it and do something as specific taking pictures of rocks, trees, and stuff with a large format camera. The whole thing is absurd, but it's pretty cool nonetheless.
Calvin Chiu
I was about to ask when you started getting into film specifically, but it sounds like you started pretty early on.
Ben Horne
Yeah, and actually when I first started working at Nelson's Photo, it was in 2004, just after I graduated from college. I figured it would be a summer job. That was when the quality of digital cameras started to be pretty decent, so we had a bunch of local professional photographers who were selling off their film equipment: medium format kits, large format kits. At that point in time film wasn't really cool. I mean, not that it's cool now, but everyone was unloading and getting rid of their film gear. We didn't have a really strong local market of people that wanted to buy that equipment, so the people at the camera store just said, "Hey, Ben, if you want to, you can sell this stuff on eBay and just do that sort of on the side. It was around that time that a coworker of mine saw that I was shooting some landscape stuff and she said, "Why don't you just use a 4x5 camera? That's what it's made for." I kind of thought, "Well what's a 4x5 camera?" I was [selling cameras] for a while, and in the process of doing that, I'd have to play with all the cameras and make sure that they worked and learned how to use them. So that's where I learned how to use Hasselblad cameras, large format cameras, and stuff like that.
After that initial exposure to that used film equipment that I thought, "Hang on, maybe this is a good way to go." Also at the time, there was a photo lab about three blocks away from where I worked that would do E6 processing (developing slide film). It was really cool. I could just walk down there at lunch, drop it off, and then they would actually bring the film back.
Calvin Chiu
It sounds like that accessibility really enabled you to shoot more.
Ben Horne
Yeah, I mean, I don't know how you are when it comes to learning stuff, but for me, it's a matter of being really hands on. For whatever reason, if I'm reading a book on how to do something, just I don't absorb it very well. But if I have that camera right there in front of me, I'll play with it and kind of get a feeling for how everything works. I've always been very much an independent learner. If I didn't have the ability to be hands on with that sort of equipment, I don't know that I would have gone down that road. Maybe at some point I would have. But there's something about just seeing those cameras and seeing the big ground glass on a 4x5 camera where I'm like, "Okay, this is this is the real deal right here."
Calvin Chiu
I remember when I first I came across your videos during the pandemic. I was about to do a trip to Death Valley and I was looking around on YouTube trying to figure out what the landscape looked like, because I had no idea. And I came across one of your videos from, I think one of your trips a year before or something like that.
Ben Horne
Okay, yeah.
Calvin Chiu
I thought, "Oh wow this guy shoots film! That's pretty cool." From there, I saw more of your work and got hooked on the videos. And they've been a huge influence in terms of how I perceive photography and how I approach it now. It seems like the perspective you need to shoot large format is pretty different from, say, 35mm, or even medium format. You can't move as quickly, you can't set up as quickly, there's a lot more deliberation behind what you do.
I think Galen Rowell once said that photography, or shooting on film specifically, is like speaking a foreign language. You have to translate what you see with your eyes into a photograph that's coherent, that gives people the same emotional reaction that you had when you saw the scene. With a large format camera, at least for someone like me who doesn't shoot it, it seemed like there’s quite a bit of work to get to that point, to create that photograph as you saw it. How did you deal with that challenge? Was there ever a point where that process clicked for you or felt more natural?
Ben Horne
When I first started with large format, I was treating it a bit like shooting digital, and that was not the way that it should be treated. For example, if a person is using a digital camera and they're using a really long lens, that doesn't exist on large format. Or if you have a wide-angle lens and try to get the camera down close to the subject. That kind of look is very popular, but it doesn't really translate very well to shooting with large format. And so it leads to a great deal of frustration if you treat large format that way. But I learned a certain point that large format can be very liberating if you treat it a bit differently. By that I mean you spend your time finding a subject, oftentimes a smaller scene, which I like to photograph, and then figure out when the light's going to be good on that subject. And then you just go to that spot and you wait, which makes it sound more difficult than it is. It's actually an easier approach.
When I went on my recent trip to Death Valley, there was one scene that I found on the ground, this white rock that was crumbling and eroding, and you had all these fragments of this white rock that was just kind of like disappearing into nothing. And it's set against this kind of darker gray background. It had this very poetic look. And I pointed my camera at that rock at about two o'clock that afternoon, and now it's sunset. So I've waited several hours to sit in there. The clouds were starting to light up. I was thinking that if I was working with a different format, I would probably be running around trying to find some way of making use of those clouds. But meanwhile, with a large format camera, I'm happily pointing my camera at a rock. And I just wait for the light to be decent, just after sunset on that rock, [and] take my photo. Meanwhile, I'm enjoying this nice sunset that's unfolding around me as just a nice atmosphere.
You realize that when you treat landscape photography on large format in that way—where you find a subject, figure out when the light is going to be there, get there ahead of time, and just wait for it—it’s an incredibly relaxing perspective. Even after you just take a single photo of whatever it is you set out to capture, it leaves you with a sense of satisfaction. If I set up for a morning photo, for example, I'll feel rather content for the whole rest of the day. I'll be like, I don't need to shoot any more photos, I'm good with that one. It really is a different way of working. But it also builds a greater sense of satisfaction with the work that one creates. Also, once you realize that there are so many things you can't photograph, it forces you to photograph the things that you have. You don't worry about things you can't photograph. It makes life a lot easier by making it more difficult, if that makes sense.
Calvin Chiu
I think I understand you mean. I shoot 35mm cameras, and they're super mobile and easy to switch lenses. You have all the different choices that are available. But I'm definitely the photographer who is running around, trying to set the tripod, trying to get the good light before it fades away. Obviously, there's the adrenaline rush from that, and I do enjoy parts of that. But the downside is you can't be as deliberate. You're often rushing, you're trying not to fumble around too much. And there is a paradox of choice where the variety of equipment you have available to you makes it hard for you to settle on one thing and really dial that in. It's one reason that, as I've done this more and have seen more your work, I've wanted to try move away from the "running around" model of photography and try to stay in one place.
Ben Horne
Yeah, for me that style of working is frustrating because I wouldn't have done any degree of justice to whatever it is I was photographing. I feel like I would overlook things in compositions and I wouldn't think through the process completely. This is something that I wrote about in an eBook I put out a while back, where I was talking about the process of finding a subject and waiting for the light versus running around and reacting to whatever it is you're seeing. So it's the contemplative approach versus the reactionary approach. What I've learned with my own photography is the contemplative approach. You find a subject; you figure out when the light's going to be good. You just sit there and you wait for it, and you don't deviate from that plan. With the camera I have, I can't deviate from the plan. If something's happening over my shoulder, I don't have time to set up for that. So I'll go to that area, set up for a photo, and I'll just wait on it. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, it doesn't. But if it happens it's great. It means that I have a composition I've thought through. It means I have light that I'm probably happy with and I usually have no regrets. If it doesn't work out, it means that I’ve learned a lesson, whatever that lesson is. At least I learn to anticipate the conditions better or something. With the more reactionary type of photography, I find that I don't really learn as much.
When it comes to working with 35mm, do you find that 36 exposures is a huge number? Or do you burn through that fairly fast?
Calvin Chiu
It depends, I think. For situations where I have a shot in mind, I'll go there early and set up everything. Usually, it's sunrise or something like that. I'll start shooting as the light starts to change, around blue hour, all the way until golden hour when the sun comes in. So when I do that, I can burn through half a roll pretty quickly. But if I'm kind of driving or hiking around and I'm finding individual scenes, I'll try a few different variations. What ends up happening is I'll have maybe five or six distinct compositions on a roll. I guess I like this idea of safety or insurance by having multiple shots in case, for example, a negative gets scratched or I misjudge an exposure.
Ben Horne
When it comes to setting up a composition, I often find that my first instinct is best. I'm a huge believer in this little device I carry around called the "artist's view catcher," this little gray plastic rectangle, frame thing. If you just hold it up and look through it, you can find the distracting elements in a potential photo and figure out where exactly you should position the camera and everything. And so I use that in order to figure out where I'm going to put the tripod, and then where I'm going to put the camera on top of the tripod. That really gets a lot of thinking process done. But I find that my first instinct for a composition is usually pretty darn good when it comes to that. When I used to have a digital setup, obviously it was easier to take a photo and move the camera around, but I still found that the first instinct was oftentimes the best. I do often expose a couple sheets of film, just like you. in case something happens to the film or there's a light leak. But usually it's the exact same exposure, the exact same scene.
Calvin Chiu
That's funny. Maybe it's the way my brain works or something, but I've noticed that the first instinct I have about composition ends up not being the one I finally go with. Like, oh there's a branch in the corner over there. Maybe I want to crop a little higher. I've definitely been bailed out by Lightroom in terms of being able to crop my photos. Do you find having fewer shots and a heavier camera makes it easier or harder for you to find distracting elements in your photos?
Ben Horne
On a large format camera, you're looking at the image upside down and backwards on the ground glass, and it's fairly dim. You kind of see it more as shapes and lines in terms of the composition. But since I can look in really close to those edges, I’ll see if there's a little twig pointing up or something like that. Even just by using that artist's view catcher, I can easily spot that stuff even before getting the camera out. When you're looking at the scene in reality, you'll notice that stuff far more than through a camera viewfinder. It doesn't necessarily reflect exactly what your camera's going to see once you set it up, but I think it gives me the confidence. Because if I see a composition that kind of clicks, then I just pay attention to the edges of that. And then when I set up my camera, I try to get those same edges. Then typically, there aren't really any surprises for the photo. Sometimes I may question why I did something after the fact and maybe crop the photo a little bit. But I think that view catcher tool is extremely beneficial. I have it in my pocket at all times when I go [on] photography trips.
Calvin Chiu
I wanted to touch on something you mentioned earlier, about the role that failure plays in your learning process. What failure has taught you the most?
Ben Horne
That's a good question, because there are a lot of them when it comes to working with large format. Early on when I was first getting started with it, it was learning how to meter a scene. There were many times where my exposures weren't quite right. Since it's not particularly inexpensive to work with large format transparency film, you learn that lesson fairly quickly. Beyond that, a lot of wind related stuff: cameras getting blown over and destroyed in the wind. So I learned how to secure the cameras to the ground at times and use umbrellas to shield them so they don't shake in the wind. There are all kinds of stuff like that, that you wouldn't even think about just getting into it. I think ultimately, when it comes to working with large format, you have to develop your own sort of sense of OCD when it comes to work with a camera, like the muscle memory involved for everything that goes along with it. Because there are many ways that you can mess up a photo, there's kind of a ritual that goes into working with large format.
For example, double checking that the shutter is closed on the lens before I pull the dark slide from the film holder. Otherwise, you fry your film. So I will trip the shutter with the cable release before pulling the dark side. Because if it doesn't trigger, it means your lens is still open. There are all these little rituals. I'll double check what shutter speed the lens is set to because I had messed up at some point with that. I think at a certain point, everything that you do really with large format is based on past things not working out quite as well. So it's hard to name one thing, but I think the entire process is shaped around a continuous stream of mistakes over multiple decades.
Do you do solo trips at all?
Calvin Chiu
I do, yeah. I'm actually doing one this weekend to the Sierra. I'm really excited, but uh, that snowstorm that’s rolling in looks kind of iffy.
Ben Horne
That’s kind of scary actually!
Calvin Chiu
Yeah…we’ll see how it goes. But yeah, I think I often prefer solo trips for the reason of just being able to do everything on my own time. But I have noticed that, when I'm out backpacking or something and I'm camped out in the dark, I do think, "Wow, I wish I had friends to talk to right now."
Ben Horne
Oh yeah, I can relate to that. For me, the solo trips are pretty much mandatory when it comes to photography, because if there's any one thing that isn't quite right, like, "Oh someone is waiting for me," then I can't work at that point. Like with that shattered white rock scene I mentioned earlier, I found that mid-morning or something like that. And then I went back around, maybe one or two o'clock in the afternoon, set up for it, and then waited till after sunset. Normal people aren't going to enjoy that. That will be incredibly boring for anyone else, even other photographers are like, "No that's crazy!" What I do though is that my wife and I will go on camping trips, summer camping trips and stuff, if I want to get familiar with a new area, and then I'll usually go back on a dedicated solo trip for the actual photography. That's usually how I juggle it. But yeah, for me, it's got to be a solo trip. Otherwise, I just can't function.
Calvin Chiu
I can relate to that. For me, there's always that desire to show people places and spend time with friends. But also, I want to photograph and explore, and those often conflict.
Ben Horne
Yeah, it's two different mindsets.
Calvin Chiu
It's definitely something I imagine that as you get more deliberate with the idea for a trip, that makes it a little easier to separate. But yeah, especially with limited time off, I always kind of mush them together. And sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.
Ben Horne
Time is definitely a factor. I'm certainly fortunate to have the ability to go on trips and all that sort of stuff. But also, it's a bit different because they are work trips. I mean it's hard to call that work because it's something I would do anyways. But yeah, there's a different mentality. It's a little bit different setting out on a trip where you're like, “I need to come back with work I'm very proud of from this trip, otherwise, I can't pay the mortgage, can't feed the cat.” So there's a little bit of a different pressure involved with that.
Calvin Chiu
Yeah that would weigh on your mind a little bit. There's a kind of implicit pressure of like, "Hey, I got to create something."
Ben Horne
Yeah, for sure. And there's something that I frequently experience on trips that I call the first day funk, which is the first day or two of a trip. Basically, every single time I go on a trip, I'll get to where I'm going and I'm like, "What am I doing here? This is going to be a lot of work; I'm not prepared for this!" I think it's just being separated from the routine of being at home and getting dropped into this new environment. But I usually get over that after a day or so. I always remind myself that we're surrounded by opportunity. Whether or not we choose to notice it is completely up to us.
On a recent trip to Death Valley, there were two subjects I photographed that were about 40 feet apart from each other, and I think they're both perhaps going to be portfolio photos. It was just off the side of the road, probably about 60 feet from the road in the middle of nowhere in Death Valley. I like to remind myself that the exact same decision process that guided me to create past work that I'm very happy with is going to guide me to future work, whatever it is. I find that once I get that first photo out of the way, things start falling into place. And at a certain point, I've had enough photos where I should have something to make it all work.
When I first started doing photography full-time during the pandemic, and even in the trips prior to that, I found some of them were a bit stressful, because I was watching my income just drop off year-by-year as I was shaving off hours at my day job. But now, a few years now after that, things are fine. It contributes to a much more peaceful feeling on the trips and gives me a greater sense of confidence that I can find stuff.
Calvin Chiu
In your recent eBook, Beyond the Icons, you mention that in the past fifteen years you've spent a cumulative total of almost a full year visiting Zion National Park. You've also made annual trips to Death Valley since 2009. For people who aren't photographers, it might be hard to understand the draw of visiting a place so many times. What is it about these places that keeps you visiting year after year?
Ben Horne
I think there's a tendency for photographers these days to visit a lot of new places and take in everything from all these different areas. For a place like Zion, my first dedicated photo trip there was in 2009. But I feel like it was probably in 2016 or 2017 that I started producing the level of work there that I'm especially satisfied with. There's a big learning process there in terms of learning to anticipate things and knowing where to look and everything. When you combine that with the fact that you can keep exploring further and further while you're learning more about these locations, I think that really builds a connection with the place. When I went to Death Valley recently, there were two canyons I visited that I don't think even have names. I just figured how to get there from satellite maps and thought, "Oh, this one has some bends in it, there's probably some cool light bouncing around in that canyon." Sure enough, I found some pretty cool stuff there. I love the familiarity of returning to an area that I already know. I know the local conditions work and the ins and outs of driving there, camping there, and all that sort of stuff. But I think it's about building the connection with that location, and that's a process that takes a long time. I think for some people, they just assume, "Oh, you're just going there looking at the same things over and over again. It's like, no, no, no, no, you're finding these new areas that are tucked away that you didn't even know existed before. And I think that's when you really start digging deep and really start finding the cool subjects. It allows me to get away from people and have a whole canyon all to myself, which is kind of fun.
Calvin Chiu
Yeah, I'm always amazed that the solitude you're able to find in a lot of these locations, but I guess it makes sense when you're often away from the beaten path.
Ben Horne
Yeah, wherever the people are, I will not be there. Like if a person visits Zion National Park during the summertime, and you go into the main canyon, and you hike the popular trails, it will be an absolute zoo. But I can guarantee you that there are areas that take less effort to get to where you will not find a single person there. And you can have a little slice of Zion all yourself. It's just that you have to be curious. I think that's when you really start building stronger connection with the location. And I think that's hopefully what comes through my work.
Calvin Chiu
So Yosemite is a few hours away from me and I visit pretty often. And I remember as a kid going in the summer during peak season, it wasn't always super crowded. But now on any given weekend, if you enter the park a bit later in the morning, you're getting cars and traffic jams, and it definitely puts a damper on the experience. And that's kind of unfortunate.
Ben Horne
Even just like if there's an area you want to get to but then you realize there's just no place to park when you get there it just shuts a lot of the possibilities off right away. And that's really cool that you live fairly close to Yosemite, you can get there a little more on a whim. For me, it's an eight hour drive to Zion. And then I think about six-and-a-half to seven for Death Valley.
Calvin Chiu
I was going to say that the locations you visit repeatedly are quite a ways from where you live. Have you thought about exploring areas near you? Or is that something that you're not quite as drawn to?
Ben Horne
I initially spent some time in our local deserts, in Anza-Borrego, about a two-hour drive from where I live. It's a beautiful area, but it's too close to home, which is kind of weird. At least early on when I was going on the solo trips, if I had an eight hour drive to get there and the trip wasn't going well, I'd look at my watch, maybe it's like two o'clock in the afternoon, and think, "Okay, if I leave right now, I will get home at a horrible time in the middle of the night, so I can't leave. I'm stuck here." Then by the next morning, I'd feel better, everything was fine, and then I'd be motivated again. I think for locations that are closer to home, I think, "It's two o'clock right now, I can go home by four o'clock in time for dinner. Yeah, let's get out of here." So for me having that distance actually has been beneficial. It used to be that I would go on a photography trip and I would never really know how it end. I could be like, “I'm tired of this. I don't want to do this anymore. I just want to go home.” Or it could be like, “Oh this is great!” It used to be about 50/50, and I think that's because in the early days of working with large format I was trying to force photos. Once I got a better feeling for it, the trips became a bit more productive. It's actually been quite a while since I've had a trip where I go, "I'm over it. I'm going to go home." Maybe 2019, when I went swimming in a river while backpacking. That was not a good trip.
Calvin Chiu
Oh, boy. It sounds like there was a story there.
Ben Horne
Yeah, it wasn't a good trip. I actually destroyed my video camera on the first day. So it didn't make for a good video. This was a backpacking trip. I'm about ninety-nine percent of the way from the trailhead to where I was going to be camping. There's a river I have to cross, it was flowing higher. I just had to get across it to get to my campsite because there wasn't really a good one on my side of the river. I ended up getting taken down the river a little bit with my pack on, and then my video camera was destroyed in the process. So it wasn't a fun trip, but I survived. Spoiler alert.
Calvin Chiu
Earlier, we talked about the satisfaction you get from visiting a place through the years. Do you have plans to photograph different locations in the future, and if so, how would that fit into your style of photography, since it's very much based on repeated visits and slowly learning about a place?
Ben Horne
I mean, there are definitely some other areas I plan to visit, but I think I'll go into it with the knowledge that it's a relationship that takes a long time to develop. This past fall I did go to Eastern Sierra and spent a few days there, didn't bring my camera with me. I just went hiking on some trails, took some scouting pictures with my phone, kept a written journal just to kind of remind myself of things. I'm planning on going back there again, perhaps this fall, but it might still also be without a camera, maybe a camping trip with my wife. I think that's part of the process: going to an area, leaving my camera behind, and just learning more about the light and where to go when the conditions are right. I also do want to spend a bit more time up in the redwoods. But honestly, with the places I go to now, I could spend my entire life there and continue to build a huge volume of work from those areas. So it's not like I feel like I need to add a lot more places, but working in a few more places that are reasonably close is definitely part of the plan.
Calvin Chiu
I remember seeing you post on your story when you went to Bishop and I thought, "Wait that's amazing, I can't wait to see what he might do there in the future." I think you just happened to visit in between the two trips I did last fall.
Ben Horne
Yeah, I remember that! I was really excited when I went there because I've always wanted to have a photo of the aspen trees. It was really cool to learn that a lot of those trees are at the base of these oftentimes really, really deep canyons. At certain times of the day, you get some reflected light down in there for the aspens. So I was just seeing what time of day is good to photograph them and learning the ins and outs of everything. To me, that makes it a lot less intimidating going to new location. So it was actually quite nice not having the camera with me. If I did have it with me, I know I definitely could have photographed some stuff, but it was nice not having it.
Calvin Chiu
Oh yeah, that area is really gorgeous. This year's visits were my first real attempts trying to use reflective light to photograph landscapes that aren't the big, wide-open scenes. And it doesn't come naturally to me because I am often drawn towards the clouds and the alpenglow and all that. But I remember thinking, "Wow, this is really fun." There's a lot more deliberation and it kind of works a different part of your brain.
Ben Horne
Also there are so many opportunities around you that you don't even have to necessarily go very far for. There's this little aspen grove at the campground that I was staying at, like directly behind a sign for the campground. And I did have my artist's view catcher with me, so I just kind of pulled that out. I was looking at it thinking, “If I had my camera with me right now, this would be a really cool photo.” And I'm not hiking long distances to get somewhere or waiting for the perfect conditions or anything like that. It was literally right there in the campground. So that's one of the nice things about photographing the small scenes.
Calvin Chiu
I want to segue into something you've talked about on your podcasts and in your videos. You've talked about geotagging and social media and the impacts those can have. How has your photography influenced how you view conservation and the environment?
Ben Horne
I think by spending a fair amount of time out there, there are certain things that you notice, whether it's noticing changes at locations or visitation over time. Like when I go to Death Valley I'm always picking up Mylar balloons. There are always Mylar balloons all over the place there. And now there's going to be a ban in California on Mylar balloons. It's kind of funny because there are people who are making fun of that, like “Ah you don't like balloons.” But it legitimately is a problem. I've been saying something about that for a while because if I go to Death Valley and I wander around, I'll find, three, four, five, seven balloons in a tiny little area; they're all over the place. Just by getting out there, you start to see pattern, especially by revisiting areas again and again. I've seen increased visitation in Zion, especially in 2020, when people were just drawing graffiti on canyon walls. When you witness that kind of stuff, it leaves a really bad taste in your mouth. One of the things that I learned was that I could not put myself in the mindset to shoot photos until I did something about actually cleaning up the trash people left there. Obviously I'm doing it because I care about the place and I want it to look better. But I also couldn't concentrate until I did something about it. Because oftentimes, the photos I take have no human elements in them, and in a place like Zion, sometimes those photos are not far from the road. I mean, the photos can give a perception of them being off in the middle of nowhere, but sometimes it isn't.
When it comes to geotagging and stuff like that, I mean, that leads to all sorts of problems with people descending on places that aren't designed for and don't have the infrastructure for large numbers of people. Especially with social media, where people just want to go to an area and take a picture of something or have their picture taken somewhere with very little regard for the wellbeing of that location. I've witnessed some of that, so I've always been trying to walk the line in terms of giving people the experience of being able to see what it's like in these areas, but also not saying where I am and being very careful with the video angles I show. If it's an area that's a bit more special, I try to make it so you can't figure out where it is, because it's not really important where it is, it's more so just that these places are out there. One of the things I'll hear sometimes is that when people talk about this, they talk about the gatekeeping in terms of like, people are entitled to know where these areas are. But no one told me about these areas, I found them on my own. Thankfully the tide has turned, and I think people are a lot more receptive to that message now. For me personally, I don't ask people where locations are. I don't tag stuff. If there's an area that I'm really curious about, I'll try to find it on my own. It's definitely a problem but I think things have gotten better to the point where now there's a movement against all the geotagging because people see that special areas are getting destroyed.
Calvin Chiu
I remember initially when I heard your perspective on it, I thought that it did feel like gatekeeping. But as I've gone to these places more and have seen the downsides of so many people knowing about them, I realized, yeah, there is definitely a way to show people these places without necessarily divulging everything. There's certainly a balance.
Ben Horne
Also if you look at it from the standpoint of not saying where an area is, it will protect that location. So it's not going to get damaged, not going to get trampled, not going to get graffiti and all the other stuff that goes along with it. But also if you end up telling where a location is, then you're going to ruin the experience for other people that want to have that same experience that you had. It is a tricky subject, but thankfully, people are sort of coming around to it. The other problem is that even if an area isn't necessarily destroyed by visitation, over time it might get more and more infrastructure, which also kind of ruins it. Like Horseshoe Bend, for example. Last time I was there was 2008, and it was just a little dirt parking lot, and then you kind of walked over to the edge and there you were. But now they have a huge parking lot and they've built this viewing area. The experience of going to be completely different now. So sometimes when they build the infrastructure, a place kind of loses the appeal of what it once was.
Calvin Chiu
I visited Horseshoe Bend in 2019. I had gone once before that when it was a little less developed, and in 2019 there was that huge parking lot. They had the viewing platform right over the edge. At sunset, everyone just lined up there, and yeah, it felt a little bit like a zoo. It lost a bit of the magic.
Ben Horne
Also if person sees a photo from there, they're inspired to go there, then they see it for themselves, and they realize that the experience of seeing the photo doesn't really match the experience of being there. Because what you don't see is all the people on either side of you all along the edge, and the busy parking lot and everything else. So I very much enjoy shooting photos where the experience of viewing that photo is same experience that I had in the field. I don't feel like I'm like lying about what’s just out of view of the camera. Like oh there's forty people to my right, there's thirty people to my left, there's a hundred people behind me, a corndog [or] churro vendor over my shoulder, all kinds of stuff. It takes away a little bit of the magic from the image.
Calvin Chiu
You definitely lose the magic and you also feel like you don't work as hard for it either.
Ben Horne
Yeah, and there's something to be said about working a little bit more for an image. I think you're going to respect it more, and also I think that perhaps comes through in the image a little bit more as well. Because I think that's ultimately something we very much do value when it comes to art in general, or anything else. The more you work for it, the more you're going to appreciate it.
Calvin Chiu
Yeah, I definitely hear that. It reminds me of Anthony Bourdain, when he had his travel show showing different food places all around the world. I think for a few places, he wouldn't even say the name. He wanted to keep them secret. And I saw that parallel when you were talking about location sharing. There is that danger of being loved to death, where you lose the element of joy and novelty that comes from a place that is off the beaten path.
Ben Horne
And that's something I've definitely witnessed for a place like Zion, where I can't have same experience I had when I first visited there. I miss the way that it was when I when I first started going there. So that's definitely something to be aware of.
Calvin Chiu
Yeah, it raises all these tricky ethical questions. And I don't want to get too far into it, because I know that could be a whole other discussion. Instead I want to bring up another potential ethical dilemma, and that's about photo editing. Some landscape photographers will be very hands off, some others will be more willing to, for example, replace the sky or add a subject matter. What's your stance on photo editing for your own work? And does it change when it comes to other people's work?
Ben Horne
I like to keep things fairly natural, I would definitely never replace a sky or anything like that. I'm proud of the images that really require nothing really. I mean, maybe tweaks to contrast or color, just really minor things, because the film will certainly get [colors] wrong sometimes. It might go a little too cyan or something like that. So minor tweaks like that. And usually if I have to crop an image, I see that as a little bit of a sign of defeat, like, "Ah, man, I should have done better composing this." Usually the most detailed edits I do [happen] if there's some minor distracting element, and I will work with that element a little bit to make it less obvious.
For example, I had this photo I took in 2021 of a grassy meadow in Zion, the grass was all laid down and had some really cool patterns. In the lower left corner there are three or four leaves that were really close to the edge, and they were just pulling my eyes down to them. And there were these bright yellow leaves that were really annoying. But I can't just clone them out, so I just went in there and changed the color of the leaves. Some of the leaves that had fallen were green, some of them were yellow. And they weren't a distraction anymore, but I'm not messing with the grass or anything else. I've used that style of editing for other things as well, like where there are some distracting elements, I'll just kind of camouflage it in there. Usually I'm using a curves adjustment with a layer mask, so it's still there, but it doesn't stand out as much. That's honestly the extent of what I do.
I feel like if I had to do a significant tweak to an image, then it just wasn't a good image in the first place, and I should just try again sometime, or maybe that scene just wasn't meant to be. So I think in some cases, when it comes to editing, it's a matter of trying to force that image to be something that it wasn't. To me, if I see that an image is something I'm not really satisfied with right off the bat, I don't want to mold or shape it into something different. I just write it off as not a good image; it just didn't work for whatever reason. For me a successful image is one where I can look at that transparency on a lightbox and I can relive that moment when I photographed it. There might be some imperfections, but I think that actually leads to the image feeling more realistic.
When it comes to other people editing their work, I mean you can do whatever you want to your own stuff. It's art, people can do whatever they want. I think everyone's going to have their own limits in terms of what they feel comfortable doing and what their vision is for the scene. Not everyone has the luxury of being able to go back to these areas time and again to get perfect conditions and everything. It's a bit of a luxury that I have to be able to go back to these areas on an annual basis to keep trying. When an image is tweaked to be something completely different just for appeal on social media, it seems like the motive behind that is a little bit different than if a person is adjusting strictly for themselves. Because it's something that they want to do, as opposed to using that edited image as a vehicle to gain more attention on social media. There's an aspect of that as well. But again, it's art. People will do whatever they want, I'm not here to judge on that. I just do what I what I think is right for my own stuff: keep things natural, realistic, and true to the scene.
Calvin Chiu
I bring it up because it's a question where reasonable people can disagree. Everyone sits on different place in the spectrum. At least for me, I've been very hesitant to clone out grass or stuff like that. But I've noticed I'm fine with other photographers I admire doing those kind of edits, and I was trying to grapple that. One thing that really crossed the line for me that I thought was kind of funny: this photographer I followed had this this picture of like, the LA skyline with a sky of aurora borealis showing.
Ben Horne
Yeah that crosses a line of believability. I mean, I guess if surreal is what they're going for. But I guess it depends if they're disclosing it as a fantasy image, or if they're like, “I saw this, it was cool.”
Calvin Chiu
Yeah, they didn't disclose it. But I thought, well, the post is from early April, maybe it was an April Fool's joke.
Ben Horne
I mean, you would think it would be but it sounds like there was more.
Calvin Chiu
Yeah, it wasn't super clear. And then I thought, “Okay, that's strange, but maybe it's a one-time thing. That's fine.” Then I noticed in one of their other pictures, the moon looked awfully clear, like you probably wouldn't be able to get in a single exposure. And I realized, oh yeah, he's photoshopping an oversized moon into the photos, and at a certain point I was like, okay, I can't do it. It just is too much for me. And that's one of the few times where I thought, "Yeah, I can't follow this guy anymore."
Ben Horne
When I do my videos I do enjoy the process of showing the film and then [showing] the actual image. Usually, they're not far from each other. You know, here's what it looks like. I think once people have all that information, they realize that I'm not doing these crazy things to the photo. This is actually a moment that existed, something that I actually experienced. I think it builds a different view of the work when you know that that's actually something that happened.
Calvin Chiu
Yeah, there's this analogy I really like from Galen Rowell. I think he said something like, passing off a very clearly altered image as a real one is kind of like adding an extra zero to $100 bill and saying it represents an actual amount of money. That trust is really important, right? There's an expectation that the picture you're showing resembles the actual thing that you saw.
Ben Horne
I mean, these days, in particular, there's very little trust of images, which I think devalues images as a whole. So I think for me, at least, it's kind of like a long term approach. One can become a lot more successful a lot more quickly if one produces a sort of work that more stands out more from everything else. But it's kind of a quick rise and perhaps a quick fall after that, as opposed to slow, steady gains over time where people feel more connected to the work. And so I think the long term approach is being more authentic with the images.
Calvin Chiu
Since you touched on social media, I'm curious about how you deal with the challenges and pressures that come from that. Because, like you said, there is that pressure to create the million dollar image.
Ben Horne
Honestly, I think I'm pretty immune to it. To me, it seems strange that people get really fixated on having likes on the images and they're looking at those numbers. I feel like sharing images on social media is something I have to do kind of out of a sense of obligation, just to put stuff out there. Like if I see that my favorite image that I've taken over the course of the year did the worst in terms of all the numbers, I'm like, "Okay, everyone else got it wrong, this is clearly the best one." Honestly, I don't really care what the numbers are for that. I see the social media stuff mostly as just a way of getting my work out there. There's a sense of obligation that comes with it, I guess. I don't think one moment about Instagram or anything like that as I'm actually in the field taking photos. I mostly use Instagram just to just post pictures of my cats and dogs and inline skating and stuff like that. I don't really take it very seriously.
Calvin Chiu
Alright, thanks Ben. I really appreciate your time and the conversation. This was really fun.
Ben Horne
Yeah, looking forward to how it all comes together. I hope you have fun on your trip and get some good stuff.
You can find more of Ben’s work on his website, on Youtube, and Instagram. His new eBook, Unpolished (Vol. 1): Zion Autumn 2022, is now available for sale. He also co-hosts Creative Banter, a creativity and philosophy-focused podcast, with fellow photographer Cody Schultz. You can find Creative Banter on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.