Alister Benn: Nature Photographer
February 22, 2011 by Gail
Filed under 5 KURIOUS Kiwi Questions
“Growing up in rural Scotland in a household that encouraged a love for nature and the outdoors, it was perhaps inevitable that Alister Benn would end up traveling the world in search of wild places.
ABOUT Alister Benn
“Alister and his wife Juanli Sun lived in Yunnan, China for a decade from 1999, where they worked on their extensive stock library of Himalayan and Tibetan images.
In September 2003, he became interested in Nature Photography and since then has travelled extensively to pursue this interest, with extended trips to Canada, Australia the United States and New Zealand. They moved house earlier this month to Asturias, in Northern Spain.”
5 KURIOUS KIWI QUESTIONS
Do you have interesting friends? I do. I’m a kurious kiwi, so in this LifeStyle section I ask them 5 Questions. Their responses are sometimes startling yet always thought evoking. I ask each of them a common question relating to a Cause they believe in and why it matters to them. Read on to share in their take on what they think really does matter.
Can photographers have a favourite shot? Which is yours?
For a first question, that’s actually quite tough. I can only speak for myself, but yes, I do have favourites, but in many instances they are on the list because of the story behind their creation, and not necessarily because I consider them my best images. As we have just moved to Asturias in Northern Spain, I have very quickly come to love the rugged coastline, the rhythm of the tides and the influence of the moon.
I primarily shoot at night, as I love using time as an abstracting element. The motion of the waves creates an ethereal dreamscape punctuated with the ship-wrecking teeth of rock. The stars apparently circling in the northern sky remind me that we all live on a rock rushing through space, fragile and alone. The light from the right is a combination of a small city and the coming of dawn.
What do you think photography tells us about ourselves?
I believe photography is a language, Light is our vocabulary, composition and exposure are our grammar and punctuation. Accordingly, an image can be as expressive as a poem and only limited in its eloquence by the photographer and their skill. Honestly, an image at the right time in the right place can tell us anything and everything about ourselves. The human race is a complex and ambiguous society, capable of breathtaking beauty and the ugliest of horrors.
Going back to the metaphor, using light as our language has fundamental differences from the spoken word. An image demands personal interpretation from the viewer, they’re not being told what to think, this develops a high degree of self-exploration and discovery for the viewer, which I think helps to enforce any learning. I’d like to believe that a well-crafted image has the power to change how someone thinks for ever. It’s all about education and growth.
Tell me about your Cause and what makes it matter so much to you?
Some may look at this and consider it to be my mid-life crisis, but they’re wrong, I got that out the way in my 30’s! But, as I sit and look out at the world I realise that I am over half way through my three score years and ten, and to be honest, I want to do something significant with my life, otherwise, what’s been the point.
Human history is a set of scales striving for a balance point. For every breakthrough and leap of progress there seems to be a slide in morality or some act of atrocity that slaps us in the face and reminds us that we are no more than sophisticated animals barely concealing our primate ancestry.
As we look at the natural world we see many instances of the weak working together to be strong; ants and bees are a good example. Individually they are small, together they achieve wonders. Future Traders™ works on the same principle, it’s a model for self-accountability. Inside our own heads we have nowhere to hide, we answer to ourselves, and if we lie to ourselves, well that’s just plain dumb.
Change initially requires thought, then it becomes so ingrained in our lives it’s subconscious. Until the 1980’s in the UK recycling was unheard of, everything went into giant landfill sites. Now, it’s common place, people do it and it makes a big difference to the planet.
Leaving lights on all over the house, unnecessary use of the car when a good walk would be a better solution. All these tiny little things when multiplied by huge numbers creates massive change. Future Traders™ is essentially a quest for education, but realises that there are a vast spectrum of educational needs in the world. Education for sustainability, caring for our planet as a subconscious lifestyle.
Give us a heads-up of the next 6 months for you
Ha, about 2 years work, that’s what I have to fit into the next 6 months. I have a lot of writing to do; Available Light Images is a Photography business, one part of that is Future Traders. I want to use our images for Education, not only for the main goal of sustainability, but photography learning as well. I write lots of articles for publication, and they take time.
The company has been around for a while, but I only went full-time at the back-end of last year. These days it isn’t just about the quality of your work, but ones ability to network and use the internet for self-promotion. Again, time-consuming. I developed a photography programme for use in environmental education and that is launched in October at a conference in Hong Kong, the keynote speech needs preparing.
We’re off to Switzerland in March to begin the next phase of the growth in our Cause, a new Not for Profit Foundation, but more of that soon. In amongst all that, we continue to settle into our new home and I can get out and take some new images fairly frequently.
Who do you admire?
I admire anyone who is thinking of a world beyond themselves, anyone who realises that our lives are short and the time we have to make any difference is limited.
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