On Landscape - Any Questions Private

Tim Parkin (00:02.909)
Hello and welcome to On Landscape. We're here for our Any Questions session with myself, Tim Parkin, and Joe Cornish, and our special guest, Ben Horn, dialing in from San Diego. Hello, Ben.

Ben (00:16.686)
Hi, it's great to chat today.

Tim Parkin (00:20.873)
Well, we've got in the format, we've got four or five questions from the people are submitted in, but I'm really interested in talking to Ben about his working practice, because it's not normal. You're not normal, you, Ben, really? Is that safe to say?

Ben (00:35.566)
I am very not normal. I've made a career of not being normal, is good. Less competition that way.

Tim Parkin (00:42.429)
Absolutely. Normality is overrated, definitely. So there's a little bit about what that means is you are primarily a film photographer. I imagine you use your phone every now and again or a little camera to take the odd picture, most of your output is 10 by 8 and on transparency and negative film.

Joe (00:46.377)
You

Ben (01:01.805)
Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the, phone is a certainly great tool for like scouting and, know, pictures of the cat and the dog and, know, vacation stuff like that. But, but yeah, yeah. Working with the, large format, um, which I know that both of you guys have experience with that. Um, it's, it's something that I, I think it was back in 2007, I started doing that and it just, it has a different way of thinking.

that allows me to be more satisfied with my work and take less pictures, but have higher keeper rate. And I've just really

Tim Parkin (01:42.812)
I your initial videos from when you were using a 5-4 camera while playing around with... Did you play around the medium format first?

Ben (01:47.276)
Yeah. I, you know, just for a brief amount of time, well, I had a panoramic camera, the Fuji panoramic camera, which was fun, but ultimately I just didn't use it enough. But yeah, I started with the five by four. It was just a quick little stepping stone to realize I wanted to go to the 10 by eight. But yeah, it's just, it's...

Tim Parkin (01:52.017)
Yeah.

that's right, Yeah.

Ben (02:13.326)
I don't know. It really forces me to slow down. It forces me to think through the process. It forces me to think through a composition all the way. Um, but I think one of the other things too, is it allows me to realize that there are so many things that I cannot photograph and like things that are moving quickly, things were just depth of field limitations. And rather than feeling like I am, you know,

Tim Parkin (02:31.611)
Yeah.

Ben (02:43.438)
not able to, it narrows what I can work with and what I can photograph and it allows me to kind of concentrate more on that and feel less bummed about missing like a sunrise or a sunset or something like that because I can just sit there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's those limitations, those guardrails I think have been very nice. Yeah.

Tim Parkin (02:56.176)
Restrictions are good for the creative brain, definitely.

Tim Parkin (03:04.238)
As a brief aside, you mentioned using the digital camera on the phone for taking pictures of dogs and cats. Have you ever tried taking a picture of your pets with a 10 by 8 camera?

Ben (03:13.038)
I've actually considered it because my wife and I, have two cats, one of which is 12, one is 11. So they're getting up there. And I'm like, it would be cool because they're not going to be around forever. It'd cool to have a big transparency of them, but just logistically, a cat somehow giving it enough light, which would probably mean a strobe, which I don't think the cat would appreciate. I just think it would be a recipe for disaster.

Tim Parkin (03:28.474)
Yeah.

Tim Parkin (03:32.121)
managed it once myself with 5.4.

Tim Parkin (03:41.828)
and expensive recipe for disaster.

Ben (03:43.114)
A very expensive one. So I have not, I think that would it would be cool. I've actually considered it, but it would it would be I think it would be difficult. Yeah.

Joe (03:54.42)
Ben, you mentioned transparency. I'm very intrigued to know. mean, I'm sure we need Tim's questions as well. But transparency is all negative. There's a first question for you. Which way do you generally swing?

Ben (04:10.027)
I love transparency just because you can look at it and know exactly what you have. It's not as forgiving as the color negative, but I think for a lot of stuff that I work with, just transparency is just better for that. But like, you know, I'll come back from a trip and I just have, you know, images to sort through, figure out which one's best. I just, love that. But I think one of the things, and if a person has not worked with large format before and they haven't had this experience,

But putting a transparency on a light box and looking through it with a loop, it tricks your brain into thinking you're looking at reality, which is it's almost like those old like view masters. I don't know where you kind of click it and it shows you different scenes. It's like that, but you can just like sit there and look at everything. So I absolutely love transparency, but it's more expensive. It's gotten really expensive in the past. I don't know, 10 years in particular.

Tim Parkin (04:49.914)
Yeah.

Tim Parkin (05:04.377)
On that note, some of our readers won't understand some of the cost implications involved in taking a single frame with a 10-bit camera. Can you give us a rough rundown?

Ben (05:11.533)
Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So a box of 20 sheets of film is about $400 now. Um, and processing is I think like 12, 10, 12 bucks or so. so, you know, every, every click of the shutter is going to be 30, $32. And you know, if it's a, if I'm going on a backpacking trip and I only have very, very limited film with me,

Yes, taking one photo of a subject. I'm good with that, but typically I do want to have a little bit of like a backup. So I might shoot two sheets or there's a sunrise progressing and I'll, take, you know, quite a few. so yeah, it's expensive, but I find that for even at the end of the year, when I do all my taxes and I look at the expense for film, and then I look at what I'm able to.

do with that in terms of generating income, it still makes sense for me.

Joe (06:17.545)
I'd say the interesting thing about that though is that every time you click the shutter band, it's a price of a sort of medium priced meal out. And so if you take two exposures, it's a meal for two.

Ben (06:34.785)
Yeah, and that's why I don't eat on my trips. Yeah. But yeah, it is. when you're out there, I don't think about the cost. I think about it when I order the film, but I don't really think about it when I'm in the field. It's just, the light's changing. Let me grab another film holder and throw it in there. When I was in Death Valley earlier this year, there was this...

Tim Parkin (06:37.209)
Good tactics.

Ben (07:00.429)
sunrise I was photographing. don't do a lot of sunrises just because it's logistically, it's kind of hard to do with the large format. You can't really see the ground glass and setting up in the dark and all that. But I saw some clouds in the morning. You know, I get up really early like for something in the morning. I get up, see some clouds in the sky, which isn't very common for sunrise in Death Valley. And so I remember there's this one particular, um, desert holly bush that was not far from the road, but it was like,

20, 30 miles from where I was camping. So I drove down there, set up the camera in the dark and just took, took photos at the various windows of light, you know, the kind of the blue hour and then a little bit of glow in the mountains. And then as the clouds are moving, I think I exposed maybe six sheets of film or something like that. And I had one left and I'm like, all right, I might as well do this one. I exposed that last one and that was the photo that was the good, all the other ones didn't count, you know,

Tim Parkin (07:53.817)
excellent. Yeah.

Ben (07:58.604)
So then when I sit and do the math on that, like, all right, so it's like 30 times six. This is not great, but somehow it works out in the end. Yeah.

Tim Parkin (08:07.385)
If it works, yeah, yeah. You can't think about it too much, can you? Out of interest, when you're taking, if you do take multiple exposures, one of the things for the people watching this, you can have two tactics. One is you can bracket, so you can over and under expose, or you can take one and then depending on the result of that one, you can send another one to the lab and have the lab adjust it for you. Do you do wide-reloose? Yes.

Ben (08:13.1)
No.

Ben (08:32.137)
That, means you have to be very well organized, which is I I'm the type that just like, I don't really pay attention to which film holder I'm using other than just knowing which film is in there, but I'm just juggling things. But yes, I, I know that technique. don't have the discipline for that. one thing I, yeah, one thing I do though, is I'll, will meter scene, take the photo, then meter the scene again. And if it, it still looks good, then I.

Tim Parkin (08:42.794)
It is hard work, yeah.

Tim Parkin (08:49.058)
So just bracket.

Ben (09:00.157)
Usually I pretty good confidence in what I did. And if I want to expose another sheet of film, I'll just do the exact same exposure, but that does give me the opportunity to fine tune things a little bit. after the fact, if I do another one, but I def I don't definitely don't really think about the money, the, the expense while in the field. but, yeah, it is, it is a lot. I did the math on like one of the, the, the Fuji, medium format digital camera, the GFX 100 something or other.

Joe (09:11.337)
push or pull the press.

Ben (09:29.879)
think that was three years worth of film. It was something like that. was, yeah. I saw that I'm like, that's a, yeah. It would save money. Exactly, yeah.

Tim Parkin (09:34.741)
It's about three years, I've looked at that before now as well.

Tim Parkin (09:41.463)
And that's ignoring lenses, etc. Yeah.

Joe (09:46.506)
I hate to say this, but that's exact same calculation that I did when I first invested in the phase one. So I figured that the way I shot five four and for the kind of work I was doing at the time that I would get my money back in about three years. So that was what happened.

Ben (10:07.589)
Did you find that when you went to the phase one that you shot the same number of pictures or did you increase it a bit? How did that vary your experience in the field?

Joe (10:17.289)
It did change it, but I mean, in a way there is no direct comparison that you can really make. And of course, it's very different to shooting 10-8, which is significantly, I mean, so much larger. mean, Tim and I discussed this previously that if you think in terms of the, and this is a direct answer to your question, Ben, but 10 by 8 is four times the surface area of 4 by 5.

It's enormously more detail and resolution and cost, of course, way beyond what most people would ever empirically need. But of course, that's one of the lovely things about 10A. It's so extravagant. It's unnecessarily extravagant, which is wonderful.

Ben (10:59.949)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Tim Parkin (11:03.416)
Coming back to what you said about number of compositions, having seen you when you were taking film and seeing you when you were using the medium format digital, I think you take about the same amount of compositions. You do a few, you do a couple of variations on things or maybe take a couple of extra exposures. But in terms of raw compositions, picking and choosing, it's not far off.

Joe (11:25.895)
Yeah, think that has actually changed very much. I think it became such a kind of habituated to the kind of discipline of seeing. And then actually, I love to work slowly. just not I don't know, maybe I'm just not fast enough in my brain to work more quickly anyway. So in many ways, large format really suits and still suits me. It's just I use a technical camera. So that side of it is pretty much the same.

in many ways, it's probably a little bit quicker, certainly than using a 10-8. And as you probably can imagine, Van, shooting 10-8 in the UK would be a different story, I would say, to working in the desert southwest where the weather is generally, I'd say, a lot more benign. And you don't have to contend with 30 mile an hour winds as a normal.

Ben (12:17.309)
yeah. Yeah, that's those those are the sort of days would I just relax or maybe I'll just go out in the wind and jump up and down and see where I land if I land a few feet from where I was, you know, that's always kind of fun.

Tim Parkin (12:28.982)
I have seen a picture of you with your tripod actually screwed into the ground with a cable, I think.

Ben (12:33.269)
Yeah. Yeah. I learned the hard way. destroyed two cameras, almost an almost a third, the wind almost got my camera again this past November. It got slammed to the ground, but somehow it survived. but that's not my, my backup camera. one thing. Yeah. The Chamonix Alpinist X. yeah, it's, it's a great camera and I don't know how it survived. It got slammed down on the solid rock. and it dinged it a little bit.

Joe (12:35.081)
Wow, perfect.

Tim Parkin (12:41.963)
Wow.

Tim Parkin (12:50.014)
Is that the Chamonix 10x? Yeah, but it looks really nice. Yeah.

Ben (13:03.309)
there's one part I had to fix with some wood glue. That's now my backup camera. I bought another one as a replacement. but one, one thing when, when you're talking about, like the, the various sort of compositions and working a scene, one thing that I, that I find really beneficial with working with the, the, the, the 10 byte that I have is that, you know, you can't, it's

Especially the lenses I have are really slow. So the image on the ground glass is really dim and you can't see your composition very well by looking at the back of the camera and you can't even see it all at once. Um, and so I always use a little, little framing device. hold up and I just find the exact best place to put the camera. And then I just sit there and wait. I usually try to get their head of the light and then just wait for the light to be good. And it is the most.

serene experience to be like standing out on the salt flat somewhere and know that you have a composition is dialed in, know, balanced as much as it could be cameras place as good as it could be. And you just wait for the light and you just stand next to the camera and you click the shutter. And I think that's one of other things too, is that, you know, I can, even if it's a scene like in a canyon somewhere and you know, the light's not changing, but I know that I have the camera.

the best, kind of weighed all the variables for the composition. I can take the picture one click and then walk away, you know, packing up my camera and such, but I can walk away knowing that I feel like I did my job there as opposed to continuously working the scene and try to figure out, you know, take a picture here or move here. And they're very well, could be a better solution, but I'm very happy with the solution that I have.

from that scene and I can walk away with it feeling like I did the best that I could. And I think that's the other aspect of working with the equipment I have where it's, you know, hard to see through the viewfinder, but it makes you think a little bit more in that sense, which gives that greater sense of satisfaction with the work. So that's the other part of it that I really do enjoy.

Joe (15:18.441)
Yeah, that's really fascinating to hear actually, lovely to hear because it shows how much the process is absolutely hard of the making of an image. And in many ways, the images are of a kind of benign byproduct of the process. the process is pretty much the practice.

Ben (15:34.613)
Yeah, that's very true. It is very much about the process for sure.

Joe (15:41.246)
Yeah, and how actually it's very a kind of therapeutic thing to do. And the fact that you're forced to slow down, you know, to be in the moment, sometimes you have to just wait and watch the light change. And sometimes it doesn't change much. Sometimes it changes quickly. mean, there is inherently there are cultural differences, I think, inevitably, and some of them are to do with the fact that working in the in Western states in particular, you do have wins sometimes, of course, but

Ben (15:46.317)
Mm-hmm.

Joe (16:11.369)
There's a lot of very benign, having worked out there, lots of shelter, especially if you're in the canyons. And there's something incredibly calm about being surrounded by this epic beauty and sculpture, living sculpture of the rock. And it's a very special, very special experience. For most of us, most of the time, we're working out on open moorlands or mountains.

Ben (16:26.255)
yeah.

Joe (16:38.845)
you know, sometimes by lake or on the coast, it's a very different kind of atmosphere. There's lots of wonderful photographic opportunities too, but they usually come with wind and tides and, you know, rain and all sorts of stuff that makes it slightly less meditative.

Ben (16:49.069)
Yeah.

Ben (16:53.311)
yeah. yeah. Yeah. I can imagine. mean, I can just think through some of the times when I've been in situations where there's been wind or weather or stuff like that. And it's not conducive at all for the type of photography I do. have mad respect for, I mean, you see these absolutely beautiful scenes with this, you know, the light that just lasts a little bit and then the, the weather coming in and, I look at that and I'm like, yeah, I can't do that. I can't do that. I'll stick to some rocks on the ground. They don't move as much.

Tim Parkin (17:19.283)
Thank

Joe (17:19.817)
I mean, you imagine those Icelandic photographers in the winter, know, with incredible wind speeds and still coming back sometimes with amazing pictures. So it's a very different thing. But it just goes on, I suppose.

Tim Parkin (17:36.835)
I remember me and you going to Iceland and hardly being able to get out of the car and we still had to struggle with the large format cameras. It was quite entertaining. It's like maneuvering a sail on a tripod.

Ben (17:43.961)
shit.

Ben (17:48.202)
yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's not, yeah, that would be very, very different. I'm very much a fair weather photographer. and I, I think some people might think that that sounds like an insult, like, you're not going out for the good stuff. But like, I need to be in like a particular state of mind to be productive. And it also, in some of the places I go, it absolutely has to be fair weather. Like, I go backpacking every spring into these canyons in Southern Utah, and it would be a very dangerous place to be if it rains.

Tim Parkin (18:14.939)
Yeah, rain would be bad.

Joe (18:17.329)
Very, very dangerous. Yeah, very dangerous. Yeah.

Ben (18:18.709)
Yes. Yeah, there, mean, the one of the one of the canyons, I mean, I went to the next year and there's three cottonwood trees that were missing. So stuff like that. But, during when the when the weather is is nice, it's not too hot out yet. The weather is calm. It's absolutely peaceful down in there. But that's the only side I've really seen at that place. And I would imagine it would probably be very miserable, very scary.

Tim Parkin (18:29.018)
wow, yeah.

Ben (18:48.269)
certain times of the year. But if anything is those sort of conditions, I have no real desire to try to capture it. I just need to have like a really specific mindset. Calm surroundings, kind of, I sort of feel that sense of calm and hopefully that leads me to subjects and it kind of comes through in the work. So, you know, I'll take a tree on a windless morning.

Tim Parkin (18:49.0)
Yeah.

Joe (19:12.693)
it certainly does that. mean, work is really kind of notable for the sense of peace and calm and harmony in it, I think. And that's a wonderful quality. And I'm sure that's a big basis for the popularity of your work. I'm not sure if popularity is something you're particularly searching even for, but I mean, nevertheless, it's work that you can relate to on that level very much, I think. So, yeah, big...

Ben (19:22.305)
Thank you.

Ben (19:39.086)
Yeah, I appreciate that. And the other thing too, I found is that when a print and I'm sure you guys have the same experience, but when you do make a larger print, don't do a lot of big prints, but when you do a large print, the more calm the scene, the better that print usually is. Um, and so sometimes an image that might seem kind of boring when seems small, when it's properly presented and printed large.

Tim Parkin (19:57.82)
Yeah.

Ben (20:05.377)
They are some of the most calming images and there's just so much depth to them and I love.

Tim Parkin (20:10.566)
I think there's something really natural about the light dynamic range of transparency film as well. It's very much very similar to the reflective light you get off a painting or whatever. It's not trying to, you're not trying to suppress highlights or anything. If you get an intimate scene taken with that, it does look like a window into the world.

Ben (20:21.078)
Yes.

Ben (20:29.675)
Yeah. And it also just makes the process way easier. It sounds, it sounds weird for people that aren't familiar with it, but like, look at what is done these days with digital and all the post-processing that goes into stuff and all that work. Meanwhile, I just take a picture. I scan the film, maybe a couple of small tweaks to if there's a weird little color cast or something. And that's about it. It doesn't really take a lot of work. And I just, I mean, I have.

mad respect for people that have the ability to, you know, take a scene and then really expertly work with everything and just make this absolutely beautiful print. But it's, is one of those things where, like if I turn on my TV these days, you know, I turn on the TV, then I have to hit quite a few button presses that navigate through the various apps. And it's like 20 presses of the button in order to watch a show versus the old days. You turn on the TV, one turn of a knob, it's on, you're watching some.

So in some ways it's a little bit like shooting film in that sense. And that's, think one of the things I do enjoy about it, just that process oriented approach. And it just, it seems simpler, even though I think from the outside, it seems like a really bizarre and strange way of doing things. So.

Tim Parkin (21:45.458)
tried to emulate the feeling or the approach of using a large format camera when I'm out with a digital SLR. And the one thing that I find really difficult more than anything else is committing after I've taken a photograph. Normally I'll find a composition in the same way as I would any other way. I'll get the scene, I'll work on it. And because I can take a photograph any time I like, I'll take the photograph just to get, because I can.

But then hanging around for the next half an hour waiting for the light because I know I can, I've already got the picture in the back. It's that commitment to wait for the next cycle of light to come through or for things to change that doesn't work in the south. find it really difficult to get past that.

Ben (22:18.529)
Yeah. Yeah.

Ben (22:28.481)
Yeah. And also I think I find that through the years, I find that the more photos I have, the less I, I don't look at those photos as much with the same sort of respect as when I was first getting started with it. think the more you have of something, the less you value it.

Though when I go back, if there's a photo I took, let's say, I don't know, 10, 15 years ago that I liked the time I look at it now. I'm like, it's just another picture. It doesn't really mean as much to me anymore. But then if I go back and I revisit that scene, then all of a I'm like, Oh no, no, this, this, this photo like turned out really good. I'm very, very happy with how this turned out. Um, but I do worry that if I were to, I don't shoot a lot of photos right now, but I feel like if I were to shoot a lot more photos,

I would only further that and it would just sort of take more of the, the specialness away from each of those images. I think I exposed 70 something sheets of film in this past year. which is a fair amount if one does the math, what was that? mean trips, four trips. one of which I only took one photo.

Tim Parkin (23:46.51)
many trips would that be over?

Fool trips.

Ben (23:55.68)
and nearly destroyed my camera afterwards. That was the one. That photo turned out great though. Yeah. But I mean, my goal is if I get, cause the way I do things with the print portfolios and stuff, I want to have 10 photos at the end of the year I'm happy with. And of that 70 something photos I take, you know, a good chunk of those are redundant. Or, know, two photos of the same scene or photos of light changes or stuff along those lines. But I very easily come.

Tim Parkin (23:58.061)
is that the yeah. Yeah, that's good.

Ben (24:24.845)
come up with 10 photos I like each year. It's not like I have 20, I'm trying to whittle it down to 10, but I might have 10, 11, 12 I'm really happy with. I feel like if I was shooting more and if I was taking more photos of a particular scene, or if I was going on more trips, I think it would be too many photos and I would lose a sense of connection with the work. I'll hear people say that they wish they can go out all the time and gather new work. I'm good three times a year going out.

and producing work, coming back and then just spending time working on things, everything else after you back at home. But I would worry that, and because I know I will get forced into a digital setup at some point just because film availability and such, but I do worry that it'll have a negative impact on my work because I would be shooting more and I would have less, less satisfaction with the work. That's kind of my fear of if I ever end up going in that direction, which I probably

Tim Parkin (25:23.059)
Out of interest, we do have one question regarding that. It's from Simon Gulliver, who asks, could you maintain your current approach? Or what do you think would change if you did move, if film stopped being made and you had to move? Would you have a plan of what you would do now and an idea of what might change?

Ben (25:40.109)
It would change. It would change a lot of stuff.

I, I, you know, I think the, the way that I am able to earn an income is mostly entirely based on the fact that I'm shooting film. I think if I were to try to do what I do now and not shoot film, I think it would take away some part of the process and it just wouldn't, it wouldn't fit as much anymore. Um, and I think in, in,

There's just because a photo is taken on film doesn't make it any, it's just different than digital. One's not better than the, mean, for certain things, yes, sports on large format would be horrible. But just because a photo is shot on film doesn't make it any better or worse, whatever. But there's something about it where it's a physical thing that's created.

it's a specific moment in time, there's more of a story behind it. you know, going on a backpacking trip and having 10 sheets of film with me and you know, that leading to whatever final work and the whole process. I think that it would be very difficult actually to, I'd have to change a lot in order to somehow make a living off photography.

Tim Parkin (27:07.385)
So given the choice between going to a digital format, trying to use tilt shift medium format like Joe's just did, or moving to black and white, because black and white will always be around.

Ben (27:13.303)
Yeah.

Ben (27:18.623)
Yeah, that's very true. It definitely would. I just...

Tim Parkin (27:21.667)
Would you go black and white do think or not?

Ben (27:24.779)
I like that would also not do well for me. I think people have a stronger connection to color work unless they look at it properly exhibited like in a gallery, in which case black and white pictures I think are just hauntingly beautiful. But I think on first glance people connect more with color work.

Tim Parkin (27:27.476)
Yeah, it's a very different thing.

Ben (27:53.728)
Yeah, I don't know. That would be very difficult. I just, the places that I go are so well suited for color. And just, I know the nuance of the light. I'd be like starting over. Which is why I really haven't dabbled into it as much as I probably should. But I just feel like it would be really very difficult either way. So I'm really hoping that the transparency film stays there. And I got a freezer full of it.

Tim Parkin (28:22.287)
I think it will.

Ben (28:23.693)
Yeah, hopefully it'll just get more expensive, but it's already ridiculously expensive as is, and I'm still buying it. I don't know. Yeah.

Tim Parkin (28:26.158)
good, yeah.

Joe (28:33.673)
Well, I find this sort of absolutely fascinating listening to you Ben and it's quite inspiring. actually made really making me think, well, maybe I go back to my big cameras for a while. But the trouble that I had actually, because I guess I changed around to what sort of 16, 17 years ago. And I was really struggling just to see well enough to focus the camera properly.

a lot of the time and actually the digital proved just as difficult up until relatively recently with the latest back, which are absolutely incredible. And really now that sort of solved that problem for me in terms of focus. But it's just so, I do love using a wooden camera and I really miss that, I will be honest. There's lots of aspects of the digital workflow that work well for me.

because ultimately I want to print. That's the goal. So, you know, clearly making a transparency is a sort of magical interface moment and it's lovely. And I totally agree with you about the story of the process because, you know, people are, of course, impressed by the fact that you carry around such a big camera. But actually, for me, what makes it interesting is the fact that that piece of film that you had in the camera is literally the piece is it's an artifact. So the transparency becomes the artifact. So you're

Ben (29:55.351)
Yeah.

Joe (29:57.866)
archive, while people will be familiar with your work from maybe from YouTube and making prints. But really, your ultimate archive is that transparency archive. You know, you know, in years to come, if you look after those transparencies, people will get an enormous thrill, you know, maybe after you're gone, you know, looking at those transparencies and thinking, wow, that was in the back of Ben Horn's camera, when he made that. And that's different with a print because it

Ben (30:08.907)
Yeah.

Joe (30:26.683)
It's not the artifact that was the witness to those photons, which the film is.

Ben (30:32.811)
Yeah. I love the story of the fact that, you know, that particular film, you know, I loaded it the film holder. I hiked it into some canyon in the middle of nowhere, you know, wait for just the right time, you know, load the film holder. saw light for just a split second and then back in the darkness. And then, you know, that, that film journeyed from, you know, Japan to, you know, buy a house, hiked into the area back, film lab. So it's like,

You know, it's just it's it's a physical item that has actual story to it one of the things I started doing just for for fun because I I have obviously a lot of photos that don't turn out great bad exposure wind gusts stuff like that I have a Patreon and just for kicks. I I created a tier called I give a sheet where I take a a sheet of film that

Tim Parkin (31:05.962)
Yeah.

Ben (31:28.087)
didn't turn out right. It's not a usable image. may still be a good exposure. Just maybe there's wind blur or something weird going on. And I, and I mail those to people if they're on that tier, but I have to keep it very, I think I have it like six spots in that, because I have to make sure I take enough bad photos in order to fill that. But if I'd have a perfect year, I don't do well. So I need to make sure I have some bad images. but just the fact that, you know, a person will get that.

Tim Parkin (31:38.218)
That's a idea.

Ben (31:56.558)
something that otherwise would have been in my closet taking up space because I don't really want to throw it away. But at least someone can look at it and they have that image where they have, here's the physical thing. Here's the sense of story behind it. And that's one of the things I really do love about that. And then they can have that experience of putting a loop on it, looking at it in a light box and seeing it. but yeah, maybe if I took more bad photos, I could produce more of those and I can make more money.

Tim Parkin (32:04.78)
you

Joe (32:24.451)
I you what, you're giving me some ideas here. I've got 10,000 bad transparencies sitting in my...

Tim Parkin (32:24.918)
Yeah.

Ben (32:29.953)
Mm-hmm.

Tim Parkin (32:30.092)
That's not a bad thought, know, Joe. think people will be interested.

Ben (32:34.837)
Hey, there's something to it. you know, just a matter of being resourceful and trying to find some way to, you know, pay the bills in the very lucrative landscape photography world. Yeah.

Joe (32:38.985)
Thanks for the tip.

Joe (32:44.903)
food on the table.

Tim Parkin (32:45.729)
Yeah.

Tim Parkin (32:49.024)
got a question from Martin Longstaff about your trips he says I'd love to know why you visited the redwood trees in California on a couple of occasions then decided against visiting them again. Was there any particular reason or is that?

Ben (33:00.517)
yeah, two, two reasons. First of all, it's really hard to take photos there really hard. and also it's a really long drive. that's like a 14, 15 hour drive and I have to go through two Metro areas. I have to go through the Los Angeles area and the San Francisco area. and so it's a punishing drive and it's just really hard to take photos there. I do want to go back. but.

Tim Parkin (33:05.622)
Yeah.

Bye.

Ben (33:29.695)
I know that I can be far more productive going to that same time of year is when I usually go on the backpacking trip in the spring. And I can go on a backpacking trip and walk away with quite a few images I'm happy with. it's also, it's, it's kind of a weird area up there in terms of, it's not like you have just like this one national park you're in. It's all these parks that are,

kind of broken up and then some of them are kind of far from each other and like the logistics get a little bit more tricky as far as where you're staying and where you're going. So I do want to go back. but I just love heading to Southern Utah. And so, it's a shorter drive and it's, it's kind of nice. I do have, one, one thing I've been working on for the past, half year or so. so I've, I've had a forerunner,

Tim Parkin (33:58.348)
Hmm.

Ben (34:23.573)
I've had two Toyota 4Runners through the years. One was a 2004, one was a 2014. I recently sold the 4Runner. I have a Tacoma and I just got like a little pop-up camper, very lightweight pop-up camper to go on the back, which will make the trips a lot nicer to have like a clean indoor space at the end of the day, have solar power, have a hot shower, you know, stuff like that.

Tim Parkin (34:45.237)
When you say it's a pop-up camper, is that like a caravan sort of idea? A trailed camper?

Ben (34:50.536)
Yeah, so it just goes in the bed of the pickup truck and then just pops up. And they're very, very spacious on the inside. But this one weighs only like 400 something pounds, which is pretty lightweight for a camper. So I'm just kind of getting things set up with that. But that will make the trips a lot easier from the standpoint of having some more of the conveniences of home. And so I'm really looking forward to seeing how that will have an impact.

Tim Parkin (34:54.411)
Oh, I get it. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I've seen them. Yeah.

Ben (35:18.801)
on the trips because I have a tendency to wear myself out in the field. I'm like from sunrise to sunset, I'm just on my feet all day around, just looking around, scanning around, finding stuff. After maybe five, six days of that, maybe three days of that, my body's like, nope, you're just going to sit still. You're just going to relax. You're going to rest. So I think having a place where I can take a nap might be kind of nice. So there's, there's that. Yeah.

Tim Parkin (35:37.907)
Yeah.

Tim Parkin (35:45.948)
That comes to another question actually from Ian Mead. He says that sometimes your joy in the air is to do with it, like how relaxing and calm and restful the air is. Is it actually as restful as it looks in the videos and in the pictures when you're out there?

Ben (36:02.301)
Yes, yes and no. the, the moments when I'm taking the photos, definitely, that's cause it, cause the camera forces you to like stay in one place and concentrate on something, something magical being underneath a dark cloth and like studying the composition. Those moments are indeed very, very calm. and there's nothing really stressful about it.

There's just, I think one thing that doesn't come through at all in the videos and people will look at the videos and they say, the hardest part must be, you know, taking those videos where you're walking away from the camera and you got to come back and you got to get the camera. No, that's a chance to sit there and have a snack. And those are actually quite enjoyable. The hard part is the feeling that you have someone constantly looking over your shoulder and the feeling that I need to be doing something

productive and, so, which is one of the reasons why I'm constantly. Like, like I'll go back to my, like on the backpacking trip, I'll go back to my campsite at the end of the day. I'll have dinner and then I, I won't just sit at camp and lay in the hammock. I have to start scurrying around rocks and looking for things and all the way until it's almost too dark to get back to a camp. And I'll have like, you know, 40,000 step days on some of these trips and I'm not getting enough.

you know, calories to make up for that and it wears me out. so, but also when I go on, when I'm just wandering around, I find really cool stuff. So I find something I'm like, that's a great subject right there. So it works really well, but what people don't see is they don't see constantly on my feet all day long. it's, it is quite tired in that sense.

Tim Parkin (37:41.214)
Yeah.

Tim Parkin (37:56.595)
Having your brain switched on for that long is tiring. Mental energy, yeah.

Ben (37:59.222)
It is, it is. I, you know, I've, I've had, I've done some experiments where I did a trip, I didn't do any video and I still had that feeling. need to be doing stuff, but I didn't have that feeling that someone is constantly like looking over my shoulder and expecting me to produce things.

Tim Parkin (38:10.353)
you

Tim Parkin (38:18.055)
Yeah, that's peculiar but I understand, yeah.

Ben (38:22.997)
Yeah, yeah. that's one of the things that, like in my mind, I have to think about like, what did I do already today? What do I still need to do in order to make everything work out? So not having that in the back of my mind would make, I think, the experience a bit nicer. With the new camper set up, my goal is to to have just like a day off when I go on the trip and just...

relax, enjoy, know, rest up a little bit and I think that'll balance things out a little bit more hopefully at least. yeah.

Joe (38:58.633)
I remember Liz Dombrovskis telling me that that Peter Dombrovskis used to used to hike in to the Tasmanian wilderness for for a day typically and then he would sleep for a day before he started taking photos. I'm not sure if that's exactly what happened, but I doubt it. But I mean, if you're carrying Peter would always been carrying 40 plus pounds of gear. So 20 kilos or so.

Ben (39:17.602)
Yeah.

Ben (39:22.466)
Yeah.

Joe (39:25.449)
which is actually sounds about right to me. And that's that, you if you're, if you're doing multi multi-day backpacking and if you're carrying a 10 eight, that's not a light camera, Ben, I don't imagine. Plus, you know, if you have to, if you are camping out, I'm not sure maybe the camper hopefully would allow you not to do that, but I'm guessing that you typically would carry 40 to 50 pounds worth of kit on a day. And if you're doing

Ben (39:42.945)
Yeah.

Tim Parkin (39:52.23)
Every time I've been over 25 kilograms for the camping and a 10-8.

Ben (39:57.036)
I've been able to get it down actually significantly. I don't know what it translates to in kilograms, but I got my pack down to mid 30 pound range. Yeah, I have like in the past maybe 10 years or so, there's a lot of extremely lightweight backpacking gear. So like my tent weighs.

Joe (39:57.104)
Exactly.

Tim Parkin (40:10.471)
That's pretty good.

Joe (40:10.835)
That's 15kT.

Tim Parkin (40:21.926)
Yeah.

Ben (40:24.385)
hardly anything. It just looks like a little pile of trash, you know. And so a Z-Pax. So it's a one-person tent, extremely lightweight. I have a Z-Pax backpack, which I carry the eight by 10 and stuff. And the camera itself is pretty lightweight. I've purchased film holders in the past few years that are the Chamonix lightweight holders, which

Tim Parkin (40:29.095)
What do you use by the way? What tent is it?

Yeah.

Tim Parkin (40:53.649)
The Shumneys are amazing, aren't they? Yeah.

Ben (40:55.357)
yeah, they, they, they're, they're absolutely amazing. and just all that stuff adds up. I, I also have to take the video kit, but I have it very minimal in terms of the video kit. and so I've, I've gotten pretty good to the point where the weight really is not an issue. like I never feel like, I got put this big pack on, you know, so thankfully there's been some really big changes lately.

And if I were not to have the camera gear with me, I would probably not feel like I'm wearing a backpack. It's really, it's, it's, stuff's kind of expensive, but it's, that definitely helps out a lot. but I, I do, I can relate definitely to, we're talking about how, you know, he would say how you would go there and then he'd have hike and then have like, you know, a rest day. Those travel days in particular, those are.

Difficult in terms of I get up really early, you know, I'm usually leaving my house by about 3 a.m And then if I'm going to Zion, I usually get there by about noon or so But if I'm going somewhere even further, you know, I might get there by evening time But just like you have a travel day like that, which is it's hard on the body It's it's a little bit stressful because you're kind of getting pulled from the comforts of home to all of a being in this new place combined with the fact that

people are going to expect me to produce stuff that I'm happy with and kind of looking over my shoulder. And so usually like the first day of a trip, I just kind of pace around like, should I be doing this? Is this right? Like, is this what I'm meant to be doing? But usually after a good night's sleep, by the next day morning comes, I'm like, okay, okay, I got this. I got this. But I definitely see how, you know, hiking into an area and just spending the day relaxing would probably.

open oneself to the opportunities around them and just kind of give that nice separation between the two spaces.

Joe (43:00.443)
Yeah, I think it's a it's really fascinating because you know, each each person finds their own way of doing things. And of course, you know, thinking again, repeating Peter's example, Peter Dombroskis, this is long before the days of YouTube and having to you know, you've got to carry all the extra kit for one thing for the but in Peter's case, you know, he's he was hiking into mountains with it being chilly and

sometimes very wet as well and needing to take the kit that could keep you safe in those circumstances. you know, very different, everything's different and people have different ways of responding. I still do some backpacking occasionally. My recent trips have been with Alex now and yeah, those are pretty hardcore, I have to say. So, you know, it's good for even an old guy like me to, you know, still.

Ben (43:30.593)
Yeah.

Ben (43:48.001)
Nice.

yeah! Yeah!

Joe (43:57.96)
realise what's involved in doing these trips. So a lot of admiration for what you do. And the physical side of it is a big part of it. I think coming to terms with the physicality of the experience is also part of what makes the pictures look the way they do. And I think that, you know, it's the tiredness, fatigue and feeling immersed, you know, those things go together as well.

And that's sometimes forgotten. think it is part of connecting with nature, is realizing it's hard, it's difficult.

Ben (44:33.249)
Yeah. And I think it kind of goes to the plastic thing of you appreciate most what you worked the hardest for. that's something where sometimes, you know, if you do work really hard to take a photo, it doesn't necessarily mean that the photo is going to be good, but if you put everything into that photo, I think oftentimes it comes through in the image in one way or another. And that also

Joe (44:57.289)
to us.

Ben (45:02.465)
Like when I go on the trips, there's, there's times when it's a bit miserable, you know, just in terms of like, it just like, but I think within that sense of misery, think that allows me to find subjects that I can relate to in one way or another. Like I might, I might be a bit fatigued. might be tired. I don't know, but I'll be hiking along and then I'll see something I'm like,

That tree looks like how I feel right now. So I'm going to take a picture of that tree. So I think sometimes when you do push yourself a bit to the limits, it gives that greater awareness of the things that are around you and, and allows you to kind of pick out those details. so yeah, so that's, that's what I think another factor as well.

Tim Parkin (45:45.892)
and breathe.

Bruce Percy had said that when he used to do his trips to Iceland every year he'd had a couple of traps where he got ill and he'd gone out feeling really down and he said he came back with some of the best pictures he'd taken because for some reason it was just in a different zone and he just didn't have the bandwidth to get distracted.

Ben (46:01.068)
Yeah, it gives you

It definitely, it definitely is a different perspective. There's a photo I took, um, in 2013 on the, uh, uh, big bend area in Zion in the main Canyon. Um, I had, I was, I had a cold I was coming down with, and I think I had like a sciatica thing going on as well. And at the time the gear I was carrying was significantly heavier and I was, I was miserable, but like, there was like this dead tree in the crown ground. like that.

could be me. So I'm like, I gotta take a picture of this tree, you know, it ended up being like a great looking photo. It's a photo I love, but I was absolutely miserable when I took it. But I think that very fact that very much factored into, you know, seeing that subject. I'm like, I feel, I feel you tree. So I think there's, there's something to be said about that.

Joe (46:52.989)
Tim, were there any more questions from the...

Tim Parkin (46:56.164)
We did have an interesting question which was from Edmund Maxvit and his question is basically what's circles of confusion?

Ben (47:09.879)
That's very confusing.

Tim Parkin (47:10.468)
And I'm going to expand on that a little bit because it's, you can find out what circles of confusion are a little bit online, but I think there's an interesting one that is how technical does large format have to be in terms of all these things because anybody that'll start to look at it will see a minefield of different things to do with how to use the cameras.

Ben (47:19.478)
Yeah.

Ben (47:32.534)
Yeah, I think when, when people think of large format, they think of it being extremely technical. and yes, there, there is, there's science to it. There's math behind it. but it doesn't have to be like, like, I think there's a lot of times people get hung up on all of these technical details and they lose sight of the whole goal, which is just to take a picture or something that hopefully makes people feel a certain way.

I'm not very technical when it comes to the cameras. I know, I do know about to some degree of the circles of confusion and the has to do with like the areas that are a little out of focus and then depending on the size of printed and looks like details, something like that, I think. But honestly, that doesn't really come into play too much for what I do. I do love the imperfect nature of large format where

rather than approaching it from a like a math or science sort of approach. If you just approach it from the standpoint of here's a scene, I want to try to photograph it. I don't do much in the way of movements on the camera. I don't really get into that too much. I'm not worried if I don't have sufficient depth of field for a subject. I'll just get the most important parts in focus and having

Some degree of imperfection to the work, think is actually what makes it more real. There is a scene I photographed in Death Valley this past winter. I was in this canyon, there's this reflected light in there and there's kind of like this boulder in the middle of the canyon. And I knew that I would not be able to get everything in focus. But I just looked at it, I'm like, what's the most important part of the scene? It's the boulder, it's areas a little bit behind it more than what's in front of it.

And so if you're to look at that photo, the boulder sharp, the area behind it sharp, the foreground is a little soft, but that actually just creates depth. I think if a person were to try to focus stack that or kind of go through all the technical stuff with a digital to get it all in focus, it would be fine. mean, it would look great, but I think having that imperfection can be nice. a good chunk of my photos will have some areas that are not in focus that probably should be, but

Ben (49:58.592)
It's fine. It simplifies the image a little bit.

Tim Parkin (50:01.537)
You can see on a 10H transparency a lot clearer than you can see it on most things, can't you?

Ben (50:05.607)
You really can. And I think going into it with the expectations that perfection does not exist, just get the most important parts that build so much more satisfaction with it. So I never really, I never really, the whole circles of confusion thing, I think maybe if a person's printing in the dark room, maybe that becomes a bit more of a thing in terms of doing like the really large prints and stuff.

But I just accept that I'm going to have a shallow depth of field. I'm not too concerned about that. The only things that I do have to be very aware of when in the field is if I take a picture of a smaller subject and I need to overextend the bellows in order to get a close up ability, do have to do, I don't really have to do the math.

Tim Parkin (50:37.176)
Yeah.

Tim Parkin (50:56.681)
factor stuff.

Ben (50:58.187)
Yeah, you have to, have to, you have to add extra exposure for those that aren't familiar with large format. You have to add extra exposure when you overextend the bellows. Otherwise your picture turns out very noticeably dark. but I, even for that, I used to do math on that. I used to have a tape measure. I used to do a little calculation. And then on one trip, I forgot the calculator. And so I was like on the sand on the floor of the canyon, I'm doing long division. And I'm like, this, this is, this is not photography. This is not what I want to be doing right now.

Now I use something called the quick disc, which is just like a little, yeah, a little circle that you, you can find a PDF on the internet, a little circle and like a little, a little ruler. just put the circle against your subject, go to the ground glass, measure it with the ruler. It tells you exactly what the compensation or what the compensation is. So easy, except for if it's windy and at the vertical surface that sometimes you got stick it on there or something, but yeah, no math required. So,

Tim Parkin (51:30.571)
they're Yeah.

Tim Parkin (51:44.908)
So easy.

Tim Parkin (51:55.52)
I have interest, do you subscribe to the Ansel Adams F64 and be there with the 10-8 camera?

Ben (52:02.029)
I actually that that is one of the other limitations I've run into. do find that if I stop down beyond F 45, I hit, I do hit diffraction in a bad way. Yeah. So, so there are certain things that you certain like guard rails you learn, like I shoot everything at F 45 for the most part. And again, it takes like the thinking out of it. It's like, of course it's going to be F 45. It's it is what it is. Um, but, but yeah, I don't, there, there are certain

Tim Parkin (52:12.256)
It just go away quickly, doesn't it? Yeah.

Ben (52:31.213)
of those technical limitations that you do learn. You take a picture and like, well, this doesn't look quite right. Let's figure out how to make that better. Um, but beyond that, I don't get too techie with it. Um, I think if people were to look at the technique I use in the field, as far as the camera, say, well, that's wrong. That's wrong. That's wrong. I don't care. I'm taking a picture of a rock. It's not architecture. you know,

Tim Parkin (52:52.066)
The large format photography forum wouldn't be happy with you.

Ben (52:56.203)
I don't think they would. No, I, no, probably not. Yeah.

Joe (53:00.681)
The circles of confusion are what happens when a bunch of large format photographers get together and argue about

Ben (53:06.701)
A lot of confusion there. Yes. Yes.

Joe (53:10.185)
Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's really funny, isn't it? I mean, I think, you you can approach the whole process with trying to be very precise, but ultimately it's a pleasure and a joy of using the instrument that makes it worth doing. And some of the limitations, well, the limitations that you've described so eloquently, Ben, you know, make it the constraints that it gives you.

define the look of your work. And I think that F45 diffraction limit, was very well explained because I think there's another, you can see that. I you can see that when you stop down, even if you look at the ground glass screen, as long as it's bright enough. That is when you stop down. But probably with a smaller format, you wouldn't maybe wouldn't want to stop down even quite as far as that because

everything's relative, you might have enlargement you need, right? There's a famous anecdote about Ansel Adams looking at Edward Weston or describing Edward Weston's pictures. Edward Weston typically did contact prints, so everything was contact printed, he didn't enlarge. Consequently, it didn't really matter what aperture he used. And so he would very often stop down to f128, whatever.

Ben (54:12.282)
for sure.

Ben (54:37.579)
Yeah.

Joe (54:38.269)
there on the lens to get the depth of field. And apparently Ansel said of him that none of Edward's pictures were actually very sharp. So, you know, you can look at that as you, but does it matter? course, it doesn't matter because the way they presented their brilliant pictures, they're innovative and of course, groundbreaking in lots of ways. That's much, much more important than whether they're sharp. And then one more thought is that I think it was

Tim Parkin (54:53.929)
Exactly.

Joe (55:07.165)
Henri Cartier-Bresson said that sharpness is a bourgeois concept. So there you go.

Ben (55:13.195)
Yeah. And there, there's, there's very much an obsession with it because it's a tangible thing where people look at it they want to have like the, sharpest image, but doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be the best image. and so I think that's, that's definitely one of the things that I've, I've come to embrace in terms of having something that's technically proficient from a standpoint that it doesn't look like an outrageous error, you know?

but also the willingness to let things go if something isn't quite right. And so I think that is a huge part of being satisfied with your own work. Because if you're chasing perfection, if you're chasing something that doesn't exist, it's not a good pursuit. So it's all about taking a picture of something that makes a person feel a certain way and

Tim Parkin (55:40.085)
Mm.

Ben (56:08.014)
In some cases, those imperfections I think can help with that a little bit.

Tim Parkin (56:11.486)
Yeah. Yep.

Joe (56:13.532)
Amen to that.

Tim Parkin (56:15.998)
I'll pick a last question for you because I know you work primarily in one small area and don't travel abroad, don't really fly much. If you were to, if you were forced to take a commission off the National Geographic to do a foreign project, where would you want to go do you think? Where appeals?

Ben (56:23.276)
Yeah. Yeah.

Ben (56:37.698)
tough one. It would have to be a fair weather location because I wouldn't do well with wind or crazy weather.

Tim Parkin (56:46.483)
Not Iceland then.

Ben (56:48.542)
No, no, definitely not. think my camera would be like tumbling down a beach somewhere and then get hit by an iceberg or something. I don't know. I, I think it would have to be an area that I would feel, would, would be not too far from the conditions I'm used to working. So area with like some, some canyons and, some reflected light and just some different stuff. I.

Tim Parkin (56:52.198)
Yeah

Tim Parkin (57:15.026)
Interesting, yeah.

Ben (57:16.558)
I don't really know. I know that they have some, some really interesting sandstone stuff over in like, you know, Jordan and stuff. I know that I think, I think, I think Australia has some areas that have some canyons that have some really interesting, earthy textures and some really interesting plants and stuff. I don't know, but just also just the thought of the logistics of traveling with an eight by 10 kit. It's just not.

It's yeah, just the fact that like, everything is great. X-rays, know, or, heat damage somewhere or something like that. So I don't have any plans to, I, the other thing too is I love returning to the same areas because I see something different every time you learn the lay of the land, you learn the subtleties of the light, but each time I kind of go back, I find something a little different. So I keep kind of keep working these same areas and then finding other areas nearby.

Tim Parkin (57:47.145)
Yeah. I'm in the forerunner.

Tim Parkin (58:03.551)
Absolutely.

Ben (58:14.542)
The canyon that I backpacked into this past spring, 2022 is the first year I went to that canyon. Yeah, I think it was 2022. But I usually go back to the same canyon five, six years in a row. And then at some point I'm like, okay, I've exhausted this one from now I'll move on to the next one. But there's just like the areas where I go, there's just like tons of these canyons. So I can spend a lifetime there, see new stuff, but still know the lay of the land.

and not have my film be massacred by x-rays or cameras destroyed by icebergs or stuff like that.

Tim Parkin (58:48.125)
Yeah. Do you see your environment change from year to year if you're going back?

Ben (58:54.784)
It, I mean, it does. so, there's an area in death Valley with some, some mud flats that, is really fascinating to revisit each year because every year it is different. some years there's really big changes. we had, think it was two years ago. Maybe there, there was a, there was a hurricane off the coast of Mexico off the West coast that kind of went.

Tim Parkin (59:15.804)
floods.

Ben (59:23.982)
It broke up by the time it got to us, but it was just like a tropical storm, but it, went up through San Diego, but mostly to the east of us. And then it just massacred death Valley. And there was some crazy flooding that took out roads and stuff, but all, all the debris that got moved from all these flash floods. They kind of, completely reworked the area. So, you know, a storm like that goes through and then all of a sudden it changes things quite dramatically.

I've definitely seen that. Fall has been really weird lately, like the past five years or so, it's in Zion, it's staying warmer later. And so like the fall color is being affected by that, not getting those like, those cold nights to really get the color going. So I've seen changes in that.

Tim Parkin (01:00:08.123)
Yeah.

Ben (01:00:18.68)
So yeah, I mean, there's, there's definitely changes where you go back. You may go to the exact same spot, but you're going to see something different. And I do like that about it. Cause it's from that change. Usually you do have some opportunities that result from it. So yeah.

Tim Parkin (01:00:33.149)
Well, thank you very much, Ben. It's been really nice talking to you.

Ben (01:00:37.004)
Yeah, I've enjoyed it. It's been fun.

Joe (01:00:39.379)
Thank you, Ben.