Fashion Photographer Benjamin Kanarek

Fujifilm Fashion Photography with Benjamin Kanarek. Benjamin has worked for magazines such as Harper’s BAZAAR, VOGUE, GLAMOUR, ELLE, NUMERO, GRAZIA, STYLE, etc… He has consulted as a Creative Director for worldwide agencies and clients. And he shoots with Fujifilm cameras. It was an absolute honor to have him on the very first show.

Transcript

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- [Benjamin] Do you see where she's standing in the doorway of the bathroom and there's my assistant's legs on the bed?- Yes.- [Benjamin] I needed a model. I said, "Take off your pants and get..." (laughs) And his girlfriend's my other assistant. So-- If I asked somebody on set to take their pants off, I don't-(upbeat music)- Hi, everyone. Welcome to a very special edition of Pal2tech. This is the "Done. Over Perfect" podcast. And on the show today is Canadian fashion photographer Benjamin Kanarek. Benjamin is currently based in Paris and his amazing fashion photography has appeared in Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Glamour, Elle, I mean, just to name a few. You should go check out his website, benjaminkanarek.com. I'll have some links down below. There is a list of supermodels and worldwide fashion clients on that site that he's worked with. That thing just goes on and on and on. He's worked with everybody! I would like all of you to say welcome to Benjamin Kanarek. Welcome, Benjamin. Are you there?- [Benjamin] Yes, thank you so much. I'm sorry, I'm not showing my face today, but I'm in a place that makes it rather difficult. But, I am so pleased to have the privilege of being on your show.- Thank you, and wow.- [Benjamin] I've been watching your YouTube channel for quite some time. Thank you, Chris. I appreciate your inviting me.- When you were first taking photos, your first photos, who did you look up to? who inspired you?- [Benjamin] Okay, well, thank you, that's a great question. I learned photography while studying architecture. We all had to photograph details of buildings and learn how to develop film. And so basically I was shooting black and white imagery at that time. There was a photographer that is relatively well known. He's a Chicago based photographer I used to look up to and his name was Victor Skrebneski. And what took me aback in his style was how radical his lighting was. He wasn't doing pyrotechnics with his lighting. He just did some very strange lighting angles that were very unconventionable, unconventional, sorry, for the time. I mean, he would have a beauty dish that was shooting directly down on the model at 90 degrees and the models would invariably always have to raise their head up and face it. So, they were incredibly dramatic. There were a lot of shadows and it was totally against convention. And I guess that was my first exposure to fashion photography. Of course the film "Blow Up" had an effect on me as well.- [Pal2tech] Oh, yeah.- [Benjamin] Where, you know, David Bailey and Veruschka and-- You have an architecture background.- [Benjamin] Yes, indeed.- Can you talk a little bit about that and what kind of influence it had on your photography?- [Benjamin] It had a major influence on my photography because I was always aware of and playing with negative and positive space because architecture is just that. It's negative and positive space. There's a Yin Yang approach in at least what my design approach was. I was a huge fan of people like Frank Lloyd Wright, who was probably one of the most amazing architects of the last century. How that affected me, well, simply by how I frame my images, how I integrate and play with positive and negative space. My natural affinity for seeing color and how I kind of intuitively approach my interpretation of a fashion scenario. I guess it's become kind of second nature for me, Chris, because I've been doing it for over 30 years. I just see things. I guess after a certain period of time, your eye becomes very much trained and you just see space, negative and positive space, in a very different way. From a purely composition point of view, architecture was an asset. Yeah.- Let's actually look at your website.- [Benjamin] So on the left,"Next Stop Paris" is Vogue. So, you know, it's Vogue."Urban Palette" is Numro magazine."Runway Girl" is Numro magazine."Blew My Mind" is Elle."The Beauty and The Body" is the first time that a major Vogue magazine was able to shoot in the Rodin Museum. And as a result of that shoot,- Wow.- [Benjamin] the Rodin Museum, their curator connected with me and asked, "May we buy that collection to be hung in perpetuity at our museum?" And they purchased the images to either be stored and to be pulled out when they wish to. I signed them one of one at a specific size. The French government purchased that story for the Rodin museum. The reason they bought that series is because when Rodin would sculpt in that space, which was his residence before it became a museum, so that his visual connection with the sculpture wouldn't be so chaotic, he used to hang a muslin backdrop behind the sculpture he was working on so that he wouldn't have all this chaos behind him because every, I mean all these sculptures that were all over the studio. So, he would literally build a backdrop to frame that one sculpture he is working on so we could concentrate it and see it as an individual entity. Thus, now, I didn't know that. And thus, when they saw my story, they went,"Oh my God, this is exactly what Rodin was doing."- [Pal2tech] Wow.- [Benjamin] and it replicated his style. And that was one of the reasons they found it attractive and decided to purchase the collection.- Give me this moment here. I am speaking with a Fujifilm photographer that had his work purchased and is now in or owned by or within...- [Benjamin] Owned by or-- One of the most prestigious museums in all of the world.- [Benjamin] I guess so.- Do I have that right?- [Benjamin] You do, yes. (laughs)- I just want to make sure.- [Benjamin] Yeah, yeah, you do.- It wasn't posted on Instagram. I'm saying this is in a museum in France, okay, alright?- [Benjamin] I have an exhibition running right now just outside of New York. That was quite an honor. That was a nod to Cond Nast and Hearst. And so they chose my images because I shot Lydia Hearst, who was the daughter of Patty Hearst,- Oh okay.- [Benjamin] Who was kidnapped by the-- Right.- [Benjamin] Yes.- Symbionese Liberation Army or something like that.- [Benjamin] That's right. Exactly. And so I shot a cover of Harper's Bazaar with Lydia Hearst. She flew in from Los Angeles to shoot with me here in Paris. So, they approached me and asked me if I'd like to be in their exhibit, which I, of course, said yes.- Looking at your portfolio, for example. The difference between say^ "Night Call" and "The Eighties Are Back" which you know, it was shot outside at a lot of kind of famous landmarks in Paris.- [Benjamin] Yes.- Well, first of all, you're outside on public streets and you're with some of the most beautiful and recognizable- [Benjamin] Models, yeah.- fashion models- [Benjamin] In clothing.- on the planet.- [Benjamin] Yeah, yeah.- Is it just you, or do you have a security team? I mean, walk me through a day. You're there, do you have craft services? What do you do there?- [Benjamin] You know, to be quite frank, the Parisians are so jaded- [Pal2tech] Right.- [Benjamin] and they're so used to seeing prods being shot in Paris. It's like,- Right. (laughs)- [Benjamin] but really, it's like you're in Hollywood when you shoot. I guess you could say Paris to fashion is akin to Los Angeles in the music and the film industry. Generally, our teams run between eight and twelve people. So, when we're out and about shooting on location, we have an entourage.- Okay.- [Benjamin] And what's interesting, because I know the law, and because I know how I shoot, I never use tripods because I can't be- Really?- [Benjamin] Spontaneous. Never in a million years- Huh,- [Benjamin] will you get me to use a tripod.- wow.- [Benjamin] I do use monopods- Okay.- [Benjamin] Just for the downstroke, you know, protection from shake. The law in Paris is monopod, yes, tripod, no. I don't need a permit.

The process goes as follows: 7:52

So, you know, let's say we know we're shooting a 10 or 12 page story in a cover tri. So, we go to our first location like you saw for what we did for Grazia. And that was not, that was a special, Longchamp shoot. So, we shot in front of, I saw you saw, we shot in front of the Moulin Rouge. We'll have our entourage behind me, like the stylist,- Okay.- [Benjamin] the hair and makeup assistants. What you'll find more often than not is you'll have a shitload of tourists with their Iphones, you know?- Oh, I bet.- [Benjamin] And you have to accept it because you can't fight them off. The only times it becomes really invasive is if Frdrique is shooting the video and somebody walks in front of her. I'll get my shot. I'll say it's a wrap for this change, this clothing change. And then Freddie will come in and do her thing. And she'll have her, either her X-T3 or X-T4 on a monopod shooting with her 18... We have two 18mm-55mm. Or when she's out and wants to blow stuff out, it's the 50mm-140mm, okay? But I recently acquired the 16mm-80mm, so for our next shoot coming up, next two shoots coming up, she'll use 16mm-80mm on her monopod and I'll use the 18mm-55mm on the gimbal. Once the video's a wrap, we go, "Okay, change." We go back to the location where... Our base station. We do our change and go to our next location. And it's fun, and it's great. I love productions. In fact, I love productions.- Me too.- [Benjamin] Yeah, isn't it fun? I mean, it's a real event.- Oh it's the best.- [Benjamin] It's the process that makes it so much fun. And of course, as you know, Chris, as well as I do, rushes are so important. I'm talking video and still rushes. I mean, you could pull the worst shoot in the world from bad stills in your editing, or the best shoot in the world on the best, but the best you can- Right.- [Benjamin] extract from it. What we do is, when we get home after a long day of shooting we upload everything into Capture One Pro.- Oh, okay, so, you're in Caption One Pro- [Benjamin] Yeah, I won't go near Lightroom.- and you off-load it in there.- I'll tell you because it's great for Nikon and Sony. No, it's great for Nikon, and Sony, and Canon,- Right, right.- [Benjamin] and for the GFX 50S, which is not an extra hand sensor,- Right.- [Benjamin] then you're okay. But, you know, when I first got Fujifilm, I was ready to drop them within a week of owning it because what are these watercolors? Nothing is sharp. It was horrible! It was like these wormy artifacts. And I'm not making this up. It was-- No, they're absolutely real.- [Benjamin] Okay.- They're there.- [Benjamin] They're there.- There are ways to work around them.- [Benjamin] Yeah.- It's a matter of, do you want to make all that effort or not.- [Benjamin] No, I don't.- Okay.- [Benjamin] So, I mean, soon as I got Capture One it was like, I exaggerate not, it was like night and day. It was a 180 degree turn around. It was a brand new camera. It was sharp as, God knows, it was rudely sharp. And my classic setting for most lenses is 140 to 180% at 0.8 pixels at zero threshold and zero noise reduction.- Wow.- [Benjamin] And that's all I do. We export our variants, we export our selects, our variants out, and then open them up into Photoshop. Fred will do, if she needs to do liquefy, she will. Then once that's done, we send it to our, one of our two retouchers. They have their deadline. They keep sending Freddie JPEGs to confirm that it's okay. Once it's okay, then they will send us the PSD with all the layers and we'll flatten them and send the TIFF off to the magazine or the ad agency. We will choose no more than five or six selects from each clothing change. In other words, imagine one page of the 12 pages of that one final select for that one page, we will send five or six to the magazine.

And our philosophy is the following: 11:46

can you close your eyes and point at any of those six images and say,"Yes, I would be of that image representing who I am." If the answer is yes, then yes, that's great. You can send all of those images. And nine times out of 10, we're so pleased by the selection they make. And it's often better than the one we would have chosen because they have the eye, they're creative directors.- That, in fact, leads me into what I was about to ask you. You were on a podcast with Omar Gonzales.- [Benjamin] Yes.- Awesome YouTuber.- [Benjamin] Yeah, he's great. I love him.- You said something on his podcast that has just not left me. It has made a huge impact. When you press that shutter, it says more about you than the model you're shooting.- [Benjamin] Or the the subject you're shooting.- [Pal2tech] The subject you're shooting.- [Benjamin] Yes. I want you to ponder that for me.- Yeah, oh, I have, actually, since I saw the podcast.- [Benjamin] When I'm in front of my subject and there's this synergy happening, I will press the shutter when that fibrillation to my solar plexus happens and that will happen for many different reasons. And those reasons have more to do with how I'm feeling about myself and how I'm projecting myself through that individual that I am using as a mirror and a mirror of who they are. And all I can do is interpret who they are through their eyes, and through their id, because I can't be in them. So, I am trying to capture the essence of who they are, but I'm not really trying. I take that word back. Throw that in the garbage. I am chronicling moment in time that is the only moment in time that I can at that sector in time, because I'm in the here and now when I do press that shutter.- Right.- [Benjamin] So, you can see, I will give you a perfect example, the art director of Madam Figaro magazine, one of the greatest art directors I've ever met, named Martin Schmall Gruber. And I remember walking into the office to discuss an up and coming shoot. And he was looking at some of the work I had done recently, and he looked at the work, and he looked up at me, and he had this really kind of, I don't know, this curious smile. And he looked me right in the eyes and he said,"So, Kanarek, when did you quit smoking?" And I'm getting goosebumps right now as I say it. I said, "What? How did you know I quit smoking?""I can tell by your images, Benjamin."- Oh, wow.- [Benjamin] "I can tell by your images." I can see... I know it's difficult to grasp. I mean, intellectually, you can't even grasp it intellectually. It has to be grasped on another level. It's like one of these days, you deed to stop yourself. In the midst of taking that photo and just before pressing the shutter, stop and recollect everything that happened happens between the last shot you took in the next one. And all of the thoughts and the feelings that are going through you at that juncture in time, when you decided to press that shutter. That's where Omar said,"Oh, me, I just go like(imitates shutter clicking)" Remember? And he goes, "Got it. Got it somewhere in there."(Benjamin and Pal2tech laughing) I know I'm taking a lot of time on this issue, but it's-- This is important stuff, man! This is the heart of it, right?- [Benjamin] So it says who you are as an artist. I mean, when you chronicle people like van Gogh- Yeah.- [Benjamin] And, or Picasso when he went from being a super realism artist. People used to say, "Oh, he was an abstract pager because he couldn't paint." Oh, contraire! No, he could paint you like a photograph as could Van Gogh. You can see a lot about a person's id and who they are at that moment in time when they take a picture. It says more about you than the subject that you're capturing. That's, well...- That's just wonderful. Thank you for sharing that. So, I'm gonna ask kind of a tough question. Has there ever been a time for you, a specific shoot, you don't have to mention any names, I'm just saying any kind of a shoot that you've had in the past where things might not have gone as you originally envisioned them to go. It's not connecting. There's just not that connection and you're having to deliver. You're having to push through it anyway, and deliver, and get it done. Has that ever happened? And if so, looking back at it now, are you glad or proud of the work that you had done, and the fact that you had gotten it finished?- Whatever shoot you do do, the first shot is usually the most difficult. Why? Because you don't know the person who's in front of you. There's an orientation period. There is breaking of the ice. I generally shoot 2, 3, 4 times more imagery on my first image just, because I'm trying to learn about that person in front of me, 'cause I'm not a director. I let people be. So, I don't make people pose. I think that's a joke. I've had a couple of shoots that were complete disasters. I mean, when I say disaster, so much so that the story was not published in that magazine. We were shooting in an incredibly freezing cold weather. And you need to know that we're shooting three to six months in advance. So, here we are in January, or late January, early February, shooting at La Dfense. Where they, you know-- Oh, I know where that it.- [Benjamin] You know where it is in Paris and there's a lot of winds. Very windy. I'm shooting spring, summer clothing. And I mean, the girl was wearing, I mean, yeah, you know, I mean really super light. And of course, the assistant stylist is carrying a huge coat, and of course I'm empathetic. And I take off my jacket to feel what they're feeling. And I know, okay, I could only shoot a spurt of 30 images of maybe 60 seconds, put the coat back on her, warm her up, and then keep pulling the coat off her.- Oh, interesting.- [Benjamin] Okay, everything came across as stiff. Everything was screwing up. My TTL wasn't working properly. It was overexposing every time we did the shot. I didn't have the time to figure out what was going on. I didn't have my flash meter with me. I could have shot manual. It was just too much pressure. So low and behold, if you were to see the shoot most people would look at it and go,"Hey, that's really nice." I mean, a major magazine picks it up and bought it. But for my... I don't show it. It's not in my portfolio.- Yeah, right.- [Benjamin] It's nowhere to be seen. It was a complete and utter failure. And for all of the reasons I gave you, freezing cold, the girl's skin was purple. It was horrible. And yeah, it's happened. And I got to tell you, Chris, it's a hard thing to take when you have to finally tell the whole team and you have to think about it. You know, you have a licensing agency, you know it might be able to breathe life into it again, which fortunately happened, but you have to confront the team and say, I'm so sorry, cause the keep calling you, cause they go,"Ben, we're almost into fall, winter collection."- Right. Where is it?- [Benjamin] The last magazine... Where is it? If it's not in the August issue,- Where is it?- [Benjamin] where is it? And I go, "Okay, guys, it was rejected." And you know, you could have blamed the stylist. I could have done that, but then no. I hired the stylist, and yeah, I screwed up. So, yeah.- But, thank you, because, listen, for my audience, you know, I know that some of them struggle. They're stepping into Fuji for the first time. Some of them are stepping into photography for the first time, and they'll go to your website and they'll see this incredible body of work. And yes, that is inspiring on one level. Everyone gets inspired by looking at it, and just what is possible, and the vision that you have. But, I think there's another almost, dare I say, equally important inspiration that can come from, if Benjamin has a bad day, then you know what, it's okay that I did too. You know?- [Benjamin] Yes, absolutely.- And I'm going to keep pushing forward through it.- You know, Chris, there are ways to stop that days. When you're in New York, Paris, or London, you can pull from the best talent in the world. I mean, by far, I mean the best hair, makeup stylist. And so, when we show up on the location, all I do is sit and wait. And I just let the^m go because they're so good, Chris. And they're all contributing 100% of the shoot. They're all as important as I am. I have very rarely had a problem. On occasion, maybe with makeup, I'll say,"Look, can you pull back on this or add a bit more?" I love it if they get all fidgety because those are the best moments. And I often wait for moments between what they think they're doing is right for them to screw up and press the shutter and go,"Isn't that great? That was a great mistake." You've got to be open to the possibilities of allowing accidents to happen. When you look at some of my images and think it was posed. No, that's not really what it was! It was a pose. No, it was an intention.- Can you show me one? I'm looking at your site now. Can you show me one photo that you can... I'd love to see one that was sort of-- [Benjamin] Yeah, intent? Yeah, sure. Nicole, where she's blowing into the mirror. I mean, you know, that was just an idea thrown out to her. You just let her do whatever she wants. They're aware of my being in front of them. Just by being there, I'm directing. They're aware of my awareness. They're aware of I'm in front of them. I am just there to chronicle how they interpret their role as an actor is. They're acting for me. And the more freedom you give a model, the better the outcome is going to be. You should never control that person because once you control them, then it becomes ossified and rigid. Everything you're seeing in my book are models being let go.- For example, I'm looking at the shot of a model on the bed. And you have this really interesting light coming behind.- [Benjamin] Ah! (laughs)- [Pal2tech] That, I think, that's the best shot in here.- [Benjamin] That's a good idea.- [Pal2tech] I love it.- [Benjamin] You and I, I mean-- The way that you have it back lit, can you talk to-- [Benjamin] Yeah, I will.- Tell me about this shot? I want to hear everything you can remember about it.- [Benjamin] Yeah, you're gonna love this. Look, let's get geeky for a second.- Yes, please.- [Benjamin] You see the guy in the background?- Come on, it's a gear channel!- [Benjamin] No, it's great. You see the guy in the background in the door?- [Pal2tech] Yeah, I was going to ask you. There's somebody in the background.- [Benjamin] I wanted that. That's the guy she's having an affair with. It's a Nightcore. You know, that's what it is. Here, I'm going to now scream how gob struck I am by the GFX 50S. I want, you to... This is the GFX 50S and when we talk about... I'm getting goosebumps. I get teary-eyed because I got two of them. Listen to this. Dude, this whole shoot, except for one image, was the 32-64 shot all wide open at four. And when I say- [Pal2tech] At four?- [Benjamin] this lens is brutally sharp. I say it is brutally sharp with a capital B. And one other image where she's leaning against the wall in the hallway. That was the 45. But, everything in this whole shoot was the 32-64. Anyways, I was lighting her from the back with a single hard soft box. That's a word, a term I've made up. What is the hard soft box?- Right, yeah, what is a hard soft box?- [Pal2tech] Yes, okay, so what I do is I rip off the-- A soft box that's hard to set up?- [Benjamin] Not at all.- Okay.- [Benjamin] A hard, light, soft box. So I remove all the diffusion material. So I cut strips of black fuller fabric. What I do is I cut out light. I don't add light. I start with light, and I start to cover it up and block light. And I only want the light to hit where I want it to hit. So, I scrim it. So, I had a strip of light, which was perhaps 20 centimeters. Let's say about eight inches wide and lighting her from the back only. No light on her. You can see the bleeding on her knee, on her leg. So, I'm shooting down at about 60 degrees.- [Pal2tech] Yeah.- [Benjamin] And guess what is lighting her face?- That was what I was going to ask you. What are you lighting her face with?- [Benjamin] The white wall that is reflecting the light that's coming from (laughs) No, wait. That's not the original image. It was under by two and a half stops. And I was shooting that at 50 ISO because I learned something about Fuji and the X series. I brought it back up two stops, and this is what I got. There's no noise. Do you see where she's standing in the doorway of the bathroom and there's my assistant's legs on the bed?- Yes.- [Benjamin] I needed him on.(laughs) I said, "take off your pants and get on..." (laughs) And his girlfriend is my other assistant. So-- If I asked somebody on set to take their pants off, I don't know if that go over too well.- [Benjamin] I mean you have a team of 10 people on the set, so it's all cool. So yeah, you see that wall next to her to the right? That's the wall that was getting lit. So, she was sitting on the bed facing that wall in the other shot. Anyways, I want to just talk about the dynamic range. The dynamic range is just jaw dropping. 51 pixels is overkill for 99% of what I do. I mean, it's huge. But I got to tell you something, that Vogue shoot at the Rodin museum was shot, all the shots, were shot with the 63 and the 45, all wide open. 99.99% of every shot spot on nailed focus exactly where I wanted it. And the only time it didn't was because of user failure on my end.- What focus mode do you set it on? Are you going with zone? spot?- [Benjamin] No, just single point, eye detect. Are you in shock? (laughs)- [Pal2tech] No, I'm not because it is so dropped dead accurate.- [Benjamin] My goodness, we're so spoiled today, everybody. We are so... Aren't we spoiled? I mean, oh my goodness. There's only 400 what? 421 focus points. Oh geez, isn't that terrible? Man, I mean, I came from shooting split screen, manual focus Pentax 6x7, you know?- Well, I mean, just the idea of people... I see people complaining about, you know, SD cards are expensive. Try film, you know, when you're happy to shoot and then get it developed,- [Benjamin] Exactly.- and it's a little thing. If you could only have one camera, period, and one lens glued onto it. Okay, for any possible... That's it. That's all you get for the rest of your life. What would it be?- It will be, well, the X-T4 and the Fujifilm 35mm 1.4 lens. I know, for me, it is... For me, listen, dude, it is, oh my God, it is dropped dead sharp.- He's talking about this camera right here.- [Benjamin] Yeah, and the 35mm 1.4, dude.- Yeah, I have that lens.- [Benjamin] And, what can I say? I mean, that's the one. And, why? Because... Can I tell you why? You see that story? You liked the launch. There it is. Do you know the Longchamp story you were looking at when you were-- Yeah.- [Benjamin] The one in front of Moulin Rouge? Well, half that story was shot with that lens, but I could cite so many of my major shoots and kind of dissect, well, what did you use for the shoot? And for all intent and purpose, on average, I would come to a shoot happily with three lenses: the 16mm, the 23mm, and the 35mm.- Oh, okay.- [Benjamin] For what I do, okay, Chris, for what I do.- Right.- [Benjamin] Cause I can make a 35mm look like a 56mm. One is the very important Vogue film shoot I did using the the X-T4 and X-T3 for the whole shoot.- [Pal2tech] Oh, great, okay.- [Benjamin] That was all shot with the 35mm 1.4, okay? One thing I love about what I do is, I know I've nailed it, and most of the time the team knows I've nailed it when I scream and go, "Oh my God, this is the shot!" And once I know I have the shot, I know it's the one.- There's no better feeling.- [Benjamin] It's no better feeling.- Let me ask you this. There is probably one or two people watching this interview right now who, maybe they own a camera or two, maybe they have spent a past year, which sucked for everybody, but let's say the past year they tried to do some shoots. They are an aspiring photographer. Their dream is to one day live in Paris and shoot for the cover of Vogue, okay? What advice would you... what would you tell them? If you could talk to them right now and just calm them a little bit and give them a little bit of direction.- [Benjamin] Well, the first thing you need to do, you need to do your sex tape, right? (laughs)- I'm sorry, I should have... I had that in the notes to go over with, right? (laughs)- [Benjamin] You know, but Chris, you know that. I mean, just ask Kim, she'll tell you.- She'll tell, ya.- [Benjamin] No, look, you don't get a Vogue cover like that. That-- Oh, damn. (fingers snap)- [Benjamin] Listen to me, Chris, we can't sit here for two hours. Like I said, we would need three hours to really get deeply into where we want to go. So, let's just say this. If you take this seriously, you need to be in that place that can give you all of the talent that will not make your work look provincial, where you can pull looks from designers that have not come out yet in the press, or if they are current, they're being shown on their websites. By the way, everyone listening, if you really want to know what's going on, there are three ipso facto sites only, and that's it. And that is Vogue Runway for all of the collections, Tag Walk for the trends of those collections, and Models.com. Be in a space where, if you are going to start testing to build up your portfolio, never do an individual image. If you want to be a fashion or beauty photographer, think in terms of sequences. Think in terms of a six or eight or 10 page, or 10 image for the internet story. Come up with stories. Do your due diligence. Obtain a vocabulary. Study the mtier. Study the profession. Learn from those three sites I told you. Align yourself, even with a new stylist who can help you put a shoot together, who can introduce you to model agencies who need photographers to test their new faces. But when you approach them, when you do a test say,"Hey, look, I'm not only going to do a test. I'm putting a story together that could be put together as an actual fashion layout And we are gonna pull eight or 10 different looks. We're gonna mix and match them. And we're going to replicate what a real magazine story looks like. And who knows, eventually you might be able to submit it, and you might get picked up by the many virtual magazines that are out there that are looking for content. just so you can be, you know.... You can start to get an idea to of what's going on.- Just talking with you and hearing your passion come through. It's so obvious. Everyone, please go check out his website. Ben, is there anything coming up you want to tell us about? You're working on or?- [Benjamin] Yes, of course. I'm going to be shooting the Haute Couture on July 9th. I'm shooting, Ready-to-Wear on July 2nd. And I have a huge story coming out with one of the top 50 models in the world named Karen Jepkemei. She's from Nigeria. Her cover comes out at 21st of June. And in that shoot, I think your jaw will drop because I did that whole shoot with the and the X-T4 and the 18-55mm. I'll tell you why.- Wow.- [Benjamin] I wanted blurry and sharp at the same time. So, I was zooming as I was shooting. You know what I'm talking about?- Yeah. Gotta do a part two.- [Benjamin] Yeah, there's got to be a part 2.- This is so much fun. Awesome.- [Benjamin] Like, talking about casting. How do you put a shoot together and all?- Well, that's, you know, I got to go, Ben. I got to go to target and pick up some paper towels. So we've got to end this interview. Benjamin was very patient. This is all new equipment today. I'm using a new service to do this podcast. I've never done it before. So, at least it's not with this one. So, Benjamin was the first! So, that's awesome.- You mean, I lost my virginity to Chris Lee, Pal2tech. Oh, man, that's really romantic. I was telling my wife,"Frdrique, I lost it again!"(laughs)- You know what, I'm going to do that. What you just said, I'm going to cut that little bit out,"I lost my virginity to Chris Lee, to Pal2tech." and I'm just going to put that up at, you know, the 30 seconds of that on the Instagram reel,- [Benjamin] Perfect.- or whatever they're calling it.- [Benjamin] Do it. Go for it. You have my endorsement for that. Completely.- Awesome. Wonderful chatting with you. And we'll be in touch, sir.- [Benjamin] Thank you. Have a nice, safe day.- Take care. Let's go back to the past for a minute. I am currently right now about halfway through editing. I've gotten about three and a half hours of sleep and I had wanted to publish this video on Wednesday and I just ran into so many technical problems. It was impossible. And so, I pushed it to Friday. So, you've just finished watching it. It is Friday. But, I'm shooting this right now on Thursday, a day before, and I'm only halfway through editing. I want to be very clear. Benjamin was awesome. One of the best content creators I've ever had the pleasure of connecting with. All of the problems that I'm discussing right now we're on my end. There were more technical problems with this podcast than any video I've ever done for this channel. Oh, (laughs) you ever run into that situation where suddenly, for no reason at all, just all of the light bulbs in your house, all burn out out at the same time, right? That's what happened with this video! I had audio problems. I had weird echoes in the background. I had distortion issues. I had problems where there were popping. I mean, just one thing after another. Final cut pro kept crashing on me, just miserable! Mac OS Apple software, just miserable. I just, I wanted to tear my hair out and I'm only halfway done! I have had such a difficult time editing this video that I am seriously thinking of not publishing it at all. And part of the problem is that sometimes I'm too much of a perfectionist. For example, this boom mic right here, okay? When I was shooting the video, there was a little piece of styrofoam. It was a white piece of styrofoam right about here and you could see it. Now, I don't know if a lot of people would have noticed it or not, but I noticed it and it really bothered me. So, I wound up actually masking it out. I had to go through. I had to make a duplicate layer. I had to use the pencil draw tool, whatever, and then I had to mask it out by sampling an image of the foam area of this mic, right here. And then kind of clone it and use that and make it so that it could disappear. The problem was during the video when I would zoom in or when I would move the mic, I had to move the clone area, right? I don't know if anybody would have noticed that, but it bothered the hell out of me. And now I'm realizing halfway through this process, let it go. Just let it go. But, here's the thing. The entire series of this podcast is called "Done. Over Perfect." and the idea behind "Done. Over perfect" is there are many times where it's more important to get the project finished than to have it perfect, absolutely perfect. Because I could keep tweaking this for two weeks. I could keep editing and fixing and fine tuning this for two more months, really, to be honest with you. So, I guess all of this is actually fitting and exactly, I guess, what it should be for this first episode. It certainly was not perfect on a technical end and I could have done better, I think, but it is out there. Well, it's not out there yet. I got to finish editing it, but I'm motivated now to finish it. I'm motivated now to look past perfection, to look past these little things that maybe nobody's gonna, but even if they did notice, it's not going to really be a huge deal in the huge scope of this. And one day I'm going to look back on this video and maybe Benjamin will too. And you know what? It will be there. It will be finished. It'll always exist. And forever more people will be able to watch it. And whether or not they see a piece of foam here, who cares? (wheezes) And I'll tell you something, this whole process forced me to choose, done."Done. Over Perfect." So, thank you for watching, not only this, but the interview you just watched. I'm going to go now and actually edit what you have already seen (laughs) and get it finished and get it published. By tomorrow, it will be done. Not perfect, but it will be done.