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Ben Whitham
@benjwhitham
Photographer based in the UK
Photography, to me, is an utterly unique form of art. I love that we are able to capture moments in time and then share them with the world. It’s like some sort of fanciful magic, freezing an image and all the feelings it brings you, keeping it forever. I have been fascinated by cameras and how they work ever since I was young. I started to take photography and videography more seriously later in life, and since the pandemic started it has been my main focus.
"It’s helped keep me sane through it all."
The pandemic has had a huge impact on my life. I’m a very high-energy person, so I always like to be on the move, whether that be going to the gym, hiking or going out with friends. When the world went into lockdown, it could have brought an end to all of that. Being stuck indoors all day, feeling trapped, it could have made life pretty miserable for me. Fortunately for me though, there was another side to it. It gave me the time I needed to go on more walks and explore with my camera.
The natural world forms the basis for a lot of my photography/videography. Woodlands, forest, and really anywhere with an abundance of trees, are definitely my favourite places to go exploring. They’re all beautiful, but I think I’d have to say that pine forests are my favourite to shoot. As odd as it may sound, I have always been captivated and fascinated by cool-looking trees and similar elements of nature. Whenever I get to choose where my friends and I are going on a walk or a filming mission, there’s a 9/10 chance it’ll be in a forest. I grew up around nature, plus two of my best friends are tree surgeons, and living near the Peak District in England, there are plenty of forests close by to go for a wander.
"I find nature very inspiring, and I love the soundscape you experience when you’re walking through a forest."
Whether you’re hearing all the different species of birds singing or the sound of running water, it’s a uniquely soothing experience. It allows me to forget about day-to-day life and be present in the moment. From a very early age, my parents would take my brother and me on walks in the local woodlands and I think my love for being among the trees developed from there.. I am still finding new spots after all these years of exploring the Peak District. Knowing that people travel from all over the world to come to visit this place that I have right on my doorstep makes me feel so lucky to live here. I remember having the same thought about the people who live at St Michael’s Mount when I went to shoot there.
If ever I’m pressed to name the most impressive landscape I’ve seen, I’m torn between St Michaels Mount and Old Harry’s Rocks. The ‘rocks’ are a series of White cliffs and gigantic rock formations going out to sea, which look like a giant puzzle piece from a birds-eye view. The whole structure is a testament to awe-inspiring nature. St Michaels Mount, on the other hand, is most well-known for its manmade structure. A 14th-century castle perched upon a tidal island off the south coast of England, besides the picturesque village of Marazion. During low tide a pathway from the village to the island clears and you can walk across to the castle, enjoying the beautiful greenery and clear turquoise waters as well as its architecture.
"There are a few permanent residents of the island and think it must be amazing for them to live there. I imagine they must be as grateful for it as I am for the Peak District."
Going to Cornwall was another one of those opportunities I found during the pandemic. This summer, I was able to travel around the south of England, visiting amazing photography spots and working from wherever. I work in Customer Care, answering enquiries and complaints for the Post Office. I’m currently working remotely, which has enabled me to dedicate more time to photography and videography and travel to more parts of Britain. Working remotely has had a huge impact on me and my photography. I have discovered more new places this year than ever before.
As well as exploring new places, I’ve found myself experimenting with different types of photography. After all, what I love about photography is exploring new locations and taking photos of whatever I find interesting. Lately I’ve been shooting a lot more car/automotive photography, which is completely new to me but I’m loving the challenge. I would love to have the chance to shoot photos for a company like Mercedes Benz or Tesla someday. I’ve been working on a little video with my friend, who recently bought a Tesla, and it has been so much fun to shoot. This has emphasised the need for me to always try new things and experiment with different genres of photography. It’s what I need to help keep it fun and interesting as well as adding to my portfolio and skillset.
I’ve also been doing a lot of research looking into astrophotography recently. I’ve quickly become fascinated by it, I’m really keen to try it in the near future. I think it’s that exact drive to explore new skills and genres that led me to expand from photography into videography.
It started because I had always had a fascination with BMX and skateboarding videos on YouTube. I thought it was so cool that people could share their creative ideas in video form and put them up online for everyone to see.
Creating videos is a lot more stressful for me than photography, but I find it so rewarding and fulfilling. That feeling when you capture exactly what you had hoped to get is just the best there is as a photographer. I often think of photography as therapy. It helps me to forget about my worries and stresses. It gives me a time and place to forget about everything else and get into an almost meditative state, where all I’m thinking about is capturing the shot and nothing else matters. Photography and videography are both so rewarding and the great thing is that you can look back at what you have created, which you don’t get to do with hobbies that go unrecorded. I normally work on photography and videos side by side, so I don’t go out purely thinking of making just one or the other.
Photography has become a massive part of my life and is something that impacts me every single day. Whether I’m editing photos, going out exploring or researching future trips and scouting locations. I think I’ve become more adaptable through my experience with photography. It’s taught me patience. When travelling in general, but in the UK especially, the conditions are often not going to be camera-friendly. I used to let it get to me, the times when I would wake up at 4 pm for sunrise or travel a couple of hours to a spot, and I wouldn’t be able to capture what I had envisaged because of the weather. Gradually over time I’ve learned to not let it ruin the experience, and these days I always try to have a positive mindset and understand you cannot make the weather do what you want it to, and that’s alright.
If a certain idea has been made impossible by unpredictable weather, I have learned to adapt and come up with a new idea instead of wasting the day trying to force the old idea to work. Although I’ve improved on this a lot, it is still something that I constantly need to work on. It’s all good experience in the end, and it just makes it even more special when you eventually capture what you had dreamt of.
The unpredictable great British weather can be a blessing instead of a curse sometimes. I can vividly remember seeing the incredible scenery at Snake Pass in the winter, just after there had been a heavy snowfall. Snake Pass is a road high up in the Peak District, and it’s frequently closed in winter due to being too dangerous to drive on. I made the trip with a friend, and the view we had from up there was so mesmerising it’s hard to describe. Tonnes of snow had fallen, and it was covering every inch of landscape, all untouched.
At every stage of creating my photography, from taking in a stunning landscape like what we saw that day with my eyes, to capturing it and eventually editing it, the goal is to generate a picture that looks as appealing as possible. I want the viewer to look at the image and feel that wanderlust, the yearning to go and visit the location themselves. I haven’t ventured outside of the UK with my camera much myself, but there are a few locations that I’m longing to visit: Madeira, Bali and the Pacific Northwest of America. And the thing that has inspired me to want to travel to these places is seeing them in other photographers’ work on Instagram, giving me that desperation to go and see it all for myself. That’s the exact feeling that I want my own pictures to bring out in people.
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