New Mexico Limelight

I don’t recall how I first came across the works of photographer Ben Chrisman. Perhaps I was surfing the Web and came across his site by happenstance. Either way, I was immediately impressed with his original approach to creating wedding photographs and sent off a query to Bill Hurter, the editor of Rangefinder, about doing a profile on Ben. Bill was duly impressed. I am sure as you read on, you too will find his photographic journey compelling.

Some of us know at an early age which profession we wish to undertake. When Ben was 8 years old he playfully answered some questions in a book for children, one of which was, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Ben wrote, “a photographer,” and has yet to sway.

During his early years growing up in Kentucky, Florida and later in New Mexico where he attended high school and New Mexico State University, Ben’s mom encouraged him to be creative; she was an art major and a teacher. An aunt who was a wedding photographer taught him a most valuable lesson early on—that it was actually possible to make a living as a photographer. It stuck with Ben through the years.

Ben’s main focus in college was documentary photography; he was greatly inspired by his photography professor, Sterling Trantham. Ben says, “He was a real purist and taught me how important documentary photography is to the world.” Always a storyteller, it was an easy decision for Ben to pursue journalism. And while working on a newspaper gave him the opportunity to meet new people, shoot different stories each day, allowed him room to be creative and gave him an avenue to be of service to others, it at times felt limiting. As a newspaper photographer, he sometimes disagreed with his editors about what constituted a good photo for a story—something which stunted the development of his personal style. Still, Ben did learn the basics of photography, light and composition, and how to communicate a story with one or two photographs. Ben says, “It was a great learning experience, one I look back on as [containing] some of the best times of my life. But it wasn’t until after I left newspaper work that I was forced to find my own way to see through a camera. Before, I felt like I was just copying how my fellow photographers shot.” Some of the New Mexico newspapers Ben has worked for include the Valencia County News-Bulletin, Las Cruces Sun Bulletin, the Albuquerque Journal and the Santa Fe New Mexican.

Once on his own though, he learned that the more he endeavored to push himself creatively, the more he liked photography and received positive responses to his pictures. Ben planned on becoming a war photographer. A friend, photographer Max Whittaker, had been to Iraq photographing the war and was helping Ben plan a similar trip. But when the tsunami happened in Southeast Asia in 2004, he went to Sri Lanka instead because it seemed more relevant and safer. Ben spent two months in Sri Lanka and Indonesia working on his own picture stories. That trip changed his photography. From a technical aspect he learned how to use a 35mm lens, instead of a 20mm lens, which he had always used in newspaper work. This forced him to look at scenes completely differently. From a more creative standpoint, he learned the importance of light and how to use it.

In between Sri Lanka and Indonesia, Ben had a chance to study for a week in Cambodia with well established photojournalists James Nachtwey, Gary Knight and Antonin Kratochvil. In the workshop Ben was assigned a picture story on the monks of Angkor Wat. Other students were doing stories on kids sniffing glue and prostitutes working the streets. He felt shooting monks was sophomoric in comparison. He asked Antonin and Gary if he could photograph a different topic and was told that if he couldn’t do a good story on the monks, then he should not be a photographer. For the rest of the week, Ben woke up at 3 a.m., locating the monks as they started their day and photographed them and their activities throughout the day until they went to bed. Ben says, “The difference in my photos became strikingly different; the experience really taught me what was necessary to tell a complete story with a camera. I have put those teachings into how I shoot weddings.”
After the workshop Ben went to Indonesia and did what he considers some of his best photojournalistic work, creating pictures in the grittiest of situations, photographing the complete destruction of people’s lives, families, homes and businesses. It was an intense couple of months; he thinks about it every day. Ben says, “It has defined the last few years of my life.”

Ben started shooting with his parents’ Canon Rebel film camera, which he used for years until his dad got him a Nikon F90X (the European version of the N90S) for a Christmas present in college. He shot film until 2003 when the newspaper finally purchased digital cameras. Although he misses the look of film, he doesn’t have a desire to go back to it because he never grew to like the taste of bleach in a wet darkroom.
 
Ben started shooting friends’ weddings in college and throughout his years at the newspapers. His initial plan was to shoot weddings on the weekends and documentary stories during the week. He didn’t realize then how much time it takes to run a small business. A few months after he left newspaper work Ben devoted all of his time to shooting weddings. He does a few commercial jobs a year, but it’s a small percentage of his income.

Marketing
Ben relies on word-of-mouth advertising, focusing on customer service. Giving couples slide shows of their weddings is a great promotional tool. “I do it a little differently from some photographers; I only put in the photos that I like. I hardly ever include formal portraits. I lean towards more artistic images from the wedding day shoot. It shows future clients what I want them to see so they don’t hire me to just be their photographer, but a photographer with a specific vision. When people are excited about how you interpret their wedding day, it gives you more freedom to not just be the hired help, but to be an important aspect of their day.”

Ben says, “I am always excited about new cameras coming out. I also look forward to playing around with video. I think video is sometimes a much better way to remember something. Being able to do both is a new creative challenge for photographers. Since I don’t like using flash, being able to shoot at incredibly high ISOs is a bonus. Since cameras are getting so good, a lot more people are going to enter the profession; it is more important than ever to have your own way of seeing the world. It will be harder to compete if people can’t find a reason to hire you over everyone else. It’s not enough just to have a good camera, you have to create images that make people stop and stare and wonder how you got them.”

Labs, Prints and Photo Books
DigiLabs (www.digi-labs.net) does Ben’s photographic printing. He doesn’t have to handle any aspect of the printing process. Clients order prints directly from the lab’s online gallery, pay the lab and the lab sends Ben a check at the end of the month. When he has unique print orders he uses Pro-
DPI (www.prodpi.com). They have quick turnaround and great packaging for drop shipments. For canvas prints, he uses Simply Canvas (www.simplycanvas.com). For photo albums Ben has tried several companies, but he likes PictoBooks the best (www.pictobooks.com). What separates them from everyone else, in his opinion, is their printing. Ben tends to have a lot of deep blue skies in his photos, and PictoBooks is the best he has seen at handling saturated colors.

Workflow—From the First Image to the Final Selection
After a wedding shoot Ben downloads his stack of Lexar FireWire 800 cards with Photo Mechanic (www.camerabits.com). Once all of the photos are downloaded—which is usually 5000 images per wedding—he edits them down to approximately 1000. He puts those photos in an “Edit RAW” folder, then imports them into Adobe Lightroom. He has a preset that adds contrast and vibrance. It takes him one to two hours to finish working on the 1000 photos in Lightroom. He does not make any drastic changes to the photos, but makes sure exposures and white balances are correct. Once those photos are exported as JPEGs, he selects 75–100 of the best photos for a slide show.

For Ben, the slide show is the best representation of how he shot the wedding and he wants it to be able to tell the story of the wedding day. Once he selects the photos, he spends a few hours working them in Photoshop. Digital photos are naturally flat, so they need a boost. To enhance them he uses the Boutwells’ Totally Rad Actions (www.get
totallyrad.com). Once the enhanced photos are ready, Ben uploads them all to a Digi-Labs gallery. His slide shows are made with David Jay’s ShowitWeb (www.showitfast.com). He also orders a proof book based on the gallery images. At that point, Ben is basically finished with the wedding until the wedding couple selects photos for an album.

In choosing a niche in the photographic profession Ben advises photographers to look at all types of photography for inspiration. He says, “Especially if you want to shoot weddings, do not just look at wedding sites because there is a group mentality in this industry. The best thing you can do is stay unique. Finding your niche will lead you to being able to work the way you want, with the clients you want to. There are no rules; there isn’t a right or wrong way to do this. Like I tell my couples, I am not a salesman and don’t have a sales pitch. If people like my photos, they will probably like me because they are one and the same.”

Ben was ranked as one of the Top Ten Wedding Photographers in the World for 2008 by American Photo. In 2007 he was named by the Wedding Photojournalist Association as the Top Wedding Photographer of the Year. In 2006 Ben exhibited his images of Indonesia’s tsunami at the Unit D Gallery in Santa Fe, NM.

Ben now resides in San Francisco, CA. To view examples of his uniquely creative and intimate wedding photographs visit his website at www.benchrisman.com.

Paul Slaughter is a world-traveled photographer, writer and ASMP member residing in Santa Fe, NM. Paul specializes in location, stock and fine art photography. An avid jazz lover, he has an extensive photographic collection of jazz legends. View portfolios of Paul’s work at www.slaughterphoto.com.