Featured Creative: Eric Bennett
W: Can you tell us how you got your start?
EB: I have always been a very visual person. Ever since I can remember I was drawing on everything, painting, and taking pictures with whatever cameras I could find around the house. My mom was always buying me those disposable cameras (back when they were cheap, haha.) My parents took me to Europe for a couple weeks when I was 11 and we road tripped around France, Belgium and England. They bought me a little film camera and I took pictures of everything. When I was 13 they bought me a Sony VX1000, my first video camera. I started filming all my friends skateboarding and sold enough videos to websites to be able to buy a nice lens. Then I started filming more professional skateboarders and getting paid for it by companies that used the footage. Later on, I moved to Panama for 2 years for a service mission and gained an interest in traveling and seeing more cultures. I moved back to the states and started a production company, bennettfilm.com, but started spending all my money on traveling and I have now deeply fallen in love with the world.
W: What is your biggest inspiration?
EB: People doing what they love. Not limiting themselves to the boundaries our society has set for us. People that do whatever they set their minds on, passionate human beings.
W: How would you describe your style?
EB: I am a videographer because I love the stories you can tell through film. I also love photography because of the beauty you can capture and express through landscapes. They both have their uses and are two completely different forms of art. I can’t choose just one to define me.
#SORRYFORTRAVELING 2014 from Eric Bennett on Vimeo.
W: Tell us the story behind one of the photos/videos we’re featuring – why did you choose that photo/video to send?
EB: There is so much more to my photos that meets the eye, literally. Some of these photos took hours of driving, several days of camping out, sitting in the rain, sitting in the sun, for hours and hours, broken equipment, lots of gas money, lots of “sacrifice;” but the beauty of doing what you love is that there are no sacrifices, it all has a pay off and that’s what makes life enjoyable.
W: Where are your favorite spots to shoot?
EB: I was born in California and I am a beach person for sure, but I have been living in Utah for the past 3 years because I love the diversity in the landscape here. We have desert, mountains, forest, lakes, waterfalls, and snow all within an hour’s drive or less. The choices are endless here. I love shooting photos on the coast though, seascapes are always incredible when there is some good light.
W: What kind of equipment do you use?
EB: Lately I have just been using Canon. I started shooting on DSLRs with the Canon 60D and later upgraded to the 6D. Those are the cameras I shot all of these photos on. Saving up for the SONY a7s soon though to have as my main video camera.
W: Do you have any special techniques? Do they define your style?
EB: I use a lot of techniques but they are all things I have learned from friends or other shooters I look up to so I can’t claim them as my own, but my photography consists of lots of long exposures, frame blends, and focus stacks. I also really like to shoot my landscapes vertically a lot of the times, to add more depth to my pieces.
W: What challenges have you had to overcome in this industry?
EB: The biggest challenges are the personal ones. Sometimes I hate my own work, I go through phases where I am really stoked on my stuff and then others where I hate it all. That is how you grow though, if you are always content you will never push yourself. As far as in the industry, none really. Everyone is complaining about how accessible camera gear is now and how anyone can buy a professional camera, but I just say “paint brushes have always been affordable.”
W: How do you see your career progressing?
EB: I plan on settling down a little more and doing more video production work for companies around here in Utah and in the States. It’s just hard to keep it up when I am gone all the time, but some day I will make that transition and just grow my company and hire editors, camera operators, and sound technicians as we get more and more work. Later, we will use our money or seek funding to make our own independent films and productions and just blow up like that. I don’t know, seems simple to me. I just go with the flow anyways though and take opportunities as they come. So I am really open to anything.
Eric is based in Utah.
Contact him on Instagram: bennettfilm
Web: bennettfilm.com
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