Please enjoy this transcript of my interview with Ben Moon, a Sony ambassador, photographer, and filmmaker shooting mainly adventure in the lifestyle who’s had a life-transforming journey in his late twenties. He had colorectal cancer fought, it, survived it, and ever since that experience, you can say he completely shifted what he wanted to tell through his images and his films.
Ben shares more about one of his films that went viral. It is a short film about the relationship between him and his dog, especially during the rough times during his disease. You’ll learn more about this beautiful, worth-sharing film.
Transcripts may contain a few typos. With some episodes lasting 2+ hours, it can be difficult to catch minor errors. Enjoy!
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Clever, Google Podcasts, or on your favorite podcast.
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Ben Moon on Lessons From Surviving Near Death and Telling Better Stories – The Pierre T. Lambert Podcast
Pierre Lambert owns the copyright in and to all content in and transcripts of The Pierre T. Lambert Podcast, with all rights reserved, as well as his right of publicity.
This interview was transcribed by Descript.com.
Pierre Lambert: Good morning podcast and welcome to a new episode. I hope you’re having an amazing day and that you’re ready for yet. Another awesome episode with one of our special guests or guest today is Ben Moon. Ben is a Sony ambassador, photographer, and filmmaker shooting mainly adventure in the lifestyle who’s had a life-transforming journey in his late twenties. He had colorectal cancer fought, it, survived it, and ever since that experience, you can say he completely shifted what he wanted to tell through his images and his films. Recently he has had one of his films go viral, a short film about the relationship between him and his dog, especially during the rough times during his disease, and this short film is beautiful. I highly encourage you to watch it because we’re going to dig into the details of the story, how it happened, how it went viral, how it came to life and you’ll see, it’s not just a project that came easily. There was a lot of work involved and I think you will love it, so everything is linked in the description. On top of that, we’ll be talking about how to work with the best brands, meaning the brands that fit you the most, how do you find your creativity? How do you go a little bit beyond what you used to and how can you shift focus in your life and, what are the most important elements for Ben, for example, in his work lately that maybe were not there before, so I hope you will enjoy that wide-ranging conversation with Ben. Again, remember if you love the episode, leave it a five-star rating on iTunes or any platform of your choice and come say hi to us on Instagram or Twitter. Everything is linked below. Now with no further ado. Let’s welcome, Ben to the podcast. Welcome to the podcast, Ben.
Ben Moon: Thanks for having me, Pierre.
Pierre Lambert: Thank you so much for taking the time. Ben, I discovered your work. Like I was saying about a year plus ago, I would say when we met at Sony candle and everyone was talking about you and then I was like, who is this guy? I need to check out his work, and I fell in love with that storytelling aspect of yours and that unique way that you’re trying to present people in a way and their story and also the piece you did was Denali was very beautiful. We’ll talk a bit more about it, but I kind of have a question to get started in this conversation, and it would be if you thought, when you started your journey, let’s say as a photographer and in when as a climber, did you ever think that you would have a period in your life that would be as difficult as it was when you, I think at 29 years old.
Ben Moon: You know, when I started my career, I was just honestly, just taking pictures, you know, I was climbing a lot and I was just taking pictures of the lifestyle that I was living and those that were with, and, you know, I started shooting for Patagonia and companies like that, and I was just getting established and starting to feel like I could make it as a professional photographer. and adventure photography was my focus, but you never expects something so dramatic. I mean, when you’re in your twenties, you don’t even think about your mortality that much, and even when you’re climbing, you’re, you don’t like to think about that a lot because the consequences of something happening with climbing are pretty dire, so when I got sick, it shifted the things a lot, because, before that, I think I was more focused on a little bit more on achievement and people that we’re performing at a high level and focusing on my climbing and, really pushing myself as well, and then when you suddenly have all that stripped away and you can hardly even get out of the hospital bed. It just really shifts things for you, and it really shifted my work and it shifted me as a person as well, because I feel like your priorities have no choice, but to change because you’re just in it for survival, and I started becoming a lot more interested in how we’re connected and our friendships, because that’s all you have when your physical capacities are stripped away, it’s your friendships, your relationships, those who were there for you and, and, it’s a whole different set of rules almost, and I still, it was like, I kind of shifted away from people. I mean, I still work with a lot of athletes, but it was more, I was more interested in their stories, and who they were behind all those, athletic prowess, so to speak.
Pierre Lambert: Yeah, it’s, it’s something, especially in that world or in athletes, we always focus on achievement or like, you did this, you’re the one who achieved that, but a little less on the story and I’m asking that question for the simple reason that I feel that we take a lot of what we have in life for granted, and I think COVID has shown that to a massive amount of people at the same time without having to go through extremes. Maybe you did. I mean, maybe some of them did, but for the masses, it’s just been a shift of lifestyle and that’s why I’m curious, does anything ever prepare you ahead of time, or do you have a gut feeling that something could go wrong or at one point, later on, or it’s just something you never think about it just happens.
Ben Moon: I mean, I feel like going through cancer and surviving that made me realize that, at a moment in a moment’s notice, things can be taken away, and I guess the parallel that I would make to this pandemic and the situation right now is, when I got sick, I was forced to stop and I was forced to look at everything and forced to be with myself and everything that that entails. It’s like, you’re forced to be with all the good and the bad, and obviously that was a lot more dire when I was fighting for my life, but the one thing I’ve noticed and I’ve seen kind of ripple across the community and the globally, as well is, we’re all in this together and we’re all going through a lot of the same anxieties and, for health and for our financial reasons, and everybody’s going through some level of either mental health struggle or physical health or, just trying to figure out how to pay the bills, especially as creatives, a lot of us, I mean, I had nine months of work just disappear, a lot of things that were on the docket, and my book tour got stopped, and a lot of speaking engagements, there was nobody to speak to you anymore, they couldn’t gather, but what has been interesting about it is seeing those that as a rule, I feel like a lot of creatives and athletes and anybody, we all pursue passions for the love of it, but also sometimes just to run away from the things that we don’t really want to face, and I see a lot of athletes do that and a lot of people are always on the road and go, and then when you’re suddenly forced to stop and actually be present, it was a shock to a lot of people and I think people had to deal with some really heavy stuff and everybody has to respond to that differently, but I think it’s forced us to grow globally, in a way, and that nothing really has in our lifetime, everybody is affected by this. A lot of people are blissfully trying to ignore it, but it catches up with everyone, and there’s a lot of hope on the horizon, just the shift in this country, with the elections and then also with the hope for some viruses coming or vaccines, there already is a virus. The vaccines that have some promising results from those and so a lot of hope on the horizon, but it’s still it’s a scary time and, I’d kind of put everything on pause this year to focus on getting the book out there and to finish building my home and, it’s interesting that building a house, everything always goes over budget, and when, it’s like, I can survive on a little bit when you have the bank needs, you’d have it done at a certain date. You have to meet deadlines and when you’re not working, it’s a lot more challenging so, it’s been an interesting year to just manage that anxiety and the unknown and not knowing what’s next and figuring out how, and also, it’s an introspective look at what, what do I want to create next, and what do I want to work on and what kind of people do I want to work with and what kind of projects do I want to work on, and it helped. There was a lot of time to think during this and, decide, what matters moving forward, and I feel fortunate to be living in an area. I moved out to the Oregon coast and as far as the place to be, isolated or quarantined, it’s probably one of the most beautiful places I could ever ask for. I can walk to the surf, I can walk to the beach with my dog and, life kind of went on as normal and we’ve been fortunate in this county, it’s been a lot less hard, it hasn’t been hit as hard. Lately, I’ve seen a little uptick in cases because I think, they are fatigued by just following precautions, but, it’s been a good place to be, but I miss travel right now. I miss it a lot, and I spend a lot of time with my parents moved out from Michigan, three or four years ago to this area and I spent a lot of time with my dad, and so I’ve been trying to be careful because my mom’s diabetic and higher risk and I just want to be careful cause I spend a lot of time with them.
Pierre Lambert: Yeah, that makes sense. It’s to find the balance you want. Everyone wants to live his own life without caring, and then you want to care about the people you care about and then you want to be mindful, and what I find out is that there’s no right answer and everything you do is, I don’t know about you, but it’s like you either go one extreme or the other, or you’re in the middle of it, but there is never a perfect way of doing things because if you break down everything, there is always a scenario where things can go wrong.
Ben Moon: Yeah. Yeah. You can be so careful and still make one mistake and then it doesn’t matter anyway, or you can just get really lucky and just live your life as normal have it. But I’ve only had one friend that’s come down with COVID and he was training for, the baseball major league baseball season and he was training in Florida and they didn’t have any restrictions at all there and, he went out to eat a couple of times and he’s was pretty sure he got it there and it kind of threw his whole season off, but fortunately he recovered, but it’s funny that I haven’t been inside a restaurant since, February, it’s just a weird feeling, they did open it back up here, but just didn’t feel worth it to me.
Pierre Lambert: Yeah, for sure. I think I’ve been once, in all that time, except when I went to French Polynesia, which at the time had almost zero cases but it’s a strange feeling. Do you feel that creatively shifted things for you or even in your community and your surroundings? Do you feel that there’s been a shift?
Ben Moon: Yeah. Like I said before, it made me think about what I wanted to tell stories about, and also with the black lives matter movement and everything, it made me just really want to be, just think critically about the work that I’m doing and who I collaborate with and how I can do things differently later on, so this year has been a lot of recalibration of everything and in a lot of ways.
Pierre Lambert: Yeah. Especially, with the kind of work we do as creatives, we do have some power to shift mindsets, at least a little bit. You don’t need a lot, but sometimes a nudge in the right direction is all it takes for people to discover something new or see things differently. Can we talk quickly about Denali because that’s your short that blew up and, I’ll link it below for anyone that linked the book and also the short for you guys to watch? Why don’t you just give us a little run-through, but before it ever went viral, like when did you decide to do it and how long between the idea and the moment you’re like, okay, let’s start shooting. What happened?
Ben Moon: Wa hen we started shooting. There was a small profile piece for a commercial client. I believe it was editing n2ow peak. It was a really small little piece we’re going to do and we were out with a couple of my creative friends here. We were kicking around ideas and, the initial idea was to explore my pull toward, cause the two main things I love were rock climbing and the ocean, but they’re not usually something you can do together. They’re always kind of either-or, and then I love being out in nature in a way and a smaller community, but I also love being in the city, so just trying to explore those two kinds of Yin Yang, the dichotomy of those two subjects, so that was the initial idea, but then when we got closer to filming, Skip Armstrong, one of my close friends, who lives over in the Columbia River Gorge. He saw Denali, we all knew Denali was towards the end of his life, he was 14 and a half, and he was really slowing down and he’d already bounced back from cancer and from another surgery that was made for his breathing, and I had already told him, Hey man, it’s okay to go. It’s your time. It’s okay, and when Skip saw that relationship, he’s like, Hey, how about we make this about you and your dog? We kind of shifted the focus a bit, but we still shot in the locations, at Smith rock where I climb for 20 years and then here, where I live now, on the Oregon coast because those are the places that Denali and I spent the most time and we had some other, there was my friend, Paige Stephenson and he was fresh out of film school and he had some other ideas for how to kind of create that metaphor, so we filmed a bunch of stuff and I remember talking with Denali, I was like, I know I said it was okay to go, but could he just hang around for the rest of this month, so we filmed and he rallied, but he was tired a lot, so I had to carry him. There’s a scene in the film where I’m carrying him at Smith rock to help him come out because it would have taken two hours to hike out. He was really tired and so I would carry him when I needed to, and the same thing was at the beach. We didn’t show those scenes, but I carried him quite a bit there just to help him, not wear out, and then we finished filming and I think it was only a few days later. Um, it was the end of the month, it was uncanny. It was like midnight on January 31st, he just started declining and I got to take him out here to the beach where I live now and one last time, he spent his last few days here, then we had the footage and we started, we made an edit and it was accepted in a film festival. It was a completely different piece, and I take most of the responsibility for that because I wasn’t ready to be vulnerable so I tried to make it more of a metaphor and less personal and we’re about to premiere at this festival, that had premiered a little small festival and film festival in, Colorado called 5point. That was really about personal stories and that’s where I’d met skip, and it really meant a lot to me to show it there, and we’re talking to Judy Kennedy, the festival director, and I said, I can’t do it, and I talked to the other guys involved, and I just said we had to pull the plug and started over and for about three or four or five months after that, I went through every second of footage, try to find something to unlock in there, but I was still grieving Denali’s passing, so it was just really hard for me. I was too close to it and then another friend, made an attempt at it, but he just was too close to me and close to Denali too, and it just was hard for him, and Ben Knight who I respected as a filmmaker, he had mentioned earlier that he was interested in doing it, but he had just finished that film Damnation for Patagonia, that which took him about four years to make and he was just exhausted from that process and I was like, man, you need a break. Let’s not work on this together, and after we kind of exhausted all resources on my end, and a lot of my friends were just like, Hey man, move on, it’s not worth focusing on this one little story, but something wouldn’t let me let it go, and I sent Ben the drives and it took him another six months to even unlock it and our friend Katie clinks, she interviewed me and got the story from me, and then Ben ended up writing the narration and editing the piece and he finally found the tone, and I remember when I first saw the first edit that he sent me cause I love to collaborate and sit and it was challenging for me to just be completely in the dark on that project. Once I sent the drives to Ben but he tends to work in isolation and he sent me the first cut and, it was like 90% there. It was incredible, and I just said, tears soaking my phone and, it captured the emotion that I was going for, but what I knew is that there was needed to be a tenderness there, but I also knew that it was really easy to make something like that Cheesy so Ben had that sensibility. He was a skater, but yet just the softest heart, so I felt like he was the right person and it was challenging for him too. He almost gave up a few times and I was like, Ben, I think you’re the person to tell this story. I think you’re the one that can do that. Find the tone, if anybody can, for this, and I just knew we needed to finish it somehow. I don’t know. I think the most important factor of all of that is, by that time it had been a year and a half before I saw that edit from the time of filming and what I realized at that time is that it wasn’t about Denali and me anymore, it needed to be something far greater and needed to be relatable, and I think that’s the biggest lesson I learned from that film is that yes, you’re telling a story of a person, but you have to make other people feel their own, see themselves in that story, and that’s stuck with me and everything I’ve done from then on, and when we released it, one of the first festivals swept it. It was one the best, the festival and people’s choice, and then at mountain film was the second one and it premiered or showed before Meru, Jimmy Chin’s film and about Conrad and, Renan and Jimmy doing that climb, on Shark’s Fin and, it was a real honor to open for a film like that, but the cool thing about it, there was, it was in the top four or five films for the people’s choice, but all the other films that were in that were feature films that had massive budgets, we’re talking millions of dollars and Denali was made for low six figures and not six figures, five figures, it was a very low budget. I mean, it was scraped by us favor sort of thing and we had a few sponsors, but they just covered the base expenses and not anybody’s time, So it was cool to see it be popular there at that at a festival. I mean, mountain film is I missed that place dearly this year. There were a few things I was looking forward to, and one of those is the Sony condo where you and I met where they gather all the creatives. And I feel like mountain film is that for the filmmaking community and also the conservation and the culture. It’s such a melting pot of all the things and all the people that I care about and the stories that are told there, right? It’s almost like this retreat, and it’s not so much even the films, it’s just being around the people that motivate me to go out there and find those stories and tell stories, but then when we sit online that summer, a few weeks after mountain film and the first day was about 5,000 views. My friends were sharing it. I remember I was sleeping on my deck and Portland, cause it was really hot that week and my phone was off and I turned it on in the morning and it just exploded with messages, and by that evening, by the second day, I think it had a million views and I’d hired a small PR firm to help with it, to get it out there but, it was oddly these little blogs that were the ones that we’re sharing it, that helped spark it, and then, I still see waves of it going around, but by the end of the week, I think we had 8 million views, but I was on phone calls with people, reporters from all over the world, and I had news trucks stalking my house and I didn’t know. I mean, I wasn’t ready for it, and I had no preparation to be ready to handle that sort of thing or any help. It was very much like it. I was losing my voice by 10:00 AM every day.
Pierre Lambert: Trucks in front of my house, what am I supposed to do?
Ben Moon: I didn’t talk to any of those reporters, if you’re hanging outside my house, sorry, that’s not good, and then it went on, Oprah put it on her super soul Sunday show, which was pretty incredible. They cut it down to a five-minute piece, and I think the process from the four years that followed that, I remember talking to John Krakauer, the author and he’s like, Hey Ben, if you have any desire to write about the story, now would be the time because it’s hard. The publishing world is challenging, so I took a year and a half. I worked with his editor, Mark Bryan, and created a book proposal and it was an outlet for the entire piece, and it took a long time for me to get that story out. At that time, I got my new pup Nori, and that helped me to write, get that proposal out because it also reminded me of all the reasons why dogs are so special in our lives, and that friendship and how powerful they are, but in that process, going back to what I said before, it has to be relatable. I knew that the only way that the book was going to matter or be worth the effort as if it was relatable and other people could see themselves in that story, and I had gotten thousands or tens of thousands of emails and messages after the Denali film came out, and a lot of people they related so deeply and it was pretty overwhelming, but I also knew that I’d lost four friends at colon cancer in that time, while I was writing the book. Three of them were, under the age of 40, and that made me realize how important it was to just raise awareness about how deadly that disease was and I had a bit of survivor’s guilt, that somehow I had made it and I wanted to share my story in the hopes that other people could have. I was like if it saves one life, it’s going to be worth it because some people, dream of writing a book, and for me, it was a challenging process, you know, it wasn’t necessarily a fun thing and when I look back at it now, it was a pretty romantic time because I was starting to plan on building my house, but I was living in my camper van, so I’d park at the beach every day and that surfing right, but the process wasn’t exactly enjoyable, it’s like torture because all you’re doing is thinking about deadlines and what you should be writing, so you might procrastinate for eight hours and write for half an hour, every night, so it took four years to fully write the book, but it’s been incredible honestly, this year to see the parts of the book that resonated with people that I didn’t expect. I shared a lot, I went way back in the story. It’s not a recap of the short film. It’s a much deeper look at life and friendship and overcoming struggles and it’s been really interesting to see what has resonated, and I talk a lot about being like a shy kid, that had a lot of anxiety, even at a young age and just talked about overcoming that shyness and being a sensitive man too. It’s like a lot of times vulnerability isn’t spoken of, or highly regarded culturally in Western society, so it was really important to share some of that, and I’ve gotten a lot of incredible messages that have made that feel worthwhile.
Pierre Lambert: Yeah, it’s not about how many people’s lives you change. I feel especially with whatever we create something that’s a little personal, it’s not like, oh, I want to change a million people’s life. It’s like, can I help one person at least?
Ben Moon: Yeah, and lately it’s been interesting because I’m working with director Max Winkler and the actor, Charlie Hunnam, English actor and some producers to adapt the book into a film, and right now the plan is to film in the spring, and, when I first had the conversation with Max and Charlie, I knew that they understand the point of the book. They went back way back into my story. It’s not a remake of the short film at all. It goes into the coming of age, part of the thing and learning how to rebuild life after a lot of challenges and just learning how to be creative. My time as a creative way, I got my first camera when I was living out of the back of a Subaru and then I’ve bought a camper van, so I was just learning how to use it, and it was a film camera because digital, it was happening, but it was incredibly young and sympathy at that point, I didn’t get my first digital camera until about five years later, so I shot slide film until then, and my first digital camera, I think was like an eight-megapixel Canon 1DS, that I think retailed for around six grand, and Iphones take better, far better photos now than that thing. There’s no latitude in the shadows. It was just completely fall off, but that was in 2005 when I got that, so it’s incredible to see. I shot Nikon for five years and then Canon for a decade and then switched over to Sony six or seven years ago, it’s just incredible to see the technological advances, but also just coming full circle. I remember writing the book and was trying to figure out how to wrap up the story, and all also sudden I was sitting at the beach and I realized, here I am, I’m living in my van with my dog. I’m single, and this is how the story started. It was this weird full circle moment almost 20 years later, and I don’t know, it’s just a crazy feeling to realize that now I’m building a home and I started living in one of the rooms a couple of nights ago. It feels really good to have a space to work out of again, other than the van. Van life is romanticized and it is wonderful. I mean, there’s something about having everything you need with you at all times, but van life is challenging. You only have a certain amount of space and everything you do, you have to pick up and clean up and move and you’re always reshuffling gear and every day is like half the day is spent just trying to figure out how to deal with the basic elements of life.
Pierre Lambert: There is no gear room.
Ben Moon: There’s no room. You have stuff in the back, when I first started shooting, I was scanning slides and submitting them via FedEx and I pulled up, all my Pelican cases and all these bins and set up my printer, set up my scanner, set up my laptop and my second monitor, and, would be in the parking lot at Smith rock and then somebody knocks on the door, and be like, Hey, are you ready to go climb yet? When they open the door and say, what are you doing? Wires and things everywhere, and now obviously it’s shifted where we have our phones are practically computers, but there is a beauty to just hitting the road and finding, waking up to wherever you are and being open to whatever it comes that day, but I’m ready to move into the next chapter. When we can gather again, I felt a lot in the last few years that I want to start giving back in some way. I’ve been shooting for almost 20 years now, and part of the reason why this house has taken me so long to build is I built an edit studio, it’s a tall garage space that can double a photo studio and film production spot, so I would love to be able to hold workshops and have film screenings and do more mentorship type programs. That’s the end goal, right now is to be able to start figuring out how to get back in that way, and I still love shooting. I still love telling stories, but there’s so much joy in seeing someone else have that spark ignite in their creativity.
Pierre Lambert: Yeah, that’s true, it’s priceless. As you said, you help one person and it doesn’t matter how, but then it changes the course of their own lives, so it’s pretty awesome. I read something, I think it was one of your interviews editing and you were talking about remarkable versus relatable in stories you like to share and do, before we get into that, I just want to say your full circle. I liked what you’re saying here because it sounds like you’re closing almost with the book. That chapter was Vanlife, not saying that it’s not happening anymore but you’re finishing it in the van, and then now, you just spent a few nights in the room and it’s almost like you have full documentation or collection of that early journey you had already. Let’s call it already, because we don’t know how long life is, but that first part, and, I find that beautiful. It’s something that, when you’re older, you’re like, here’s the first part of life.
Ben Moon: Yeah. It does feel like different chapters of life. I find that when I look back at things and just my patterns and relationships. I don’t know how scientifically based it is, but they say every seven years, we regenerate all the cells in our body, and it’s having these seven-year cycles and Denali live for 14 years and something’s coming to these double cycles and dog’s lives are like two of our humankind. I feel like everything that I’ve done has always gone in these seven-year waves and, I’ve recently had a relationship end, and I just thought back to some of the patterns and this is almost the same thing that happened to me 14 years ago. It’s like the same sort of experience that makes you look critically. Like what part did I play in this, what was I looking for and what do I want to do differently next time? I feel like that’s what’s one interesting thing about having a dog as a companion is there with you for that such a stretch of time, and there was this mirror you look back like, this happened, but their lives are so much shorter than ours and many times, so we have to appreciate their lifespan, but they’ve forced us to look critically at where we’re at right then, and they’re not judging you, but they also are these mirrors where if you see them stressed out, usually, I know if Nori is stressed out. It means, I need to sit down and take some deep breaths or go for a surf.
Pierre Lambert: That’s interesting. I never had a dog except when I was very young, but the dog, when kind of cuckoo, and they had to let it go, started like eating socks and attacking anyone with glasses, which became dangerous because it was a German shepherd, so you don’t want that to jump on you, but always had cats in my life and cats are so different where everyone’s living their own life, they’re here, they’re just parallel to you, you know?
Ben Moon: Yeah. They can drop in whenever they feel. They’re kind of those friends, they know we’re going to show up at the party, but they’re not necessarily the ones that are going to be there for you either.
Pierre Lambert: Yeah. Versus my wife had a dog for most of her childhood and when she was a teenager and until I think the mid-twenties and she will say the dogs always there during those different times and you can look back and remember those moments or when the dog helped you, but no point, the dog judging you. It’s always loving you. No matter what.
Ben Moon: Yeah. Unless you don’t get outside and get some exercise and they’re a little bit frustrated, and honestly, I am so grateful I said before that to be living in a place like this, during this time, but also I’m grateful that I had a dog as a companion. I mean, I can’t imagine going through the whole initial, especially the initials, March and April of last year, when it felt like, a decade had passed, it was this time that expanded and contracted last year, this past year like no other. It was like some months which has flown by and some months felt like they were just every day was like three months. I think in any part of life it was magnified when I was going through cancer, but the uncertainty part is what always is the hardest to deal with, and I think early on in the pandemic, when we knew nothing about it, other than it was this dangerous thing, it creates a lot of anxiety, the unknown is so vast, and especially when work is going away to you and nobody knows what’s going to happen, and having a dog there just as a steady companion was really special.
Pierre Lambert: Good reminder that life is not just outside. It’s also inside and having people around. That’s pretty awesome. I love it, so going back to remarkable versus relatable, how has that affected your work? You would say, especially in storytelling, I’m just gonna give a little context. I feel like whenever I share things, or when I talk with some photographers, a lot of people are looking for that one piece that will blow everyone’s mind, or that will be like, wow, this is crazy, but it’s not necessarily just about the visual. It’s also sometimes the meaning, and I find it kind of difficult sometimes to explain that to people because you look at social media and it’s so easy to see stuff go viral, so people chase whatever went viral. Do you have any take on that concept of remarkable versus relatable?
Ben Moon: If you have the opportunity to tell a remarkable story or about, someone’s remarkable achievement, whatever that is for you, that’s, worth telling, and it might resonate with others, but what’s going to really have the longest impact and probably touch more lives and in a deeper way, I mean, remarkable feels like it puts this barrier between yourself and whoever this person is on the pedestal. Whereas, something that’s relatable. We can all see ourselves in that story and, the other thing is if you’re always going for the remarkable, you’re probably looking at other people’s work that did go viral or is out there, people have massive followings and you’re probably not going to find your voice. You’re probably just emulating and there’s always a level in everyone’s creative journey of looking at every other people’s work and copying it or just copying the concepts and making it your own, and there’s nothing new about that. It happens in music and photography and film, and the patterns repeat themselves over and over, but you have to find your voice within that, but when you’re telling a relatable story or, you find someone that has a human story that can feel attainable or feel like someone else could put themselves in their shoes, I feel like that has such a much longer-lasting impact. And also if you find a personal project that is meaningful for you and truly feels like it has longevity and something that you’re so passionate about, it’s going to show in your work and other people are going to be able to relate to that in some way, it might not be everyone. It might not be the masses. You might not get millions of followers for it, but if you find your voice, it’s going to have the longest-lasting impact, cause it will ripple through all of your work, and I feel like there’s so much focus on all these social media platforms these days. Instagram is for photographers and filmmakers, it’s a great way of getting information out there, and I use Twitter for news, research but I also see, you have a massive following on Instagram, that platform could go away tomorrow. I saw MySpace and then Facebook just kind of pass by the wayside, and they’re still around or my space isn’t about Facebook is still around, but nobody uses that as a creative platform, and then obviously a lot of ads to do with Facebook, just completely throttling the algorithms, so if you shared something you had to pay to have it seen, and Instagram, a lot of ways is messing with that now, too, so who knows what’s next? I try not to focus too much on those platforms, but also remember what is keeping the fire burning and you have to make a living, you gotta figure out what to do, but trying to focus on what you can do that sustains you creatively is more important than just numbers, and I think that ties back into the relatability because if you’re doing something you’re passionate about, other people are going to see that and relate to it. But if you’re only chasing the big splashes, overnight success usually leads to overnight fall from success too, people move on.
Pierre Lambert: That’s was something someone told me back when I started YouTube and stuff or sharing there and it might seem too counter-intuitive, or you might not understand it, but you don’t want to go viral tomorrow, especially not early, especially not early, and at the time I didn’t maybe grasp it. I was like, it’s a shortcut. Why not? Why don’t you want a shortcut? To move you progress in your journey, or even as a photographer, the more you realize, I’ve seen people that go viral, but they had nothing left behind in terms of content or ideas or anything, and it’s almost where you want to make sure you’re building up yourself creatively. You’re finding your voice. That explodes, and then that can splash back on to all your other work versus the contrary and then the pressure is so high, you create something great, and is the next piece is going to be as good. I felt like it’s a lot of pressure.
Ben Moon: Yes, it creates an expectation that everything you do is going to be like that. But also, any creative endeavor you get, from the film world, or the actors get typecast because they have the one big role and, as a creative, if you have that one thing that gets seen by everyone, everybody expects everything else to feel like that. I’ve always been shooting for Patagonia. I would shoot a lot of different, across a lot of different activities and types of things, and I never fit into any one category as far as climbing or surfing or, any other things like that. I was more of, they kind of called me their utility shooter. I loved the lifestyle aspect and the behind-the-scenes thing, but I could do those other things, but with my work, I feel like I’m constantly trying to reinvent. Everything always plays into everything else, but it’s always trying to find projects that help keep me motivated, but I usually cyclically rotate through the things too. I hadn’t shot in the ocean for a long time, and I recently made a film with a musician. He was a surfer, his name’s Griff, but his band names called golf bay, but we made a little documentation of his story and, I spent a lot of time with a new A7 S3, and shooting in the ocean. It was so fun to be back in the water shooting again, and I realized how much I missed that, but I, you know, for a long time I was just moving here. I surf almost every day, but I hadn’t been shooting that much. it made me want to get back into it, and sometimes that’s just the project because that, you know, the project with, with goth babe made me want to get in the ocean to get a different perspective instead of just shooting from land, but also the technology too, that camera could shoot 120 frames at 4k and had beautiful low-light capabilities, and a lot of the best light. Surfing is later in the evening when everything’s backlit and super beautiful and being able to shoot at high ISO, and not worry about it, and at 120 frames, without having to have a big housing for the other types of cinema cameras, it was incredible, and it was swimming around with a small water housing, which is kind of how I started. When I first started shooting, I was in Hawaii on Kauai when I got my first water housing and, swimming around with a little housing and capturing this different perspective, so it was really fun to run around with that, and then I planned on shooting something on my FS 72 and I ended up shooting the whole piece on the AS S3 cause it was just so fun to be able to be that nimble. As I said, you don’t know what’s going to spark things. Sometimes technology can help us motivate to do something. Sometimes it’s a project that motivates but, just finding that spark, and I think that’s been important during this forced pause this year, it’s just finding something that keeps you motivated because I think a lot of people have struggled with anxiety and that can freeze you up, it can make you feel aimless and not know what’s next.
Pierre Lambert: Yeah, that’s true. I love what you’re saying about the A7 S3. I also luckily have it and it’s just insane at night, so when I was in Polynesia, we managed to shoot. I was shooting the Milky way handheld like I was filming the Milky way handheld, and it was like, is this sorcery? What is this?
Ben Moon: Yeah, I know, and Renan and Taylor made that first piece with the slack letter for the full moon and everything and that’s how I felt the first time I looked at the back of that camera too. I was like, how does this possible? It sees more than my eyes can see right now, and I’m doing it without any giant tripods or gimbles or anything like that.
Pierre Lambert: That’s crazy, so in a way, I felt like creatively, it’s like you say, you don’t have to get the big gear necessarily as you might have during a phase before, and I felt like this is freeing. Also, creativity where you don’t have to worry, oh, it’s too dark, I can’t shoot that anymore. I don’t know how it’s going to pan out, but I feel like it’s going to change a lot of content that we’re going to see in the next few years because shooting what I shot was just impossible for me. Just with that, it was like on a tiny boat moving and you’re like 24 frames per second. You can see the Milky way and the people on the boat and you’re like, what?
Ben Moon: How’s this possible? I think, that’s an important point too, because oftentimes I work with a lot of DPS, on film projects and they get so focused on the gear package, and then they always want to expand, they always want to make it more complex and that’s fine and it’s good to have the tools you need to tell the story, but when the focus shifts too much to the gear or your rigs, especially on a documentary project, if it’s a narrative, I get it, you’re blocking out the scenes and you have more time, but for me, the most magical moments in filmmaking usually happen when you’re not expecting it, and if you have too much gear and you need all these assistants or it can’t be nimble enough to change, you see something happening and it’s good to be able to wrap up whatever you’re doing, and then shift, focus to a moment, unrepeatable moment, oftentimes. You can’t plan for those and the more nimble you can be and, finding people that are okay with veering, from what you had planned is really important, and I try to work with filmmakers and cinematographers that share that vision because it’s so much more fun. After all, you’re just constantly adding all these ingredients to the pot while you’re working and it becomes a true collaboration then, and then there are so many elements beyond that. The score and the sound design and everything else, the color matter incredibly, but while you’re on set, being able to feel things out and shoot at the moment is really important.
Pierre Lambert: Yeah, so I was chatting with a friend the other day, I was just sending him a few of the pieces of your films. I think I sent him Denali and his reaction was like, I’m not crying, you’re crying because he has had a dog for like 15 years too. His whole childhood, and then I sent him, I think it was the one on the grizzly mountain?
Ben Moon: Grizzly country.
Pierre Lambert: Grisly country.
Ben Moon: Doug peacock. Yeah.
Pierre Lambert: Yeah. Beautiful, love the storytelling here, and what he mentioned to me is that it feels very organic, the way it’s presented, the way it shoots, the final piece feels very organic, which is something I appreciate, which is something I don’t know if it’s an influence from Patagonia, but whatever Patagonia has artists, it’s also very organic. It’s not like, in-your-face effects and fast phase what’s happening, so I understand what you’re trying to say here. Like, if you have small gear, you can stay in the moment. You don’t have to worry too much about what’s happening or redo this scene where you just left. It’s not going to feel the same.
Ben Moon: That grizzly country we were with Doug and he’s in his mid-seventies and, he would get tired and he would have a certain amount of tolerance for a camera being around, and so we had to make sure we were making the most of all our time with him and then we’d sit down, and the other thing too is in the interviews with Doug and grizzly country, and then the ones I made with my friend, Danielle Norris, the pitcher for the tigers, and beyond the offseason. Both of those films came from three different interviews, just sitting down and chatting and I try not to script the voiceover too much if I can help it because it changes the tone and if you can capture someone at the moment speaking to something. It’s so much more emotional because most people we’re filming with don’t voice actors, so they’re not just gonna come back to that emotion right then, so if he can capture at the moment with them, and I like to do an interview at the beginning of a production, and once you’ve gained more trust, I have another interview and then maybe a wrap-up at the end just to see, and we’re talking like, 32. 45 minutes. We’re not talking three-hour interviews, just getting these pieces of information, and then letting the story unfold from there and the visuals and everything and that’s how I like to work. Some people love to block this storyboard the entire thing out and have very specific questions and if you’re working for a client, sometimes you need to tell a very specific story, but a lot of times it’s best if it’s just pulled from a moment instead of reading off a script.
Pierre Lambert: Yeah, for sure. Do you have one go-to kind of technique or tip that you find very helpful for anyone, especially you’re saying Daug who maybe gets tired of being on camera and stuff? Do you have any particular technique or tip where this is what I do with people and to feel better or do they forget about the camera? How’d you make them feel good or forget about it?
Ben Moon: The most important thing is to spend time with them before you get the cameras out. If you come in the first day with cameras rolling, it just puts everybody on edge. I think we spent, we had dinner with Doug and we spent the next day with him and barely even got cameras out until we did the first interview. It was just a getting to know someone and also hearing what they want to say, just listening to what they want to say, and I think that’s important with anything. When my road trip with Daniel, for off-season we had been friends for about six months, but we hadn’t met in person, so when I first flew out and spent time with his family, we drove halfway. I think I only had the camera out, maybe a total of a couple of hours for the entire first five days. We were just getting to know each other and halfway across the country. When his van broke down in an old Volkswagen. We’re stuck in Denver, Boulder. Then the rest of the crew joined and we filmed there, and the unexpected part was the mechanic shop with all these old crusty Volkswagen mechanics where it was one of my favorite.
Ben Moon: It looks so good, and the guys are so charismatic. I’ll link the video we’re talking about guys down below, but it’s just so charismatic. I’m like what?
Ben Moon: Yeah, we couldn’t have planned for that. We couldn’t have scripted that. That was just literally walking to the shop. I was like, oh man, this is perfect, but we didn’t know, and obviously, we didn’t plan on breaking down. It delayed the entire trip a lot were there for five days, and there’s a lot of crazy backstory of that whole thing too. Just about trying to get out. whereas before Daniel had to start training again for the following season, so it’s about just getting to know someone, and letting those magic moment moments unfold like the mechanic shop, that was like I said, it wasn’t planned, so I think that’s the most important thing to set people at ease, you have to form a personal bond with them or not to say bond even, but more of a trust, you have to feel that trust has to be there and also when I was telling Doug story and grizzly country, he had a lot of things that he wanted to say, but I wanted his message. I felt like our country was divided enough, and his story was something that I knew could be relatable to all sides. He was a Vietnam vet and he was a Greenbrae medic in Vietnam, and, he protects grizzly bears and he’s an interesting character. That character Haiti was based on him and in the monkey wrench gang for at the Edward Abbey, and so I didn’t want to come out on that piece and make it a super polarizing thing and only be able to have people that are in the echo chamber that whatever, whichever echo chamber they’re in only see it. I didn’t want to alienate an audience by coming out in a way that would be polarizing, and I would want people to get to know him as a person and get to know his story, and I kept saying, Hey, Doug, so we know that our environment and the client, the habitat for these grizzly bears are being destroyed by a lot of man-made forces and whether it’s climate change or the laws around shooting Grizzlies and protecting them but I was like, you have a granddaughter on their way, what can you tell her when she’s born to give her hope? what would be the message that you would tell her, and so I kept trying to bring it back to like, okay, sometimes we feel like everything is lost. There’s no hope, but why should we still hope? Ultimately it came down to this universal message that we all want to protect the places and the things that we love and out of that came these beautiful one-liners from Doug. I mean, he’s like, arm yourself with friends and, when you’re down depressed, get outside, that’s the best cure for the metaphysical icky poos. He just had some of these incredible lines and I love how he just was able to bring those out, but it took coming back to like, Hey, what, what is it that you’re passionate about? What is it that you love? There’s no blueprint for how to do that. You have to just feel it out at the moment, and even this is a tangent, but I felt that building this home too, and the studio and everything here, you can draw everything out on a piece of paper. I worked with an architect, who’s an old friend of mine and with who I had spent a lot of time. We had all these ideas for how it should feel and everything, but until you’re onsite and building it, you don’t know, I mean, I added windows and took windows away and shifted rooms around until the drywall got wet and put up, it was a lot of just standing in rooms. But all hours of the day, looking at the light, looking at how things felt, looking at the views because I can see the ocean from a lot of the windows, and just figuring out how the room was going to feel. It was so fun and that was a collaboration too. I had a lot of, I would ask my friends questions and, as people stopped in and see what their reactions were, and then also later in the evening when I was just exhausted and didn’t feel like doing anything, I just go sit in a room and just feel how it would feel and, even the ground was broken on the property. It was still a bare piece of land where I was like, just a couple of trees and stuff. I would go on to sit in different spots there, and just feel how it felt, so I think, if you just have an idea fully formed in your head about anything, and you’re not flexible about that, you’re just missing out on a lot of the potential and the magic of that story.
Pierre Lambert: Yeah. Yeah. I see what you mean, where it’s almost like a seed, right? For a plant. It’s all compacted. You know how it can turn out, but if you don’t let it grow its way, it will never be the beautiful plan that you hoped. Otherwise, it’s going to be twisted the way you want it, which is not its natural form or its best form, and I love what you’re saying. Especially because a lot of time we get hung up on « no we’re supposed to shoot it like that. We’re supposed to do this like that. This room is supposed to be like that », but then it’s like, okay, maybe it is, but what if it’s not like to open yourself up to experience how it might feel in the moment. Going back to Doug. I love his line. Going to Marceau being inpatient is not going to save us. Nature and going back and being in the wild is where we should concentrate our efforts, and I was like, that’s good. A lot of people think that solution’s somewhere else, but it’s not, we’re still a piece of earth and we’re just belonging here.
Ben Moon: A lot of times the easiest thing to do is just to leave something alone and let it do its thing because nature has its way of doing it. Humans have always wanted a medal and have an impact. There’s the other side of it. See if you just let a forest completely go then, the fuel load becomes crazy, but then we’ve seen that a lot with fire seasons lately, you put out fires, so then the fuel load continually gets bigger and bigger because nature takes care of that and historically by wildfires, so by putting them out immediately, and building homes right in the middle of wildfire country, it’s a complicated issue, and it’s horrible. I’ve had a few friends lose their houses this year to wildfire, and we had a really scary moment, it was like a 50-year wind event where the east winds were so dry. I mean, it happens a lot in California with the Santa Ana, but in my time in Oregon, I’d never felt an east wind so violent and so dry, I would hang a wet suit up after surfing. It would be dry in like five minutes to completely dry. I mean, it was incredible and we had fires burning on all sides of us here and it looked like Mars and, it was wild to see that. It was just another reminder of 2020 of how in a moment, I spent the last couple of years building this house. It could just burn up right now. It could be gone and had my van packed and ready to just drive away and my hard drives and everything else, but one of my dear friends, uh, mark McInnes, he was on a solo trip, way up in Northeastern, Oregon when those fires happened and he had been in the process of backing up his entire archives and it was probably a couple of days from having really solid offsite, backups everything, but he lost his entire archive, all his cameras, and all his belongings, except for what he had in his truck, and we spent a lot of time together this last while and we talk almost every day and I helped him get set up his cameras again and stuff, it’s been really interesting. I listened to his podcast on a visual revolutionary last night and how I’ve seen it in him, he’s so good at focusing on gratitude for what he does have despite all that loss, and he’s like my mom and dad or stepdad are still here, they got out just in time, just his attitude amidst losses was inspiring to me. A good reminder this year that, it’s so easy to get overwhelmed with all the wrong things or not comfortable, instead shift that focus on the things that we can control and we have to be grateful for.
Pierre Lambert: Yeah, I mean, 2020 years, it’s like the perfect street photography session for me in a way where you go out and suddenly it starts pouring and everything goes to hell and you think you’re not going to make it, and then there’s this beautiful shot comes out, and if you are not there, if not everything had gone wrong, you would never get that shot or that deciding moment that’s going to shift your vision for after, and it’s a weird year because personally, and that’s what I was saying to friends. For me, it’s been a great year, whether it’s financial or whatever, it’s been good on some personal level, like family, it’s more challenging. We just had a daughter before COVID, so it shifts a lot of things so I can see that part of it is amazing, part of it is challenging, and in the midst of it, I can’t help, but think back about my grandmother or my grandfather who were migrants, when they were like 10 or 12 years old and he was in a village in France and they were occupied by German Nazis, at the time. This doesn’t seem so bad, I feel it’s almost a wake-up call, or like Hey, remember to focus on what’s important in life and in a gentle way. I’m not saying there hasn’t been strategy, there has been, but for most of us, it’s not a gentle reminder, let’s put it that way. It’s not the country didn’t go to war and we haven’t been invaded and haven’t had our family hung because they went to cut wires of the occupation, so it’s a weird shift where you’re like, oh, I’m grateful. Oh, it’s not great so it’s like that balance. I feel that you have to deal with it every day.
Ben Moon: Yeah. I mean, I think he said it earlier in the thing. It’s just a reminder of what we have been taking for granted. We had it good for so long and I think everybody was getting pretty episodic because of that. There’s a lot of aimlessness and, about just trying to figure out what would motivate, and I think everybody is realizing how much we did take for granted and, and just how much we’re looking forward to seeing some of those things, come back, being able to just travel and travel and just gathering with friends without freaking out all the time.
Pierre Lambert: That’s true. I want to be mindful of your time. I want to just touch on the last point where you’ve worked with a lot of brands and different people, and as we mentioned, Patagonia has somehow an organic feel and of the discussion, we’re talking about Rivian. how do you choose the partners you’re going to work with and have you found those companies and you feel that they still exist or they exist in general where they can let you have freedom of expression as a creative and not try to funnel you into a marketing pitch for the viewer?
Ben Moon: Yeah, I mean, I think, you tend to find whatever you set your sights on, and, I had been thinking about what was next before my friend Larry, he’s the creative or executive creative director at Rivian now, and when he reached out, I thought it was too good to be true. Nobody knew anything about Rivian at that point, and it was a year or two before they revealed what they were doing, I was pretty skeptical at first, but then the more I talked to him, the more I realized we had a lot in common and shared a lot of vision getting to work with Rivian has been special because watching them grow quite quickly, but also having the storytelling. Larry’s wants to keep reinventing themselves, and telling real stories and not making it just another automotive company that has those standard car commercials that are just cookie-cutter they’re all kind of the same so it was more about human stories and I think that all comes from like we mentioned earlier. The founder RJ, he’s a very caring human being. He’s also a genius, but how much he’s been able to allow people that tell stories are really special, and like we were talking earlier about, the one that my old friend Jeff Johnson made called the lucky ones, about that road trip up to Tofino to go surf. It was just cool to have them want to share my story and when it came time to release that and they had the ribbon logo at the end, RJ was like, Hey, this story is about Ben, let’s put his book there instead of our logo, and even though we’re in the truck the whole time. It was an amazing gesture for a brand to say, let’s shift the spotlight away from us because usually, it’s how many logo placements can we get into this thing and how big can we make the logo, and how much can we keep the focus on the brand? I think when you build something organically like that, and more of a family-style, which, you know, Patagonia has been that way too, a shot for them for a long time. It tends to show in the work and the creatives that they work with, and so to answer your question, I try to find people. My only real business plan has been to just work with people, that inspire me and that I care about on stories that matter, and you always want to surround yourself with people that make you feel good and just make life better. But that pushes you to be a better creative too, and just a better person, so I try to keep my clients the way I would want my friendships if you work with someone just because they’re going to get you to where you want to be. It’s a pretty shallow relationship, but if you can find people that you want to spend time with and want to create content for, it tends to elevate the work you’re doing as well.
Pierre Lambert: That’s such a great piece of advice to keep those business relationships like you would for your friendships. It’s not just about the dollar amount and I’ve seen it with myself and also with friends whenever we work with a brand. You’re a photographer. You’ve always used Lightroom, and suddenly you going to walk with Adobe, it’s going to feel so much more organic for you, and you’re going to want to pour in more versus another software that you didn’t know before. That doesn’t mean the software is bad. It just means that there’s an emotional attachment to it. And you’re like, let’s do something,
Ben Moon: When you get approached by a brand or whatever, you get all those messages that say, we would love you to promote this blah, blah, blah. It’s like, is that something you even want to be involved with at all? And then B, I want to try it first. I want to spend time with whatever it is. I don’t want to just immediately, like, I love this hashtag ad, it’s not going to. But I love forming relationships with clients and brands and the people that work there, so it’s not necessarily. I’ve turned down some things that would have been financially great, but it felt like it would be detrimental in other ways.
Pierre Lambert: That’s awesome. That’s such good advice for anyone listening who’s confused about Rivian. Just got to say it. Rivian is an automotive company. They just didn’t do it, but they released a truck or a pickup and SUV version of an adventure, all-electrical vehicle, which looks also dope, and then you’ve had the chance to drive it and play with it and it’s awesome. You can check it out and you’ll see Ben’s work also in it.
Ben Moon: I mean, essentially, if you think about a pickup, it’s a similar size, a newer Tacoma, but it’s one of those products that reminds me of an iPhone, it works and it gets out of the way, everything, all these little things that a lot of vehicles where frustration points. I think that people want to do when they take a truck out to go surf or climb or, snowboarding or whatever. There are these little subtle details about the materials and the top of the truck bed, there’s a little bit of a lip to it, so you edit your skis or surfboards to be right in the pan. There are these little subtle things, and just how the materials of the floor and I’ve been in other nicer electric vehicles, like Tesla and stuff, and I can’t imagine having a dog in there just destroy it, everything just feels too nice, but that’s in the Rivian trucks, everything’s rugged and feels like it’s made to use as a utility thing instead of something Polish every day, so when you think about having a truck that normally the thing that we’re always concerned with, if you have a truck they’re going to be slow, if you have powerful, then they’re gonna be gas guzzlers, so you got to find all these compromises, but driving one of those, they go zero to 60 in three seconds and have up to 750 horsepower and you can go from road mode, with low clearance to up to 14 inches, you have this pneumatic suspension that adjusts and then something I never thought, if you have a new medic suspension, that’s adjustable. If you park, it can level, and how many times you slept in your truck, stacking rocks on the side of the road, trying to get level for like two hours when you’re exhausted, and the fact that you just park and it’s like level, the little things like that, and then the gear tunnel that wasted space behind the front or the back. Having a tunnel that fits, they got like a five, four surfboard or like a 1 65 snowboard will fit in that space and I’ve crawled in there and they shut the doors and it’s big enough for you to curl up inside. That space is amazing because you have this additional space where you can throw your gear. That’s not in the bed of the truck, but it’s not in the cab either, when he dropped the door, it works with the seat or the step to get up to the top of whatever’s on the rack, and it’s just thinking about things differently. I love working with people that are innovating in that way, and that’s awesome.
Pierre Lambert: When I saw it, I remember when the Roadster, Tesla Roadster came out, like back in the day, because I had a Lotus Exige, one of the tiny sports cars, it’s contrary to whatever people think. If you get an old model it’s not expensive, and it’s just so fun to drive, and then I discovered the test that was the same chassis, so it was like, it must be insane to drive, and then I followed Tesla for a long time and I’ve always wanted one. But then when I saw the Rivian, that would fit a lot more of what I want to do with the car right now, my idea for the future, I was like, almost pre-ordered but, not yet, but that’s, that’s pretty cool. Thanks, Ben, for sharing those insights, I think it’s super helpful, and if we can leave everyone with that message of not focusing so much on the financial gain from partnerships, but more like, what do you get as an individual? Can you grow? It’s almost like a relationship between like in a couple, it’s not just sex. It’s not just like a good time. It’s also, can you grow together? Can you push each other in the right direction? I feel like a good business partnership is also like that. Where can you go further together in the future? Thanks for that. Do you have anything you would suggest let’s say someone who might feel a little bit low on creative juice or don’t know what to talk about or share lately? When I say share it’s like capture, what, do you have any tip for them just to go off on the week or weekend, wherever they are?
Ben Moon: Yeah. I mean, I feel like half the battle. It’s like when you’re writing, it’s half the battle, just sitting down at the keyboard to write and one thing that I found helpful is find one lens that you like or one lens that makes you uncomfortable, like one lens you never use and just go out and start shooting and force yourself into a prime that maybe isn’t you’re say used to always shooting wide-angle and you throw on the 55 or the 85, 1 35 or something or the macro and walk around and just see what you can capture. That oftentimes can spark, kickstart you into feeling something again. I know for myself, it was challenging during the pandemic, to want to shoot, and it was when I swam out in the ocean and started filming and photographing waves. It got fun. It just felt fun again and I think, there was all the energy into the book and the house and everything else, and all the anxieties, the global anxiety that’s going on, it just felt like what’s the point, and just getting out there and remembering that this is why I live here. I love the ocean. Waves are magical. I mean, they’re pulses of energy coming from thousands of miles away or hundreds of miles away. Finding something that gets you excited and just going out and capturing that.
Pierre Lambert: That’s awesome. Great tip. Especially with the lens. There is always that lens that we bought one day because we got excited and we never use it.
Ben Moon: Exactly.
Pierre Lambert: Ben, thank you so much. To everyone, we’re gonna link everything below, and that way people can check out your work, and thank you so much again.
Ben Moon: Thanks so much for having me, really appreciate it.
Pierre Lambert: Thank you so much for listening before you go. Would you like to receive once a week, a free short email with my top five inspirations photos with settings gear? I’ve loved that, And what has been watching, reading, or listening to that inspired my work in my life lately. If you want it just go to dot com for such top-five and you will be in every week. You will receive that short email to set you off on the good vibe for the weekend and inspire you now with that being said, have an amazing day. I’ll talk to you in the next episode. Bye.
The Pierre T. Lambert Podcast is where Pierre interviews the best creatives in the world to share their tips and stories. Enjoy & spread the word to your friends about this podcast! Pierre T. Lambert is a travel & adventure photographer & YouTuber followed by over 1,000,000 people. To listen to any of the past episodes for free, check out this page.