by Ben Willmore | Aug 10, 2015
Hi gang! I’ve been zipping all over between different events lately, and I even managed to get some shooting in. As you may know, I have an ongoing photography project that involves shooting a bunch of vintage service stations all over the United States. When we’re living in the bus (our RV), this is a lot easier because we’re constantly on the road. Lately, since we’ve been temporarily staying in one place, the project hasn’t seen much progress. However, I had a few speaking events in the midwest this month, and instead of flying between them, I decided to rent a car and check off some of the service stations that were on my list. In just a few days, I shot nearly a dozen stations and put about 1,000 miles on my rental car!
In total, I’ve found over 200 service stations that I want to photograph. My criteria is that they have to be vintage and that they must still have the building, pumps and sign. Many people ask me whether the stations are ever still in service and 99% of the time, the answer is no. Some of them have been preserved, some have been restored and converted into something else (office, pizza parlor, etc.) and some are in various stages of deterioration.
When I photograph the stations, I always take an iPhone shot first and then spend more time creating an image with my “big boy camera.” It’s nice to have the iPhone shots so that I can share them immediately, whereas it takes me a very long time to edit all of the raw files.
Here is a visual recap of my road trip and the service stations I photographed. These are all iPhone shots. More to come!
This is the route I drove to capture the stations between events.
The first station was in Madison, Kansas.
Second service station in Kansas.
This was a bonus station right around the corner from another one I shot in Wetmore, Kansas. I didn’t have this one in my database.
I captured this one, in Wetmore, Kansas, in the evening and then returned for the morning light, which is what you’re seeing here.
Captured this little beauty, which is hidden on private land that you have to hike to, in New Cambria, Missouri.
This one, in Macon, Missouri, had too new of pumps and wasn’t in the best shape, so I disguised it with a heavy texture treatment here.
This one, in Centerville, Iowa, took a while to capture since there was a pick up truck parked out front and it took almost an hour to find the owner and get them to move it.
This one has too much junk covering up the essence of the station so it also gets a heavy texture treatment. This one is a barbecue joint these days, in Lees Summit, Missouri.
After presenting a seminar all day in Kansas City, I hit the road to capture more stations. Here’s the first capture, in Clinton, Missouri.
Got to this location after dark and had to wait until morning to capture it. It’s a cute little station, but it felt odd spending an entire night in a town where my cell phone indicated “no signal”. (Stover, Missouri)
I was happy to get to this nice little Texaco station right before the rain hit. I was able to get my shot and the moment I started to drive away the rain started to fall! This is in De Soto, Missouri.
I was big-time bummed that the sign was missing here! It’s located inside the building, but is not currently hung. I’ve shot this station before, but didn’t have an ideal shot. I returned with my tilt/shift lens hoping to get something better, but that will have to happen another day. This one is on RT66, in Mount Olive, Illinois.
by Ben Willmore | Jun 8, 2015
Hi everyone! Here is a little update on what has been going on here in Ben land. We’ve been working on getting caught up and back into the swing of things after our long international trip, and we’re enjoying being land-based again. On May 29, I presented my first event of the new seminar tour, the Lightroom & Photoshop Creative Integration Tour, in San Francisco. There was a little scare with delayed flights, but I got there on time and the event went really well! We’ve got several more cities lined up, and you can see those HERE. Next up is Seattle on June 19th.
Here is the seminar description:
Ben Willmore is back with a brand new tour for 2015 that shows how best to integrate Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop. He’ll show you how to take best advantage of the new features in Lightroom 6 as well as how to move beyond its limitations by taking advantage of Photoshop’s advanced image processing features. You’ll learn how to get the most out of Lightroom by utilizing many hidden features that require the intimate knowledge that only an expert can provide. He’ll share the best methods for organizing your images, show you how to push your image optimization abilities beyond what you thought was possible and then show how to best integrate Photoshop into your workflow. Ben has been using both programs since they were introduced and is known for pushing them beyond what they were originally designed for to get more out of them than what anyone else can teach you. Don’t miss your chance to learn from a digital imaging legend… you’ll be amazed at what you can learn in just one day!
The welcoming crowd at my San Francisco event on May 29.
Back in Florida, where we’ve been hanging out these days, we’ve been doing a little exploring and shooting some more images in my yoga photography series. After seeing how popular the images have become, I’m constantly keeping my eyes open for new and unique locations to shoot more photos. One of the locations we visited was the Ringling Museum in Sarasota. This place is more that just a museum, and you could easily spend an entire day there. The grounds alone are beautiful and expansive. We really enjoyed the museum and the house tour, but the architecture was where it was at, photographically. I found lots of great locations to place Karen and ended up with seven or eight strong images from here. Here are a couple (The header image for this post was also shot there.):
We also drove out to Bok Tower and Gardens in Lake Wales, FL. This is a historic landmark featuring a large and ornate tower that houses a set of carillon bells. The grounds are also very extensive and include gardens, trails, a beautiful estate, cafe and visitor center. We took a tour of the estate and spent a good amount of time wandering the grounds. It’s a nice place to visit if you’re ever in the area. We shot the following yoga image here:
Finally, we did a little shooting at the beach. The sunsets over Florida’s gulf coast are especially spectacular this time of year, and lend themselves to some nice silhouette images. Here is one I shot at Indian Rocks Beach:
I’ve been posting all the images in this yoga series in an album on my Facebook page, and you can see those HERE. More to come!
by Ben Willmore | May 28, 2015
Hi all! After two months of international travel on a ship, I’m happy to say that we’re finally land-based again. The journey was fantastic, but it’s good to be back and getting into our groove again.
The recent trip took us to Hong Kong, China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. After about six weeks of Asia ports, we then cruised over to Alaska and down the west coast of the good old U.S. of A. When we’re on board the ship, we’re teaching a class. When we’re at port, we’re out exploring and shooting.
This was our complete route, starting in Hong Kong and ending in Los Angeles.
When we are out and about with our cameras, Karen and I usually find it pretty easy to “get into the zone,” so to speak, in our shooting endeavors. This trip, however, was a little different. We’re not sure why, but despite our engaging surroundings, we had a hard time getting into shooting mode. This isn’t an uncommon thing to happen to photographers, and it can be hard to figure out how to get out of a photographic funk. So how did we do it? By starting a photo series.
One of our early ports was in Keelung, Taiwan. We had been exploring for a while when we came across this shrine. It was pretty quiet there and we were sitting on an elevated platform when Karen asked me to take a quick iPhone shot of her. She’s a yogi and wanted to do a yoga pose in front of the unique building. I took the photo and then edited it in the Snapseed app while we sat there. I ended up liking it so much that we did another shot at that shrine with my “real” camera. I ended up liking this even more. We both decided that this would make a great collaborative series and that we could seek out interesting backdrops all over the world.
The first iPhone shot that sparked our photo series. Tree pose in Keelung, Taiwan.
This was the second shot we did at that same shrine. These red doors were begging for a photo! Wheel pose in Keelung, Taiwan.
Having a series that you’re working on changes the way you approach shooting, especially when traveling to new and unfamiliar places. Instead of simply wandering about looking for interesting shots, you’re exploring with a purpose. We would still take our normal travel photos, but we would constantly keep our eyes open for interesting locations to make a yoga image. We found that the spots that worked best were ones that were fairly simple and that incorporated shapes, colors or textures. The shape aspect is especially critical because it would have to complement whatever pose Karen is doing. Over the course of about two months, we would try to take at least one (sometimes more) yoga shot in each location. It has evolved into a fantastic collection that we’re both really proud of.
The challenges: Aside from the challenge of actually finding the locations, there are lots of other variables/challenges that go into creating these images. First of all, there’s the communication. I’m not a yogi, so Karen has to show me what the pose is going to look like and then teach me what to look for and how to correct her if necessary. I also need to convey to her what needs to be tweaked or moved so that she is perfectly placed within the chosen environment. After all, she can’t see what I’m seeing and often times, just moving her an inch or two will line things up in the way I want. There are also times where she has completely rejected an image that I thought looked pretty good. That’s because there was something about her form that wasn’t ideal. The other challenge is the crowds. It turns out that when she strips down to a tank top and bare feet and then contorts in some crazy and beautiful way, people want to watch. Most people are very considerate in that they don’t walk in front of the camera, but it can be disconcerting for her when there is an audience and she can hear the mobile phone cameras going off behind me. It’s totally expected, and we’re not bothered by it, but it does add another factor when creating these shots.
As I said before, we’re really proud of what this series has become, and it’s something we plan to continue. We’re not sure if we’ll use the images for anything in particular in the future, but it’s definitely a possibility. (Lots of folks have said that they would like to see this turn into a book.)
I am keeping an updated gallery of these images
on my Facebook Page, and have included a few more below. Enjoy!
I love that she appears to be diving into the water in this image. This was in Kodiak, Alaska and Karen’s palms were numb from the cold! The pose is called Peacock and she said it’s one of the most physically challenging poses in the series (so far.)
This pose is called Upward Facing Dog, and we took a taxi to this museum because we knew this sculpture was there. This is the art museum in Aomori, Japan.
Here is an instance where we WANTED the crowds! This is the busiest intersection in Tokyo, Japan. We found the spot for her to stand and as soon as the traffic lights turned red, she would get out there and hold this. I had to use a really slow shutter in order to blur out the people, and she had to hold very still. We stayed here for several traffic light cycles, taking lots of shots in order to get different variations on the blurred crowd.You can see the rest of this series
HERE.
by Ben Willmore | May 7, 2015
Hi gang! I know I’ve been away from the blog world for a while, and that’s because I’ve been on an extended international trip with VERY limited internet (more on that later). I did, however, want to pop in to share a bit of news.
I’m excited to announce the launch of a brand new seminar tour that will be kicking off later this month. It’s called the
Photoshop and Lightroom Creative Integration Tour, hosted by the fine folks at KelbyOne. This will be a full-day seminar that teaches you how to best integrate Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop.
Here’s the official description:
Ben Willmore is back with a brand new tour for 2015 that shows how best to integrate Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop. He’ll show you how to take best advantage of the new features in Lightroom 6 as well as how to move beyond its limitations by taking advantage of Photoshop’s advanced image processing features. You’ll learn how to get the most out of Lightroom by utilizing many hidden features that require the intimate knowledge that only an expert can provide. He’ll share the best methods for organizing your images, show you how to push your image optimization abilities beyond what you thought was possible and then show how to best integrate Photoshop into your workflow. Ben has been using both programs since they were introduced and is known for pushing them beyond what they were originally designed for to get more out of them than what anyone else can teach you. Don’t miss your chance to learn from a digital imaging legend… you’ll be amazed at what you can learn in just one day!
So far, here are the cities we currently have on the schedule:
- May 29 – South San Francisco, CA
- June 19 – Seattle, WA
- August 4 – Kansas City, MO
- August 6 – St Louis, MO
- October 19 – Houston, TX
- October 21 – Colorado Springs, CO
- October 26 – Los Angeles, CA
- December 9 – Fort Lauderdale, FL
- December 14 – San Diego, CA
I’m really excited to get back on the road again with KelbyOne, and am even more excited to bring you this fun and exciting new content! I hope to see many of you at one of the upcoming shows.
Click here to learn more and find out where to register.
More to come!
by Ben Willmore | Mar 19, 2015
Hi gang! We recently returned from Shooting the West, a photography symposium that takes place in Winnemucca, Nevada. While this was my first time speaking at this event, Shooting the West has been taking place annually for 27 years! Many of the attendees have been coming year after year, and some of them have attended all 27 years in a row. We could tell that this was one big family, and we were honored to be welcomed into it this time around.
I was this year’s keynote speaker, and I taught several classes and workshops as well. The workshops were fun because they gave us an opportunity to take students out into the field and do some shooting. For being a small town about 2.5 hours east of Reno, Winnemucca has a lot to offer photographically. The historic buildings and unique signs in town gave us some good subject matter for the HDR class, and the surrounding mountains (which were snow-capped during our time there) provided beautiful landscapes for my workshop on panoramas. We were also given access to a local farm that was just overflowing with antique cars, tractors and other vehicles that were great for practicing HDR. On the last day, the nearby airport held an open house where lots of small, vintage planes were on display in front of a sweeping, mountainous landscape. I love that this event incorporates a lot of shooting opportunities like this. Not only does it give me time to provide hands-on instruction to make sure everyone is getting the shot, but it’s fun to get outside, explore and join the students in the field.
Here, I’m shooting with some of the attendees during my panorama workshop.
One of our shooting locations was the Humboldt Museum, which is home to some historic buildings and overlooks the beautiful mountain landscape.
During the panorama workshop, we drove to the top of Winnemucca Mountain to photograph at sunset.
While the classes and shooting opportunities were great, the thing we enjoyed the most about Shooting the West was the people. The event organizers, the attendees and my fellow speakers were all just fantastic. Everyone was warm, welcoming and willing to go above and beyond to make sure the event was a success. We enjoyed working with everyone so much that, and the end of the day, we usually ended up going to dinner with many of them as well. This really gave us a better opportunity to get to know everyone and goof off a bit during the down time. (And if you’ve ever spent time with us at all, know know we’re professional goofs!)
If you’d ever consider attending Shooting the West (and I highly recommend it), here’s a little breakdown of the kinds of events/sessions available to you there. There are three full days of workshop sessions. These are longer, more in-depth classes that are generally hands-on and include in-the-field work. I mentioned before that I did a full-day workshop on HDR and another on panoramas, as well as a full classroom day on post-processing. The incredible Tom Bol taught some workshops on light painting, speedlights and portrait photography. There was a 3-day workshop on time-lapse photography, taught by Grant Kaye and a full-day workshop on composition with M.D. Welch. The list goes on an on.
The conference part of the event officially starts after the workshop days. This begins with the keynote presentation, which is followed by many shorter sessions that range from 15 minutes to an hour and a half. In addition to all this, there are portfolio reviews, a photography competition and after-hours events that include food, wine and lots of good company. The 2015 schedule is still up on the site if you’d like to check it out: http://shootingthewest.org/schedule/.
So where do we go from here? Well, Karen and I are getting ready to embark on our 2015 international journey, which will include Hong Kong, China, Japan, South Korea, Russia and Alaska. We’ll be guest instructors on board the beautiful Crystal Symphony cruise ship (the same ship we were on last year). Stay tuned for lots of images from Asia and beyond!
More to come…
A panolage that Karen shot during the panorama workshop at Shooting the West.
We got to photograph lots of vintage planes during the airport open house.
Here, I’m giving some pointers to one of the Shooting the West attendees at the airport open house.
Here I am with Jeff Ross, in his Reno studio. Jeff is an incredible photographer who also spoke at Shooting the West, and I was happy to be able to connect with him afterwards.
