Ben Yan
“Photography is the tool with which I find peace and flow”
Image © Ben Yan
For me personally, street photography has allowed me to see the beauty in everyday occurrences and thus maintain an optimistic attitude, despite the challenging circumstances. I wanted to share this with those close to me, with the hopes of brightening their daily routines.
I invited several of my friends on my photo walks throughout the city and asked them to serve as my subjects. I curated scenes where they acted as ‘the anonymous person’ in compositions where I would usually have to wait for a stranger to come across my frame.
Prior to this project, my work in photography was almost always conducted physically and mentally alone, 100% present with my surroundings. It was my form of meditation. Taking someone along with me was initially very disruptive.
I felt my attention drawn away from the scenes around me and I was instead focused on keeping conversation going. We walked at an otherwise normal walking pace, but much too quick for my work on the street. There was no room for the pauses and moments of contemplation that occurred all too often when I was on my own.
Image © Ben Yan
Natural Obstacles: I started by revisiting locations where I had preconceived ideas for images | Image © Ben Yan
Natural Obstacles: I started by revisiting locations where I had preconceived ideas for images | Image © Ben Yan
However, after the first sessions, the collaborations became much more harmonious. I felt more confident in my directional abilities, and my friends adapted to my pace and also advanced quickly as models.
One of my most memorable moments on this project was coming upon a scene that I thought might be a great setting for an image and having an epiphany – I could create every ‘what if’ moment that I wanted to! Before, my work always required a heavy dose of luck and spontaneity – the right person at the right time in the right pose. Now, I had control over nearly all of that; I felt like I had just opened a portal to a new universe of possibilities.
Whereas my usual body of work consists of whatever the world throws at me, the only limit I had for this project was my own imagination. I’ve come to realize that both are equally useful, and mutually beneficial. The randomness of the street shows me new possible images that I couldn’t have conceived on my own. The process of carefully curating and positioning allows me to bring scenes to life when it would’ve taken immense luck and time to see them happening organically on the street.
The Gear
My camera body of choice was FUJIFILM X-Pro 3. The first time I picked one up was in the FUJIFILM store in Istanbul; I fell in love pretty much instantly, but it was way out of my price range at the time. Being given one to use for this project was a complete dream come true. For my lens, I went outside of my comfort zone and made most of the images with FUJINON XF16mmF2.8 R WR (24mm equivalent). I typically use a 35mm (50mm equivalent) focal length, but I opted for the wider lens to frame more of the scene, creating images that make the viewer feel as if they are there, rather than looking into a different world. I chose the F2.8 version, as I did not need the extra stops of light or shallower depth-of-field that come with XF16mmF1.4 R WR.
The wider field of view quickly became second nature to me. It is very similar to my natural peripheral vision and I began to ‘see’ in 16mm about two weeks into using the lens. I think creating exclusively with just the one focal length helped me rewire my brain in a way that a zoom lens couldn’t. The lack of direct access to the rear screen on X-Pro 3 helped me stay in the moment and not check my images after every click. It also acted as a waist-level viewfinder, which was a very enjoyable experience that was almost reminiscent of older film cameras.
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