Posted on: February 7th, 2012 by Ben Gebo | 2 Comments
St. Marie, Montana. This is a small town in Valley County in the northern part of the state. It’s another piece of forgotten American history that outside eyes rarely see. It was the home of a working Air Force base back in the 1950′s, but since then has been decommissioned. Although there are still almost two hundred people living in the town Read more…
Posted on: December 13th, 2011 by Ben Gebo | No Comments
There’s a lot of things happening this month. I am currently working with Boston-based Architect Diane Lim(Lim Design Studio) on various projects throughout the city. I recently photographed the newly opened Sweet Cupcakes on School Street downtown for her. Those pictures will most likely be in my next post. She was the architect who also worked on Hi-Rise Bakery which I shot this past October(See previous post). It’s great to be able to have my hands in a bunch of different architectural projects, I find it helps test my approach to make “new” photographs. After all, every photo shoot is Read more…
Posted on: August 25th, 2011 by Ben Gebo | 1 Comment
In mid-June, I head out on a road trip across the country to document America. My initial intention was to “diagnose America”, which I realized gave me an instant negative stance in the way I was going to view things. I realized that would be a too obvious of an approach. So I asked myself, “Why not shoot America the way I shoot everything else?” If you could talk to any person in history, Read more…
Posted on: April 27th, 2011 by Ben Gebo | No Comments
I’ve taken a few trips to Colorado recently over the last half-year for work and otherwise, so I thought I would show some of my favorites pictures. There’s one shot with some fellas on a mountain, I’m the one in the middle. I also posted a full resolution panorama that’s 360° from the top of the mountain, but it may take a minute or two to load. Maybe just let it do it’s thing in another window while you look at the rest of the pictures. It wasn’t taken from that Boulder mountain peak that’s shown in the first shot, but I do plan on dominating that one next time I’m there..
This summer I am heading out on a two week road trip around the Country. For now, the only things I know I’m doing is climbing some Montana mountains, visiting from friends in Chicago, saying “Hello” to the super nice folks in Iowa, get the crap scared out me of in Centralia, PA and cruise around on a speeder bike in the Redwoods. I’d like to get to Portland and see some more of the Northwest too, but if we can’t, I don’t doubt we’ll visit some other amazing places and meet some cool people.
Oh, I also submitted a portrait of Illustrator Adam Tavares to PDN’s Faces Contest. Take a look at what I submitted, and if you like what you see, give me a vote.
Here is a mockup of what my future website will look like. It’s still a few weeks out with some changes, but I know it’s going to look great when it’s finished. The total website creation is in the hands of Donovan Brien and Mat Budelman, both really great designers out of Boston that I’m very happy to work with.
Thanks for looking.
Posted on: September 30th, 2010 by Ben Gebo | No Comments
I am currently benefiting from a change of environment and atmosphere. I am writing this while driving through Omaha, Nebraska en route to Boulder, Colorado. Three nights prior to this one, which just so happened to be my 26th birthday, I spoke at an event called Pecha Kucha and discussed my experiences of overcoming creative droughts. This event collects a handful of people across various creative fields, although most have something to do with design, to discuss whatever they want in front of other like-minded creatives. Current projects, some new form of innovation inside their own industry, or something completely unrelated but having a relevant point, these are all things past speakers have chosen to speak about in prior events.
The platform is set up to show 20 slides, displaying one slide every 20 seconds. I was obviously going to show photographs, just a matter of what I wanted to say about my pictures. I spoke of something that any creator has experienced and will continue to experience: trying to break out of creative slumps. Why this current road trip I am on is important to the speech I gave is because of the three things I found helped get me out of such slumps: Embracing failure, limiting yourself and renewing your surroundings.
I found that if you place yourself in any new surrounding, it alters your perception and way of thinking. Whether for better or worse, all environments evoke a particular sense of space on conscious and
unconscious levels. I found while I was running in the same circles and feeling the unclassifiable stress from predictable routines, I felt my world getting smaller. Distancing yourself from your comforts and common environments force you to form a new connection with any newly arrived place.
Alright, it’s my turn get behind the wheel. I’ll try to get the presentation posted online soon. For now, enjoy pictures from the road trip.
