004: Ben Sowry – Capturing Images That Will Be Cherished & Staying Humble

May 27th, 2020

“Don’t ever doubt yourself. You have the capacity to do beautiful things with your life. You just have to make the effort to do something and remain humble during the whole process”

BEN SOWRY

Hey everyone! It’s Sally here, from Studio Ninja. Today’s episode is a truly special one. We have the pleasure of welcoming Ben Sowry onto the show.

Ben’s journey to becoming a Wedding Photographer was far from easy. He shares the loss of his sisters and his grandparents so openly and urges all wedding photographers to give the gift of preservation to their couples. Each and every time you capture a portrait – you are giving someone an incredible gift. Ben is an insanely talented photographer who has shaped his business around his life experiences and presents beautiful, moving and heart-felt galleries to his couples. Not only this, Ben has been recognised for his talents by being named one of Rangefinders Top 30 Rising Stars, WBWP’s Top 100 Wedding Photographers and Junebug’s Best of The Best – 2 years running!

Get ready to listen to an episode that will totally transform the way you shoot candid images forever.

Check out some of the biggest points from Ben’s interview below:

Can you tell us a little about your journey to being a Wedding Photographer? 

I pretty much had a pretty crazy start to my career, it’s definitely been a bit of a rough road here. When I was a kid, I lost both of my sisters to late infantile Batten’s disease, which is an extremely rare inherited terminal illness in children. Tegan was like my older sister, and we lost her in 1994, and Chevon my little sister who we lost in 2002. They are among my very best friends and to lose them crushed my world in the most formative years of my life. Battens disease is super aggressive and it affects the motor skills and your ability to walk, talk, sit, and handle items. You’re eventually wheelchair bound with recurring seizures, blindness, and eventual death. They were both seven when they passed away, and my parents photographed every moment with them, in their lives, and everything was just done candidly.

And those photographs are something that I hold onto extremely dearly, and that gave me the realisation that I had the ability to give the gift of preservation, like my parents had given to me. When I was 17 I followed the footsteps of my grandfather and became an electrician, something so far from where I am now. And I pretty much photographed everything. Family events, annual Christmas parties, my grandparents’ 60th wedding anniversary. And there wasn’t necessarily any structure to what I was doing, but I just knew that these moments were important to me. And a few years later, I lost my grandmother to stroke and that devastated me because my grandparents were like my second parents.

So when my sisters were really struggling through their illness, they would adopt me and take care of me, so to speak. And my pop passed away just last year before our wedding, and he was my mentor through life, and a man that I truly admired for his craftsmanship and his love, and most certainly his devotion to my grandmother. And I’m thankful to have had him witness the transition of my career from an electrician, to what he did, to a photographer. And he backed me and my decision to his credit, all the way.

A year before we lost him, I went to his house for a regular Friday afternoon visit, but I took my camera, and I meaningfully talked with him around his home. And those photographs mean the world to us because that’s the house that he built with his own two hands, and he was so damn proud of it. And those photos, like my screensaver on my phone’s still one of the portraits that I took of him, and I haven’t changed it since we lost him because it just means so much to me to know that he’s with me wherever I go, and I can just glance at something and revisit him.

And now I only have my mom and my dad left and my wife, Georgia, and I feel so exceptionally lucky to have these incredible people in my life. And they’ve supported me through my transitions in career, and given me the approval and the guidance I needed to get me through. And having lost the majority of my family before the age of 29, really changed my perspective on what it means to document the world around us. I know firsthand that chances are that we’ll outlive most of our families, and everyone will go through the same pain that I’ve experienced.

And I keep that in the back of my mind when I’m photographing a wedding, that the community that surround my couple are just as important as the couple themselves. And I really long to document the interactions between loved ones. And it’s the little things, like the reassuring of the mother’s hand as it brushes her daughters back on the morning of the wedding, or a grandmother pulling out a tissue and licking it and wiping away crap off the young childs face, because there are things that happened to me, and there are things that I want to remember, and I know that means a lot to my clients. And I just want to make sure that I give them that little gift. So when the occasion arises, where they do lose them later on in life, they have something to carry with them. And it’s a moment that they and their families can look back on and find comfort in revisiting those moments.

You’re a huge believer in authenticity and steering away from those awkwardly posed couples’ faces that we see in the wedding industry. What are your top tips for guiding your couples when you’re doing your portraits?

I remember as a teenager, walking into my friend’s house and seeing a photograph of their parents on a canvas, like a huge canvas. And I remember walking in and saying, “That is the corniest photo of your mom and dad mate.” So corny, like it’s falling back, it’s give her a dip kind of photo. Like it’s nothing that I would ever do. I’m not sure if that was a trend that went through, but I see that pose over and over again, and it just really turned me off to the whole idea of posing. And in all seriousness, I think the portrait part of a wedding day needs to flow like a conversation. The conversation is based on the couples mood and personality. And if your couple is bubbly, light, lighthearted and just all around fun-loving, don’t try to throw them into some kind of golden, beautiful scene, let them be themselves and document them being them.

Let them wrestle and tease one another and bounce around. I think that’s a beautiful part of their relationship, and that’s exactly the reason they’re standing right in front of you in the first place. And establishing a strong relationship with your client is probably the biggest tip that I could give any photographer. If you have a genuine relationship with your subject, I find that they are way more likely to be vulnerable with you, and trust you enough to let them witness them cry, to be comfortable enough to forget that you’re there so they can kiss intimately and embrace one another like that. Sure you can still give them little cues to lead them in the right direction, because you want to get that lighting for dramatic effect obviously. But don’t steal the show because you’ve got the main acts there, just build strong relationships, create more meaningful photographs. Nothing is more beautiful than two people comfortable enough to be themselves in front of you.

If you could share one piece of advice, maybe something that really made a difference to your business or your life in general, what would that be?

Don’t ever doubt yourself. You have the capacity to do beautiful things with your life, and you just have to make the effort to do something, and remain humble during the whole process. And 10 years ago, I didn’t expect that I’d be a wedding photographer, it was something I fell into and became madly in love with. Something that I felt gave me purpose, and working with purpose doesn’t really feel like working at all. It still feels like my hobby, and everyday I acknowledge and am thankful for the career that I love.

And if you want it bad enough, you can make it your reality, and although there are sometimes struggles, that makes it so much more rewarding when you finally put one foot forward. And surrounding yourself with like minded people makes a lot of difference. I’ve lived and breathed photography for 10 years now, and the friends that I’ve made along the way have strongly influenced some of my decisions. I didn’t grow up in a creative family, but I’ve made my own in the friends that I’ve gained through that process.

Thank you!

Thanks again to you all for joining us and a huge thanks to Ben for talking so open and honestly about his life and journey into Wedding Photography. It was a true honour to listen to.

If you have any suggestions, comments or questions about this episode, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post, and if you liked the episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post!

That’s it for me this week, I hope you all enjoyed this episode – it’s been a total pleasure!

See you soon,

Sally