Thank you for joining us in our 26th edition of PT Explorers Benito! Would you please introduce yourself to our readers?
Well, I am professional nature photographer since 1988, a long ride. On the way I had a very nice life, working as script and photography director in TV documentaries and series, teaching, sharing, very much involved with associations. I am one of the Spanish Confederation of Photography (CEF) ambassadors, president of IFWP (International Federation of Wildlife Photographers) representing 18 associations and several thousand end members. Former president of AEFONA (Spanish Association of Nature Photographers), so many things but finally I am very proud of having met many of good people, persons involved in Nature conservation that inspired me to do something. So, I have started several projects about nature respect and conservation. One of them is 100% Natural, one of the largest disclosure projects about Nature in Europe. Another one is S.O.S. Spanish Coastline, about the need to preserve what is left of the natural coast in Spain, most of it overbuilt with urbanizations and hotels. I have been with ILCP (International League of Conservation Photographers), no longer active as it doesn´t reach Europe. About my teaching projects this one is in two main servers, 41 lessons, 200 hours teachings, for free:
http://unanodefoto.webcindario.com
https://365diasdefotografia.neocities.org/
You can also find an App for free for Android:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=appinventor.ai_rb_arestegui.UADF
Firstly, we would love to know, where did your passion for nature and wildlife photography arise from?
That´s what I´d like to know… Since I was a child of three years my passion for Nature has ruled my life. No family or friend as referent, it simply came to me, books, magazines, Tv programs… At the age of 14, I found some friends and founded an NGO in my city (Alicante, Spain) that made some interesting things in contact with some others at national level.
What would you consider are some of your principles, and how do you bring them into your work? What is your approach in the field in managing ethics and capturing moments?
My ethical work has been also taken to many associations as a Decalogue (https://www.aefona.org/wp-content/ uploads/2019/06/Codigo-etico-deAEFONA.pdf)
But my ethical position here can be briefly explained.
1.- Ethics are personal, cannot be imposed. A lack of ethical values will impoverish you.
2.- First try to understand. Try to be empathetic.
3.- If your photo is going to disturb an animal, consider if it is worth, you have to live with yourself for a long time.
4.- Try not to do anything irreversible for Nature.
In the last several years, climate change and environmental situation awareness has grown. How do you think we as wildlife photographers can work closer towards wildlife conservation?
There are many actions we can take… We can raise conservation projects, we can inspire to audiences, we can deliver powerful images to encourage people, we can work aside scientists, we can show the magnificent dignity of every single wild creature… It is important that any of us now start doing something. As you may already know, everything is connected, the energy flows, we cannot damage the planet without receiving some of the damage back.
Tell us about your Photographic – Conservationist Project: S.O.S Sea Landscapes. What has been the impact on the society and the authorities?
It was great! We achieved joining a huge group of several professions and skills. We made information available about all the coasts in Spain, the landscapes we lost forever and those which can still be preserved. Our goals were such as ruin removals of unauthorized buildings by the coast, downsizing some car parkings according to the cove or beach extension… and finally Greenpeace used our photos and data for the 2015 report about Spanish Coastline.
Tell us something about one of your favorite images and the story behind it.
One of the pictures is entitled “The forests of the future” and shows a field of huge wind energy generators with a small tree below. It is picture of contrast in the message: the huge and the small, the machine and the living tree, the fragile and the strong… It was taken with a very long focal length (400 mm f/2,8 + teleconverter) in order to comprise the landscape and preserve the scale.
Another one I used to show in an inspiration for conservation presentation with the text “Good planets are not easy to find”. It is a tire abandoned on a dry soil. It is so simple a photo, but I feel it delivers the message together with the words.
And one favorite of the audiences, depicts a couple of Bee Eaters (Meropsapiaster) shaping a colorful heart. Many people feel the wonder of nature when they see the photo.
After winning awards for years in several prestigious international competitions, as a Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Glanzlichter, Asferico among others, you are now often a jury. What do you consider the most important thing when choosing a winning photo?
For those who have experienced working in a recording or filming crew the stress in nature photography cannot exist. It is not a film with actors, nothing can be managed at all, so patience and resilience are good companions. My first experience was when I was 22 years old, filming with a cinema Aaton camera for a documentary called “Habitat”, that showed in 1988 how was my province’s nature for the province Government. In some of the series we found stories of coexistence between we, human, and wild plants and animals. Another series was shot underwater, showing wilderness and devastation. Some of these works (15 chapters series for TV) took years of recording and were both, delightful and exhausting. Mediterranean is my last work as scriptwriter and photography director, also involving drone recording. It is a 50 min documentary trying to highlight how Nature is, magnificent, sublime. This one is part of myself.
You have spent years promoting and training people about photography. What has inspired or motivated you to share all your knowledge?
The main reason is that it is vocational, I cannot prevent it.
I have been doing this hardly for so many years and now I feel that I have influenced a generation in my country. I feel so happy about this. Many people have learnt that a picture never justifies disturbing a wild animal, that we don´t photograph for ourselves, that we have to be an example for the young ones, that it is so nice to share, so nice to contribute with our images to make a better world… Photography, music, sculpture, painting… are creative processes, creative also for creation, we create, we construct, we contribute to inspire. Such a nice life creating and not destroying.
What do you think is one of the greatest difficulties for someone trying to get into the field of wildlife and conservation photography?
I think the main thing is to feel that your life is going to be dedicated to this, maybe not fulltime, maybe not straight from the beginning, but you better feel deeply what you do, because good times and bad times come and go. Another important thing is to learn working in teams, together with scientists, researchers, conservationists… Learn to be part of a bigger thing. Another is to make it sustainable, if you involve so much that forget about yourself, you will impoverish, is important to take care of yourself, don´t leave you welfare for tomorrow as you doing important things for the rest. So, find to make it a job (stock agencies, NGO´s, conservation companies…) and get some earnings, that is also taking care of yourself, nobody else will pay your expenses or rest your body and mind.
What about the gear you use?
It is simple, inexpensive and old. I used to teach a funny thing: it is not the arrow that kills you, but the person. It is a way to say that the gear is not important if you know how to use it
I have a camera 11 years old but makes what I need.
I work with two main lenses, not stabilized, 20 years old:
17-40 mm f/4 and 70-200 f/2,8.
Both can be bought for USD 1,000 second hand.
For some special photography I purchased cheap and share with friends a 180 mm macro and a 400 mm telephoto.
A few words on your future projects and goals.
I am working on a long-term project about how we, human beings, face difficulties in life. It is a portfolio of pictures taken outdoors focusing on the hands of a person. Every picture has to make us understand how the person showing the hands is feeling. Under any of these pictures there is a drama, trying to communicate strongly.
Finally, is there anyone in the wildlife photography field you look up to for their work or has been an inspiration to you?
Inspiration There are many, and many do not know how they inspired, not only me, but so many others as well. We are not conscious about what we change, we simply pass by. In Europe I have so many referents very much unknown in America. Of course, those pioneers in nature photography, Emerson, Fox-Talbott, Karl Blossfeldt… also the American conservationists: Carleton Watkins, William Henry Jackson, and later Ansel Adams. But first of them it was the Hudson River School of painter which started the conservation movement, specially Thomas Moran and his paintings of Yellowstone. I prefers paintings to photographs when I look for. For contemporary photographers I admire the works of my friends Klaus Nigge, Niall Benvie, Jan-Peter Lahall, Pal Hermansen… so many referents I have, I´m afraid.
