The concept of Harvesting Light was born some time in 2006 while shooting the landscapes of Alberta in Canada. During a discussion about the limitations that cameras have in capturing the dynamic range present in a given scene with local photographer Royce Howland, I said “All a camera really does is Harvest Light.” From that small seed I have formulated an entire process by which I go about making my images – one that is strongly grounded in creativity and expression. All the technique in the world won’t make you a better photographer if you don’t have the ability to see great compositions. Technical abilities allow one to overcome dynamic range, exposure and focusing challenges: They don’t make better compositions.

The Harvesting Light eBooks

The Harvesting Light process teaches you not just how to take technically excellent images that express the structure of the landscape, it intends for the photographer to become more expressive than that, and extend the message into feelings, emotions and moods. The viewer of the final images is left not only in no doubt as to what the landscape looks like, but how the photographer experienced it at the same time.

We achieve this by taking control of our images from start to finish – not pointing our cameras at a landscape and allowing the tool to make the majority of our creative decisions.

Photography is a unique marriage of art and craft, vision and techniques held together with intent and skilful processing. In each of the books, we will certainly be exploring dozens of up to date contemporary photography techniques, the cutting edge of our art in 2013. However, we will also journey far beyond that, discussing the hidden content of photography education; the stuff that takes images from the level of pure technically excellence, but to be expressive, moving and unique.

Harvesting Light is logical, progressive, reflective, and, like a magic trick once you understand how it’s done, becomes simple, intuitive and mostly subconscious. There are a very finite number of technical considerations in photography, and I aim to show you how to quickly and efficiently master these and free your mind from the constraints that shackle your creativity – Harvesting Light should be fun.

Beginning in the summer of 2013 – The Harvesting Light eBooks will start to become available – Subscribe to our free newsletter to be informed of these publications.

Alister Benn was born and raised in Scotland, and coming from an outdoor family, grew up with a profound interest and respect for the natural world and the environments around him. It was somewhat inevitable that he would end up traveling the world in search of wild places, foreign cultures and fuel for his wanderlust.

By pure chance he met his wife in Beijing in 2000, and since then, Juanli Sun has joined Alister in his travels. By 2005 however, they had settled in the mountain town of Lijiang, in SW Yunnan, not far from the Tibetan border, and for the next 7 years dedicated the majority of their time to extensive exploration of this region; it’s landscapes and the Tibetan people.

Author’s Statement

To me, the landscape is my place to be me; I can walk for hours along an ocean shoreline, on mountain ridges, or through delicate forests, and not just with the purpose of making images. The environment is a fluid and fascinating place, with it’s animals, birds, insects and plants, each one a little micro-system just waiting to be experienced. In truth, I am drawn mostly to the landscape by night – when the solitude, quiet and isolation allow me to just exist, almost as if in a vacuum.

For many years, I would measure my experiences of the wilderness by the images I produced, and eventually would become disappointed if the shots did not happen, or the light failed to wow me. I soon realised that this was wrong, and I learned to simply appreciate these experiences for what they were. In time, my images improved, as I became more eloquent in my expression of how I felt about the landscape; simply, if photography is a visual language, I had decided what I wanted to say.

Technical ability is my passport to allowing myself freedom of expression – when I encounter a landscape that screams at me to make an image, I am not limited by my camera or lack of technique. I can focus 100% on my compositions, my emotions and messages, letting much of the technique flow by on a purely subconscious level.

I write my books the same way I talk to people face to face – they are written with passion and integrity, and can be enjoyed by photographers of any skill level. There is no rocket science involved in making great images, just an understanding of disciplines that need to be learned and a passion to reach a bar of our own making. Photography is a personal journey of expression, but it always amazes me how many people make it competitive; especially in these days of forums, social networks and billions of images online.

Art is not about f-stops and metering, it is a release for the soul.

2009-2012: Seeing the Unseen – How to Photograph Landscapes at Night

Alister first started taking images by moonlight in the autumn of 2004 and for the following few years spent a lot of time developing his craft and an understanding of the difficulties involved in creating images at night. The desire to collate this into a complete “how to” guide was very strong, and these years were dedicated to traveling from Tibet and the Himalaya, to Spain, Indonesia and Thailand to create the images necessary to illustrate the book. The eBook was finally published in March 2012 – Seeing the Unseen – How to Photograph Landscapes at Night

2012: The Sacred Mountains of Tibet

The couple have lived in the Tibetan region for over 7 years and in that time developed a deep love for the area, it’s people and landscapes. To celebrate this they published a free eBook in November 2012 – Download The Sacred Mountains of Tibet FREE

2013-14: The Harvesting Light eBook Series

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I have heard many arguments over the years about how much camera equipment comes into the process of making meaningful images, and we’ve all heard the quote “That’s an amazing photograph, you must have a great camera.” Virtually every professional photographer will wince at it, but deep down, most of us also have quite good cameras!

As someone who specialises in night/low light photography, I will freely admit that contemporary DSLR cameras and state of the art processing software allow me to create images that were impossible only a few short years ago. Our cameras are tools that allow us to create expressive images that represent not just the physical structure of something we have seen, but also how we feel about it.

In my eBooks I express a very clear opinion that our camera equipment is there to allow us to Harvest Light – recording the available light at the time, but not relying 100% on our cameras to make all our creative decisions for us. Cameras are increasingly sophisticated tools, but they do not know how my eyes are perceiving the scene – more often that not, what the camera produces left to its own devices, is a compromise.

All images are processed – even the image that comes straight from the camera. In my forth-coming Harvesting Light series of eBooks, I will be detailing the creative process from start to finish, teaching that photography is made up of multiple disciplines that often run simultaneously, rather than some linear process that is so often taught.