Five months ago my brother sent me a link to Ben Kelly's website and I was immediately drawn to his collection of images titled Suburbs At Night. At first glance the photographs appeared to be simple suburbia landscapes. But after closer study of the images you start to notice the finer details - like the beautiful subtle light, the colours and his choice of subjects. What is most striking about Ben's work is the atmosphere contained within the images which he manages to capture effortlessly. There is a eerie feeling of the calm before the storm, like something really bad was about to happen, or something very sinister did happen and that the landscape is concealing some kind of dark sinister secret. We got in touch with Ben to get a better understanding of the concept behind his work and what food combination really gets his taste bugs going.

Hi Ben can you please tell us a bit about yourself, some general stuff about your life as a child growing up till now, how you got into photography and maybe some stand out experiences and events that has lead you to this point in your life where you are using photography as a medium to express your creativity?

I grew up in the outer suburbs of Melbourne. I remember when I was about eight I was given a disposable camera for Christmas by an auntie. I loved it, I couldn't stop taking photos of things. I walked around my grandparents’ house taking photos of inane things like the wall, and people playing tennis on tv. There was just a thrill to pushing the button and capturing a shot. I was incredibly disappointed when they came back and were all basically blurry and black. When I was a teenager I used to climb onto the roof of our house and watch these amazing sunsets, and wished I had a camera. But my priorities at the time were still playing basketball and Nintendo. I studied photography in high school for one semester where we shot B&W film. I mostly remember that we spent so much class time preparing and processing. From clipping and feeding 30 shot lengths of film from a large canister onto a roll, then loading this into the camera, and after shooting; developing the film, then exposing and printing just to get one print each lesson afforded me about 10-15 minutes to actually take photos. I just wanted to get out there and shoot. This made me think that photography wasn't for me. But the feeling of wanting to take photos never went away. I bought a digital camera about five years ago and have been taking photos ever since.

Why do you think that "feeling" stayed with you after all these years, is it something you can describe in words?

I guess it was a case of having tried everything else, so photography became the one thing I wanted to do but hadn't. In the mean time I spent my time drawing and painting and putting together other various types of art. I still do these other things occasionally when I get an idea and some time/motivation, but my main focus now is photography.

If a teenager walked up to you and said they wanted to study photography but their teacher said they couldn't cut the mustard, what advice would you give them?

Well, as with most things in life, there's a lot of work you need to do to become good at something, and if someone’s opinion is enough to make you reconsider doing it, then perhaps it’s not for you. If it’s something you really want to do, you’ll continue to do so regardless of one teacher.

Do you think the semester in high school where you learnt the whole process of B/W film was important to your understanding of photography and influenced how you work today?

It’s definitely made me respect other photographers' practice, and not just look to the resulting image, especially those whose work uses a completely different format or medium to mine; and I don’t just mean 35mm film. Artists like John Chiara, who I just came across recently, who build their own camera from scratch. There’s a great short-doco of his work here.You have to respect someone putting in so much work to get one shot. It was only after taking photos for about four years and felt that I had developed my own style and understanding of what I wanted to do through photography that I started paying attention to other photographers, or even showing other people my work. I started putting my work out on the internet about 18 months ago, and have learnt about other photographers' whose work I like through comments I've received on my own work that say something like “this really reminds me of this artist’s work”. I would then google them and discover these great artists that have parallels with my own work.

Five years ago when you bought that digital camera was there a plan to take your photography in a certain direction and how do you think you have developed as a photographer since then?

I started out photographing traditional landscapes, going on road trips to the beach and the surrounding rainforests on weekends. When I had photographed these same spots over and over I started looking for something else. In 2006, I went to Turkey for a solar eclipse, so I bought myself a tripod, and while I was there started to play around with night photography and was instantly hooked. I ended up getting my camera stolen on my last night in Istanbul, but it was sort of a blessing, because the shots I was taking there were really limited by the camera which was automatic, which gave really varied results. So when I got back, I bought myself an SLR. I started out taking photos of local parks at night, and then moved onto car parks. After doing these kinds of shots for a year or so and developing an understanding of light and colour and exposure at night I moved onto the suburbs, which seemed to exist somewhere in between parks and car parks.

You have photographed many structural landscapes and landscapes in general especially within suburbia, what attracted you to this particular subject?

From the days of sitting on the roof of my house and watching the sunset I've always had a connection with nature and the landscape. Growing up, nothing inspired awe like a great landscape shot of something like a mountain range that took you to a place you'd never been. A particular point of difference in my shots compared to a traditional landscape is that while traditional landscapes aim to portray a place in its best possible light, at dusk or dawn, my night photos use artificial light and aim to portray a place that during the day would be overlooked, but by night suddenly comes alive. My day photos are almost always shot using overcast skies, which gives the shot a detachment from time and place.

Can you talk about the process you go through when photographing these landscapes, some of the gear you use and are there particular things you look for?

Everything I photograph comes to me almost by chance. When driving around at night I might drive past a side street and take a glance, and in that passing second see something that takes my eye. Many times I’ve seen something when unable to shoot, and returned to it again and again when I had the chance. For example, the particular light that made the shot is never on, or there’s a car parked in the way that just happened to be out for the night when I first saw the shot. So there's definitely an element of luck involved. I'm drawn to the serenity of these spaces once human activity has ceased. Rather than during the day when the space is purely functional, for living and travelling around, at night it returns to being a quiet, empty landscape, as it would have been hundreds of years ago. Each scene is intentionally devoid of human activity, as well as signage and cars, so it’s as if the landscape - though created by humans over what was once a natural environment - somehow returns to that place. It’s similar with my day shots. I see the structure, once removed from its role as a functional device, as sculpture - a relic of a past time. I shoot with a Nikon D90, and a cheap tripod that I got for under $30, that’s lasted for five years without a problem.

Have you ever been hassled while photographing on the streets, are people curious when they notice a guy with a camera on a tripod late at night in the middle of the street?

I've never been hassled so much, it's just more a curiosity that people have. I'm not the only person out there shooting at night in Melbourne, but most people would have never seen someone walking around an empty street alone at 1am in the morning taking photos. So they are interested, and sometimes ask what I'm doing, and why. A short explanation as to why you're taking a photo of a street light isn't easy to explain in a sentence. There are times when you will be taking a photo of a house and the next-door neighbour will come home, but rather than getting out and confronting you, they just sit in their car watching you. I just ignore them, and eventually they go inside.

What type of cuisine and drink combination really satisfies you?

Pizza and a Makers Mark and coke would be a good start.

Are there any photographers you can recommend for us to check out and what are some of the things that inspires you in relation to photograph?

I was recently the curator of the photos of the month for Land magazines website which featured my favourite 20 photographers I've come across on flickr. Other than these, I also love the work of Bas Princen and Joseph Schulz. I find any photograph that takes me to a place I've never been, or would love to go inspires me.

Finally how do you think photography can contribute and be useful to society?

As with any art form it can inspire, question or discuss society, creating discussion surrounding beauty, truth and ugliness, which I think is ultimately its most important aspect. As a specific tool, photography's ability to document the otherwise unseen acts in the world -in particular war, cruelty and truth- are immensely useful to show people that something wrong is happening and that something must be done to stop it. The war in Vietnam, and the photos of torture in Abu Ghraib are of particular note in this respect.

Thanks Ben, YMY Collective