Ben Z Mund Photography

11/09/2021

I love this shot of . Our (great) crew was running around free reign in the Venice Beach neighborhood this day because the country supervisor who was tasked in policing us decided to stay home and practice lines or play xbox or something. This for some reason gave us what felt like a free ticket to just go anywhere and find fun locations. This particular backdrop was just a man’s home who afterwords came out to chat about living in that space for 30+ years and all the filming he’s seen. He even offered us use of his bathroom. What a neighborly guy.

10/25/2021

Trying to shoot during the pandemic is tricky. One advantage was the hotels had room for us to safely use their spaces. Thanks to the crew who did so much work on this series.

10/14/2021

Anyone know this wall down on Venice beach? A little history: this wall is totally legal to spray paint so it has hundreds of layers over the years. When I shot this we had to have a park monitor there supervising the team- she was telling me that under all these layers of paint is there original advertisement from the 50’s i think. Well one well it got so hot in LA that the entire outer layers of paint peeled off to expose the original ad. Maybe a soap ad? Someone tell me if I’m right. Anyway this thick slab of hundreds of layers of spray paint was just laying there until artists grabbed it up and made jewelry from it. I would have loved to see some, it must have been super colorful. Funny to think about all the tags, quotes etc that now live forever on someone’s earlobes 😂
Thanks to an amazing team on this series. The model is no longer on ig so i won’t name her.

08/10/2021

Hi Everyone,

I have been working on a project over our cross country trip as well as in Portland Or. This is something I will be updating from time to time so that you can follow these interviews and eventually have info on the show once that is complete.
My concept is to show the similarities we all share through our own personal struggles. I would like to challenge people's judgements on the humanity inside of homelessness and in so doing find a spark of kinship.

Many of the homeless people I talk with have served. Very often, due to past trauma or loss of family support, they have found it hard to get help getting themselves back on their feet. This is just a sample population of homelessness as so many men, women and children are dealing with this struggle day after day.

This purpose is to honor the humanity and dignity that we all have and letting these people show themselves and share their stories through audio, video or just as notes taken from our conversations.

By creating Civil War era vintage photos of each subject I am asking the viewer to create their own narrative of the history of that individual. Combined with the videos and audio interviews they will more closely experience that through their eyes.

This is a not for profit project and once we decide to have a show or sell prints those funds will go fully to the homeless and veteran organizations helping these people. Right now I am in Rochester NY, please stay tuned for more and you can also follow the blog link here: https://www.benzmund.com/veterans-project

Thanks!


~Ben

11/19/2020

We shot this out at the Croft Farm on Sauvie Island last Summer; the Fall Nike Need it Now campaign for Finish Line and JD sports. We came up with the concept, facilitated models, location, with a great crew and client. This was when all the fires were happening earlier this year in Oregon and California so we were balancing that smoke and worry with keeping things safe from the virus.

Shot with Broncolor Scoro & Para 222 using the Ultra Soft 18% grey Soft Egg Crate by Lighttools.

Drone footage by

Big thanks to:

c.clark





Matt Bean

Talent:



Piper K



hope




Location:

Special thanks to

08/18/2019

08/08/2019

One of may favorite shots and it happened somewhat unscripted as many of the good ones do! For Nike Footlocker- House of Hoops campaign.

11/29/2018

This would be a genius series...

If you’ve ever been in a relationship with a woman, you know the drill. They bring you shopping, saying they just have to get “one thing”, only to leave you to wait for hours on end while holding all their things. That’s a little bit of a stereotype, but it is also very much rooted...

11/26/2018

Can we all just agree once and for all?