Author Archives: Bill Bennett

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About Bill Bennett

I am an Australian based producer and director of feature films and documentaries, and author of several novels and non-fiction books.

Easter in Santiago

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I’ve been so immersed lately in the detail of this tour – organising hotels, places to eat, checking routes, locking in support facilities etc – that I seem to have overlooked one really important thing –

We’ll be walking into Santiago de Compostela on Easter Saturday, and we’ll be there on Easter Sunday for the Semana Santa celebrations.

The Catholics in Spain take Easter more seriously than Christmas.

They have parades, processions, they do recreations of the Christ story with huge effigies, and on Sunday there’s feasting, dancing, and all manner of festivities. It’s a crazy time evidently.

And we’ll be right in the thick of it.

Yes there’s the walking, yes there’s the camaraderie, yes there’s the good food and wonderful wine – but we’re also walking an ancient pilgrimage route. And we’re arriving in one of the holiest cities in the world, on one of the holiest days.

As most of you might know, I’m not Catholic, and I’m not even sure I’m a Christian – I veer towards Buddhism – however I think walking the Camino into Santiago at Easter will be pretty damn cool…

Cathedral clouds

Walking poles – an epiphany

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As many of you might know from my blog posts last year, I used to hate walking poles.

I hated them with a passion.

I regarded them as spitting in the face of The Romantic Pilgrim.

Before I walked the Camino Frances, I had this preconceived and misguided notion of what a pilgrim was. And I thought that metallic technical walking poles were the antithesis of the true pilgrim.

I wasn’t a gourd / scallop shell hanging off the manufactured wooden pole kind of bloke – that was way too touristy for me. But I did believe in the sanctity of the wooden pilgrim’s staff. Like St. James would have done.

Anyone who’s read my book (was that just a plug?) will remember the lengths to which I went to find EXACTLY the right kind of staff in St. Jean Pied de Port. And then I got to Pamplona, with my knee the size of a ripening watermelon, and was talked into buying walking poles.

As the hospitalero said in the albergue in which I was staying: “You either use walking poles, or you give up on completing your Camino.”

So I bought the poles – my Hungarian mate Balazs advised me to get a pair of Leki poles, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I can say without doubt that the hospitalero was correct – had I not bought those poles when I did, I wouldn’t have made it to Santiago.

Thing was, I never really knew how to use them.

I was completely uncoordinated with them. As anyone who’s read my book will know, (was that just another plug?) I developed this weird way of walking with them which looked very odd, but seemed to work.

I likened it to the kick of a long distance swimmer – so that I put my poles down every second step. It’s hard to explain, but it got me through.

I remember watching people who really knew how to use them, and they seemed to do so effortlessly. They were graceful. And every time I tried to emulate them, I ended up looking like a drunken sailor on the deck of a ship in a storm.

Most of the people who used them well came from the Scandinavian countries, where from a young age they’re taught to use ski-poles for walking in the snow. I studied them, but try as I might, I just couldn’t nail it.

I tried everything – coordinating my arm movements with my feet. That didn’t work. I’d get “out of sync” really quickly.Then I tried to just find a rhythm – that didn’t work either. I’d get out of rhythm really fast.

And then I had an epiphany climbing up Mt. Misery. (I’m sure many a person has had an epiphany climbing up Mt. Misery. It’s an epiphany kind of place. They should build an ambulance depot at the base.)

In the end, it was very simple. It wasn’t about coordinating my arms – it wasn’t about finding a rhythm. It was easy. It was about placing the pole on the ground in exact timing to the fall of your foot.

And then suddenly – I could do it perfectly! Like all those Swedes and Norwegians!

Let me explain –

At the moment that your left foot strikes the ground, you place your right pole on the ground opposite where your left heel falls. You don’t worry about your arms – your arms will by necessity find the right place to be at the right time.

The other thing I found epiphanious (if that’s correct English usage) is that you don’t worry about the left pole and the right foot. You just worry about one side. For me, that’s the left foot and the right pole. Do this, and your body will adopt its own synchronicity and the other side will automatically follow.

This to me was the biggest breakthrough. Suddenly it all became effortless. If I dyed my hair blonde and had salmon-breath, you could mistake me for a Swede…

I also found that angling the pole slightly backward, so that it was in line with the heel, helped with propulsion forward. You lose power if you angle the pole too far forward.

Now, most of you will probably at this point say: DOH BILL, THAT’S WHAT I’VE ALWAYS DONE, YOU MORON. 

And if you say that, then I will say to you in return that pilgrims shouldn’t talk to other pilgrims that way. Be nice.

But yes, it’s probably been something that most of you have done from the get-go and taken for granted, but it’s taken me all this time to discover it.

For those of you who’ve had trouble with walking poles, and you try this out and it works for you, then all I can say with due humility is that once again, this blog changes lives…

(Oh, and by the way, my book is available on Amazon – either Kindle or paperback.)

Bill’s fantastic book – you can buy it HERE

(Was that just a plug?)

Here below is a sequence which I got Jennifer to photograph. Some of you will remember that Jennifer pathologically gets shots of me out of focus, even when I set the aperture to f8 (heaps of depth of field) and pre-focused for her.

How she could get these shots out of focus defies belief. It’s almost technically impossible – but somehow she managed to do it…

(By the way, she takes great shots of flowers and fabric and always gets them in focus. It’s just ME she gets out of focus!)

The last two point-of-view shots, which are sharp and IN focus, were taken by me.
Of course…

walking 2 walking 3 walking 4 walking 5 walking 6 walking 7 walking pov1 walking pov2

Another milestone!

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Sometime today we flipped over 10,000 comments.

10,000 comments on this blog in less than a year (with 4 months in hiatus too!) I think that’s pretty cool!

Thank you to everyone who has contributed – and made this a fascinating community. I’ve made some wonderful friends through this blog.

Soon I’ll be heading off to Portugal, and I’ll be blogging again daily – and the fun will kick back in big time!

Screen Shot 2014-03-13 at 12.08.01 pm

Portuguese Tour – Photo Tutorials

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One of the things I’ll be doing on this Portuguese Camino tour is holding daily photographic tutorials.

As many of you might know, I’ve been taking photos professionally since I was 17 years old – at that time I was freelancing to magazines, and at the age of 20 I became a contributing editor to the country’s largest selling photographic magazine at the time – Australian Camera and Cine. 

From the age of 19-24 my brother and I were Queensland photographers for Surfing World magazine. This was in the early to mid 70’s, when Australia was revolutionising surfing. 

Surfing World

I am an accredited member of the Australian Institute of Professional Photographers, as well as a member of the Directors Guild of America (for my movie work.)

All that said, every day I learn something new about photography, and every day I’m humbled when I see a great photograph, or the work of a great photographer.

The photographers who have influenced me are:

W. Eugene Smith
Bill Brandt
Henri Cartier Bresson
Alfred Eisenstadt –
Walker Evans
Lee Friedlander
William Eggleston
Sabastio Salgado
Stephen Shore
Gregory Crewdson

Perhaps the biggest influence has been Eggleston –

Eggleston.2 Eggleston.1

If you’re interested in the work of great photographers, here’s a website to check them out – MASTERS OF PHOTOGRAPHY

The tutorials during the tour will be held both informally during the day – during the walk – and in the evenings. The tutorials will be broken down into these subjects –

  1. Camera settings / how a camera works
  2. Reciprocity
  3. Focus / DOF (Depth of Field)
  4. Lighting
  5. Composition
  6. Composition
  7. Cropping
  8. Post production
  9. B&W
  10. The Decisive Moment – telling a story through a photo
  11. Making a good shot great
  12. The best yellow arrow

I’ll hold a competition for the best “yellow arrow” shot of the tour, and the winner will get a framed photo as a prize at the end.

A lot of the photo tutorial stuff though will happen informally – chatting and shooting as we walk, looking at photos at the end of the day and talking about what works, what doesn’t, how the shot could have been better, etc.

And while we’ll discuss the technical aspects of photography in the tutorials – because you do need to have a basic understanding of the technical aspects of photography to get good pictures – there will also be tutorials on the aesthetic and philosophical aspects of photography.

I’ve been given a brand new Fujifilm X-T1 camera for this tour along with a cracker telephoto lens – the 55-200mm Fujinon lens. It’s a loaner, supplied by Fujifilm Australia.

Fuji XT1

I’m thrilled about this. I’ve been a fan of Fujifilm cameras for many years – and as a film director I used Fuji film stock on many of my movies. They’ve been pushing boundaries with their sensor technology, and this new X-T1 is a weather-sealed camera, so it’s perfect for this tour. I’m very excited!

So I hope that I’ll be able to impart some of my photographic knowledge to those of you coming on the tour. I’m looking forward to it!

(here’s a shot of me very young, with my brother and mother. I’m the one with the camera!)

Me & Bob on running board of car

Reflections on Portraiture

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Steve McCurry, in my mind, is one of the greatest portraitists of all time (photographically.) His ability to capture the soul of a person through their eyes is unsurpassed. Bill

Jennifer’s Camino Portuguese – anticipation!

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I’m so looking forward to walking the Portuguese Camino.  I have been doing some walking in preparation.  Not too much – I don’t want to peak too soon.

I don’t mind hills but long stretches of flat are sooo boring. Each day I try and take a different route but the very nature of walking from home means that I always return home.

Bill amazes me.  He has a training route he enjoys.  He walks that same route over and over again.  He only varies that route to walk up Mount Misery.

But I try and find a different path each time, turn a corner I’ve never been around or up a laneway I didn’t know was there.  Anything so I’m not going over the same ground.

I’m really looking forward to going for a walk in Porto and not ending up in Porto but ending up in Santiago!

And I’m looking forward to walking in the Spring when everything is new and fresh.  The Spring flowers will be coming out. The bulbs that I must plant before we leave will be blooming  there.  Amazing!

And I’m also really looking forward to eating Portuguese tarts.

I know I will walk past lots of pastry shops because Portugal has so many and I’ll just have to go in and have a sit down and try something I’ve never had before! Yummy!

Then there’s the lace museum in Vila do Conde. I’m training hard so that I’ll be capable of going for a walk at the end of the day (after 24kms or something!) so that I can find this museum. That’s how much I love lace!

But what I’m really looking forward to is experiencing the extraordinary energy line that is the Camino Portugues.  Pilgrims and others have been walking on this energy line for thousands of years.

At some point St James himself walked this route and legend has it that he preached at O Porrino.

I love legends.  Legends are energy gatherers.  Lots and lots of people down through the ages have placed their thought and their faith in St James.

He travelled the way we will go both when he was alive and after his death.

And I’m looking forward to making new friends.

Having someone to walk with and have a chat with and learn new things. To have a shared time,  a shared history with others. Having an adventure on my own is never as much fun as with someone else.

I’m having such a lovely time thinking about what I do on the Camino that I’ve set up a Pinterest account.  I have a board called Camino Portugues and I’m starting new boards for each day.  You can have a look at –

Jennifer’s Pinterest boards – Camino Portuguese

For those of you coming on the tour, I’m so looking forward to meeting you all in person!!

Jennifer.

Jennifer walking.

The Fly

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This morning I walked up Mt. Misery again – this time with a backpack.

It was tough going. Much tougher than the weekend. Carrying that damn pack was the thing. It seemed to make the climb disproportionally harder.

But I need to train with a pack, because I want to carry a backpack on the tour.

I know we’ll have a van which can transport packs – and a lot of people will be availing themselves of that and walking just with daypacks, which makes a lot of sense! – but personally, I want to carry my stuff. But that’s just me.

Now I want to talk about the fly.

What made today’s walk particularly irksome was the fly.

I became aware of the fly about 3kms into the walk. It had settled on my face and seemed to be trying to burrow under my sunglasses, to get to my eye.

I shooed it away, and it came back almost immediately and tried to do the same thing – get under my sunglasses to my eye.

The damn fly followed me for about 4kms – halfway up Mt. Misery – and no matter how hard I tried to swat it away, it kept honing back in on me like a heat seeking missile.

So I started to consider this fly.

Didn’t it have anything better to do? There were a lot of kangaroos around this morning, and they were pooping everywhere. Surely kangaroo poop was more inviting than my eye?

What was so special about my eye? What did my eye have that kangaroo poop didn’t have? I would have thought kangaroo poop, with it’s exquisite smell, would be far more appealing to a fly.

But then again, what would I know about what appeals to a fly?

I couldn’t outrun the fly. Not with my backpack. And not with my knee. That wasn’t an option. And swatting it away didn’t work. Yes I should have put on repellant before I left home, but there’s been no flies around lately.

Then I started to think about the fly. See things from its point of view.

It followed me about 4kms. That must have taken it a long way from home. But do flies have homes? And if so, would it be able to find its way back home after it had stopped pestering me? Or would it get lost?

For a moment there I felt sorry for the fly. Lost and homeless.

And what if it didn’t have a home, then was it bored? Was that why it wanted to get under my sunglasses? Or was it seeking greater challenges than stationary kangaroo poop could offer? Was I dealing with an Alpha Male fly?

Was my moving form, with the occasional clumsy swat, the equivalent in fly-world to climbing Mt. Everest? Or walking on Mars?

Then my thoughts went to my eye. Why did it want to get at my eye? Why not up my nose, which I would have thought was a much more attractive proposition than my eye, particularly as I’d recently plucked my nasal hair.

This started to worry me. The eye. Why the eye?

Then it hit me!

It wanted to lay eggs in the corner of my eye! That’s why it was so determined. This had come down to something very primitive. Life and death. Survival of the species. It saw the corner of my eye as being the perfect incubator for all it’s eggs.

If I let that fly get in under my sunglasses, I would have maggots crawling out of my eyes.

Yes, it all made perfect sense now. This was why the fly was pursuing me so relentlessly. It wanted to propagate its species – it wanted to hatch little white wriggly maggots and the warm moist space in the corner of my eye was just perfect.

This was not just a random bored fly – this was a fly with a mission. A mission from God. To ensure that its youngsters – the little white wriggly maggots – got the best possible start in life. And what better start than out of the corner of a pilgrim’s eye?

I waited my moment.

I waited until the fly had settled on my face, had sneakily crept up to the bottom rim of the sunglasses, (as if I hadn’t felt it there!) until it had started to weasel it’s way underneath, and then –

THWACK

I killed the little bastard.

It was messy. But not as messy as three hundred maggots crawling out of my eye.

Why am I telling you this story?

Because of walking meditation. Walking meditation would have you focusing on your breath, focusing on your footfalls, excluding all extraneous thoughts from your mind and finding calm in the gentle rhythmic cycle of footfall and breath, footfall and breath.

Walking meditation would have you examining your thoughts as they arose – considering them, pondering their relevance, and then discarding them so that your mind could become an empty vessel into which the Universe could pour Universal thoughts and insights.

Unfortunately I never got beyond the fly.

But maybe next time up Mt. Misery, I’ill get closer to a pure walking meditation experience. As long as I wear RID.

Fly 3

The Fault in our Stars –

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I rarely use this blog to talk about films or tv shows or books etc – (the last time was GRAVITY) – however I’ve just finished a book that I think many of you might respond to.

It’s called The Fault in our Stars, written by John Green.

The blurb doesn’t encourage you to read the book – it’s about two teenagers, dying of cancer, who fall in love. That log line didn’t grab me initially.

However the reason I started reading it was because late last year as I was coming back from Portugal, I had a layover at Heathrow, and as I always do I made my way to the bookstore.

The book was featured prominently on the stands, and it had an intriguing cover. But when I picked it up and read the back jacket, I put it back immediately. I didn’t want to read a book about kids dying of cancer.

But then as I wandered around the airport waiting for my connecting flight, I saw several people reading the book. And these were adults, not teenagers. And then I saw more at the gate. And then when I got on the plane I saw someone else reading it. Engrossed.

This was my PGS directing me to read this book.

So when I returned to Australia I made a little note to myself that I should check it out.

Well, today I finished it, and it was extraordinary. Not only beautifully written, but deeply moving, and profound on levels I never expected.

Knowing a lot of you as I do, I recommend this book. Just like I recommended GRAVITY.

If you do get to read it, let me know what you think. Here’s the Goodreads link for readers reviews – oh, and there’s a film been made on it too, which will be released shortly.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11870085-the-fault-in-our-stars

The Fault in our Stars

Mt. Misery – so happy to be back…

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It’s been twelve months since I was last on Mt. Misery.

Just to explain – Mt. Misery is an aptly named mountain that rises sharply at the back of Mudgee, which is where I live. From my door it’s 4kms to the base of Mt. Misery – then it’s 4kms to the summit. So round trip, it’s 16kms.

The elevation from door to summit is about 650ms. And there are some sections which are damn steep. So it’s a great training hike for the Camino.

Last year, in preparation for the Camino Frances, in the 6 wks prior to departure I did Mt. Misery about 3 times a week. It stood me in good stead when I had to climb the Pyrenees.

Today was my first day back there since those training days twelve months ago. It was good to be back. And a lot has changed in those twelve months.

Firstly, I’m now wearing a complicated and very impressive looking knee brace, because I shot my knee to pieces on the Camino last year. The orthopaedic surgeon, after looking at my MRI, said it was a “miracle” I walked the Camino on that knee.

I’m also now using walking poles.

Last year I resolutely refused to use walking poles, until my knee gave out – and then I finally succumbed. I had to. I wouldn’t have finished my Camino if I hadn’t used those poles.

Today I climbed Mt. Misery and it seemed so much easier than last year. Because of the poles? Yes, I think they certainly helped.

But twelve months on, I’m a different person. I’m not necessarily fitter than I was a year ago. But my head is different. I think differently.

Last year I felt I had to push myself up that mountain, I had to do it fast and I had to keep my heart rate in it’s 75%-80% zone, to get my aerobic fitness up.

This year I don’t give a damn.

I now see walking as fun, not a goal which needs to be achieved.

I walked with my wife, Jennifer this morning.

That’s a first.

Jen walking Mt. Misery

Usually we don’t train together. She heads off in one direction, I head off in the other. She likes to go a different way every day – I like to go the same way every day, so that I can judge how I’m feeling by certain milestones.

And I like that I don’t have to think about where I’m going. I just walk on automatic pilot, so that my mind can wander into other more interesting areas –

But it was fun walking with Jennifer this morning. And when we came to the really step sections. I surged on ahead and she went up them at her own pace.

What training up Mt. Misery gives you is confidence. It’s a gnarly climb, there’s no doubt, but it gives you confidence during the Camino. You know you can handle whatever The Way throws at you.

Last year I found Mt. Misery miserable. This year, I’m finding it a joy.

That’s what’s changed in twelve months…

Bill Mt. Misery

I’m baaaaaaack! March 1st

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Hey gang –

I said I’d put the blog into hiatus until April 1st, however I’ve decided to kick the sleeping dog awake on March 1st.

I want to let you know how the preparations are going for the Portuguese tour, how the training’s going, and all the fun little details we’re finding out about the pilgrimage route from Porto to Santiago.

So, from March 1st the blog is active again. I’m looking forward to us having some fun times together again!

As one of our celebrated followers – Jenny – would say: Hooly Dooly!

Bill

Meindl boots