Ben Saren Photography

By day I’m Founder and CEO of a successful Internet company in the South End of Boston called CitySquares, that’s rated in the top 1000 websites in the country. But by night, I’m a passionate and creative photographer.

I grew up with a fantastic father who lugged his camera everywhere we went. In the 60’s, he was an award-winning photographer for the United States Marine Corp. When I was a kid, he showed me how to work in the dark room, although I admittedly never really got a chance to get my hands wet. He taught me lots about photography, like ISO, f/stops, and all that technical jazz. Lots of those things were hard concepts for me to understand, so he worked hard to get me to understand them. Aperture, shutter speed, things like that were hard to understand for me as a kid, so he’d show me how it worked. I think he enjoyed teaching me more than I enjoyed learning, but I did take to it. My father also taught me about composition, like the rule of thirds, framing, frame-within-a-frame, following light, and other things.

Today, as an adult, when I’m shooting for pleasure or on a gig, I try to apply a unique sense of perspective, one that captures an essence of the moment and how to make it more timeless. I focus on composition but it seems to come naturally. On all my shoots I can hear my father’s voice in my head asking me to double check my exposure, and for the right composition. The combined result is what you get here on my portfolio and in my private collection. I hope you enjoy.