Benjamin has long been intrigued with combining imagery ~ stacking individual pictures over each other, abutting them side by side or overlapping them; retaining a certain separateness but making up a larger whole. These combinations are often intuitive and sometimes surprising, suggesting a hidden connectedness in a seemingly random environment. The process is used in both his paintings and photographs.

This aesthetic has been carried over to his new combination photographs. The original images of this group were shot on film (transparency, negative, and instant), using a variety of 

vintage cameras. Nearly all of these images are medium or large format. This requires a slower, more considered approach to picture making, quite different from the digital camera milieu. 

The individual photos, when taken, are not meant to be complete or even necessarily interesting by themselves, but are shot with the intention of combining them into something larger in the future. Creating the combinations requires sifting through the hundreds of possible choices, and finding things that resonate together. The images are kept full frame, or else cropped minimally. Using various film formats, gives Long a  variety of proportions. The photos are considered complete when the choices are finalized. They are titled/numbered not in the order they are finished, but in the order they were started, and sometimes a combination will go through many changes before being completed.  The result is a single panoramic-format picture wherein the individual elements relate to and support each other visually and conceptually. 

Long's current paintings are made by taking various images that interest him and combining them into a unified picture. Although the result is based on a personal, visual language, his hope is that it speaks to the viewer on a more universal level. This work is an ongoing effort to reconcile disparate elements ~ paintings and drawings, structure and chance, dimensional space and flatness, personal information and an aesthetic connection to the viewer. Benjamin Long is respected among the contemporary art world. He has shown his work nationally and belongs to numerous private collections.