Benz World Blog » Black

Black Swans

Jason Benz — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 10:09:09 +0000

Black Swans are the state and bird emblem of Western Australia. Their white eyes turn red during breeding season. This image puts the herbivores and carnivores neck and neck on this blog at 22 each.

This image has been accepted by Shutterstock for Stock Photography and is available for download here.

Super Moon

Jason Benz — Tue, 12 Aug 2014 00:30:58 +0000

This weekend I photographed the supermoon from Australia with a Canon 5D Mark II and a 300mm lens

The last time I shot the moon was in the UK with my old Olympus E-510 and a 300mm equivalent lens.

In both cases I did not resize or re-sample the image. Instead I cropped out the sky until I was left with an 800 pixel wide image for the blog. The Canon has 21 mega pixels and the Olympus has 10 mega pixels so the result was a larger image this time. I was surprised just how much extra detail was captured when compared to the old shot.

Nottingham Contemporary

Jason Benz — Sat, 29 Mar 2014 08:43:05 +0000

This is the avant-garde jazz band Polar Bear. We saw them play last night, in a subterranean venue called The Space, which is inside the Nottingham Contemporary Art Centre in the lace market area of Nottingham, UK.

Like most gigs, there was barely any light. I used a 5D Mark II at its highest sensitivity – ISO 25,600. This results in a very noisy image, fortunately the noise reduction in Camera RAW these days is remarkably good at removing noise without blurring the image.

Camera RAW is the RAW development module of Photoshop. For the last few years most of these blog images have been edited using only Camera RAW. I consider them to be honest images which could be used in editorial, as the nature of the global adjustments are no different to what can be achieved in an analogue way with the assistance of the worlds best lighting engineer and the most talented film developer.

When I first started this blog I did a lot more editing in Photoshop. Although this does not make an image dishonest, Photoshop does have the tools to add, copy, remove and generally change a composition in a selective and localized manner. Although this is OK for stock photography, you could get in trouble if the image appears misleading in the editorial press.

Shark Night

Jason Benz — Sun, 08 Dec 2013 02:59:21 +0000

On Friday night we went to see soul funk band His Merry Men at the local Southport Sharks Gold Coast Club. I think this is Andrew Ball on the Baritone Saxophone who is part of the bands impressive brass section. The club was much bigger than we expected, feeling more like an entertainment venue with many bars and stages.

Gold Night

Jason Benz — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 22:55:04 +0000

Last night we went to Brisbane to film 3 bands for the YouTube channel MusicLive4U. Highlight of the evening for us was this 10 piece funk soul band called His Merry Men who were launching their new single Gold. I highly recommend you check it out.

To process this image yellow/orange split-toning was used to achieve the gold colour under the pink lights.

Luna Park

Jason Benz — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 02:32:34 +0000

This is Luna Park in Sydney, Australia. The park was constructed at the base of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1935. The park closed in 1979 after a ghost train fire. After public pressure the park re-opened and was listed in the NSW State Heritage Register. Today it is still open and shimmers with much of its original 1930′s charm.

We have decided to leave Sydney on Thursday and begin the drive north towards Queensland. We have been made very welcome while we have been here and are looking forward to a meal out with our gracious hosts at The Oaks on Wednesday.

Queens Bridge

Jason Benz — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 04:23:06 +0000

This night shot is of Queens Bridge in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

This could be a contender for the Australian Skylines Calendar.

Canberra Skyline

Jason Benz — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 16:07:40 +0000

No sooner than we crossed from Victoria into New South Wales we found ourselves in Australian Capital Territory. The home of Canberra and the seat of Australian Government. Canberra is an entirely planned city with the feeling of a university campus. The Parliament House in the centre is a low rise structure described by some as resembling a bunker covered with grass. In fact anyone can have a picnic on the roof. This image is one of a series of Australian Skylines which may become a calender someday.

This image has been accepted for Stock Photography at Shutterstock and is available for download here.

Foot Bridge

Jason Benz — Sun, 06 May 2012 21:09:00 +0000

This is the new convention centre foot bridge crossing the Yarra River in Melbourne. We have been into Melbourne three times now. First by van, then on foot and most recently by train. The $11 return train ticket from Lara was suspiciously close to the $12 you pay for all day parking near the centre. In general parking in Australia is exceptional. There is always plenty of space and its almost always free. In fact even in Melbourne there are spaces on the street in the centre as long as you don’t mind paying $4 per hour. The train took about 40 minutes from the free car park at Lara. The seats were all taken when we got on but there was still plenty of room.

We have not yet resigned ourselves to working at a Casino again but we decided to take a look at the Crown Casino out of interest. Despite looking every bit like the unwashed homeless travellers we are we walked straight in. It must be said Australia does casinos on a scale Las Vegas would be proud of. Despite the lavish building and the familiar games we decided going back into that life would be a last resort.

This image has been accepted by Shutterstock for Stock Photography and is available for download here.

Steam Engine

Jason Benz — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 19:01:01 +0000

This is inside the cab of a steam engine at the Railway museum in Merredin. This image adds to the newly dubbed series of pictures named Mechanography. A little Orton Effect was used to process this image as well as some selective desaturation. We are spending a little more time in Hopetoun and plan to cross the Nullarbor at the end of February.