Benz World Blog » Church

Conception Cathedral

Jason Benz — Sat, 05 Sep 2015 01:55:01 +0000

This is the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Cienfuegos. Roman Catholicism is the main religion in Cuba. In 2015 Raúl Castro lifted a ban on people of any faith joining the Communist party. This ended the separation of Religion and Politics which has existed since the government declared itself officially atheist in 1961.

This photo was taken with an early compact digital camera EX-Z3 in 2004. It is also the first image I had accepted by Shutterstock for Stock Photography and is available for download here.

Festive Frost

Jason Benz — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 07:24:21 +0000

I am still waiting to see my first snow this winter. This festive frost is from the village of Wyville in the UK.

Model Melbourne

Jason Benz — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 00:33:11 +0000

This shows Flinders Street Station, St Pauls Cathedral and Federation Square in central Melbourne. This shot was taken from the Eureka Skydeck which is Australia‘s tallest building. I used tilt shift to create the miniature effect. We are leaving Melbourne in one week and heading towards Sydney where we are looking forward to meeting up with some friends and family.

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

Melbourne Skyline

Jason Benz — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 19:50:13 +0000

I took this shot of the Melbourne Skyline last night. As all Australia’s cities are on water I tried to get the same type of shot I have for Perth and Adelaide. Maybe I will publish an Australian Skyline calendar with all the cities in it. We decided to go in on a Sunday as it was the best chance to get free parking near the city. We parked near the Kensington train station and as it was a nice evening we chose to walk into the city. After taking this shot we wandered around the city for a while and found a very reasonably priced place to eat called Equinox. We are now back at our usual truck stop between Melbourne and Geelong and are making the daily pilgrimage to nearby libraries to use their free internet and look for work. I got a response from one today. Its a freelance photography position for the Australian National Construction Review. They seemed more interested in the quality of my camera and if it had a full frame sensor than if I knew how to use it. So its lucky I upgraded to a Canon 5D Mark II before I left for Australia or they would not have offered me the job.

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

Normanton Church

Jason Benz — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 11:10:41 +0000

This is Normanton Church on the shore Rutland Water. I used low opacity split toning, desaturation and various blend modes to get the dramatic sky without too many unnatural colours. As all thing are possible in photoshop I added a bit of lightning too.

Syracuse 1926

Jason Benz — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:27:38 +0000

Ciao ai miei lettori italiani. I’m not sure why this blog has had more visits from Italy in the last month than any other country. Especially as I’ve never photographed Italy. All I can offer is this one of my Grandfathers Pictures which was taken in Duomo Square, Syracuse in 1926. I used Red Sepia Split Toning to add the colour.

Cutts Close

Jason Benz — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 11:02:49 +0000

Karen took this picture in Rutland. Snow is a tricky thing for cameras. The problem is left to themselves they often turn snow grey. This is due to the auto exposure trying to balance the tones in an image. Unless you remember to overexpose you may need to do a bit of work in Photoshop later to make the snow look like snow. I used levels to retouch this image. The upper layers darken the sky slightly in the same way you might use a Graduated Filter. The third levels layer brightens the snow without losing detail in highlights.