Benz World Blog » Dreamstime

Sheep Clone

Jason Benz — Mon, 05 Aug 2019 09:25:42 +0000

This sheep was photographed in Rutland. The idea for the image was inspired by a suggestion my mum made. The aim with Photoshop is usually that the viewer is unaware the image has been altered. As this image is trying to convey the message of cloning, for once the manipulation was made obvious. It is the best selling image I have ever made from the UK. In addition, it was the 4th bestseller worldwide giving it an automatic place on my home page. That was until today when it was overtaken by this image which my brother inspired.

I currently in Kalgoorlie to photograph the mines and get some repairs done while planning a route to Darwin.

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

Re Stock

Jason Benz — Sat, 01 Dec 2018 11:19:17 +0000

This is the Superpit in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. My brother once showed me google reverse image search. It is a useful tool for the stock photographer who wants to find out where their images get used. I did it for my top stock image a few years ago and one of the results had been cropped, flipped and spot coloured but google still recognised it as mine. These are all basic Photoshop techniques and I liked the result from this fellow photoshopper. So I dug out my original image and processed it in a similar way and re-submitted it to Shutterstock. The new version has not diminished sales of the original and now both images get downloaded every day. My previous best seller was an orange firework. It did so well I created red, green and blue versions which all did well too. This is something I like about digital photography. The digital negative is only the starting point. There is no limit to the number of pieces of art you can quickly make by experimenting with Photoshop. When I get too old for tramping around the bush I hope to have enough of an archive of digital negatives to keep me creating new images from old content during retirement.

I am in the Blue Mountains for a few weeks while I upload stock photos from the last 8 months of travel and plan the next stage of Australian exploration.

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

Australian Representatives

Jason Benz — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 01:05:11 +0000

This is the House of Representatives in Parliament House, Canberra. This photo was taken when the country underwent a series of leadership changes due to political infighting on both sides of politics. The Representatives and the Senate are the two elected houses which make up the Parliament of Australia. In a reflection of the UK House of Commons it is furnished in green, However the colour was tinted slightly to suggest the colour of eucalyptus. The Senate is furnished in a more luxurious red colour.

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

Enhanced License

Jason Benz — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 01:51:30 +0000

Shutterstock recently sold an enhanced license for this road image from Western Australia. All stock photography sites offer some form of extended or enhanced license. It is a hangover from the traditional way of selling photography whereby the price is determined by the use of the image rather than its quality. In this case the enhanced license gives the buyer the right to reproduce the image more than 250,000 times. It also grants the buyer the right to incorporate the image into merchandise for resale. The good news for the contributing photographer is they receive $28 instead of $0.25-$0.38 for a standard subscription sale. Shutterstock began by only selling subscriptions. This is attractive to businesses, who require high volumes of images at low cost. Since then they have introduced several different ways of buying images. “On demand” sales are a subscription free method of buying, where the photographer receives between $0.81-$2.85. If further rights are required then special “Single Image” licenses can be issued. In these cases the photographer receives between 20%-30% of the sale price up to a maximum of $120. These new ways of selling images have significantly increased the amount of money you can earn from Shutterstock.

I have recently rewritten my Guide to Stock Photography in a more concise form for this photoblog. The full version is still available on the old website.

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

Cienfuegos Square

Jason Benz — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 11:38:13 +0000

This is Cienfuegos Square in Cuba. It is one of the Caribbean images from the old website I took in 2004. Before I get back to Australia I have been transferring some of the old images to the new photoblog.

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

Three Huts

Jason Benz — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 23:20:07 +0000

These three buildings are in Negril, Jamaica. This is some of the earliest photography I had accepted for stock. I don’t know if it would be accepted for today as the agencies seem to be getting more strict or maybe the need for turquoise ocean shots allowed them to overlook the camera and jpeg quality. This image needed work in Photoshop to remove speckle.

I plan to post a few more images of the Caribbean as I copy the best content from the old website to the new blog.

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

Sky Palms

Jason Benz — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 00:37:33 +0000

These silhouetted palm trees were in Negril, Jamaica. I took this almost 10 years ago when I first started experimenting with Photography. I was using an early digital compact camera Ex-Z3 with a LCD display. This shot would be difficult with a DSLR as framing the shot is normally done with the viewfinder. Focusing the sun onto your retina is not the best way to go about improving your photography.

I plan to put up more images of the Caribbean as I move from the old website to the new blog.

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

Australian Senate

Jason Benz — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 09:24:34 +0000

This is Australian Senate in Parliament House, Canberra. Along with the House of Representatives these two elected houses make up the Parliament of Australia.

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

Top Stock

Jason Benz — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 08:51:34 +0000

This is a shot of the Super Pit in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. I remember the viewing area over the pit had one of the highest concentration of flies we experienced anywhere in Australia. This image has just become my all time best selling stock image at Shutterstock. It has only been online for 10 months but it has sold more then the old number one which has been online for 6 years.

Old number one

The Superpit image is available for high resolution download here.

The Firework is available for high resolution download here.

Old Stonehenge

Jason Benz — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 01:21:32 +0000

This is Stonehenge in the UK which is believed to have been built at the same time as the pyramids in Egypt. We have been packing our van all day and plan to hit the road again tomorrow morning. I have posted this old image as our first port of call will be the worlds only full-size stone replica of Stonehenge. The Esperance Stonehenge may not be 5000 years old but it does have all the missing stones and you can walk among them. There may be no sense of history but it will doubtless look more like the original Stonehenge did when it was first built. Although opinions are varied I am curious about what a brand-new pre historic calendar looks like.

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