Benz World Blog » Egypt

Mummy Cass

Jason Benz — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 22:42:14 +0000

This is Mummy Cass charging up before the 2024 Byron Bay Bluesfest. The 5000 year old reanimation process harnesses the energy from a perfectly timed bolt of lightning to bring the ancient party spirit back to the future.

There have been 70 mummies in the last 20 years. Mummy Cass is 1 of about 10 roaming mummies. They are a rare wild breed of mummy who have passed through the boarding gate. After thousands of years in a sarcophagus, most mummies are unwilling to be sealed into a jumbo jet.

This was overcome when it was discovered if 10 cats are wandering free for each mummy, they would become relaxed enough to get onboard. Once the simple process of herding 100 cats on a plane was done, the fun-funk band of coffin dodgers could go on tour.

It was suggested, if 1000 mice were released on the plane, cats and mummies would follow willingly. When Australian Boarder Force heard about this plan they deployed a highly trained team of drop bears to meet the plane on the runway.

By then the cats had taken control of the plane and were refusing to negotiate with everyone, except royalty. It was resolved when the drop bears had lunch with the mice, in return “Here Come the Mummies” and “The Cat Empire” will bring the party to Easter 2025. Tickets are available via the Bluesfest Website.

UPDATE: In 2026 Bluesfest will be the last in a line of major festivals closed from increasing headwinds. This began before covid, with the previous state government’s legislative “war on festivals“. The new government risks letting this trend continue through inaction. However, you can change this. If 20,000 signatures are received, the NSW Parliament must debate Bluesfest’s future. #savebluesfest if you live in the state Sign up here. For everyone else, there is an international petition on change.org Sign up here.

UPDATE: Due to the success of Bluesfest 2025, its future has been confirmed. Discounted early bird tickets for the 2026 festival are available here.

Single Balloon

Jason Benz — Sun, 07 Sep 2014 11:36:20 +0000

This photograph was taken before sunrise in Luxor, Egypt using my old Olympus E-330. To process this image I used Photoshop masks to independently adjust the exposure of the sky and balloon.

Today I fitted my steam punk solar controller to our van and wired it up to the solar panel and batteries. I will find out if it works when the sun comes up tomorrow.

Pyramid Wall

Jason Benz — Tue, 20 May 2014 13:30:50 +0000

This is the great Pyramid on the edge of Cairo in Egypt. I was trying to use the wall to lead the eye and give a sense of scale.

It has been a busy week. We have both been working in the day and moving furniture in the evenings. Tomorrow we hope to collect our fridge which should be the last big thing to move in to our new house. I will then give our van a well deserved oil change and service.

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

New Valley

Jason Benz — Wed, 19 Mar 2014 20:16:20 +0000

This shot was taken with my old Olympus E-330. It is Qesm Al Wahat Al Khargah in the New Valley Governorate Egypt. At least that is the address Google gave after I spent half the morning searching for it. This is one of the drawbacks of digging out a 7 year old photo from a balloon flight over Luxor.

We are in the UK now and looking forward to a weekend in Nottingham. The flights have been booked to Australia now and we fly out on the 9th April.

Cairo Pyramids

Jason Benz — Fri, 18 Oct 2013 04:40:03 +0000

I took this shot 5 years ago in Cairo, Egypt before the arab spring. It was shot at full stretch 150mm on a Olympus E-510 on a misty day so there was barely any contrast. This is a good example of the advantage of setting your camera to shoot in RAW if you can. A great deal of detail can then be recovered with careful processing.

The Pyramids are 10 miles from the centre of Cairo. The view from the far side has none of the city in it.

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

Hassan Rifa’i

Jason Benz — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 00:46:18 +0000

These are the Al Hassan and Al Rifa’i Mosques of Cairo in Egypt. The image was created from two separate exposures stitched together in Photoshop. A mask of the sky was made to add some blue however it clashed with the warm tones of the buildings. By changing the blend mode to Exclusion the blue sky layer added a soft brown which looked like a dust storm and balanced with the other colours in the image.

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

Jet Surfer

Jason Benz — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 12:07:54 +0000

This jet surfer is a composite of four images. The desert dunes of western Egypt, A kite surfer from Dahab, The moon from an earlier post and a methane engine I found on this site. Unlike the last composite these images did not need as much adjustment as the lighting conditions were similar. The dunes did need their tonal range increasing. This was done by increasing the contrast to 100 and moving up the black point in Camera RAW. To compensate for the black point shift the Exposure also needed to be increased.

Swimming Pyramids

Jason Benz — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 15:12:00 +0000

This was created by compositing three separate images. The Pyramids of Egypt, The Seas of Dahab and Rutland Water. Many adjustment layers and masks were needed in an attempt to balance the shot as each component was taken with different lighting conditions at different angles with different cameras in different countries.

Camel Smile

Jason Benz — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 14:11:53 +0000

This was taken in the Bahariya Desert in Western Egypt. Although I have spent the last three years using Photoshop to flatter the subjects of studio images some shots are beyond even my ability to make look pretty. The main problem with this image was where the sun had caught the white fur and blown the highlights. Fortunately I had a RAW copy of this image so I could get back most of the detail using the recovery slider in Camera RAW. This would not be possible if you shot in jpegs as you cannot change the exposure after you shot.

El Qasr

Jason Benz — Tue, 17 May 2011 12:24:44 +0000

This is part of the ancient desert capital of Bahariya which is in present day central Egypt. The scene had a very wide range of tones and looked a little dull. In order to capture the detail one copy was processed using HDR. A second copy was processed using Camera RAW with some subtle Split Toning added to warm the light. The HDR copy is then imported onto a new layer in Photoshop. Its blend mode is set to Luminosity and 70% Opacity. By doing this you get the detail benefit from HDR without getting an unnatural look. A mask of the sky was made using the Color Range tool. The mask was applied to a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer so the sky could have its colour restored to a more saturated blue. A stamp layer was made by holding down Shift+Ctrl+Alt+E at the same time. The stamp layer is needed before applying Lens Correction or any general retouch as it stops you from having to repeat yourself on each effecting layer. If photoshop is running slowly you can flatten the image instead of creating a stamp layer. I try to avoid this as it can be useful to having the building blocks of the image on the layers under your stamp layer. Even though they no longer effect the image they can be called upon to make changes later by moving them to the top layer and adjusting the opacity.