Benz World Blog » Hopetoun

Twelve Mile

Jason Benz — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:20:50 +0000

This is Twelve Mile Beach. It is the campsite we stayed at when we first arrived in Hopetoun. Like many places in Western Australia there are no free campsites within a certain distance of the town. Twelve Mile is far enough out of town that you can stay there for free. I had to wait a couple of weeks to get a shot of a full moon to composite in. As it is a local shot I may get it framed for The Deck Gallery but I do not know how well photoshop trickery sells in print. What do you think?

Hopetoun Evening

Jason Benz — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 05:35:29 +0000

This silhouette was taken at the groyne in Hopetoun yesterday. Fishing is a popular sport in Australia and there are usually around a dozen people fishing at sunset in Hopetoun each night. The time here has flown by and its hard to believe we are half way through our six weeks work here. We have both really enjoyed working at The Deck and will miss it when we go. I’ve been updating The Decks Website this year and have just put the new site online. I have a few more bits to add but most of it is there. Let me know what you think.

New Year

Jason Benz — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 16:49:19 +0000

This is Albany band Manaia who Rocked Hopetoun last night with their own brand of Reggae, Funk and Groove. After the gig the guitarist ask if I could get them a gig in the UK. Unfortunately it’s been 10 years since I put on gigs in Nottingham and I think persuading a venue to fly five guys half way round the world is beyond my ability. I wish them the best of luck and if they make it I would gladly pay to see them play again.

The last 25 posts I have been experimenting using sRGB colour space. From now on I am switching back to Adobe RGB as the last two low key gig shots displayed a lot of visible noise in the shadow areas when viewed using Firefox browser. Redeveloping theses images in Adobe RGB colour space has greatly reduced the distortion. I suspect this is due to the wider colour range of Adobe RGB being clipped to display on the web. The clipping will increase the amount of pure black in the picture which makes the image punchier and eliminates the dark grey noise.

Hopetoun Rocks

Jason Benz — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 20:59:33 +0000

Last night we went to Hopetoun‘s Christmas Party at the local pub. They had set up a marquee out the back where Esperance band Sezwho performed to the crowd with an assortment of Aussie 80′s Rock. We were both impressed with the gig and I suspect I had one too many beers by the way my head felt this morning. The temperature has started reaching the low 30′s recently so we are glad to both be off on Friday. We plan to camp at a site on the South Coast Highway tonight and then explore Bremer Bay tomorrow.

Hopetoun Stingray

Jason Benz — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 18:07:22 +0000

We saw this stingray in the ocean on our walk along Four mile beach on Sunday. I followed it for a while by walking down the beach trying to get a good shot of it. They have the ability to disappear under the sand at a moments notice. This one did not seem to mind me snapping away as it glided along the shallows at a slow walking pace. One problem with shooting through a zoom lens is you have no reference for how close you actually are to the subject. I had to keep peering over my camera to make sure I did not step on it. Although not generally aggressive towards people they are related to sharks and if they feel threatened they can strike out with a venomous barb in their tail. Fatal attacks have been known, most famously on former Aussie crocodile wrangler Steve Irwin, but generally a stingray attack will only result in a severe disinclination to boogie.

Stingray Video