Benz World Blog » Jordan

Petra Treasury

Jason Benz — Tue, 18 Oct 2016 09:09:32 +0000

This is the Treasury in Petra, Jordan. It was made famous by Indiana Jones when Harrison Ford and Sean Connery “discovered it” while looking for the Holy Grail. It has of course been known to everyone in Jordan for thousands of years.

Dedicated to Rowan who loved this place.

Petra Monastery

Jason Benz — Mon, 22 Aug 2016 14:01:52 +0000

This is the Petra Monastery in Jordan. It is know as the rose city due to the colour of the rock. In 2008 it needed to be processed using HDR to get accepted by Shutterstock for Stock Photography. It is available for download here. This time I used standard tone adjustments in Camera RAW and a little split-toning to match the texture to this jungle temple. The RAW file developer in Photoshop has improved so much since this shot was taken it has made using HDR to extract detail redundant.

Wadi Rum

Jason Benz — Fri, 08 Aug 2014 11:36:30 +0000

This red desert landscape is Wadi Rum in Jordan. It was taken 7 years ago with my old Olympus E-330. Developed with Camera RAW, no Photoshop.

If it looks familiar, it has appeared in many films as the surface of Mars.

Karen is in Sydney this week to see Don Giovanni at the Opera House.

Reprocessing Petra

Jason Benz — Mon, 31 Mar 2014 13:17:30 +0000

I took this shot in 2007 with an Olympus E-330. At that time the Adobe Camera RAW and Lightroom software were still in the early stages of development and we would not see highlight and shadow recovery tools for another 5 years.

Back then the best way to get detail across a high dynamic range image was to take several different exposures, and blend them using HDR software, which I did using Photomatix. I then altered the colour in Photoshop to produce this Stock Photo.

As an experiment I developed this image with a single exposure using a later version of Adobe Camera RAW. The advances in software since 2007 have made the recovery of detail across a high dynamic range far easier.

Three Camels

Jason Benz — Sat, 21 Dec 2013 01:23:06 +0000

It has been a couple of years since I posted anything from Jordan so I processed this old shot of three camels in Petra. Jordan is a gold mine for the photographer. It is no wonder films like Lawrence of Arabia, Kingdom of Heaven and Indiana Jones The Last Crusade were shot here. I was only there a week but it produced 20 stock photos at the time and 7 blog posts years later.

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

Rose City

Jason Benz — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 14:17:15 +0000

This is the Rose City in Petra, Jordan. To process this image the Recovery slider was set to 100. Normally this adjustment is used to recover detail lost in the highlights. In this image the highlights were not blown out however the Recovery adjustment was used to tone down the harsh brightness of the sun. The other main adjustment was to add some subtle split toning to give the rock its rose colour.

Jerash Arches

Jason Benz — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 04:51:41 +0000

This is Jerash in Jordan. The ancient Roman race track once used by chariots played host to BBC’s Top Gear in their 2010 Christmas special through the Middle East. The sky is blended in from this image in Egypt. To blend it in a solid colour layer with a mask to blank out the stonework was used. The blend mode is set to color.

Amman Night

Jason Benz — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:57:43 +0000

This was taken from our hotel in Jordan. I used a Nodal Ninja to get the shots needed to make the panorama. I stitched them together using Panorama Studio. To process the image I used the Orton Effect to give the lights a hazy glow. I also had to add a layer to darken the sky.

Petra Siq

Jason Benz — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:12:24 +0000

This is the siq on the way to the Treasury in Jordan. To process this image I used Photomatix to produce an HDR image. I then layered the HDR with copies of the original image using various blending modes. I then used the clone tool to remove the area where the sun light had blown the highlights.

Dahabia Jordan

Jason Benz — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 12:16:00 +0000

This was taken in the port of Aqaba in Jordan. The colour of the sea was boosted slightly and I had to do a fair bit of sharpening to bring this beautiful dahabia out the mist.