Benz World Blog » Spot Colour

Allison Russell

Jason Benz — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 21:45:09 +0000

Elenna Canlas(left) and Allison Russell(right) on the Mojo stage at the 2023 Bluesfest in Australia.

As sure as Canucks like hockey, Allison is the most I have listened to a Canadian since Alanis Morissette, …which was… 30 years ago! Yikes, now I feel old. I didn’t realise until Bluesfest that Allison had launched a solo album. I was still listening to the outstanding third “Birds of Chicago” studio album “Love in Wartime” which I have played more than any other music in the last few years.

It turns out “Birds of Chicago” is on “indefinite hiatus” I feared this might be a euphemism for the swan song of my favourite pigeon pair. What would the Canada warbler sound like without the swift grackle and chickadee of JT Nero’s guitar sounds? The loss of their perfect blend of harmony, melody, texture and rhythm could be a jagged little pill to swallow wren my favourite song sparrow turns a new leaf.

I got hold of Allison Russell’s first solo album “Outside Child”

The lyrics tell very personal stories. I was happy to discover musically the album is an evolution from “Birds of Chicago” rather than a complete break. JT Nero is listed as one of the writers and sings a charming duet with his wife called “Joyful Motherfuckers” The music is like “Birds of Chicago” at a relaxed pace with a greater focus on Allison’s powerfully emotive voice and her transcendence from her early life.

“Birds of Ontario” may be closer, JT Nero’s midwestern tones are largely absent and in more than half the songs Allison taps into her inner maple syrup sipper when she slips in and out of French as she sings. I can’t wait to hear that beautiful voice one more time, while she also leads the charge to make clarinet music cool again. Allison Russell has been confirmed for the final Byron Bay Bluesfest at 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.

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.

Music Tour

Jason Benz — Tue, 05 Nov 2013 01:08:57 +0000

This band is called Late For Woodstock. We saw them twice this weekend while shuttling between gigs on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia. The reason the trip was to record content for a YouTube Channel called MusicLive4U which produces high quality videos from live performances of unsigned bands. Thanks to Iouri and Sasha inviting us along.

Journey Begins

Jason Benz — Sun, 05 May 2013 23:26:52 +0000

We hit the road today. We have a few stops in the UK before we fly to Australia on Thursday. We should be landing in Sydney on Friday evening. After arriving I will be able to post some new shots but for now I will use these road trains I shot last year as we crossed the Nullabor in Western Australia.

To develop this image the blue and green were desaturated in Camera RAW leaving a red spot colour.

Engine Maybe

Jason Benz — Thu, 02 May 2013 11:00:49 +0000

This is a piece of Randon Iron we found deep in the Goldfields of Western Australia. I think its some kind of engine. What do you think?

To develop this image the blue and green were desaturated in Camera RAW leaving a red spot colour.

Melbourne Streets

Jason Benz — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 01:12:04 +0000

This night shot was taken of Melbourne in Victoria. To process this shot maximum desaturation was used on the greens, blues and purples. To help the taxis stand out the saturation of the oranges and yellows was increased.

Like many recent posts, this was taken last year. I have been developing RAW files from my archive as our UK stopover has taken longer than expected. We have booked our flights back to Australia now and will be posting new images after we land on the 10th May.

Sydney Tower

Jason Benz — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 02:16:53 +0000

This is the Sydney Tower in New South Wales, Australia.

I used Google analytics recently and discovered a boost in Benz World Blog site traffic. On closer inspection the extra traffic was a result of a doubling in the amount of Google search traffic. I opened an incognito browser and started Google image searching the blog titles. To my surprise over 60% appeared on the first page of images. A further 11% of blog titles put into Google came back as the number one image. I use two word titles for all posts. I hope one day to accidentally name a blog with a Googlewhack but for now I am very happy with these obscure Google number ones.

Solar Nuke
200th Photoblog
Adios Adelaide
Hopetoun Rocks
Hopetoun Stingray
Sealion Sammy
Belton Folly
Belton Globes
Floyd Riot
Edible Asteroid
Austrian Clouds
Spice Bowls
Nile Skyline
Colosseum 1926
Fractal Hieroglyphics
Hathor Fractal
Pyramid Lightning
Rutland Stump
Wicker Spitfire
Syracuse 1926
Sphinx Pool
Trinidad Sunset
Dahabia Jordan

Steam Engine

Jason Benz — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 19:01:01 +0000

This is inside the cab of a steam engine at the Railway museum in Merredin. This image adds to the newly dubbed series of pictures named Mechanography. A little Orton Effect was used to process this image as well as some selective desaturation. We are spending a little more time in Hopetoun and plan to cross the Nullarbor at the end of February.

Ladybird Spot

Jason Benz — Sun, 22 May 2011 10:02:53 +0000

This simple use of spot colour is achieved by painting black on the layer mask of a Black & White layer. The Hue/Saturation layer above was used to make the ladybird nice and red. It was a little orange in the original capture. Vignette was achieved using a gradient layer and lens correction.

Crocus Spot

Jason Benz — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 07:25:01 +0000

We went for a walk in Rutland today. Karen spotted these Crocuses outside a cottage. I have used Orton Effect and Desaturation layers in an attempt to make the flowers stand out of the busy background.