Benz World Blog » WA

Ningaloo Coast

Jason Benz — Sat, 21 Sep 2019 14:34:26 +0000

This is where the pristine sands of Nature Bay meet Ningaloo Reef in a remote corner of Western Australia. It is just outside the tropics so the water is as warm and welcoming as it looks, without the nasties which keep people on the beach further North. There are reef sharks here but they are easy to scare off if needed. The real danger is being caught in a rip which I discovered can pull you out to sea from a seemingly calm lagoon. Fortunately, I was rescued by a surfer called Sam Kinney.

It seems this area is dangerous for me. Last time I visited, 23 years ago I had another near-death experience when we lost our car after a short evening walk in the Cape Range National Park. We had to use the moon and stars to navigate halfway across the peninsula and rejoin the main road. At least I had the excuse of being young and stupid then. My recent experience proves I can be old and stupid too.

When snorkelling on my first visit I had never seen coral or swam with fish before. The experience forced me to redefine how intense colour could be. 18 years later I would be employed to process over 1 million images for the Global Reef Record.

Underwater photography has some unique challenges. Colour temperature changes with depth and distance. In addition, the blue shift is so extreme a cameras auto white balance will not work. The only way to colour balance underwater is by eye. Your brain does it automatically so you see a kaleidoscope of colours in the reef and fish but a camera will just see shades of blue. To create digital images with the range of colours you perceive requires heavy processing of the RAW camera file to get the colours looking right. My only reference point was this one memory of coral and fish when I was half my age. I used to half-jokingly ask my boss for a field trip to remind myself of the colours of coral.

I was interested on many levels to see Ningaloo Reef again. I started at Point Quobba were I first swam with the fishes. There were still colourful fish but the coral was in bad shape. To find some living coral required travelling an extra 100km of dirt roads to Gnaraloo. Once you get there the fringing reef is very accessible, only a few meters from the shore. I found the most impressive coral structures at Nature Bay but spent most of my time swimming in 3-mile lagoon as it was only 100 meters from the camp and a clean gas-heated bore water shower. I recommend a visit if you are in the area.

I am following the west coast up to Darwin for the start of the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge on the 13th October. I will then follow the race to Adelaide.

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.

Purple Flag

Jason Benz — Tue, 16 May 2017 13:55:29 +0000

This is Patersonia Sericea, commonly known as the Purple Flag, Native Iris or Native Flag. It is endemic to Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. This flower was photographed in a garden in Western Australia.

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

Rose Tunnel

Jason Benz — Mon, 05 Sep 2016 09:49:59 +0000

This rose tunnel is on the Voyager Estate in Margaret River, Western Australia. There is a rose garden and red and white rose bushes at the end of every row of vines. There are a number of theories to why wine growers plant roses. They vary from purely aesthetic to practical bio-engineering. I suspect any floral diversity would be beneficial to the ecological environment.

Yellow Lichen

Jason Benz — Wed, 27 Jul 2016 12:49:55 +0000

I think this is lichen on the bark of a tree in Western Australia. It is easy to think of this state as all deserts and goldfields, however it has some of the worlds most majestic forests in it’s south west corner. If you recognize the type of bark or the yellow substance please leave a comment.

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

Esperance Stonehenge

Jason Benz — Sat, 17 Oct 2015 13:04:54 +0000

This is a full size granite replica of Stonehenge in Western Australia. Although it is not as old as the original Stonehenge in the UK, it is complete, and access is better. When we visited the owners let us stay in our van overnight so I could easily photograph it at sunset and sunrise. I experienced an unexpected sense of awe as the sun light filled the stones.

Peppermint Tree

Jason Benz — Sun, 23 Aug 2015 09:54:39 +0000

This is the Peppermint Tree in Kings Park Botanic Garden in Perth, Western Australia.

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

Venusian Dunes

Jason Benz — Sun, 02 Aug 2015 07:37:40 +0000

These are the Eucla Dunes in the deserts of Western Australia, 7 miles from the South Australian border. They are made of limestone sand rather than silica having originated on the sea bed. Eucla is believed to originate from the Aboriginal word “Yinculyer” referring to the planet Venus.

It was the transit of Venus over the sun which summoned the English explorer James Cook into the southern oceans in 1769. This ultimately changed the fate of Australia and Eucla. In 1890 an introduced rabbit plague decimated the native vegetation around Eucla. This destabilized the dune system. The shifting sands engulfed the town until it was abandoned and moved 3 miles to the North.

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

Black Swans

Jason Benz — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 10:09:09 +0000

Black Swans are the state and bird emblem of Western Australia. Their white eyes turn red during breeding season. This image puts the herbivores and carnivores neck and neck on this blog at 22 each.

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

Surf’s Up

Jason Benz — Thu, 21 Nov 2013 00:23:40 +0000

This photograph of a surfer and wave was taken at Injidup Beach in Western Australia in 2011.

The weather here on the Gold Coast, Queensland has become unsettled recently. We have had a few thunderstorms. One produced 7000 lightning strikes and hail the size of golf balls. We are both fine and our van survived too.