2018 California Melee and Remembering Mark Benson

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tannyo
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2018 California Melee and Remembering Mark Benson

Post by tannyo »

I get to go on the 2018 California Melee. The organizers sent out a request for a t-shirt design. If they choose my design I don't have to pay the entrance fee. I thought about it and got up at 12:30 AM and worked on it to 4:39 AM Monday night or Tuesday morning. I didn't get much sleep that night.

The requirements stated:
  1. You must have already submitted an entry application for this year’s Melee
  2. Artwork must feature a Melee eligible car in an action pose, i.e. driver behind the wheel and apparently under motion. No static, driverless cars.
  3. Artwork must include the following information: (in no particular order) 2018; California Melee; XXII or 22.
  4. Artwork should be set up to print on a black shirt with white ink.
I looked at all the photos I had taken and realized that I didn't have a single picture of a moving car. They were all in parking lots or on the side of the road. The videos I had taken didn't show my car and if it did show a car it was the back of a car which I didn't believe would look right for this project. I then remembered Austin Caccavo did a video of Mark Benson which he used at Mark's memorial. I got permission to use a photo from the video Austin created. I would also like to get permission from the Benson family. If anyone has their contact information, please PM me.



https://youtu.be/ymnYK1f2jck

Now that I had the photo it had to be turned into artwork with white ink on a black background. I fired up my 2005 version of Adobe Photoshop and got to work. First I had to remove the background. Before Parkinson's I would just use the eraser tool and freehand get rid of the background. Because of the tremor I ended up selecting large blocks of the background and deleting the blocks. Then I zoomed in and after a while I was able to get closer to the car. Unfortunately I had to remove the windshield.

Now that the background was removed from the photo I was left with a color photo of Mark Benson driving his works MGA. It had to be turned it into artwork using white ink. The next step was to change the mode of the photo to grayscale. That left me with a black and white photo that was mostly gray. After looking through the Filter Gallery and trying a bunch of filters I settled on the Photocopy filter which like old FAX machines and photocopiers produced a bad version of the car that was mostly white that worked for me.

The next step was to create a black background in another layer which left me with a bunch of white artifacts from the background that I had not deleted. After cleaning up the background and trimming closer to the car I created three different text versions and submitted them to the California Melee organizers. There where a number of submissions last year that they said:
We had many very excellent submissions for last year's contest and it was quite difficult for the Apparel Committee to make the final selection. Many of the submissions from last year could be updated/tuned up a bit and could possibly make the cut this year.
I don't know if my version will be selected. It was fun doing and I felt productive doing it.

Mark-Benson-Works-Twin-Cam-melee-md.jpg

Today I thought maybe it could be used as a memorial.

Mark .jpg

Or if permission is obtained from the Benson family, here's a version without text.

Mark-Benson-Works-Twin-Cam-md.jpg

Each version is designed for 8.5 x 11 inch paper. I could change that in my 13 year old version of Photoshop. The images in this post are not full size which I could provide.

What do you think?
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Steve Simmons
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Re: 2018 California Melee and Remembering Mark Benson

Post by Steve Simmons »

I will point Mark's dad to this thread. I'm sure he will be touched by the gesture.
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tannyo
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Re: 2018 California Melee and Remembering Mark Benson

Post by tannyo »

The text could be changed to anything they want. I just gave it as an example, I’m not tied to it.

You’re up late, but then again so am I.
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Steve Simmons
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1967 Austin Healey 3000 BJ8
1969 MGC GTS
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Re: 2018 California Melee and Remembering Mark Benson

Post by Steve Simmons »

Got a direct reply...
Thanks for sending this on. . Of course we would be delighted that our son and brother should be commemorated this way. I looked at the pics and see that although the windscreen has been removed, it is still across Mark's face , which does not look that good. Maybe he could clean that bit up ?
Otherwise all is fine. . The idea of us to have T shirts with this is such a surprise . . and a prize too.
All the best
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Steve Simmons
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1965 MGB
1967 MGB GT (UK-Spec)
1967 Austin Healey 3000 BJ8
1969 MGC GTS
Location: Co-Nay-Ho Valley
Contact:

Re: 2018 California Melee and Remembering Mark Benson

Post by Steve Simmons »

Just got another email from Mark's dad. In it were a couple of logos you can use.
Attachments
Mark Benson Logo
Mark Benson Logo
Mark Benson Logo
Mark Benson Logo
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tannyo
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Re: 2018 California Melee and Remembering Mark Benson

Post by tannyo »

Well it looks like they didn’t use my design as they cashed my check a couple days ago. I am leaving this morning. We have a meet up at 7 PM in San Francisco, then we meet at the Presidio Officers Club tomorrow morning at 8 AM.

I haven’t figured out whether I’m going up the 5 or the 101 to get to the hotel today. The 5 is shorter but there’s a lot of wind and the 101 has rest stops.

Off to pack
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