Golf Anyone?

...., originally uploaded by Joseph Orsillo.

I've never golfed, unless you consider miniature golf, but even that is pretty rare for me. Recently, when some coworkers asked me to join them on the golf course my initial and typical reaction to tell them I was busy with something else was inexplicably replaced with 'Oh yeah, that sounds like fun.' I cant explain why, but I decided to tag along. I was so glad to have my camera, mostly because I had the excuse of taking pictures to keep me from making a fool of myself trying to hit a golf ball, but also because the course was really serene and the breaking storm clouds against the deep blue sky were awesome. I chose this image to post because it illustrates that besides the three of us, the only other living beings out there were the dear. And although the HDR process isn't too friendly to waving flags and grazing wildlife, I really like the painterly feel it conveys.

more sunsets

, originally uploaded by Joseph Orsillo.

I've been on the road lately so there hasn't been an opportunity to shoot flowers like I have been lately. At least I have had time to work on my HDR skillz. I think this is one of my most successful HDR's to date, but these are so processor intensive, my poor little MacBook has been getting a real workout!

on the road back from vegas

desert sunset 2, originally uploaded by Joseph Orsillo.

I was lucky enough to get a really cool sunset on the dive back from Vegas this weekend. This is one of the shots I got, along with another sunset and a neat panorama with some pretty cool cloud formations. This is a five frame HDR, bracketed one stop. The HDR was merged in PS CS3, but I used Photomatix to do the tone mapping, with further tweaking in PS. The sky is very noisy and I don't think I have the tone mapping quite right. It doesn't help that I'm working on my new Macbook with the glossy display. One small shift in viewing angle and the whole thing looks different. GOD, I miss my iMac...

guru?

guru?, originally uploaded by Joseph Orsillo.

I like the sparklie lights.

well, well, well...

machine shop 9, originally uploaded by Joseph Orsillo.

So. I can't really believe it myself, but this little shot of mine has finally broken my three year losing streak at the Photoshop World Guru awards. I think I finally figured it out. I've never been into naming my images. I always thought that flowery, poetic titles were really pretentious and have always stuck with 'untitled' or nothing at all. Well this year, when I submitted this shot I called it Memories of Home. Total BS. My home never looked this cool. So its clear to me know. If you want to win photography contests, pretense is the way to go.

Check the NAPP page and see for yourself.

Isabel at Night

This is what we hear almost every night...

interesting?

untitled, originally uploaded by Joseph Orsillo.

So this week I am off to Las Vegas for another Photoshop World conference. I can't seem to get enough of these. For the past three conferences I have been a finalist for the 'guru' award, but have yet to win. This week marks my fourth nomination and attempt at being named a guru. I'll report about the competition later in the week, but for now I thought I would mention another sort of competition I'm obsessed with these days. Flickr has this odd way of ranking the images uploaded each day. They call these images interesting and the most interesting images get displayed on the 'explore' page. According to flickr, this is my most 'interesting' image, yet it has never been on the explore page. Go figure.