Moonrise over Zabriskie?

death valley zabriskie point 2, originally uploaded by Joseph Orsillo.

Here's a shot from Zabriskie Point in Death Valley. This was from my first workshop with the Nocturnes group. It’s hard to explain how surreal it feels to walk around in the desert in the middle of the night under a bright full moon. After a few minutes with no artificial light, your eyes become accustomed to the light level and all of a sudden you can see almost as if it was daylight. That was an awesome time for me, and I think the whole experience rekindled my love of photography.

More from Joshua Tree

Untitled, originally uploaded by Joseph Orsillo.

Now that I have my first post out of the way, I can get down to business. Here's another shot from the Joshua Tree infra red experiment. The sky is really overcast here, but I like the way the muted colors are enhanced in the IR. Plus I really dig the panoramic format. Gotta love that Betterlight!

My first blog entry

Untitled, originally uploaded by Joseph Orsillo.

For my first blog post I thought I would share one of my favorite shots from Joshua Tree National Park. This was my first experience shooting infra red with my Betterlight digital scanning back. The whole trip was a real learning experience for me, but this shot was a turning point. I was trying to shoot the entire day but it was rainy and very overcast, and there just wasn't a good light to work with. I was just about to pack it in for the day when the clouds finally broke and the afternoon sun poured in. I threw my rig together and this is what I got. What do you think?