Rocco Galatioto, nice photos and good food

Shot last spring at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden with the Canon 5-D and the Sigma 50mm F 2.8 macro lens. Spring fever shows its beautiful head, It will be like this soon. Hold on.

On enduring problem is that while we calibrate and go nuts in getting the best possible displays that we can afford, when we send out our images to clients, they usually look at them on cheap business flat screen displays bought at Staples. Yet it's great to have nice monitors at least for our own gratification. Dell Introduces Their New UltraSharp  High End Flagship Monitors As we all know, colors must be accurately represented on our screens, or  our final results will be all wrong. Dell promises incredible accuracy and plenty of power their latest  high end monitors. The top of the  line UltraSharp is the 3014 that costsin at $1,499 and comes in 30 inch  screen with a 2560x1600 resolution. It has the same 14-bit look-up table and 12-bit processor as the 24 inch version and 27 inch version, but with the extra real estate. Dell claims that their monitors come with certification reports of exact color calibration and   also support 99 percent ...

Shot on a Saturday afternoon in early June at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's rose garden with the Olympus E-300.

Photoshop is one of those milestones that sort of divide our life. There's the time before PS and the time after. As they say, the rest is history .  Historic version I of PS code given to museum Adobe Photoshop Source Code   Software Gems: The Computer History Museum Historical Source Code Series pho·to·shop, transitive verb, often capitalized \ˈfō-(ˌ)tō-ˌshäp\ to alter (a digital image) with Photoshop software or other image-editing software especially in a way that distorts reality (as for deliberately deceptive purposes) – Merriam-Webster online dictionary, 2012 When brothers Thomas and John Knoll began designing and writing an image editing program in the late 1980s, they could not have imagined that they would be adding a word to the dictionary. Thomas Knoll John Knoll Thomas Knoll, a PhD student in computer vision at the University of Michigan, ...

An old shot with the Summicron 50mm F 2  at Madison Square Park. It shows how in a city, as a defense mechanism of sorts, we can become totally indifferent and unaware of our surroundings.

Wool processing machine Shoemaker's work bench Baskets used for wheat Forms for shoe making Textile machine This anthropological museum is smack inside the castle and it's one of the better features that came out of it's  recent restoration. It has a collection of old artisan tools,and other fascinating items. A visit to Castellammare must include a visit here and admission is free.

Shot from above Cala Rossa looking west Cala Rossa with Cala Bianca in the Background   Cala Rossa Has noted in the post on Guidaloca Beach, west of Castellammare are many coves. This type of coastline includes the protected natural reserve of Lo Zingaro end continues all the way to San Vito lo Capo , the westernmost point of the Gulf of Castellammare. The Italian for a cove is cala and we see the two closest to the town, Cala Bianca and Cala Rossa named for the respective colors of the mountain soil, white and red.

Shot at the New York Botanical Garden on a sunny fall afternoon with the 50mm Sigma 50mm F 2.8 macro lens.

Go to  http://steve-sdigicams.com  another great source of camera news to enter this give away. Give your dreams a chance etc. You can use our link  down below on the left side. It actually good news that Rokinon lenses are back. We need another independent lens makes to keep the level of competition up. Win a Rokinon 85mm F1.4 Aspherical Lens! Steve's Digicams and Rokinon are partnering up this month to bring you a chance to win a 85mm F1.4 Aspherical Lens that's compatible with Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax and Sony dSLR cameras! More information on the company site can be found here and the Amazon reviews for the lens can be found here . For over 30 years, Rokinon has been well known for producing the highest quality and best performing lenses in the industry. They have a well earned reputation to deliver innovative and highly engineered products at value prices. Rokinon is proud to introduce its newest lineup of premier Cine Video Digital S...

This beach is situated west of Castellammare where the coast is mauntenous with a number of coves. This is the largest cove and it has a pebbles instead of sand. Est of the town is the main beach called la Plaja from the Spanish word for beach and it's made up of sand. This is a very long beach and one of the main summer attractions. Here on a January day with the sea unusually calm, we can enjoy long walks and admire the gorgeous sea with it;s many subtle hues.

Our friends at DPreview.com have posted an in depth review of this wonderful new camera. Click on our link below on the right. You will find it fascinating and very complete.

When you stop to view the panorama of castellammare, there's a space that has many vendors from items to delicious food. The old brass and copper ware items make for eye catching images. The wooden spoons, not only make for a nice photo but are very interesting in themselves. Made a Sicilian Tunisian couple from nearby Salemi, these spoons and utensils are made from olive wood. They are great to look at but are also very useful in the kitchen. They last for a very long time.

This is the castle where Giovanni da Verrazzano [2 z's] was born and where they have been making superb Chianti for over 1000 years. It's located in Greve in Chianti smack in the center of the Chianti DOC region. There are accommodations and superb dining and luncheons. I can attest to this by personal experience. A visit to Tuscany should include at least a visit. What makes this an ideal place to stay is that it's located almost equidistant from Florence and Siena and a public bus runs that takes you to both cities.

Gladden your heart, indeed. One of my better examples of trowing the background out of focus. Enjoy, spring should be around the corner for all your northern hemisphere visitors, at least

This evening, the Carnevale parade concluded with a large parade of  beautifully attired horses and their drivers. It came down the Corso Garibaldi, the main street of Castellammare and concluded at the Quattro Canti, the town main square. The horses actually danced to music. It was absolutely wonderful.

Carnevale in Castellamare del Golfo is different. In the old days people went dressed  in costumes from house to house to dance and make merry. This is no longer the case so a parade of  floats and dancers makes the  round in the main streets of the town. Better than nothing.