the rain came down
the rain came down
the rain came down on me
the wind blew strong
and summer's song
it fades to memory.

I knew you when
I loved you then
in summer's yawn, now hopeless
you laid me bare
and marked me there
the promises we made

I used to think, as birds take wing,
they sing through life, so why can't we?
we cling to this, and claim the best
if this is what you're offering
I'll take the rain, I'll take the rain,

the nighttime creases
summer schemes
and stretches out to stay
the sun shines down
you came around
you love the easy days

but now the sun,
the winter's come
I wanted just to say
that if I hold
I'd hope you'd fold
and open up inside, inside of me

I used to think, as birds take wing,
they sing through life, so why can't we?
we cling to this, and claim the best
if this is what you're offering
I'll take the rain, I'll take the rain, I'll take the rain.

this winter's song
I'll sing along
I've searched its still refrain.
I'll walk alone
if given this
take wing, and celebrate the rain.

I used to think, as birds take wing,
they sing through life, so why can't we?
we cling to this, and claim the best
if this is what you're offering
I'll take the rain, I'll take the rain, I'll take the rain.

-R.E.M.

Very similar to John's excellent shot. This one has more darkness to it and the weather looks a little worse. Looks like you two were doing the right thing taking shelter from the rain!

The sepia doesn't do it for me, but I really enjoy the compositon. The wide crop has a very cinematic quality to it. Wish it had a greenish/other tint rather than the sepia :(

Rename that tram stop "The Goldmine". I love the disruption of the frame in this one, and I'm freezing wet just looking at it. Every picture from there has had such a strong sense of place.

owen: they were taken at much the same time, I guess we just processed them a little differently.

christopher: I initially tried various green and blue tints for this shot but wasn't happy with any of them.

this one is brilliant!

Great shot!

Wonderful candid shot Dave! I really love it. Have you burnt in the coreners at all? It feels like a very wintery shot (wet, cold and windy), and i'm sure that's what you were after. Great work :)

coreners?! I mean corners obviously. I really must re-read what I write before hitting post :S

Great shot, simply love it :-)

A work of art

I'm diggin' this one a LOT. With the slight blurs I think you've got a very painterly/charcoal feel to this one! I love the figure almost in complete silhouette. I like the sepia tone because it looks like it was done in charcoal on warm gray paper... Nice piece!!

This one is one my favorites of yours, I think.

Dave,
To me, this is a good piece of work as far as post-processing. The crop is great, and the vignetting makes it dramatic, the tone is perfect. As far as a photographic work, I find it difficult to accept as a "great shot". With the risk of being unpopular, I feel I must tell you that I don't see much on it to support some of the above claims. The reason is that I think it is an ordinary shot, made look great with post processing. Shooting through the bus window makes the entire scene blurred, nothing seems to be in good focus. Had this been shot without the glass, or had the focus been on the water on the glass itself maybe this would have been more interesing, but I don't mean that you should have done this or that, I know the moment the shutter cycles it is only one, and "what if..." doesn't usually do anything, at least for me it doesn't.

Again, I think you deserve credit for the post editing, and I look forward to seeing more from you, like I do everyday (almost).

Ahh sea... a never-ending story...

A Photo Noir with plenty of chills and shivers. A particularly like the crop. I can't imagine anything that was lost that could have enhanced the shot.

Thanks for the point to John's shot from the same locale. There are some pleasing qualities to his shot, particularly the extra plane of light on the man and the sharpness about his face. (The compostion is bothersome though as well as the overly dark right side.)

I love this image Dave, very twenties film looking. Great shadow and atmosphere. Shot through a window? I quite like the raindrops on the image.

It feels like a scene out of a Tom Waits song. It is harsh and soft, eerie and yet familiar all at the same time. I think the cinematic format of the image really begins to tell a story. Great photograph.

Wonderful image, dreamlike and cinematic. Very nice.

what a dramatic shot! great book cover this will make. wow.

I love this shot. There may be picky details to criticize, but I don't see them. I love the mood, the dark, the cold, the silhouette - and the rays of light coming down on the ocean in the background. Exquisite and special capture of a unique moment in time. The dirty glass adds to the effect for me. Thanks again for beauty and inspiration.

Utterly beautiful. I too get the thick film noir feeling (with plenty of requisite dark mysteriousness) upon first gaze and long thereafter. Meets and exceeeds all my criteria for great (masterfully executed and a privilege to behold) art!

I'm with Joan. I see no evidence that supports the negative criticisms on this one. And at the risk of sounding like an ass kisser (if you knew me personally you'd know that I'm painfully honest), I'll go out on a limb and say that I've seen very few who have negative criticisms who can also call themselves your peer. People sometimes seem to expect too much sometimes (if that makes any sense). Even on your worst day you seem to present something that still says Chromasia and still supercedes much of what I see on the 165065198481651651984 photoblogs out there. This isn't your worst day.

People sometimes seem to expect too much sometimes (if that makes any sense).

Doesn't make sense because of the extra sometimes! LOL!

i really like this series. i almost want to be in the same stop. if only i can produce something like this. :) great job!

Very similar to John's photo but at the same time very unique. All the details and the tonning are well balanced in a composition that transport us viewers to the scene. Excellent work! Tjis is today photo of the day at The Invisible Man. : )

If you have not seen the original shot how can you say it was no good? If Dave had this final result in his minds eye when he took the original shot - doesn't make the original shot good too?
Thanks Dave, I like it a lot.
Rob

VelviaPix:
Someone who creates images is an artist. Whether it's photography, Illustration or whatever. In the end you are left with an image of the artist's creation. Does it matter if a photographer did significant postprocessing to get the image they like? Or if they left it mostly as shot? Just curious.

Anywho... I'm picturing Humphrey Bogart in this one. :-)

Beautiful image, though I feel as if I'm looking through my windshield.

Great picture! I have to say I love this kind of images (although some of my favorite bright and sharp pictures are at this site too...)

I think what makes a great dynamic shot is the presence of some sharp elements in an otherwise blurred picture. This picture has it all.

It looks like you are building a series of 2x1 pictures...

Nice one.Love this image and it's a much truer representation of Blackpool in my limited experience.

oooooh! i like this one a lot. there's a definite mood to it. i really like what you did with the corners.

What an eye you have. :) Love it.

Nice shot Dave but nowhere near as good as Johns version.

LOL - Got you going for a minute eh. NO, I really like this one Dave. Its got a darkness that I like and conveys a mood/feeling which is nice to see in an image.

this is something I would like to see on my new apartments wall

Very evocative shot. Simply love it

Dave, this really TOUCHES the viewer!
It's so atmospheric, I feel I am there. Beautiful and I feel obliged to comment to let you know you've hit the spot.

I love this shot, the way you can see the wind bending the umbrella just shows how bad the weather was and i love the darkness of it, excellent.

We all seem to need the help of someone else to mend that shelf of too many books.....

Read me your favourite line.

i love this picture =)

Another excellent shot. I love the contrast with the colourful, summer shots that you have posted of Blackpool.

Those dirty panes make for some excellent pictures! This is awesome! Excellent shot!!

if anything was in sharp focus all would be lost! i like the open mouth.

Wow, David... This certainly is an impressive shot. Great all around...

I don't often comment, but this is my favorite shot I've seen here for awhile. The second lens (the bus window) helps make the picture IMO. It's like I'm there, looking out a bus window in the dark, passing by this guy wondering about his story that brings him out on a night like this. I wouldn't mind owning this one myself.....

I echo the sentiments that this is great work. To me, this shot has a very romantic quality to it. Romanticism seems to be somewhat polarizing. Some feel the the emotional connection, others think it's over the top.

The negative comments got me to thinking too. I think some negative comments are more of an effort to think critically and explore that thinking rather than an accurate reflection of the work that is posted on a given day. I would guess that most don't have a great deal of experince with formal critiques (which is what a lot of this discussion amounts to).

By and large, the encouragment to look and think critically may be of greater service to the viewers of this site than the photography that is displayed. You have built quite a forum for people to develop these skills and you put your work on the line for it. To have the self assurance to do that is impressive...

Love this dark mood!

This is a very impressive photo. I like most everything that you post but I will say that I think this one is a notch above. This is just fantastic. I hope you frame and hang this one, it deserves a bit of wall space. 8-)

Mikelangelo.
In my opinion, by no means it makes a difference in the overall quality of an image whether it was post-processed on not. David's work is awesome because he knows how to achieve the effect he wants, and the effect we enjoy. In today's case, I commented that to me the image was a good piece of work because of the post-process, and that otherwise I did not see much to it, In other words, photographically I did not like it (but there we draw the line between the image making of the artist, and the picture taking of the photographer, which is a thin line, btw) but no merit taken away from this shot, as an overall image. I still consider it a great piece of work. Sometimes, my friend, we (photobloggers) make the mistake of commenting to much. Maybe because we, after all, are bloggers. I know I should in some cases just say "nice job", but I enjoy saying why. (The bloggers syndrome)
:o)

A wonderful and evocative image that oozes mood and character and story. I love it and I continue to be in awe of DJN's ability to consitantly publish images that make me stop and stare at the screen for minutes on end. I can't think of another site that achieves this as consistantly as chromasia.

It certainly did come down. Dark...cold...rainy, I feel like I'm there. I almost wish I were there. Lovin' the tones in this shot.

I agree with VelviaPix that the post-processing makes this shot and gives it the "mood" that evokes the responses. In this case, I don't like the sepia tone, perhaps straight B&W would have been enough, but that's Dave's call.

In the end, though, I like the final image and the "cold" feeling that it evokes. Nice work, as usual.

Thanks everyone :-)

VelviaPix:

Ok. ;-) I was curious as to what you meant regarding parts of your comment. I appreciate the clarification. FWIW, I don't think you "commented too much."

Dave:
thanks for providing this forum for these conversations. ;-)

FANTASTIC PHOTO!!!

Just wanted to say, perhaps a little too lately, that I believe the blurriness that was brought up by VelviaPix is actually the reason some of us (I) like this shot. Someone else mentioned that the bus windows is actually another 'lens' and I found that to be very true. =]

Wonderful.

Just....wou!!!!

-----
Cada vez me sorprenden tus imágenes...

Eduardo

To me you can truly tell when something is good by the amount of comments that it receives.

I don't mean good as the perfect piece of art or anything like that, but I refer to good as sparking these discussions, questionning what people want and expect to see and questionning what people want and expect you to produce.

To me this image is brilliant, I can't help but loo, possibly too much vignetting, but it is all the way you have framed the subject.

Yet again, I think this image looks amazing on the black background in comparison to the rest.

I think that you should look into some way of controlling the default style for the image, it helps with the presentation of it!

To be honest, that's one of my favorites of yours.

JD: I have thought about manually setting the background colour on a daily basis, but I think I'd rather people chose it themselves. You're right though, some shots do look much better with a specific background.

Ooo, I can completely imagine the day - I can almost feel the wind and rain - brrrr!

Sorry, it's pretty boring, almost trite. It's also kind of soft in the focus.

Magic again. Thanks djn.
RustyJ

I arrive late to the discussion, so much has been said.
Can I add that it's a very powerful image? I don't mind the vignetting, cropping, photoshopping.
I mind what I see.
And I like it a lot.

wonderful shot.. simply a class above the rest.. good post-processing to give the mood u wanted to portray to us.. makes me feel real glad i was not in the rain! haha.. ;p

wonderful, i like this image very much. so moody and i feel cold and wet in front of my monitor.

A wonderful, dramatic shot. I echo an earlier comment is saying it rings like a Tom Waits song. Excellent.

Really lovely!

Some day, I want a print of this one -- I just love it DJ -- fine fine work...

MAN I LOVE YOUR PICTURES!

Superb. One of my favorite images of yours.

beautiful shot, timeless

Magic. This capture is sheer art; a unique portrait silhouette amidst such drama.

I just stumbled upon this in a Google search. Great photo. I have felt like this on many an occasion. Seattle has rain in its rain. (Yuck)