Do you pick up the litter that you find, if so, the beach must be very clean :D

I just wish I had the photographic eye like you do! I find things or places to shoot, then quickly run out of ideas and can't yet 'see' them after processing like this!

I like this shot and in a strange way the cloud pattern seems to add the perspective instead of the beach itself (or maybe its a good combination of the two...!?)

Reminds me a bit of Pirates of the Caribbean from last night. Dark and brooding.

I really like the processing on this.. except I'm back and forth if I like the bottles tone. Can't explain it but it's still a great image IMO. after converting to B+W with the Channel Mixer on this image how did you do the curves? It seems a little different that your normal shots

i think the somber emotion is perfectly captured and processed in this shot.

well done, as usual.

I like the balance between the bottle and the sky. Nicely composed. BTW, I used to see your site with a grey background, then I hit the "white" link and can't get the grey back. :-( Is there a way to see it it grey again? Thanks!

PIXEL VIKING: this was taken on a section of the beach that seems to attract a lot of debris so no, I don't tend to pick stuff up. I might move it a bit though ;-)

Brett: I don't have a fixed way of working with Curves so I'm not sure that I've done anything especially different with this one.

geckonia: there's a fair bit of behind-the-scenes recoding going on at the moment, one consequence of which is that I've simplified the stylesheets. I may well add the grey one back in again in a week or so.

Great contrast, i like it ;)

Sorry Dave, it is too obvious that you (or someone) has stood the bottle up. It worries me. Still, people like it and your processing as ever is excellent. So maybe it is just me!

Adrian: it was me. It's the beachcombing equivalent of "say cheese!" ;-)

I enjoy this image very much. I really like the slight coloring you did to the sky.

Two things I notice:
1. The image appears to slightly dip to the right (skyline).
2. I would like to see the subject be a little sharper (personal preference for this shot).

Neither of those comments take away from how much I enjoy the photo though ... just thoughts and observations.

I like that title.
(and the photo)

I know the feeling.

Sorry, I'm a Photoshopist wannabe. How do you get the vignetting around the picture? Does anyone here know? Thank you.

Eric

¿ Es posible vivir de la fotografía?

Is my dream.. and I'm here... in the university.. studing civil engineering on computers... mmm...

your site is my homepage!!

Did you take the cap off to check for any messages? If you found no messages, did you think to rub the bottle? It sure appears to have come to this place from the deep for some profound reason.

amazing feeling, great image, wish I had a beach around that I could get to all the time without having to drive for an hour when I dont have time :P

the upper portion of sky seems green to me, and i like it.

I must say, 921 photographs later, i'm beginning to get a little bored with the beach, images of the beach, ect. I know you don't do this for the fans, but sometimes i feel as though i'm looking at the same image i say week ago. i think you should try and focus on something new - expand your horizons.

love the tones! you make the ordinary piece of junk look extrodinary!!

Hey, that looks like the bottle I put a message in to you David! Looks like it made it all the way from the US! Seriously great work as usual.

hope your day before was a better one. ;)

Great shot. I think it looks a bit spooky with those tones, but in a cool way :-)

Bonjour,

vos photos sont magnifiques!! bravo

j'adore!! (en esperant que vous comprenez le francais)

une francaise de Paris...

SO what did the message in the bottle said?

Nice low angle and well processed.

Interesting at first. The more i look at it, the more it seems ...'ordinary'? or done before. And the less of a fan of the shot i become.

you're being 'cranked' (see url)

Very good perspective.

great photo & processed tone ! love it.

amazing processed! i like the dark tones....

Eric I noticed you asked about the vignette around the image, you can either do that by using poor quality lenses (which I know is not the case here or you can use a product from pixelgenius that allows you very easily to apply burn in on corners, left side, right side, bottom, top or middle. so check out www.pixelgenius.com, their products are really great and for what you get I think it's good value.

I am a big chromasia fan and the thing I admire is that every day without fail there is a new image and always an interesting image, sometimes maybe not spectacular, but looking at the thumbnails I think the jury has returned that quality, image composition and technique is outstanding.

Like the tone here. nice.

PS Eric and Andre, good quality lenses vignette too, especially when used wide open. Even the best Canon L's will do it.

Such an amazing image. The bottle seems larger than life...great angle!

Really nice tone, cool composition and great postprocessing.

cool.

Hi Dave,

Quick question regarding the shooting mode. Do you usually shoot using Aperture Priority (and not Manual)?

Oye, another question:

The photos here, when compared to the other photoblogs you link to (who take photos of the same things and in the same places), seem to have a lot more post-processing done on them. Would it be possible for you to give us another quick run-through of your process from RAW to the final photo that you post on this photoblog?

m i k e b: you're quite right, the horizon is a litte off. I'll amend it when I have the time.

Eric Rudd: the vignette is achieved by using a masked curve.

Skip (and navin): nope, no message ;-)

Alex James: I agree. The beach is my comfort zone, where I go when I don't have much time. And you're right, it's well past the time when I should put something different up.

Crank: everything has been photographed before, in a variety of styles.

Brian: yes, most of the time I use aperture priority as I'm more interested in DoF than a particular shutter speed. That said, I do use manual quite often when I'm using flash or the lighting is particularly odd.

Cool. I like the tonal range. And, I like that you stood the bottle up. All the other lines in the pic are horizontal, the bottle adds some vertical.
When I walk along a beach or where ever and I see something interesting, I tend to stand it up straight to take a look. Seems very natural to me that you stood it up.
One last comment - Thank you for blogging the photo info. I'm fairly new to photography and I've learned a lot from this.

Great stuff as usual David.