I like how your recent photos have captured the grayness of the season.

I think this is definitely one of my favourite's of yours. The best I've seen. Superb! The colour and light is just beautiful.

Stunning! It's amazing how beautiful you've made such a mundane scene appear. The soft lines in this are great, and the DOF is great as well.

Great tones, and the DOF looks great, although I suspect it has been enhance in PS

Great shot David. If there is one thing I would ask you to teach me, it would be how to deal with sand in RAW and PS. I realy struggle with it. Nice lighting on this too

Love the selective focus on the sand. The composition is without a doubt very Chromasia style. Can't wait to see tomorrow's shot.

love it - great subject

With all the litter on that beach, it's amazing how clean the sand is :) I like the green colours in the sky. Can't wait for your tutorials to start. I feel like I've been waiting forever by now :)

there's an almost hyper-real feel to this image: pixar-realism, maybe. real, but not quite realistic!? is that what you're trying to achieve, dave?
if so, well done...

I can describe how great I think this is - when it showed up on the screen my first thought was "WOW!!!"

It's strange, you've managed to take a plastic bucket on the beach and make a very nice image of it. And the bucket's BROKEN, too boot! It looks as though you have a soft spotlight/flashlight above and to the left of the bucket. Also, the depth of field is really nice. Really makes the subject pop nicely. The sand makes this image. Neat.

Very nice colors. The depth of field is just great. Your shots are an inspiration to me

Great contrast between the traditional almost natural beach and the legacy of 'selfish man'. Powerful DOF influence. Pixel Viking has made the obvious observation about the sand looking clean. Superficially it is ... but the microscopic pollutants and minute plastic particles would surprise most people.

This one is pretty nice. I'll look forward to tomorrows shot, too.

What a beautiful composition... the tones and DOF are just great!

Amazing - how can a nasty bit of rusbish make a shot that is s lovely. Verity reckons the groyne look like Gt Wall of China!

The sand texture is superbe. Great composition

I like the lighting in this one. There is something I can't put my finger on... it's like it seems like a CGI :-)

Great lightning and depth of field, but I think, that the tone is that one which really works on this image. Its so surrealistic.

Wawou ! When i saw this picture, i've juste said "Wawou". I really love your photo ! Amazing !

Nice image, great light !

You know, I really seem to be in the minority here, but the shot doesn't do it for me. As much as I appreciate the surrealism and artistic merit of much of your other work, this feels a little too fake to me. The bucket seems like it's artificially added in rather than being a natural element of the scene.
Sorry David, hopefully tomorrow's will do it for me instead!

I like the photo but I'm gonna be geeky and praise you on the processing here. the thing is that I know this has been masked so my eyes went into overdrive looking for tell-tale haloes to catch you out with but I can't find any. It's infuriatingly precise. Well done.

great! i love how you postprocess these beachcombing shots! something for your tutorial section when that happens imo.

Absolutely gorgeous image! the simple geometry and the sharp details are great.

Thanks all.

EssPea: no, the DoF is natural.

Richard: generally, one of the things you need to do with sand, especially if you increase the contrast more than a minimal amount, is to reduce the saturation. For this one, and tomorrow's, I toned down the saturation quite substantially.

PIXEL VIKING: yep, it does seem a long time since we first mentioned the tutorials, and it will be a while yet. All being well (though don't hold me to this) we should have something available by the end of February.

dave: yes, the 'not quite real' look is something that I quite like.

mikelangelo: given the right light, nearly anything can be made to look good.

Ash: one of the reasons the shot doesn't look quite real is that it was blowing a gale; i.e. the sand is uniformly distributed around the bucket with none of the usual footprints, other bits of rubbish, and so on.

Jamey: my rule for masking, at least these days, is that if the end result is visible in any way then I need to do it again ;-)

Strange lighting I could've sworn a flash would've been fired to underexpose the background like thta but your data doesn't show it. Nice masking.

like it very much, because of the surreal feeling. great processing!

I thought it was another shipwreck!

Constructively speaking, it looks over-worked to me and artifical, almost "table top photography" like. Excellent processing though if that's the look you were trying to achieve.

Fantastic! One of my all-time Chromasia favorites. The coloring and gorgeously smooth tonal gradations make this shot outstanding.

This looks like an HDR image... The atmosphere created is surreal... like the light is almost too tangible... Magic shot :)

wow exelent

The name caught my attention, to be honest... but mine is pronounced "Lee-zah" not.. "Lie-zah"... Although that is how it's spelled.

The shape of the broken bucket just adds wonder to the picture.