It's fab. What I particularly like is how it looks so professionally lit and yet looking at the EXIF it's clearly just an act of God. So that leaves me thinking that either God follows you around lighting everything just right, or you've got some Photoshop plugin that renders light just right. Did you darken the background sea and sky? It looks exactly as if a spade is dug into the sand about a foot from a backdrop in a studio.

I'd be interested in what you didn't like about the previous few versions and what it is about this one that clicks for you.

'Old School'- Chromasia, my favourite....,I like the composition, and I like the colouring, and shallow depth of field. Only thing I would have touched out would maybe have been the two white blobs on the horizon, and or tried the shot in monochrome, or duotone.
But I like it.
CJ

owen: the reason I didn't like the previous versions is that they didn't look balanced. I used a separate curve for the foreground and the background and couldn't get the spade to look convincing. In this version I was a little more careful with the mask and am happy that the end result looks realistic.

csj: I did think about the two blobs, but decided to leave them in on the basis that they added a bit of interest to the horizon.

cool shot. The shovel looks tiny.

you have very strange extra shallow DOF for a 58mm / F4 shot, dont really get it how you do achieve that ...

Oh my goodness!! Chormasia'ism :)
I love the contrast. Do you use a special masking technique for this or just do it with brush tool on the masking layer?

Nice one Dave.

Regards

Ibid on "Old School Chromasia" The blurred out, darkened background is perfect. I'd love to see it in B&W also. Great!

Very nice colors and depth of field. I like the "layers" of the beach showing.

Bam! ...That's what we come here for and you've given it to us in spades (arf arf). It looks kind of bright and dark at the same time.

Nicely done. Great colours, especially the red.

This is outstanding! The depth to this shot is amazing and light is perfect. I've been stuck in a rut lately and this is just pure inspiration to get out and shoot again!

I like that pink !

The shallow dof wins th day here. Nice work!

Nice colours and composition but the sky is distracting a little. A clear sky would have looked much better. I can see why you didn't post it the first time around

Almost looks like it's shot in a studio...

This one is really strong, because the colours really 'match'... I love it.

Thanks everyone :-)

This is really excellent - I'm late to the party, but it's really wonderful.

Very nice. I like the DOF and the bright pink contrasting against the darker sky. Well done!

VERY nicely done. To begin with, the composition is flawless. I must say I really enjoy this type of DOF work, almost looks like a tilt shift shot at first glance. Like others have said, it looks almost like a studio shot with a backdrop. But what makes this shot so great, in my opinion at least, is the lighting that you achieved. It suits this shot perfectly.
Thanks for putting this one up.