Surreal and intriguing.

very interesting perspective I didn't realise it was a bench until I read your comments

brilliant and striking! wonderful image! i had to look real hard to figure out what it is!

This is so beautiful...I love the colors, and the clarity, and the perspective, and...well, everything. Please, please tell me you are a photographer in your day job.

I'm with picturegrl on this one. This photo so captivating. And I've always wondered what your day job was? and how you find time to take photos all the time. I can barely find time to do my research homework let alone take a break to sleep.

I'm impressed once again. keep up the good work.

picturegrl and Thinh Thang: I'm a lecturer in a UK university. As for finding the time to take pictures: I always have my camera with me and shoot whenever I can – weekends, on my way home from work, during lunch, and so on. Tonight, for example, I stopped at the sea-front (about three miles from our house), spent fifteen minutes taking pictures, then came home.

David, your works are stunning!
Thank you very much for inspiration.

Just when I thought you'd lost that edge... There you go again! Absolutely stunning.

Great shot! I envy you having the sea so close to home.

The poor mans tripod sometimes have the best results. Well done. Night shots rock the most.

Great shot! Is the setting sun the only light source?

Oh wait, I guess the sun had already set if it was after 8pm when you shot this....

It's amazing what can be done with existing artificial lighting!! Love the clarity brightness of the railing against the dark sky.

Thanks for posting so many excellent pictures! They inspire me to try harder and take better pictures and try many different points of view.

when i saw this i said "wow" out loud unintentionally =) very awesome photo...the colors are so striking!

If I didn't think this was a bench, I'd have said some part of a roller coaster :P

A great picture happens when you love the moment more than your equipment. This image can pull out emotions out of me.

very golden and the clouds fill in nicely on the top right

Amazing perspective. It took a while for me to realise it was a bench. Most of the time the good pictures come when you aren't thinking too hard and just click away. :)

I'm right there with Benny on this one -- except instead of 'wow', I just went 'ooooo!' The colors, the lighting, the dead-center perspective, the depth of field -- I wouldn't change a thing about this image (and looking at your post-process note, I'm happy that you didn't have to either!) Excellent shot.

(Looks even more amazing with the dark background for Chromasia, I might add).

I would like to mention that I seem to be lost trying to focus on any particular thing in the image. The colors and all seem to be good, but I can't focus on any one thing in the foto.

at first glance i thought this was the ribs of an old boat, until i realized what it was. very nicely done!

Great shot. Love the blurred sky. Is the rail on the RH side slightly oversharpened, or is that fringing a result of the contrast adjustment? Picky:-)

This picture is just great. I didn’t realize it was a bench until I read your comment. I have the bless of living near to the sea and I don’t think I could ever take a picture like that :(. The claws are a perfect contrast with the sunset light. It is just beautiful. I am surprise that your job is not related with photography :o.

wow, the colors on this are outstanding.

Gorgeous. Just amazing. WOW!

I am nearly voiceless - this is really powerful. For me it's the best one you have posted this month.

Thanks everyone.

Peterv/Picky: lol :-) Actually, it's neither oversharpened (I didn't sharpen that area of the image) nor fringed, it's just the way the railings caught the light. I've put up a 100% crop to show you what I mean here:

.../images/railing_crop.jpg

Oh, and this isn't a sunset shot. The shot was taken due south (the sea is off to the right) and the glow is from the streetlights behind the promenade.

hi david

this is my second ever comment on your blog although I visit daily... this image is stunning. as a senior art director I deal with photgraphers on a daily basis and can confidently say you're up with the best.

you really should set up a web site promoting your images for use in advertising and promotions... the northwest tourism board and their agencies would 'dig deep' to get hold images like these. steve

This image provides an interesting perpective and is excellently exposed, but let face it, there is little to focus on after that. Why not put yourself in the frame on the far bench for interest (I'm sure you could keep still for 30 seconds!). I also think it could be sharper in the BG and i wonder why you didn't use a smaller aperture to get better DOF. Is the 20D noisy on longer exposures/higher ISOs than used?

Saying that, i really admire your creative energy and imagination in putting up good quality pictures on such a frequent basis, so please do not take any picture based criticism as a negative comment on your site as a whole.

As for those who couldn't make out the subject, well...i despair!

Darrell: interesting points, and I always welcome criticism/critique.

As for your points then: I did take a few shots at f/10.0 (ISO 400, which isn't noisy, by any means) but I don't think they worked quite so well, mostly because the increased DoF detracted from what I see as the main subject – the odd, slightly diffuse items in the background. I've just checked the original and you're right, they aren't entirely sharp, but this isn't a focus issue, at least I don't think so; i.e. there was some mist in the air. I could have compensated for this by sharpening the image a bit more thoroughly, but I quite like the effect. And I guess I could have put myself in the shot, but I'm not sure it would have worked. I'll re-shoot this one at some point and try your suggestion.

The best photo of a bench I've seen in a long time. That you lined up the guard rail/fence on the right with the edge of the bench really contributes to the almost tunnel-like effect. Gorgeous! It's like some futuristic landscape.. beautiful work!

Dave

Happy to criticize/help.

Cheers

Ahh, 'lecturer in a UK University'. Snap. Now I really don't know where you find the time...
;-)

PS I echo the majority sentiment - it's more than intriguing and surreal, it's great.

beautiful beautiful beautiful. excellent shot.

love the colours - looks like a painting rather than a photo

At first I thought this was an abstracted version of an instrument like a guitar - the slats of the bench remind me of frets along the neck of a stringed instrument.
And yeah, sometimes NOT having the tripod on hand is the trick:-)

This photo throws my sense of scale off. It looks as though this was some modern architecture lit from the inside. Then I read that it was a bench. Beautiful! Also, thank you for inspiring me to start my own photoblog. It has been a great experience so far.

WOW, awesome !! I like the way you used the bench to draw the viewer into the composition.

Unprepareness is the mother of invention...

I love shooting benches, they are so many differnt kinds, some are quite comformatible. (spell)
I hope to make a collage of pictures of benchs... Benches speak in there silence.... I got the bench bug from Eckhart Tolle... "The Power of Now"

Peace and Love
Lou

Keep on shooting you keep getting better and better !!!

WOW! David, this shot has almost left me speechless. I haven't been commenting on your work as much lately because I thought you may tire of my constant 'Fantastic Shot' but I could not resist on this shot. Your talent with a camera is simply inspiring and breath taking. WOW!

d -

Thanks for including the technical data. What White Balance setting did you use?

r!

russ: I used to include the WB info but I rarely set it to anything other than auto (and correct in DPP if necessary) so took it out of my template.

Thanks, Dave. I'm using an *ist D - I've only had it six weeks. This shot is quite inspiring. I'm getting out tonight!!

r!

How can i get a copy of DPP. will it work with 300d raw files?

Carlos: DPP is bundled with the 20D, the 1D mkII, and the IDs (and 1Ds mkII), and if you have a serial number for a for an older 1D or 1Ds you can download it. For some reason though Canon don't appear to have made it available to other Canon DSLR users.

Very nice image. Love the sky.

Definitely worthy of a place in your Portfolio! ; )

Love the colours and composition.

Lovely picture, good job.

Another three weeks and I pick up my 20d :)

Thanks everyone. As always, it's much appreciated.

great job - the best in a while.
the perspective effect of the bench, rail and light at the end really drags me in. The light coming through is ... golden as you say - and darkeness of the sky closes it. sweet!

I think this is a pretty nice shot. It's not a favorite of mine, but it's still pretty good. I think one thing that kinda turns me off is the blurryness around the bottom. This may have been what you're going for, which is fine, but this is just what I think.

I like the colors and the shapes in the background.

-Tristan (picture life)

only 51 comments? :) it deserves at least 100! :-)
here mine. I linked this photo on my italian weblog saying that is wonderful and that i want to open a photoblog, but shots as this one make me shame on my works :) [sorry for my english]

Is that a bench? To me, it looks like a scupture with sensuous curves and expressive lines. Transforming something mundane into an image as sublime as this one is brilliance. Bravo!

That's really wonderful. I love how the light painted evenything, and the contrast with the dark sky works wonders.

David,
After many months of being a mere passer by on this site, I just had to put fingers to keyboard. I too like many others simply said WOW at this image, then sat back to try and work out what it was! (Unsuccessfully)
Beautiful shot :-)

Your Photo Blog has been come part of my daily "Must Reads". This image is a good example of why. Thanks for the daily dose of art. I've picked up my camera and started taking photos again. Thank you!

Very beautiful and surrreal.

ouch
This one's my favorite
Excellent use of light, well done Dave

Excellent, First shot with everything right since Canon G5 days....
nice one

:-)

This kind of photograph is exactly why I have you on the top of my links in my blog. It is exactly why I even started a photo blog - inspired by your pictures and hoping that someday I might shoot photographs like you do. I am embarrased though with the kind of pictures I shoot. So when I invite friends to my blog, I tell them that the real incentive is the first blog on my links - chromasia.

This is stunning work, Dave. The first thing I thought (after the wow) was "Crouching Photographer, Hidden Horizon" would have been a fun alternative title. =)

awesome and breathtaking shot!!

Ma come fai? splendida, meravigliosa... Ottima resa cromatica, splendida l'inquadratura...

Simply amazing... it evokes a feeling of calm after a tempest. The dark foreboding sky contrasts extremely well with the warm light. The rays of light penetrate through the bars of the benches, which symbolizes how light, hope, and good penetrate darkness, dismay, and evil...

amazing