This is your least favorite?? Oh, my.

The shot is gorgeous. I love the shading, the depth, the sense of vastness as the sea meets the sky, and the texture of the water near the shore.

If this is the "worst" of the bunch, then we are all in for a real treat in the coming days!

I'd take those statistics down right now. You will find that unscrupulous people will repeatly hit your site with a false referrer so that they come up in the "referers" section of the stats, hence getting themselves a link from your site and (more importantly) some google pagerank.

I agree with Peg K. No matter how strong the wind is, I find it a difficult thing to capture on camera. If you can find some decent sand dunes then the spray from these on a windy day can be quite dramatic

Outstanding image .. 4 things I LOVE about this image:

1. Foreground texture == smooth and ripply at the same time

2. Background - You know how much I love that area back there -- I really enjoy seeing more up-close shots of the rides. Having it all in the background like this is really wonderful.

3. I really like the sepia tones ... really well done.

4. Dog in the frame -- can never have too many dogs :-)

Lovely image, Dave -- one of my favorites -- something I'd hang in my house...

Dave, another very nice shot, although as you realise it does not demonstate the windy conditions very well.

The mono/sepia is very effective and fits well with the silhouetting. A good decision to underexpose i think. DOF could be improved though as it is perhaps soft in near FG. Difficult in high winds I know but could a smaller aperture/longer exposure have been possible? Interested in practicalities.

I really wonder if a portrait format might have been a better choice here. It would show the FG off more effectively IMO and also lead the eye in to the person and then on to the Pleasure Beach. There just seems too much sand here as it is! You don't do many vertical images - why is that? Maybe you shoot with the montor view in mind?

Thanks for email.

Cheers for now

Oh, I can't wait to see the colored versions of these photos. =)

Peg: thanks.

quis: you're right. I just checked out on of the other sites that does this and found a load of spurious entries. I've got rid of the stats. Thanks for the heads-up.

bob: thanks.

Darrell: yes, a smaller aperture would probably have worked but it was so windy I decided I'd be better off with a much higher shutter speed than I'd normally use.

And you're probably right about taking this in portrait format too. I very rarely put anything up that isn't a landscape shot as I don't think it comes across all that well on a blog. Either you need to put up a disappointingly small shot, or you need to scroll. And if it's the latter I think it needs to be a shot that benefits from scrolling such as over and underground at ddoi.

Chelsea June: I'd be interested to hear how you think the colour shots compare.

wonderful tones. the texture of the sand and the water is special. nice one!

The silhouetted figure and his dog really give this shot a sense of scale, depth, and mood. All of the space in the foreground make this very easy to look at and track to the horizon. One of my favorites.

Re: verticals, I'm sorry, Dave, but I can't let you get away with that without a rebuttal. "Disappointingly small" is only relative to the impact of the content. The challenge lies in using the format to your advantage. :)

Excellent shot Dave, as always.
I think the toning gives the image justice.
I get the shivers just looking at it ;-). Cold, Wet & Windy.

Jerome: the problem is one of resolution. If you post a portrait shot with the same vertical size as a landscape shot (522px on chromasia) it has less than half the resolution. You're right that some shots do work well at these sort of sizes (522 x 384px), but they lose a lot of detail, and this limits the kind of shot you can put up. So, most of the time, I tend to avoid taking portrait shots when I'm out shooting for chromasia.

Thanks for the reply. I'm in agreement with you, 100%. You must choose the subject and compose for the format. I wouldn't photograph the same subject for a vertical composition as I would for a horizontal. It does limit the kind of shot you can put up. Therein lies the challenge.

I'm likin' this one, sir: it's very peaceful, and i like the confidence in the stride (at least, that's how it strikes me).

BTW, this week's Photo Friday theme, Silhouette, was suggested by yours truly, and if you don't have a better one in mind this would do nicely. It seems like an overlooked theme, kind of like as if there were no "puppies" or "eyes."

great concept of scales, dimensions and space and wth a few elements only. Another example of a good job based on simplicity but vision.

The tone on this image is perfect for it. It really makes the textures stand out, yet gives the image a warm feel. Love your work by the way.

This is beautiful, Dave.

when you first post a comment on a blog, you wonder if you should treat it like a call in radio show.

hi i'm a first time caller, long-time reader. anyhow.

the textures, quality of light and angle ar superb in this photograph. i doubt the color version could compare. though, i''ve no idea what colors would exist here. thanks for putting your heart into photography.

This is a strong shot. Good foreground interest, decent background and the man and dog adding the final touch. Tone works well for a British winter seaside scene.

I feel that despite the wind you could have stopped down a little more. 1x the reciprocal of the focal length is usually ok. You often seem reluctant to use smaller apertures - a hangover from the G5 perhaps?

Excellent shot great composition, I agree with Simon C, I would stopped down more, was it that you were reluctnat to use a faster ISO? I can apprecite the the shutter speed you used.

FYI your site was down at about 6:00 AM GMT this morning cos that's when I usually log on. Chromasia and weetabix.....

Thanks everyone.

Frank: good idea, I'll enter this one for Photo Friday. I did have something else in mind, but it looks like it's going to be a bit of a hectc week so I suspect I won't have time to shoot anything specific.

Simon C and peterv: I probably should have shot this at f/8.0 and either dropped the shutter speed to 1/125 or upped the ISO to 200. That said I don't find the slightly blurred foreground too much of an issue in that, IMO, it leads you into the rest of the picture without being distracting.

~what impresses me here is the POV, nice and low to the ground, it really opens up the frame for the viewer, giving me tons to take in and pick up on...the tone adds interest and appeal as well...I/eye look forward to the rest of the series~

This is beautiful. Nice and somber.

I have to say though, I get a feeling of calm from this, and was about to comment on that, when I saw you were trying to convey wind. I do suppose the wind is what's causing those ripples, but I wonder if the wind effect is one of those 'you had to be there' things, at least in a sweeping shot like this?

Anyway, whether I get the feeling of wind or not, this is a beautiful shot. It's definitely perfect for PhotoFriday and one of my favorites of the ones you've posted most recently.

Can't wait to see the #1 shot.

gorgeous. can't say that enough.

There's nothing I can say that hasn't already been said, but I couldn't leave without saying how beautiful this shot is. It seems a little sad though, sort of lonely. I suspect it will be a Noteworthy for this week's Photo Friday challenge. Nice work, as always.

Thanks everyone :-)

Stunning... Just gorgeous... I love the color tone and the subject...

Beautiful. And this is your least favourite???

I like this very much Dave...real interesting. Taking the gaudiness out of the funfair and having it in the background...it looks industrial, amazing effect. I don't feel see or get the wind, I am sorry cos I sure know it was there!!!! It looks purposeful in a calm, I want to say businesslike (but industrial not suits and ties) way. It just makes me see that familiar view in a totally different way and I guess that is your giftedness as a photographer...... crawly crawl