I took Rhowan and Harmony up to see what's left of the Riverdance ferry this morning. Since it got stranded at the end of January there have been several attempts to re-float it, all of which failed, so they're now dismantling it instead. I imagine that it's going to take quite some time.

As for this shot: it was taken from a similar position to this one, and it's an HDR image, constructed from a bracketed sequence of seven shots using Photomatix Pro.

I didn't get any other decent shots of the boat, but did get several of Rhowan and Harmony - well, two of Harmony and one of Rhowan - that I'll post over the next few days.

As always, let me know what you think.

Oh, and I haven't posted the EXIF data but the sequence was shot at f/8.0 at 200mm.

This is another of my 'testing my new Canon G9' images – a three shot HDR of a tyre on Blackpool beach, processed with Photomatix Pro. On the whole, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

I took part in the annual Fleetwood Wreck Trek today, a six mile walk over the sands of Morecambe Bay with guided visits to the Wyre Light (an abandoned lighthouse) and the site of Stella Marie wreckage on North Wharf Sands. When I got back I discovered that most of my shots of the lighthouse were terrible, which didn't surprise me as it was raining when we got there and the sky was dull and flat, but what did surprise me though is how much my legs ached - I obviously need to get off my bum a bit more often :-)

Anyway, my shots of what's left of the Stella Marie wreck were also pretty hopeless, but I did shoot a series of shots of this structure. As with most of my recent HDRs, this one was constructed from a seven shot sequence using Photomatix Pro.

I'll take another look of the shots I took of the Wyre Light, and the wreck, and will post something tomorrow if I can salvage any of them.

I thought it was about time for a change from all the HDR stuff so here's another one to add to the the beachcombing gallery.

When I posted Riverdance #7 I said that I wouldn't post any more shots unless something eventful happened ;– as you can see, it has – in fact two things have changed. First, it's now laying almost entirely on its side, and second, if you compare this shot to one of the first I put up, you will see that it's acquired a couple of large tanks on its hull. Apparently these will be filled with water – to act as ballast – when they try to re-float the ferry at some point over the next few days. In fact, since this was taken a few days ago, two more tanks have been added just to the left of these. If and when they do attempt to re-float it I'll try and be there to photograph it.

Oh, and I haven't posted the EXIF data as this is an HDR, constructed from three bracketed exposures.

As I mentioned yesterday, unless something especially exciting happens, or I come up with a new way to photograph this scene, this will be the last of the shots of the stranded ferry Riverdance.

As for this one: it's another attempt to capture the scale of the scene, but this time I wanted to focus on the salvage going on in and around the boat, rather than just the boat itself.

In terms of post-production, this one was relatively straightforward other than the fact that I altered the colour temperature when I processed the RAW file (as described in my first digital workflow tutorial); i.e. it's considerably warmer than the actual scene.

First of all, thanks for all the great comments on yesterday's shot. I really liked it, so it was good to hear that you did too. The downside is that it's all downhill from here, at least as far as the Riverdance is concerned, as I don't think I'm going to get a better shot than that one.

As today's: unless I can think of a new angle, or something dramatic happens, then this will probably be my penultimate shot of the Riverdance. As with yesterday's one of the things I was trying to do is capture/illustrate the scale of this boat – and I think it comes across reasonably well in this one.

Oh, and if you're wondering about the line of people in the distance, they are standing at the other side of the exclusion zone; i.e. around 800m away from where I'm standing.

I've also posted the original image, not because there's anything special about the post-production, but because I thought you might like to see the original scene:

.../archives/riverdance_6.php

When I post a shot in my beachcombing category it's normally quite a safe bet that nobody else has photographed the bucket, or piece of driftwood, or whatever else it is I happen to stumble across as I wander along the beach; i.e. there's no competition, and the shot stands or falls on its own merits (or lack of them).

In this case though, there are hundreds of photographers taking photographs of this stranded ferry, so I wanted to make sure that I got at least one decent shot today – and I'm pleased with this one. Because of the angle it was taken from, it doesn't do a great job of conveying the scale of this boat, but I'm pretty pleased with the end result nonetheless.

I haven't posted the EXIF data, as this was an HDR constructed from three bracketed exposures, but all were taken at around 180mm with my 70-200mm zoom.

As always, let me know what you think.

This is probably the last of the shots I'll be putting up from my trip the other day but I may try to shoot a couple from a different vantage point tomorrow. I did go out this morning, at around 7am, as I had two shots in mind that I wanted to try. The first was a long exposure of the waves around the boat (the tide was in this morning) but all of these ended up being blurred. I've got a pretty steady tripod, and did my best to shield it from the wind, but obviously didn't do a good enough job and they're all far too soft to post. The second shot I tried, which I may well try again tomorrow afternoon, is one from further up the coast – looking back towards the ferry and Blackpool Tower. Again, I tried this shot this morning, but by the time I got there the sky was far too bright in comparison to the water (which was still partially shaded by the coast), so none of these worked out either.

As for this shot: it's my favourite of the four I've posted so far, but do feel free to disagree.

One of the things I enjoy the most about post-production is that it allows you to create interpretative photographs rather than literal ones; i.e. it provides an opportunity to explore different ways of looking at or representing the same 'facts'. For example, I've already posted two shots of this boat: the first one was an attempt to capture the drama of the scene, while yesterday's was more literal. Today's and tomorrow's however, take a slightly different approach; i.e. they are both attempts to offer a slightly more surreal view of the same scene. This one does so using colour, while tomorrow's (my favourite of this short series) is more to do with contrast.

For me though, the important thing is that I see all of them as real images, that all express some fragment of the 'truth' about the 'reality' of this stranded ferry.

Here's a second shot of the stranded ferry Riverdance, taken about a minute after the coastguard had told us to "move at least another 300m away, please."

This is the first of a number of shots of the ferry Riverdance, which was blown ashore a couple of miles north of Blackpool last night. If you're interested, there's a BBC news report here.

So far, I've processed five shots that I like, but probably won't bore you with all of them ;-)

Oh, and this looks best with the black theme.

I'm not sure why I didn't post this one at the time it was taken, but having worked on it again I did think it was worth putting up. As with a lot of my recent work, this was processed in LAB Color mode rather than RGB, though in this instance I think I could just have easily have used RGB.

If you're interested, the original is here:

.../archives/in_the_seas_grip.php

I can't decide whether I prefer this one to the original dear liza, or dear liza #2, but I am pleased with it, mainly because I managed to bring out the detail in the bucket without the processing being too obvious. As you can see, there's quite a large difference between this version and the original:

.../iblog/archives/dear_liza_3.php

As for the processing: five masked Curves for contrast, one unmasked one to tone the image, and a Selective Color layer to add a bit of yellow to the highlights.

As always, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

I'm not an expert on fireworks, but I suspect that there are few that are more bizarrely named than this one ;-)

I didn't think I was going to get out today, but I managed to grab an hour on Fleetwood beach where I got this shot and one other that I'm happy with. And the title refers to the post-production, not the bottle: it was pretty much this lurid shade of pink when I found it.

I do have two more shots of Ryan and Fiona, and several of Fiona on her own, but in the meanwhile I thought I'd share this one; and while I've found quite a few old tyres washed up on my local beaches I didn't really expect to find one in Nassau :-)

I don't know why, but I'm always drawn to lost and lonely objects.

Update #2: The subscription based tutorials are now live. Full details can be seen on this page :-)

Update: in case you've been wondering about why I haven't posted any new material over the last couple of days it's because I'm working flat-out to sort out the first subscription based tutorial. It will be available at some point early next week and I'll update the tutorials RSS feed as soon as it's released.

The feed, if you haven't already subscribed, is here:

http://www.chromasia.com/tutorials/online/comments/index.xml

I'm not especially happy with this one either, but no trip to Fleetwood beach would be complete without a photograph of a washed up piece of junk ;-)

Oh, and I did wonder if this one was a bit dark, but it looks OK with the black theme.

I met up with John yesterday and we spent a couple of happy hours pottering around on Fleetwood beach. I didn't get many photographs that I'm happy with. In fact, I didn't really get any that I'm especially happy with, but it was a good trip.

This is more an exercise in using Photoshop than a piece of fine art, but it was quite good fun to produce.

If you're interested, the original is here:

.../archives/the_colour_of_wood.php

I met up with John today, which was good as I haven't seen him in ages, and we took a walk along Fleetwood beach. The weather wasn't great, and I don't think I've got anything else to put up other than this shot, but it was an enjoyable trip.

This is another one from my trip to the beach, and I have one more that I'll put up tomorrow. After that, all being well, I've have one or two from my trip to the desert this afternoon (though the light was really terribly so I'm not quite sure what I've got yet), and then maybe a couple more from a late afternoon trip to the beach that I have planned for tomorrow.

Normally when I take this type of shot, especially at this time of year, I'm laying on my stomach on a cold and wet beach, wearing a shirt, fleece, coat and hat ... with numb fingers and a feeling that I might freeze to death at any moment. Here though, things are a lot warmer, and despite it being winter in Dubai too, it felt more like a balmy summer's day. Which, given the last few months of drab, damp and cold weather we've been having in Blackpool, was a decidedly pleasurable change.

Apologies for not posting yesterday, but I've been wiped out since finishing the book, in addition to which I'm away next week and had quite a lot of stuff to prepare before I go. Hopefully, I'll get something up tomorrow, but I'm travelling for most of the day so may not manage it. If not I should certainly manage to post something on Monday.

Today was a good day, not least because we sent the last sections of the book to the publisher. I also managed to spend a couple of hours at the beach. Most of the stuff I shot was pretty terrible, but I really like this one.

I also managed to update the tutorial pages and have added some details about our training weekends for this summer.

Tomorrow though, I'm going to relax :-)

Here's the second of four shots taken on my trip to the beach yesterday morning. And though I'm loathe to admit it, I owe a thank you to everybody who moaned about the baby shots (see the comments on this entry if you're not sure what I'm talking about) as a) I now have some different images to put up, and b) the break did me good. Over the last week or so I've gradually been getting quite fed up with writing this baby book, not least because it's seemed like a never ending task. But after taking some time off yesterday I was much more productive today, and enjoyed the writing – which is a big improvement on a few days ago.

One of the things I love about the beach is the seemingly endless variety of odd things that appear as the tide recedes. And then, just as quickly, they're gone.

(... and this one looks better with the black theme).

I know I said I was going to put up a more dramatic shot this evening, but I thought I'd post this one instead (and the more dramatic one tomorrow. It's much the same scene as yesterday's, but I've gone for a 'colder' feel to this one. Let me know how you think they compare. I think I prefer yesterday's, but I'm quite pleased with this one too.

Oh, and as quite a few of you commented on the masking for yesterday's shot: both yesterday's and today's are a combination of two TIFFs processed from the same RAW file, one at the normal exposure, one overexposed by a stop. The mask was used to seperate the original exposure (the sky and some aspects of the background) from the overexposed shot – the bucket and most of the foreground. I did think about doing both as HDRs, but decided to go with a more 'traditional' approach for these two.

This is the first of two beachcoming shots, and as usual I can't decide which I prefer. This one is probably the best photograph of the two, but tomorrow's is a bit more surreal and dramatic. I'll let you decide :-)

Top marks to whoever explains the title of this one first ;-)