When I was younger I used to enjoy climbing – not in a north face of the Eiger sort of way, but I did enjoy it. The older I've got though, the more I really don't like heights, so struggled a bit with this one. It was taken from the helipad of the building I shot the Burj Dubai from, and what made it especially unnerving was that there were absolutely no safety measures: no guard rails, no netting, just a long drop down.

Anyway, I was perfectly safe, and didn't get within five feet of the edge, but my knees were feeling decidedly rubbery by the time I'd composed the shot and taken the three images I used for the HDR. And if you're interested, the building on the right of this image is the one that was on the left of my shot of the Burj Dubai; i.e. this one was taken about 90° to the left.

The shot I'm going to put up tomorrow, while nowhere near as dramatic, is probably one of my favourite HDRs in recent months. It was also taken from much nearer the ground :-)

This one was taken from the same building as yesterday's, but from the 24th floor rather than the 34th, and the angle of view is about 90° to the right. Personally, I prefer yesterday's, but I thought I'd post this one too. I also have one, shot from a bit higher up the building, but I'm going to post that one on Monday.

The tall building you can see in the distance is the Burj Dubai, which earlier this month became the world's tallest structure at 629m – a shade over two thousand feet. When it's finished it's expected to exceed 700m and have over 160 floors. To put that in perspective, this shot was taken from round about the 34th floor of an apartment building; i.e. the Burj Dubai will eventually be around five times higher than this vantage point. When it's finished I'd really like to take a shot from the top :-)

I took two more shots from this building that I like, one of which I'll post tomorrow, the other of which will go up on Monday.

Oh, and many thanks for all the great comments on yesterday's image – they were much appreciated.

This isn't quite as good as the shots I took at last year's international fireworks competition (here and here), but I'm quite pleased with the way it turned out – it's colourful if nothing else. Last year I had the benefit of access to the pier, from where the fireworks were launched, but this year we were a bit further back – on the esplanade just north of the North Pier. It was a good vantage point, but the shots I took are not quite as dynamic as I would have liked.

In terms of the EXIF data: I haven't posted it because all the shots I took were shot on bulb, with an aperture of f/16, ISO 100, and shutter speeds ranging from one to around eight seconds. I definitely have one more to put up, which is a bit different from this one, but I'm not sure about the rest. If any of them are OK, I'll put them up.

I don't think this one is quite in the same league as yesterday's, but it does do a reasonably good job of demonstrating quite how hectic it can get when you're close to a big display. What I probably didn't make clear yesterday is that the crowd were viewing this display from the promenade and the display was launched from the pier. I was with the launching team, about one third of the way down the pier; probably a few hundred feet from the sea-front. It wasn't the best angle from which to view the display, but it was certainly a lot more exciting than either standing with everyone else or shooting the display from the beach.

As with yesterday's this was shot at f/16, but this one was a nine second exposure. And in this instance I've cropped a 3x2 portrait format shot to a 3x2 landscape one. Normally, I wouldn't post anything that had been cropped so drastically, but with fireworks the only viable option is to set up your camera and try and work out what will end up in the shot. In this one, there's a considerable amount of blown out areas in the original so I could bin it or crop it.

There's a final display next Friday so I'll try and come up with another interesting location to shoot from, either that or I'll shoot from the pier again.

Three weeks ago today I mentioned that it was the start of the International Fireworks competition is Blackpool. Every Friday since then there has been a display: from Croatia, Italy, France and China. I also mentioned that a) I'd put up a shot from each display, and b) it would be a creative interpretation of a fireworks shot. Well, as the eagle-eyed among you may have noticed, I only posted the first rather odd one, and there haven't been any since up until this one, from China's display earlier this evening.

I have been photographing them, but I was commissioned by Blackpool Tourism – which has been great – but I haven't had too much leeway to experiment (the displays only last for about 25 minutes) so have taken quite a number of standard fireworks shots, which were fun to take, do a good job of showing the fireworks in relation to Blackpool Tower and the pier (from which they were launched), but I haven't felt like posting them here.

I think that the main problem is that I don't much like images of fireworks. They're great fun to shoot, but not overly riveting to look at, so up until this evening I haven't produced anything I felt like sharing. This one though, I like a lot more.

In previous weeks I've shot from the beach, but tonight I was on the pier alongside the crew who were launching the display and this is one from about 140 shots, taken at f/16 with an exposure of two seconds.

First of all, my apologies for not managing to post anything yesterday, but by the time I had some free time I was feeling terrible, so went to bed instead. I've now posted an image to cover yesterday's shot: it's not a great photograph, but it does contextualise mine and Paul's experience.

As for this one: I don't think it's as striking as the previous one (thanks for all your comments on that one) but there are two things I like about it: the apparent left-right shift from night to day, and the mix of sodium lighting and the much colder light of the moon.

Update: following a couple of the initial comments I've darkened this one slightly.

I'm cheating a bit with this one, i.e. posting it a day late yet dating it the 10th, but I thought it would be a good one to fill the gap between the two night shots of the wrecks. In this one you can see Paul on his side of the roof with the shore in the distance behind him. Fortunately, it was already past high-tide at this point so, despite both being absolutely frozen, we were beginning to relax a little in the knowledge that we weren't about to a) be submerged, or b) make total fools of ourselves by calling the coast guard ;-)

I went back to the wrecks last night, with Paul, and what should have been a gentle stroll under the stars turned into something a little more adventurous ... to say the least. It was 11.30pm, and the tide was coming in as we were taking a shot of one of the boats.

We checked the tide times on Paul's web-enabled phone, and confirmed that high tide was 11.36pm. So, almost high tide, but we were getting our feet wet. We decided to climb aboard one of the boats I'd photographed before – wyre wreck #5 – and wait until the tide receded. We took a few shots and noticed that the tide was still rising – it was now about a foot deep around the boat. We pondered for a while, and it got deeper. At this point it was beginning to look as though we were stuck on the boat for a while.

When it started filling the bottom of the boat we decided we better climb onto what was left of the roof, Paul on one side, me on the other. We checked the website again and found out that the tide time were GMT, not British summertime; i.e. high tide was expected at around 12.36pm.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, the tide came within three feet of the roof of the boat, by which point we were several hundred yards from the shore, and we didn't manage to get off again until 2.30am by which point we were frozen silly. Still, I did get this shot and we didn't have to call the coast guard, so all in all the trip probably counts as a success ;-)

Oh, and I haven't put up the EXIF data but this was taken at 17mm (or thereabouts) and was a four minute exposure at f/5.6.

First of all, thanks for all the great comments on yesterday's shot – as I write this it's my 11th most commented entry. Admittedly, loads of them were written by me, but it's still not bad ;-)

Anyway, here's the last in this short series and I really can't decide between this one and yesterday's. That said, if I had to choose one of them I guess it might be yesterday's. Oh, I don't know – you tell me.

One interesting point, that I nearly forgot about: the bright lines on the horizon (towards the left-edge of the image, and from the right edge to around a quarter of the way in) are boat trails; i.e. boats moving along the horizon during this eight minute exposure.

On a related note: I bought one of those little spirit levels that you attach to the flash hot-shoe of your camera the other day and I have to say that it was brilliant for night photography. Under normal circumstances getting the horizon level at night – i.e. when you probably can't see it – is a bit of a hit or miss affair. The spirit level, which was only a few pounds, has already saved me loads of time and effort and I definitely recommend you get one if you're going to do any night shooting.

At the risk of boring you all to death, here's the second of three night shots of Fleetwood pier, all of which have been processed rather differently.

One of the things I really love about night photography is the ability to turn darkness into light, and while last night wasn't pitch black – it's only a few days until the full moon – there didn't seem to be a great deal of light around. Another thing I enjoy is deciding on the colour balance of a shot. Out of the camera, at least if you don't set the white balance, most shots have an orange cast as a result of the light pollution from the sodium lamps used in most towns and cities. This shot (and yesterday's and tomorrow's) was much the same, a rather insipid orange/brown. So, rather than leave it that way, or go for a more 'natural' look (as with yesterday's shot), I thought I'd try something different with this one. And just for once, the argument that it's been Photoshopped is, IMO, irrelevant; i.e. when you can't really see the scene in the first place it's more difficult to argue that one interpretation is more appropriate than another ;-)

Oh, and I can't decide which is my favourite of the three, this one, or tomorrow's; so I'll be interested to hear your thoughts.

My apologies for this being a bit late, but I didn't have anything to put up this evening so went out night shooting. And, what with one thing and another, I'm rather behind schedule this evening.

As for this shot: it's yet another photograph of Fleetwood Pier, and while I'm not 100% happy with it, I did enjoy spending an hour or so on the beach and will probably go out again over the next few days if the weather holds out.

Ok, so the title's a bit of an exaggeration, but I do like the fact that the left and right sides of the shot appear to be of different (albeit similar) scenes.

I love this time of year: it's warm, the light is still wonderful even at 22 minutes past eleven, and better still tomorrow is my last busy day at work before the summer :-)

On another matter, and thanks to all the people who emailed me and left comments to let me know, chromasia has made an appearance on time.com as one of their 50 Coolest Websites 2005 ... which is cool ;-)

From the vantage point of yesterday's shot: turn 90 degrees to the right and wait about an hour and a half. This is the companion shot to touchdown #1, and I much prefer this one.

Quick update: A couple of people have asked about the (monochromatic) toning on this image but the image wasn't toned. What you see here is a white-balance corrected image. I forget exactly which bit of the image I used as a white/grey point but I didn't do anything else to the colour of this shot. Also, the exposure, despite being five minutes plus, was relatively easy to set; i.e. this would have only been a 20 second exposure at f/4.0. In other words, I just metered at maximum aperture then adjusted the exposure time for f/16. Each stop you close the aperture doubles the exposure time: f/5.6 = 40s, f/8.0 = 80s, and so on.

This is the last shot in this series and while the previous five were taken on the 29th April with John, this one was taken the following night with Paul (not long before this shot). And it should be obvious from the time it was taken, but this isn't a sunset.

Oh, and in recognition of the fact that this is undoubtedly one of my favourite structures, I've set up a new category, which can be viewed as either a category (which includes the text of the entry) or a gallery (which is just the medium sized thumbnails).

And finally, and I don't know why I'm asking this as I'm not sure I can answer it, which one is your favourite of the six? For me, I think it might be number 5, closely followed/equalled by numbers three and one, but I'll probably change my mind again at some point ;-)

I was going to continue posting my 'walk along the beach' shots today but I got a call from Paul yesterday evening saying he was on the beach and it was a glorious sunset. Anyway, by the time I got there the sun had set but we decided to go and do some more night photography of my favourite structure.

Unfortunately though the night looked as though it was going to be a washout as i) the moon didn't come up (I forgot to check the times, and when we tried ringing Bob to ask him we got an answer-machine), and ii) there was a lot of mist in the air (which equals lots of light pollution).

Anyway, we climbed up on top of the pier and took a few shots of the twilight (one of which I might post in a few days) but none of the other shots we tried worked out. In the end though, we both got a reasonable shot by turning around to shoot towards the shore.

As for this shot: it's the first of two that I'll put up. My wife prefers this one, while I like tomorrow's best, so as always I'd be interested to hear what you think. Paul's shot will be going up at about 12.10am tomorrow and I think this will be the url.

Update: following the first couple of comments I thought I'd clarify what this is. Many years ago, this structure (on which Paul and I are standing to take this shot) was part of St. Annes pier – the subject of this shot. But at some point the joining sections burnt down leaving the structure about 150 feet away from the end of the pier. So, last night we were stood on the former end of the pier photographing the current end of the pier.

I had a great time last night with Paul and John and we spent about three and a half hours taking shots of the moon, each other, the weird structure at St. Annes, the sea, and a whole host of other things. And I really wish that I could say that this shot was a prelude to a sequence of wonderful shots from our evening together, but it's not. For one reason or another this is probably the only shot I'll be putting up as the rest just aren't up to it. Some are blurred, some are just not very interesting, and the others didn't work out for numerous other reasons (mostly related to pilot-error).

But no matter, it was a good night. John has already put up a companion shot to this one, a portrait of me and Paul, and Paul has posted a fisheye shot of the weird structure at St. Annes (which is actually the end of the pier prior to it burning down a number of years ago).

I thought I'd pick up on a couple of the comments from yesterday this evening, specifically, this one from tobias:

"I feel purely through observing the images that you happened upon the the recent two and thought 'they'll do'.

And this one from miklos:

"All I was saying is that people should not be afraid to comment negatively. And they are. Every photoblog is like that. You get an overwhelming amount of 'great photo' comments and none that say 'I don't like this shot'."

First, there's some truth in what tobias says, I do look through the shots I've taken and sometimes my response is akin to 'they'll do'. But, and this is important, chromasia is a daily venture – I aim to put up something every day, regardless. And sometimes that means that I put up stuff that isn't as good as other stuff (for want of a better way of putting it). And as far as I'm concerned that's no big deal: I make the best of what I have on a given day. In an ideal world – where it didn't rain, I didn't have too much to do at work, the kids didn't get sick, the dog didn't need a walk, and all the other thousand and one things that make up a life didn't get in the way – I'd have time to take better photographs. But the bottom-line is that I don't always have that luxury.

As for negative comments: that's a bit more difficult. Imagine you meet an old friend that you haven't seen for years, and he or she recently got married. You're introduced to their spouse, and you chat a while. After a few minutes the spouse heads off to talk to someone else leaving you to catch up with your friend. At which point you say:

"You have a beautiful wife/adorable husband (delete as appropriate)".

... and nobody bats an eyelid.

Or you say:

"Jeez, your new wife/husband really sucks!"

At which point mouths fall open, a hush falls over the room, and your friend marvels at your lack of social graces ;-)

I think "great photo" is like the former and "I don't like this shot" is not entirely dissimilar to the latter. Neither benefit me as a photographer – they don't improve my technique, push me forward, make me think about the shot in a way that I hadn't done previously – but the former does serve a positive social function (it's a nice, affirmatory sort of thing to say) while the latter is just a downer.

"I think you could improve this shot by ..." is great, as is "I don't think this works because ...", but "I don't like this", or "this is crap", is, well, crap ;-)

So, to sum up, I'm with miklos on this one. People shouldn't be afraid to leave critical comments, but I'd much prefer constructive criticism to simple negativity.

Anyway, enough of that, tell me what you think of this one. It's one of about ten long exposures that I took yesterday evening and is the best of the bunch. About half the others looked as though they were shot in daylight (and hence aren't very interesting), two or three were too badly underexposed to use, and the rest were just crap.

For quite some time now I've had a particular shot in mind, involving my favourite structure, the Pole star, and some really long star trails ... and, obviously, this isn't it ;-)

I went out last night (this may well be the last shot I put up from 2004) and it started out being a reasonably clear night. But within about ten minutes of me setting up my camera a very fine mist started coming in from the sea and radically changed the quality of the light. On a crystal clear night I can almost eradicate the town lights from my shots, but when there's any moisture in the air it's an entirely different story – the tungsten glow seeps through the air, and on very long exposures it fogs the image (I took a 16 minute exposure last night, and while it wasn't over-exposed, it wasn't worth putting up as it looked as though it was taken inside an orange cloud).

Oh, and Happy New Year :-)

When I initially looked at this shot I realised that this one was even more under-exposed than yesterday's – probably by almost two stops; i.e. at this aperture this should have been a 32 minute exposure! But that's the beauty of working with RAW files, they're extremely forgiving.

As for this shot: it's taken about 15' further along the beach than yesterday's and I decided to go for a slightly different colour balance with this one. One of the wonderful things about night shots is that there really isn't a 'right' colour balance; i.e. there's nothing we saw at the time that we can compare the final image to, and I think that's one of the things that makes them magical – that the camera can capture something we couldn't possibly see with our own eyes.

Oh, and I think I prefer this one to yesterday's.

And finally, Bob has excelled himself again, as has John @ Orbit1 – keeping up with those two is certainly a challenge ;-)

First off, before reading the rest of this description, go take a look at two recent shots that Bob has put up at notraces:

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Those are the kind of night shots I'm aspiring to.

And while I think this one falls somewhat short, I do quite like it. What it lacks is some interesting structure to the clouds, and it's also compositionally quite weak, but I really like the distant waves on the glowing horizon.

I still have a lot to learn about night photography :-/

I went out for a couple of hours earlier this evening and thought I'd come back with four if not five keepers, but I was wrong, mostly because I don't have enough experience of night shooting.

In this instance two things threw me. First: my previous night shots, which I am happy with, have been illuminated by a partially obscured moon (i.e. there was some cloud in the sky) – direct moonlight seems a bit trickier. Second: this scene was lit by two light sources, and it shows; and I couldn't correct it properly.

These buildings are about 100 yards from the road, and as I stood there in full moonlight it didn't seem as though the distant streetlights were of any significance. But looking at this shot now I can see that the rightmost section of the building – which appeared to be in shadow – is actually lit by the streetlights.

Hmmm.

So, the end result is a partial success – I like the composition – but as far as photographic vision goes it isn't at all what I had in mind. So, considering I spent almost two hours at zero degrees centigrade, to come back with only one shot that didn't quite work is a bit of a let down. Hopefully it will be clear again tomorrow night and I can try again.

This was more a bit of fun than a serious attempt at a photograph, but I quite like how it turned out.

On another matter: I downloaded a demo version of Capture One Pro yesterday, Phase One's RAW converter – and it's awesome! Of all the RAW converters I've tried this is by far and away the most powerful and useful – I just wish it wasn't quite so expensive. DPP is pretty good (the software shipped with the 20D), the Adobe Camera Raw plugin is good for long exposures (it automatically removes hot pixels), and DxO Optics Pro is great for correcting distortion, but all things considered I think that Capture One has them beat. All I need now (other that the money to pay for Capture One when the demo expires 29 days from now) is a custom Etcetera profile and I'll be in digital heaven ;-)

I haven't much time to write anything this evening, mostly because I really need to get some sleep, but I just wanted to say thanks for all the great comments on yesterday's shot. Oh, and let me know what you think of this one :-)

Update: I decided there was something not quite right about the black and white version (which can now be seen here) so have put this version up instead.

So, black and white, or partially colourised?

I found this strange device down by the South Shore (Blackpool). It's a sculpture of sorts – that's wind activated – and seems to work on much the same principle as a church organ. Oh, and as I didn't include any foreground detail it's a bit difficult to judge the scale – I'd estimate that it's between 40 and 50 feet high.

As always, let me know what you think. And I would write more, but it's one minute to midnight and I hate back-dating stuff (i.e. if I don't put this up now it will be tomorrow ;-)

Update: this is version two of this shot (I changed it after quasi's comment below). The original one that I put up had two white balance settings applied via a mask, the first (the device) was set 'as shot', and the sky was altered to a more natural shade of blue. However, I think, on this occasion (especially since I cleaned my sensor earlier this evening and didn't do a particularly good job of it), that I probably pushed this image a bit further than I should have done. So here's a 'straighter', but weirder version.

Update #2: I just put up a copy of the original if anyone's interested:

.../archives/wind_and_the_sky.php

I know I've put up a lot of shots of this structure in the last couple of weeks, but it continues to fascinate me, and while this isn't quite what I was after I'm quite pleased with the way it turned out – not least because I froze half to death taking it. There was a 10-mph wind blowing and it was about 3°C, so by the time I'd taken a few exposures I was really cold.

If I were to do this shot again (and I probably will) I would have gone for a longer exposure, mostly because I had no idea that the star trails would be this visible at six minutes. I don't know what I was expecting, but they did surprise me a bit. Also, this shot was about one stop under-exposed; i.e. it should have been a 12 minute exposure, but I miscalculated. I think something around a 48 minute exposure would be interesting, which, under the same lighting conditions as yesterday would mean an aperture of f/16. However, I think this would probably mess up the star trails so will probably need to re-shoot when there's less of a moon.

Oh, and hopefully this one will be a bit better received than yesterday's shot ;-)

This shot is an attempt to implement Cameron's suggestion from a couple of days ago (i.e. that I should ignore the structure that's appeared in my last two shots and focus on the rails). And it's a great idea, but I'm not convinced that this shot works all that well. I'm prepared to be persuaded otherwise, but for me there seems to be something not quite right about this one.

Perhaps it's the colour? I realised tonight that the warm golden hue to the railings of this shot was because it was a partially overcast night; i.e. the street lights from a hundred yards away were reflecting onto the rails and the moon was behind the clouds. Tonight, on the other hand, was mostly clear and the moonlight has added a much colder hue to this shot.

Anyway, let me know what you think.

Fortunately I have a much better one for tomorrow, yet another shot of this thing.

I was pleased with yesterday's shot, but I much prefer this one, mostly because of the sky – it has that beautifully surreal feel that you only get with long exposures at night.

As for processing: I've used a different white balance setting for this shot (as opposed to yesterday's) and the only other adjustment was a very slight bump in contrast. The deep saturation is entirely 'natural'.

There's a definite art to night photography, and while I'm pleased with this shot I do still think I have quite some way to go before I can produce shots like this one or this one. That said, the one I'm going to put up tomorrow is closer to the sort of thing that I'm after.

As always, let me know what you think.

Update: I was in a bit of a rush to put this one up so didn't expand on the links I included above (hence Ren's second comment below), so ...

The first is one of Bob's recent shots on notraces.com, and the second is one of John's over at orbit1. Both have done some amazing night shots.