Members come and go for all sorts of reasons as with all forums. There are a few who have appeared to have left since I joined and whom I miss either for their photos or humorous contributions. Some have left their website links and I check their work out from time to time.

Fantastic news, congratulations.

I shoot RAW and all my photos are currently backed up RAW onto a HDD, additionally I use Flickr as a back-up for the JPEGS. I am however shortly going to evaluate my archive and split into three. Family album type photos, which I will keep backed up as JPEGS. 'Decent' photos, which will be backed up on two HDD's as RAW and JPEGS and from these 'Select' photos, additionally backed up RAW offsite. 'Decent' photos will only be around 20% of the current archive. Any photos not in 'Decent' will be initially kept on the computer only as Jepgs and purged annually.

I wondered who'd go for the Billy Joel albums.

To move abroad, just as an adventure really. I have spent a lot of my life travelling the world for one reason or another (unfortunately pre-photography days) and settling in one place is difficult. There is no other town in the UK I would have moved to and we still have a house near Blakers Park that we can return to if we want.

Please post more, I like the look of the shots across the rail lines.

I've been thinking of moving from the 55-300 to the DA*300 and so I'm curious as to why you would part with one?

I'm not 'picking' on anything, etc. I think the first set was exceptional. If this set was as technically proficient then they would be extraordinary. They are very good shots but I don't think that the exceptional timing is matched by the technical aspects, which as explained was due to the bad luck of a hunting lens. I'm sorry not to eulogise about these shots (I'll reserve that for the first set) but I think there is room for contrary opinion. I know the subject matter is very challenging but for me a great shot has to be pretty much perfect regardless of the difficulty factor.

I look forward to seeing some more pictures of Brighton. I left before I took up photography seriously and I return very rarely, which is frustrating as there are so many wonderful opportunities.

Me too. I do find the 'crease' a third in from the right a little distracting though.

Hi Gav,

It's always nice to see photos from where I used to live. The West Pier is so often photographed - during my last flying visit to Brighton in January I found time for a trip to the beach at sunset, it was very cold and had been raining but still I had to fight for tripod space with half a dozen others. Flickr has thousands of photos of the pier. In that context I find the first two photos somewhat predictable (as I'm sure my efforts were too).

The view you have found in 3 and 4 is a bit different and for me a lot more interesting, particularly 4. I'm not keen on the dark foreground but I think a square crop dispensing with the bottom 5cm could benefit the picture.

I'm not keen on the blue look of the last or framing which bissects the pier - I think a subtler blue tone would work though.