Thanks, Gareth

You can't be in the Craster area and not gravitate towards Dunstanburgh! This time it's mainly the skies that set the castle off nicely. All K-3 and Pentax 18-135mm. It was half-term, too, and pretty busy. All comments appreciated. Thanks for looking!
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Thank you, Stan, glad you like them!

I never realized there were so many lovely places so close to Newcastle. Here's a lovely morning on the beach and pier at Tynemouth and St Mary's lighthouse. The pier seemed to me to be ideal for B&W; I've added the original colour version of the last one to invite opinions on that! All comments welcome. K-3 and 18-135mm Pentax.

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Lovely, Alan - no other birds come close for distinctiveness and agility. Only one report of a small group passing through locally so far. Maybe they'll move south when there are no berries left up your way, though they look to have plenty to feast on!
Super photos!

Look fine to me. Certainly better than anything I've managed!

Thanks for commenting, everyone.

Alan, I take your point about timing - there was no natural light left by the time we got "into town" as the locals seem to say, so not much option about skies. Since I don't know Newcastle at all, I was dependent on my daughter's friend picking out a few spots she thought I might like.

Joe, I can see how you might think they are over saturated. I'm not a processing expert by any means and have limited patience for messing about in Elements. However, I would say that there was heavy cloud cover reflecting back all the artificial light, so I can't see that "nice dark blue" skies were ever likely except by being artificially created.

David, thanks for the tip about dust - it had never occurred to me that might be the problem! I will take your advice and look up what needs doing.

I had a superb shot lined up looking towards the bridges from the centre of the Millenium Bridge, then realised that everytime anyone so much as breathed, it started bouncing like a trampoline, so had to abandon that one sharpish! No wonder you hardly ever see any photos taken from there!

Best wishes,

I think the plants/flowers are sublime. Not so abstract as to be unrecognisable for what they are, yet abstract enough not to look like photographs, if that makes sense. No. 6 is so delicate and ethereal. I would happily have prints of this kind on my walls. Beautiful.

Thanks all for the further comments - it's not very often someone just about equidistant from both east and west coasts gets the chance to shoot scenes like these, so it's nice when everything falls into place.

Just noticed a 2 year old Blythman post on the same topic has been given new life, so I'm very uncertain about showing this set! They're not in the same class, but since I was never there before I wanted to see what I could do. I'm not sure what happened with no.4 - is it spots of rain on the lens or something else? As always, any comments welcome. All K3 and 18-135 lens

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