Clacton-on-Sea in Essex has seen a mixed share of fortunes, once being the place to holiday, and latterly some degeneration. Its pier has weathered not only social and economic changes, but a lot of coastal climate battering too and still looks fairly good on the eye.  Such was the reason for taking this photograph and processing it to give just a little hint of those past days of glory, albeit with the modern day wind farms on the horizon.

It's very easy as a photographer to fall into the trap of just taking our usual style of photograph.  With the wealth of tools at our disposal in this electronic age we shouldn't be afraid to experiment with our photographs.  The photo here is a case in point.  It's of a rotting boat, where the primary boat colour was (or used to be) red.  The paint was peeling and flaking and it seemed to create a very busy looking image.   By desaturating the red, orange, and yellow tones we have been left with just the blue tones and a grey boat.  We think it works quite well.  Do you?

We couldn't resist posting a photo of this gorgeous black labrador puppy recently encountered on parkland in Colchester.  His name is jeff, he's 6 months old, and had boundless energy chasing a multitude of rabbits.  Getting him to pause, let alone pose, for a shot was quite an achievement in itself.  To get a shot with a setting sun and lovely colours was a bonus.  If the owners of Jeff, two French women we believe, happen to see this and would like to get in touch we'd love you to have a copy of this photo too.  Dogs - No wonder they're known as man's best friend!