This is one of those shots that I suspect may appeal more to me than it does to you, but there's something about the simplicity, and the contrast between the narrow strip of blue sky and the slate grey tones of the rest of the image that I really like.

If you're interested, it was shot during the five minute ferry crossing from Islay to Jura.

I'm just putting the finishing touches to my initial review of the Sony RX1, within which I stress the quality of the images this camera can produce – it's a truly awesome camera. It's not quite so great for this type of shot though.

Typically, when I'm shooting on the beach I shoot from as close to the ground as possible, especially when I'm shooting reflections. When the sand is dry, that's OK, but if it's wet it's not so much fun with the RX1. It's fine with my A99, which has a flip-out screen, but with the RX1 you either need to commit yourself to getting soaking wet, or guess. In this case I guessed.

And if you've taken a look at the original you'll see that I didn't quite get it right on this occasion :)

As you know, I was recently on Jura, running a two day photography workshop for the winners of a competition I judged last year. On the first day we were out and about, but on the second day it was cold, wet and rainy so we stayed at the Jura Lodge and shot a range of portraits: some with strobes, some with natural light. This shot is probably my favourite, a portrait of Todd Winter's father. Todd was one of the competition winners, and Sidney came along to accompany him on his trip.

He was a great sport - we posed him mercilessly for most of the day - and I'm sure we all got a range of great shots.

And it's also a fitting image to post today as I've spent pretty much all of it critiquing the first assignment images for my new course The Art of Black and White Photography: Assignments. And while it was a long day – critiquing 42 images takes time – it was an enjoyable one: they've produced some great work so far.

I've already posted three images from this shoot (1, 2 and 3) but held off posting this one because I couldn't work out how to process it. It was taken just as the sun had breached the horizon, and the light was quite flat, but there was something about it that kept drawing me back. I tried black and white, which didn't work, and a whole variety of other styles, but none of them suited the image: they either looked too brash, or too forced, or both.

In the end though I think this slightly cross-processed look works a lot better, mostly because it splits the dawn light from the colder light that preceded it. It probably won't be to everyone's taste, but I'm pleased with how it turned out.

Another shot from the weekend: and I know it's a bit dark, and that some of you will probably prefer the original, but it kind of suits my mood: I've had enough of cold and cloudy days this winter :)

I posted a smaller version of this image when I posted my initial review of the SLT-A99, but thought I'd post it here too: an early morning shot of the Dubai skyline taken while shooting with Issa AlKindy.

I've been in Eindhoven for the last couple of days, and haven't had a chance to shoot any new images, so here's one from last weekend: shot while wandering around with Neil Sandbach during a 1-2-1 training day. Neil has posted some great shots from the day so check them out on 500px.com.

This is a shot of the Jumeirah Beach Residences shot from the Palm in Dubai during my Shoot the City workshop for the Gulf Photo Plus Fotoweekend event.

If you're interested I've just published an article on our new blog that explains how this one was shot and processed in addition to going through most of the techniques I use when shooting at night. Head on over, take a look, and let me know what you think.

I got back to the UK late last night after being in Dubai since the 29th of last month. It was my tenth trip since 2007 and it was probably the longest and busiest. It was also one of the most rewarding. I'll tell you all more about it over the next few days, both here and on my new blog, but in the meanwhile I thought I'd share this one: taken while I was shooting for Sony with their new full-frame camera, the SLT-A99 (I'll be writing a blog post about the camera this week).

It was taken here (the green arrow, not the marked location), not long after the sun came up, and it's one of my favourites from trip.

Let me know what you think.

This is another portrait from our trip to Oman earlier this year, and while I'm not entirely convinced I made the most of this one (I feel there's something about it that's not quite right, but I can't tell you what) I did think it was worth posting.

As always, let me know what you think.

Four weeks today – fingers crossed – and I'll be back in Dubai for Fotoweekend (November 7th-10th), some one-to-one training, and another really exciting project that I'll tell you about soon. As such I thought this shot was a fitting one to post today: taken during my Landscape photography workshop back in March. If you're going to be in Dubai next month, and would like to come along on the next one, take a look at the workshops I'll be running this time round.

This was shot on Saturday afternoon during the Creating Dramatic Images workshop I ran with Craig this weekend. We'd spent the morning in the classroom, discussing a whole range of different topics, and then wandered down to the beach for a couple of hours in the afternoon to shoot some material to process during Sunday's session.

One of the topics we covered during the morning session was pre-visualisation, particularly in terms of how to create a more dramatic or striking image from a less than interesting original scene. For example, while the image I've posted today certainly isn't dramatic, the post-produced version is a definite improvement on the original: two small figures, lost in a rather drab landscape. With the addition of a few curves though –to focus the viewer's attention into the image, and to add some colour – the image has quite a bit more impact.

This weekend's workshop was sold out, but if you missed out we're running it again in August: take a look at this page for further details.

This is the last image I'll be posting before I head off to our Venice Carnival Photo Tour on Monday: a pentaptych of this set of promotional cigarette cards. The text reads "2012 delights for the new year" and each card offers you a chance to win an iPod, Zippo lighter, and so on.

What interested me about these is that they're very typical of Bulgarian advertising: i.e. using scantily-clad women to sell ... well, pretty much everything now I think about it. Later in the year, after Venice, GPP, and our Faces and Places Tour to Oman, I'm going to make a systematic attempt to document more of these advertisements.

In the meanwhile though, do let me know what you think of this one.

Here's the last of my diptychs from Istanbul, and while it's not my favourite of the eight I've posted, I do like it.

On that note, could you let me know if you a) found this series interesting, and b) which, if any, was your favourite of the set. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

This is the penultimate image in this short series of diptychs from Istanbul: two consecutive frames found on a wall quite close to our hotel.

While yesterday's image was the most abstract in this short series of diptychs from Istanbul, this is probably the least, and I almost didn't include it as a result. In the end though, even though I'm not quite sure it fits with the rest of them, I decided to include it: there's just something about this one that I really like.

Here's the fourth Istanbul diptych I'll be posting, and probably the most abstract of the set. The image on the left is an aluminium table top, while the one on the right is a shot of a piece of painted board resting on the pavement.

Here's the third diptych from Istanbul. Both shots are reflections in a shop window, and you may recognise the one on the right from this shot.

As always, let me know what you think.

In other news ...

I'm running a Creating Dramatic Images photography and post-production workshop in Blackpool (May 19th-20th). Even if you can't attend, take a look at the gallery from the last workshop (just scroll about half way down the page). There's some great images.

This is the second of the eight diptychs I mentioned, shot in Istanbul in November. Both these images are almost consecutive (there was just one frame between them).

As with the previous one, let me know what you think.

I've posted quite a few Hipstamatic shots from my trip to Istanbul last November, but have a whole load more that I also like but didn't post as I didn't think they were sufficiently compelling to stand on their own. I did ponder posting a gallery of the whole lot (probably on google+) but looked through them again over the weekend and realised that there was sufficient similarities, either in terms of style or content or both, to pair them up.

As a result I now have eight diptychs, most of which are broadly similar to this one: small scale, partially abstract, and similar in both tone and contrast (they were all shot with the Chunky lens and Ina's 1935 film).

I should also add that while all of them have had some additional processing in Photoshop (to balance them to each other, in terms of both contrast and tone), none of them have been cropped or had any changes to their content.

Anyway, if nothing else, it's a change – I haven't produced all that many diptychs in the past, and have posted even fewer of them – so let me know what you think.