I'm heading up to the Isle of Jura later today, to run a two day landscape photography workshop for the winners of the Spirited Community competition I judged last July, and my fingers are firmly crossed for some good weather. That said, even if it pours down I'm determined to get some good shots, but may not be able to post any till I get back at the weekend. I'm assuming that we'll have an internet connection, but you never know.

In the meanwhile though, here's another one from my recent wander around the Fylde coast with Simon Jenkins: and, as this is probably one of my favourites of the year so far, I hope you like it.

Oh, and my apologies for the watermark that now appears on all the images, but following the introduction of this legislation it seemed like a good idea.

I spent quite a bit of time working on a colour version of this one, but the more I looked at it the more bleak the scene seemed. In the end, after trying a variety of ways of desaturating it I ended up with a toned black and white. It's not perfect – I would have preferred a bit more detail in the sky – but I'm reasonably happy with how it turned out.

There are quite a few wrecked and abandoned boats in the Wyre estuary near Fleetwood, and I've been photographing them since 2006. In fact, the first shot I blogged was also this boat, but it was in much better condition then. The last seven years have clearly taken their toll.

I've photographed this structure before, but it never fails to inspire me: taken while out shooting with Simon Jenkins yesterday morning.

I've spent a couple of great days wandering around Fleetwood, Lytham and St. Annes with Simon Jenkins. I've known Simon for quite a few years now – through Facebook, my tutorials, and so on – but we didn't meet face-to-face until yesterday.

And to cut a long story short: he's a great guy, it was a thoroughly pleasant two days, and we got some great shots.

As for this one: it's by no means my favourite, but I do like how it turned out.

While I was taking this I caught myself thinking "Why on earth would anyone want to stand there on a freezing cold February day, just waiting for a fish to bite?" ... and then I realised that I was laying on the ground, with my face in a puddle, doing much the same sort of thing :)

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 :)

Some days, even though the wind is howling, you're chilled to the bone, and have a headache and a cold, it's worth dragging yourself out. And I'm glad I did today: the light was fantastic.

I still have a load of shots to post from the Venice Carnival but felt like putting something different up today. This is the Shipwreck Memorial at Cleveleys, a tribute to all the ships that have been wrecked along the Fylde Coast in the last few hundred years.

I checked my blog today and was surprised to see that it's been two weeks since I posted anything. I do have quite a few shots left over from last year, but the more I look at them the less I like them, so I guess they're destined to sit on my hard drive until I either delete them or decide that perhaps they're not too bad after all.

Anyway, on the basis that two weeks is far to long, Libby and I headed up to Fleetwood today for a stroll along the beach, a) so I could take some pictures, and b) so Libby could play around with her new camera.

The light wasn't great, there was an almost total absence of washed up stuff to photograph, and it started to rain, but I did get this shot. The original isn't especially interesting, and I almost didn't process it, but I figured it was worth trying as it looked like there was some interesting detail in the sky.

All in all, it's not one of my best efforts, but I figured it was better than letting another day slip by without posting anything.

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 was taken earlier today, underneath Blackpool's Central Pier, about an hour or so before high tide. I was down on the seafront with Neil Sandbach for the first part of his one-to-one training day: shooting in the morning, post-production this afternoon. I got one other shot that I'll post in a day or so and Neil got around four or five that I expect will end up on 500px: at least I hope they will, they were great shots :-)

I was down on Blackpool beach yesterday morning, getting filmed for a short opening video for the press conference I'll be involved in Dubai next month, for the launch of the Sony SLT-A99. The last fifteen seconds were of me setting up this shot. As I was being recorded I wasn't paying quite as much attention as I might normally, but I'm pleased with how this one turned out.

And again, I'm seriously impressed with the A99, it's a very capable camera.

This is the second shot from the Sony SLT-A99 and, as you'll see if you've already taken a look at the original, the processing was quite extensive: involving a change to the overall tone and a massive increase in contrast, particularly along the horizon (the curve was almost vertical for this section). It did need some noise reduction – there's no way you can expect to make such radical changes without introducing some noise – but on the whole I was very impressed with the quality of data in the original file.

As always, let me know what you think

I took this back in August when I was in the UK running my Creating Dramatic Images workshops, and despite appearances to the contrary it was actually a very warm day: loads of people were swimming, kids were splashing along the water's edge, but this poor lad looked like he was about to freeze to death. As such I decided to process it to make the weather and sea look a lot colder: changing the scene to match his mood.

This was taken yesterday evening during my Creating Dramatic Images workshop. We'd headed down to South Shore (Blackpool) and photographed the sunset, the waves at dusk, and this, the largest mirror ball in the UK. “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” was created by Michael Trainor in 2002 and named after the US film about dance marathons. There are 47,000 tiles or thereabouts, none of which you can see in this shot, but only because it rotates and this was a 10s exposure.

I have another five shots from the weekend that I'll post soon, but, in the meanwhile, let me know what you think of this one.

This was taken yesterday evening as Naveed and I wandered around Blackpool seafront in preparation for his one-to-one training session today. I'm not sure if Naveed grabbed this shot too, but he did get some great shots that we worked on today.

I'll also be out and about for a few hours tomorrow during the shooting part of the Creating Dramatic Images I'll be running over the next two days. It's one of my favourite workshops to run so I'm really looking forward to it.

I've posted quite a lot of images of Blackpool's Central Pier, some of which are quite similar to this one, but it's a structure I find myself returning to again and again.

This was shot on Saturday evening after the first day of my Creating Dramatic Images workshop: a thirty second exposure, taken a few minutes before high tide.

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.