At some point I guess I'll either get fed up of photographing the old pier or St. Annes, or run out of ideas, but I hope it's not for a while: I love this structure :)

Another shot of St. Annes pier – one of my all time favourite structures – taken a few weeks ago while wandering around the Fylde coast with Simon Jenkins.

I've still got quite a few shots to post from my recent trip to Jura, but thought I'd post this one today as I'm about to add it as my latest Mini-PSD.

As you'll see, if you've already taken a look at the original, I made a significant change to the way in which this appears to be lit, i.e. it now looks as though the sun immediately above the structure. My reason for doing this is that the original, despite being structurally interesting, just looked dark and flat.

Let me know if you think it works.

And if you're wondering what it is, it's a straight-up view of one of the spires on St. Annes pier.

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.

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

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.