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.

Here's another shot from our recent trip to Jura, taken from the Jetty near the Jura Hotel. As you'll see, rather than crop to 16x9 I extended this one, using Content Aware Scale to stretch the area of the image to the left of the boat. It's not a feature I use very often, but I think it worked well for this image, i.e. the 16x9 format increases the sense of scale.

As always, let me know what you think.

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 :)

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.

This is one of those shots that almost didn't get taken, simply because it wasn't what I was intent on shooting at the time. Let me explain. Ian Mylam and I had spent a good couple of hours photographing from the end of the jetty near the Jura hotel, and we'd got some good shots and had just about decided to wrap it up for the night. At that point a fishing boat pulled up at the end of the jetty so I started taking a few shots of the boat in profile against the increasingly dark sky. The shots weren't working out - mostly because the boat was rocking in the water and I couldn't get a decent shutter speed without cranking the ISO up to at least 12800 so I gave up.

As I started packing away my gear I wandered to the rear of the boat, which I hadn't even looked at at this point, and noticed that a) it was well lit ... well, relatively well lit, and b) it was a whole lot more interesting than trying to photograph the boat as a whole.

So I grabbed a few frames and we headed back to the Jura Lodge for a nightcap or two. And I'm glad I did as I'm pleased with how it turned out.

Bones on the Isle of Jura. And beyond that I'm not sure what to tell you about this one other than to say that I processed it to create a slightly darker mood than the original. And I also thought about toning this one, with maybe a weak sepia-like tone, but each tone I tried seemed to soften the mood. In the end I just left it in black and white.

As always, let me know what you think.

A splash of colour from the edge of the pier at Lagg on the Isle of Jura.

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.

Here's another shot from Jura, taken during my first evening on the island, from the jetty just across the way from the Jura Lodge.

While I was on the train to Glasgow last Tuesday I got a text message from Libby telling me to make sure I photographed the house on Jura where George Orwell wrote 1984. He was there in 1946 (to 1947), and stayed at Barnhill, a house owned by David Astor, the editor of the Observer. Orwell was in ill health - he died just a few years later - was recently bereaved, and struggled through one of the harshest winters of the century: but he finished a first draft of the book while he was there.

If you're interested, there's a good article here with a lot more detail.

When I looked into it didn't seem likely that we'd be able to get there. The house is at the end of an eight mile track, close to the northernmost end of the island, and we didn't have a 4x4, nor did I fancy a 16 mile walk. As luck would have it we had a boat trip planned for Wednesday morning: from the jetty across the way from the Jura Lodge up to the Corryvreckan whirlpool, and we passed Barnhill on the way.

Next time I go I'll hire a 4x4.

The first car we owned when I was very young was an old Austin A40, and while I'm not sure I can remember this, my father tells me that there was a hole in the floor through which you could watch the road rush by :)

After that we had a Morris 1100, which I definitely remember, and in 1967 (or possibly 68) we got a six month old Ford Cortina Mark II 1600 GT for £700.

The Mark II Cortinas were produced from 1966 to 1970, and while the GT (Grand Tourer) was the top of the range during 1966 it was topped by the 1600E in 1967. This model had the same high-tune GT 1600 Kent engine, but also had lowered Lotus Cortina suspension and, according to Wikipedia, "luxury trim featuring a burr walnut woodgrain-trimmed dashboard and door cappings, bucket seating, sports steering wheel, and full instrumentation inside, while a black grille, tail panel, front fog lights and plated Rostyle wheels featured outside."

Anyway, my reason for mentioning all that is that we came across a 1600E this morning, one of the first ones I've seen for quite a number of years now, so I thought I'd take a quick shot and post it here.

More shots from Jura to follow.

I'm currently sat waiting for a train at Glasgow station, on my way home to Blackpool, but at 5.30 this morning I was on Jura photographing a very beautiful sunrise.

This is my first shot from my three day trip to the Isle of Jura, taken from the Jetty just across the way from the Jura Lodge. Today's my last day on the Island, and we have a fairly busy schedule, so I'll write more when I head back to Blackpool at the weekend.

In the meanwhile, I hope you enjoy this one.

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.

No trip to the beach would be complete without a beachcombing shot :)

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.