It's been a while since I shot anything I truly liked, but I'm pleased with this one.

Another shot of one of my favourite piers.

Blackpool's North Pier, taken during the evening shoot of my Creating Dramatic Images workshop on Saturday.

A shot of The Deckhouse, the recently refurbished coffee shop on St. Annes pier.

Here's another shot of one of my favourite structures: the old pier at St. Annes.

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'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.

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

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'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.

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.

Here's another one from my recent trip out with Andrew Thatcher: the old end of the pier at St. Annes. As always, let me know what you think.

I've also uploaded this one as this week's Mini-PSD as the change between the original and final image is quite dramatic.

This was taken back in September during my Creating Dramatic Images workshop in Blackpool. It's a shot of Blackpool's Central Pier, taken from the North Pier, and while it's not an especially dramatic seascape I do like how it turned out, particularly in terms of the detail in the foreground waves.

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3.44pm on 17/9/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM 70mm f/3.5 1/1600 aperture priority +1/3 evaluative 100 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 none 1x1

This is a shot of one of my favourite structures, the old end of the pier at St. Annes, on the north west coast of England. I've photographed it many times before but this is one of my definite favourites.

I've also added this one as this week's Mini-PSD as the processing was quite interesting, particularly in terms of balancing the left side of the image with the right. If you've taken a look at the original you'll see that the left-hand third is quite a bit darker than the rest of the image. When I took the shot I thought that this would prove to be an interesting aspect of the final image. The more I worked on it though the less I liked it – it just looked wrong, as though I'd added the extra darkness/density on purpose.

Anyway, after a while I realised that it wasn't going to work so reprocessed it to balance both sides. If you're subscribed to the tutorials and download this Mini-PSD you'll see that the first curve is labelled Curves 17, a fair indication of just how long I messed around with this one before deciding on a strategy that would work :)

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1.29pm on 20/9/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM 24mm f/11.0 1/320 aperture priority +2/3 evaluative 100 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 Topaz Denoise 16x9

This shot was taken during my Creating Dramatic Images workshop last weekend. We'd spent the morning working through a variety of topics but spent most of the afternoon photographing the seafront and North Pier. I'd been shooting the sea, but was glad I turned round in time to grab this shot.

If you're interested, my good mate Craig has posted an alternative version here:

http://www.id7.co.uk/iblog/?p=1473

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3.40pm on 17/9/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM 70mm f/2.8 1/2000 aperture priority +1/3 evaluative 100 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 none no

It's been a while since I posted a shot of the old pier at St. Annes, and while this isn't especially dramatic I do like it.

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3.05pm on 26/3/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM 57mm f/11.0 1/60 aperture priority -1/3 evaluative 100 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 Topaz Detail minor