The building on the right of this shot is the North Euston Hotel at Fleetwood, a building that looks very isolated when shot from this section of the beach.

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Another quiet shot from Jura.

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I think the title for this one probably speaks for itself: another british summer.

And in case you're wondering about the post-production: I didn't do much to this one other than drop in a different sky. There was some detail in the original, but it was very flat and drab and didn't suit the lighting on the building.

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This was taken while we were on our way to the north of Jura to photograph George Orwell's house and the Corryvreckan whirlpool. It was a bit of a struggle to get right – the boat was moving quite quickly making composition and focussing a bit of a struggle – but I'm pleased with how this one turned out. As you'll see, I had to be a bit creative with the Raymarine text – the composition was a bit tight – but as all my wider shots were a bit blurred I decided that this one provided the best starting point.

As always, let me know what you think.

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Another night shot from my recent trip to Jura. It was a very beautiful place.

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This is a shot of NCI Rossal Point, the relatively new coast guard station near Fleetwood.

It's also the image I've posted as this week's Mini-PSD.

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For most of the shots I take I think it would be fair to say that I'm borderline OCD when it comes to noise, camera shake, and so on, but for images like this I really don't care: a shot of Tabby, Tiggy and Harmony, just as they were waking up one morning back in January.

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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 :)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 :)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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