We’ve received this from Paul James, via Gary Shinner, the new PSA Country Membership Director for Wales. If you are interested in anything pertaining to the PSA, please feel free to contact Gary.
‘Electric City’ by Paul James AWPF, CPAGB, EPSA, BPE 1, L.APS/G
Every year, the Photographic Society of America (PSA) run a number of competitions for its members. One of these is the Annual Landscape Competition.
I have entered the Portrait competition a number of times and done quite well up against stiff competition but this was the first time that I had entered the Landscape Competition.
I was pleased to learn that my image “Electric City” had been voted the winner in the popular vote category and would be featured in the June 2024 PSA Journal. This award is given to the image that had most votes from PSA members.
I was particularly pleased that this image had done so well as I’ve worked out that it cost me a fortune to take. The image is of the Dubai skyline at night with the Burj Khalifa in the background. I had planned my trip to Dubai on a stop over on the way to Australia in 2023. I’d seen images from this place before and a little research told me that the image would need to be taken from the roof terrace at The Shangri-La hotel in Dubai’s business district. My wife Jackie and I were staying in Dubai for 10 days and in order to get the image I booked us in to the Shangri-La for 3 nights. The view from the roof terrace didn’t disappoint and I managed to get plenty of images from there at different times of the day and at different angles. This one that did so well at the PSA landscape competition has just enough colour left in the sky to compliment the vibrant orange, yellow and red lights from the cityscape.
I think that the slow shutter speed has managed to bring even more ‘life’ to the image which along with the colours, complements the feel of a bustling and vibrant city that is the match of any in the world for us cityscape photographers.
As an aside, the same image won various international salon awards as well as the Bridgend Camera Club Landscape DPI competition in 2024 which was judged by none other than Ian Ledgard the outgoing PSA Director for Wales.
So it was one of the most expensive images that I have taken but as it turns out, well worth the cost. It was taken on a Canon 5DS R. Settings: f7.1, 8s, ISO 100, focal length 16mm).
