Category: PSA

Busy Day Sacre Coeur

Like many of you I have thousands of images stored on a number of external hard drives and yes, even on CD’s ! Recently I have been looking through some of these and discovering that some captures which I have overlooked, but not sent to the recycle bin, that are worthy of further work. This often because over the 20 plus years since I started digital photography with Photoshop 5.5 massive improvements have been made and so many more useful plug-ins and alternative systems are available for us to use.

This image was taken 10 years ago when we spent a few days in Paris. I was using a Nikon V1 camera converted to Infra red with exposure 1/800 sec, f5, ISO 200. Bringing it in to my current version of Photoshop I was able to apply a few tweaks especially to darken the sky.  I entered this into the Photo Travel section of a PSA recognised Salon in Bangladesh where it scored top points and was awarded a Gold medal. The image was also accepted in the 2025 PSA International.

So, do you have gold lurking away in folders on your hard drives. I recommend having a look through and see what you can find you may be pleasantly surprised.

Ian Ledgard, GPMSA/b

Below is the list of people who achieved PSA successes from July 2025  to the end of October 2025.

• Ian Ledgard – Gold Medal x6, Silver x2, Jury Choice x1, Chairman’s Award x1, Merit x1, Diploma x2 & 11 HM’s
• Tont Grubb 2 Star Colour Print Level Achieved
• Paul James – Gold Medal x1,  Merit x1, & HM’s x4
• Rhodri Phillips – Best Portrait Award & Ribbon Award.
• Gary Shinner – Gold Medal x1, HM x1.

Congratulations to all members listed above, who reported back to me with their recent awards, medals and other successes in the PSA affiliated salons. If there are any other members of the PSA have some successes – then please e-mail me directly – gary_shinnerlrps@sky.com (Note the underscore)

Anyone out there wants to find out any more about the PSA, please again contact me, I’ll do my best to help you. However you can also go to their website. Good luck to everyone with their photographic journeys.

I wish ‘everyone’ reading this letter, Compliments of the Festive Season, and also a happy, healthy & prosperous New Year in 2026.

I Want to Break Free by Paul James AWPF, CPAGB, EPSA, I.APS/B

Photographic Society of America Gold Medal – Agile Photographic Society, Bangladesh.

Continue reading “Story of an Image”

“Watch out below… coming in hot!” – Skomer Island July 2024 by Gary Shinner.

Skomer is the largest of Pembrokeshire’s islands at around 730 acres. It is owned by NRW (Natural Resources Wales), and managed by The Wildlife Trust of South & West Wales.

Click below to read the full story…..

Continue reading “PSA – Story of an Image”

Here is the list of people whom have had continued successes in PSA Salons from April 2025 to the end of June 2025.

• Paul James – Gold Medal x2 / Bronze medal x1 / Merit x2 / Judges Choice x4 Diploma x2 HM’s x7 Plus an impressive silver medal for the Architecture theme competition 2025 season.
• Kev Robertson – Jury Choice x3 / Merit x1 / Ribbon x1
• Rhodri Phillips – Silver medal x1 / Bronze Medal x1 / Diploma x1 / Jury choice x1
• Sian Davies – Ribbon x1 / Jury Choice x1 / HM’s x2
• Ian Ledgard – Gold Medal x2 / Circuit Gold x1 / Medal x1 / Diploma x1 / Merits x4 / HM’s x4
• Gary Shinner – Judges Choice x1 / Merit x1
• Tony Grubb – HM x1. But also PSA Monochrome Print of the year from 2024, judged in the last few weeks (July 2025) * A special article about Tony’s successful image appears below and will be in Newsflash very soon.

Congratulations to all members listed above, who reported back to me with their recent awards, medals and other successes in the PSA affiliated salons. If there are any other members of the PSA have some successes please e-mail me directly at gary_shinnerlrps@sky.com (note the underscore).

Anyone out there wants to find out any more about the PSA, please again contact me, I’ll do my best to help you. However you can go to their website.

Good luck to everyone with their photographic journeys.

Gary Shinner MPSA2 BPSA
PSA CMD for Wales

The Tree,  Llyn Padarn 11/01/2022 09:45  – Tony Grubb CPAGB BPE2* AFIAP PPSA GPU CR1*

I have been a photographer (sort of) since the late 1960s but they were really only happy snaps taken with a point and shoot. I got my first Proper camera in the late 1970s, a Zenit something and because it was manual I actually started to learn something. I bought my first Canon in the early 1980s and have never used another make since. My first Canon was an AE1 and my last film camera was an A1, in my honest opinion, the best amateur film camera ever made (still got a couple).

See the rest of Tony’s story and the image itself by clicking the ‘continue reading’ link below…

Continue reading “PSA Story of an Image – ‘The Tree’”

Below is the story of Susan Rees’ Photo ‘Do Not Tell Mummy’ and its path to a PSA Gold Medal.

Susan tells us “don’t work with Children and animals especially trying to get award winning pictures” this is the general advice given to, and by most photographers. That is unless the child is a wonderful young girl who loves posing and dressing up then you have a photographer’s dream, a delight to photograph.

Some of you will know that I have developed my photographic skills with a great deal of assistance from Paul James. I love taking portraits, and have my own studio lights but owe most of my knowledge and skill to Paul.

This session was however conducted without Paul’s assistance and so between myself, Meg Bhular and this little’s girl’s Mum, we set up the session and took many many photos of this young girl and her equally delightful sister. I used my Canon  R6 with 24-105 lens

This photo has received 4 acceptances including the gold, a second photo with 3 acceptances and a third with 5 acceptances- Not bad for 1 morning session!

A massive thank you to both children and their Mum for the help.

Now I only wish I could get my grandsons to pose as willingly as these two did but I have a feeling that that is a pipedream!

Susan Rees

Info provided by Gary Shinner MPSA2 BPSA (PSA CMD for Wales).
PSA Website: https://psa-photo.org/

“Trees of many shapes” – by Ian Ledgard GMPSA/B

Award – Salon Gold – CMYK Circuit – Mono Section – Montenegro – October 2024. Camera Data:   Panasonic DMC-G80, 1/100 sec,   F13,  ISO200

The Story
With my working life having been spent in Forestry Management it is no surprise that many of my images are of trees. This one was taken in late February 2024 whilst walking around the National Botanic Garden of Wales. On the skyline I spotted this group of trees and pressed the shutter.

I always shoot in RAW and the colour image was unremarkable so I turned to Nik Silver Efx Pro 3 seeking for a mono version. After trying various pre-set options I opted for this which after a little tweaking shows a grainy sky reminding me of early days with black and white film.

The image has gained a number of acceptances in International Exhibitions and I was delighted to be awarded a Salon Gold.

Ian Ledgard, GMPSA/b

Here is the list of people whom have had continued successes from December 2024  to the end of March 2025.

• Ian Ledgard  – Gold Medal / Merit awards x2 / Ribbon x1 & HM’s x 3
• Kev Robertson – Gold Medal x2 / Ribbon x 1 / Certificate x 1 & HM’s x 5
• Mike Bray – 1 Jury choice & 1 HM
• Rhodri Phillips – Jury choice x 1 / 1 Ribbon x1 / Certificate of Merit x1
• Paul James – Gold Medal x2 / HM’s x 6 also 2 star application approved in Photo journalism and also a Galaxy 4 level achieved in Open Colour division
• Gary Shinner – Jury choice x1 / Salon Diploma x1 & 1 HM

Congratulations to all members listed above, who reported back to me with their recent awards, medals and other successes in the PSA affiliated salons. If there are any other members of the PSA have some successes – then please e-mail me directly – gary_shinnerlrps@sky.com (Note the underscore)

Anyone out there wants to find out any more about the PSA, please again contact me, I’ll do my best to help you. However you can go to their website here.

Good luck to everyone with their photographic journeys

Gary Shinner MPSA2 BPSA – CMD  for Wales