Weekly Competition #272 - Electric Competition

I would like to express my thanks to all of you that entered. You have all far exceeded my expectations and it has been a privilege to review your work.

Just a reminder that I'm no expert at this. Everything here is just my personal opinion and the results reflect my personal tastes. I have tried to make useful comments for each entry and hope that I have not upset anyone as this was definitely not my intention. As always it is a terrific collection of images.

The World is Electronic – johnriley
This is a great shot to start off this competition. A very good capture of some installation art that is fully compliant with this week’s subject. I imagine that it was quite a difficult shot to achieve with the competing light sources and works really well. I like that you have captured the height of the structure and used the inbuilt verticals to draw the viewer in.

Electric Being – mayday
A very nice capture of a famous piece of recycling. I like the way you have composed the shot to have the creature looking diagonally into the top left corner. I think this approach reveals lots of the recycled items. The lighting is good and the image makes good use of the blue sky. I think perhaps it would have been nice to a show a little more of the people in the bottom right of the image as they would help emphasise the huge size of this structure.

Illuminated – Dr. Mhuni
The Dr has given us another of his nicely perceived and executed images. I think the exposure is perfect not only in the careful capture of the lights but that we get some great detail both behind and in front of the illuminations. I particularly like the ghostly figure striding out of the shot and the almost sepia tint that adds a timeless element to this image.

Not Gas – bforbes
A great capture of a building outlined in lights. Beautifully square and straight. I like the way the viewer is drawn into the entrance and that some of the windows hint at illuminated rooms to explore. I am impressed that there is no lens flare or aperture star effects. I like that the foreground creates a feeling of depth. I guess the right hand side is masked by some trees but probably this adds a little edginess to what could otherwise been a little centric.

View from the Electric Boathouse – davidstorm
A beautifully crafted early morning, misty, serene landscape. I love the way the eye is drawn across the foreground boathouse doors along a little bit of reflected fencing to the moored yacht just coming out of the mist in the centre background. The image obviously joins this competition by the nature of the boathouse which is emphasised by the electric-flash windows along with the image title.

Pylon – AndrewA
I am glad you said this was a reflection. I think I would have probably got there but it is not immediately obvious. This does though, I think, make it a magical image and has certainly been well executed. I like the way the magic effect is also emphasised by the darker clouds. It is also great to see that it was shot during the competition timescale.

Pylon and sunset – stephanie0812
A great combination of a beautiful sunset sky plus a silhouetted pylon and cables. I like the way the composition has been given an edgy feel by shooting it on the diagonal. Is the pylon, or perhaps the photographer, about to collapse . It certainly produces an edgy different slant to the usual pylon shot.

Place of Light – perpinya
An interesting shot that certainly boarders on the abstract. I like the way you have offset the pedestrian so that he is traveling into the shot. I also like the way the background leads into the subject. A great colourful image with an effect that looks it might have captured something magical, perhaps a time traveller in action .

Good to go – bassman
With the aircraft industry in my genes I am very envious of the chance to get this shot of an iconic, almost notorious, aeroplane. I have never seen one and certainly never had the opportunity to photograph one. I think it is a good night-time capture under electric lighting with a wealth of colour. There are a couple of ghosts of people moving across the image which I would have been tempted to clone out and I think I might have also tried to clone out the vertical post. However as-is it is a great capture of a famous cold-war icon with more than 50 years of service.

Gibson – geordie01
A nice macro shot of the pickups on a guitar from an iconic manufacture. I like the composition particularly the way there is a nice slope across the image. I think it also works very well in black & white. There is a very shallow depth of field only allowing sharp detail around the 3rd & 4th strings where we can see dust and signs of use. This does produce a nice atmospheric effect although I am a little disappointed that we have almost lost the 6th string into the background.

Electric atmosphere! – stopher
It is great to see an entry that adopts the emotionally charged atmosphere end of the competition subject. Obviously not a picture of the car but a great capture of the excitement in the crowds on an otherwise wet day. I think it is a well-executed shot in difficult circumstances and certainly achieves its objective. I like the sharp focus and contrast in the foreground which then transforms into the spray and soft depiction of the crowd in the background. All helping to create the atmospheric effect.

epiphone pickups – jim-w
The second depiction of an electric guitar in this competition. I do like the composition of this shot. I like the diagonal approach and the lines and depth created looking along the strings. The subtle lighting and black & white approach work very well. I also like that the subject is disappearing into a black background. I suspect a lot of thought and preparation has gone into achieving this excellent image.

Foreshore Lights – JAK
This is certainly one of my favourite pictures in this collection. I love the way that a capture at dusk, with still a little light in the sky and a soft feel in the darker parts creating some wonderful atmosphere. I love the reflection of the lights in the sea and the way the scene curves around with some foreground foliage that creates a sense that we are looking in on something. However I think the most exciting part of this image in the number of people in it, capturing the essence of this place in high season.

Sex in the city – simonarron
What can I say? How to put the reviewer in a difficult spot . It is certainly a bright colourful night-time, illuminated, image and is fully compliant with the competition subject. While the left-hand side looks fine I think the upright green display boundaries, centre and right, are a little off-vertical and certainly I find the one in the middle of the shot a bit disturbing. I think it would have been easy to correct this with a bit of skew in post edit to add some perfection into an otherwise well-crafted image albeit of a somewhat dubious subject matter .

Radiogram – GarryJohn
What a fantastic piece of nostalgia. Shot today probably with the competition in mind. I guess framing the shot was a bit of a challenge and the result probably a compromise between fully showing the knobs and concentrating on all those wonderful station names. The centric composure is nicely offset by having one of the outer buttons depressed. I also like that the lighting has picked out the wood grain in the foreground. The colour also adds to the image in emphasising a lost radio era.

Plasma – tyronet2000
A brilliant colourful image that shouts “electric discharge” at us. A very well crafted image of a plasma ball lamp which certainly gets full marks for being spot on the competition subject. I like the use of the black background putting all the emphasis into the shape and colour of the discharge. A fantastic image, I love it .

ArsenAl – Electric River
I am always a little disappointed when I see an image being used more than once in our competitions but in this case, for me, it is even worse as this image has appeared in one of my previous competitions although with a different title .

Keeping in the spirit of recycling this is some of what I wrote about this image for Weekly Competition #226 – A Splash of Colour :

“ … here we have a very long exposure used to achieve some great zigzag streaks of light which I guess are two or more cars on some sort of race track. It also appears to have been shot just after sunset so we get a beautiful deepening blue sky that highlights great patches of cloud. I think it is well planned and composed to get the zigzag to straddle the shot …”

East Coast Electric – davidtrout
I was a little disappointed watching the entries for this competition arrive that we had not got an electric vehicle. However with an entry in the last evening David has done us proud.

With an absence of a pantograph I think this is probably a mark 4 driving van trailer, albeit shown at the front of the train, for a class 91 loco which will be at the other end. It is a great capture. The subject detail is pin sharp with nice soft surroundings, including even the rail sleepers, adding to a sense of movement. With very little or no lateral blur I don’t think this can be a panning shot. So I suspect a little bit of post-production tinkering has been performed to create the apparent shallow depth of field. I think we can see the boundaries for this around front buffers and along the first wire above the train but however it was done it has been very well crafted producing an excellent expert-enthusiasts shot.

Urban Sailing – Noelcmn
A great depiction of a pair of power pylons and their cables. I like the composition with the pylons off to one side and cables going diagonally down the hillside which I think draws the viewer in and towards the two white sail boats. I am not sure about the colour though. It does feel a bit over-blue. I am sure there must be some green vegetation in that hillside and the water looks far bluer that perhaps the colour of the sky provides. On a technical point there are a couple of dust spots. One between the wires just to the left of the pylons and another below the wires about two thirds across the shot on the left-hand side. There are also some dark spots, possibly stuck pixels, in the sky. All of these imperfections should have been easy to correct. Hopefully the camera sensor has since been cleaned and possibly pixel mapped.

Consumer and Producer – AxelLuther
A beautifully crafted image of an industrial landscape at night. I think this is a very good sharp picture with great contrast that makes very good use of lots of different colour lighting to highlight a wonderful collection of detail. I like the aperture star effects on bright light sources and am intrigued by the way the light reflections on the water are elongated. I also like that the sky still has some light in it giving some cloud detail as well as the smoke coming out of a couple of the chimneys. A superb image.


While I felt all the images were of outstanding quality four images really stood out for me. So the big problem was putting these into some sort of order

After some careful consideration this is it:

1st – tyronet2000 for plasma – Because it is such a vibrant combination of colour and electrical discharge.

2nd – AxelLuther for Consumer and Producer – A beautifully crafted image of an industrial landscape at night.

Joint 3rd – jim-w for epiphone pickups– An excellently produced black & white image of an electric guitar.

Joint 3rd – JAK for Foreshore Lights – A great shot of a seaside resort in full swing at dusk.

Highly Commended, in no particular order, to:
johnriley for The World is Electronic
davidtrout for East Coast Electric

I think this completes my responsibilities here and hand over to Stan for the next round.

Glyn

Thanks Glyn, very well assessed and very quick!

Stan, many congratulations and I'm looking forward to your challenge!

Great to wake to a result again. Thanks for the ultra prompt and considered judging Glyn. Congrats to all those placed. Nice winning shot by Tyronet. And I loved Axel's industrial landscape.

Thank you Glyn for your quick results and comments.
Stan, you are keeping yourself very busy with all these wins, congratulations.

Thanks Glyn for your speed and observations... and compliments to all front-runners. Fine winning image, Stan. I await the next topic with interest.

Thanks for your comments, very interesting. Congratulations for the winner!

See you next!
Josep Lluís

very energetic winner photo with great colors - as Glyn said - very much representing the topic. Congratulation to the others on the podium and HCs - great pictures too. Glyn - this is so good when a topic is interesting and the results are available soo soon and the feedback is so professional - thanks for this too (and of corse for the second place )

Thank you choosing me as the winner of this competition.
Congratulations to the other placings and well done everyone else. Now I'll have to try and find another interesting subject

Thanks for the judging, your considered comments and the 3rd place.

Regards,
John

Well done Stan, you're on a roll at the moment. That's a very colourful and dramatic picture. Congrats to the other podium places and thanks Glyn for my HC (I dont feel I deserved it).
Hats off to Glyn for his powers of observation. My picture is of the driving trailer car, not the locomotive which was on the other end. It was panned, the train was doing around 80mph but I added motion blur in an attempt to make the pan seem better.
David

PPG: http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/artists/davidtrout

Well done to Stan and to everyone else. Thanks Glyn for the great topic and comments and the 3rd place

Jim.

oops! I shamed! honestly, I do not remember where I put it! but totally agree with the criticism! all the more so for a long time choosing between this block and the other with a night-Moscow .. Congratulations to the winners! Great job!

Congratulations Tyronet2000, AxelLuther, jim-w and JAK. Thanks for judging GlynM. Good grief, did not notice those spots. Actually a last minute entry and did not even think of giving it go-over. You are right. The colour is because is was shot at dusk, the sun had just about gone down,(that would be to the left of the pic, behind some mountains. No green vegetation when that was shot, in winter, only horrible browns. Trees yes, but not the veld. Sensor cleaned a few times since then

Thanks to Glyn for a fine competition with an impressive variety of entries. Congrats to Stan and the other placings/HC's.