Western Photographic Society annual awards have been held with Dave Salter being crowned Photographer of the Year for a third consecutive year.

The club’s blue riband competition saw nearly all of its members entering colour and black and white prints and digitally projected images across five classes.

Dave won his hat trick by scoring a 90 marks out of a possible 100, just beating Ruth Nicholls into second place who scored 88.5 marks.

One of Ruth’s five entries, a black and white shot of a pack of Camargue horses galloping through the French countryside, was awarded the only perfect 20 marks in the competition, winning her the Best Image of the Year Trophy.

Ruth’s top scoring image was entitled ’Morning Run’ and showed horses at full gallop, coming straight for the camera, only seconds from apparent impact.

She explained that the horses were aware of the groups of photographers in front of them in the Camargue, and part at the last second to avoid them.

’It was just a question of holding your nerve,’ said Ruth.

While claiming the top shot award, Ruth’s image was judged to be just half a mark ahead of the second best shot of the night, an architectural shot by Dave Salter, also a digital mono, entitled ’Lines and Curves’. Dave had a second image, a black and white print, also awarded 19 marks.

Chris Nicholls, who came fifth overall in the contest, was another of only five members scoring 19 marks for one of their five entries, with a colour image of a picturesque village with smoking chimneys and entitled ’Smokey Old Town’.

The others achieving 19 marks for their entries were architect Patricia Tutt with an image shot up a spiral staircase and titled ’Up Stairs’, Ruth Nichols with a colour print called ’Kitchen Chair’, and Dennis Wood, with another equine image, titled ’New Forest Pony’.

The judge for this season’s Annual Open and Photographer of the Year was Isle of Man University College lecturer in photography,Adrian Cowin.

Each member entered five images in classes of their choice, with each shot being marked out of 20.

Adrian commented on the high standard of images, with nobody scoring fewer than 60 out of the possible 100 marks achievable.

The top trophies, cups and awards for all of the competitions held throughout the 2016/17 season were presented at the society’s annual dinner, held in Filbey’s Restaurant on Peel quayside.

Winning images from this and other competitions staged by the club through this past season can be viewed on the Western Photographic Society website www.westernphotographic.org by following the links to ’Winning Images’.