The Isle of Man Photographic Society has now reached the halfway point in its winter season of regular weekly meetings - time to break for Christmas festivities and the opportunity to reflect upon the season so far..... which has been excellent!

The club’s new president, Jeremy Broome-Smith, has proved adept at structuring our events and has been well supported by a hard-working committee whilst the programme has worked smoothly as planned - with an enjoyable mix of practical sessions, presentations and competitions.

The practicals have included learning how to mount a print ready for competition - a very necessary skill and essential to showing one’s work to best advantage.

This was followed by a studio lighting session, aided and abetted with the help of the island’s steam punk/burlesque group - which proved a particularly popular evening and very well attended.

Presentations have also been popular, and have included visiting speakers such as Howard Parkin from the Astronomical Society on the USA/Russian space race, Charles Guard with some of his drone photography, accompanied as ever by a fascinating commentary on many locations around the island, and Andrew Haddock with his experiences as a Scene of Crimes photographer.

As well, we have of course had presentations of work from several club members - Richard Shafto with shots of life underwater, whilst Kevan Osborne entertained us with some holiday shots of Dubai and Australia.

Competitions have proved intriguing and very competitive, with some outstanding work being entered each time in both our intermediate and advanced groups.

Steve Johnstone looks to be the man to watch in the intermediate section, but Janet Henry, Richard Shafto and Beryl Quayle in particular often making him work hard for his success.

In the advanced group and in the absence from competitions of Jeremy this year, Sue Blythe is making the running and can generally be relied upon to produce some excellent work, but is also closely pursued by members such as Barry Murphy, Ron Shimmin, Ruth Nicholls, Claire Schreuder and Annette Slater.

The second half of our season promises to be equally enjoyable, and re-starts on Wednesday, January 8, when society president Jeremy Broome- Smith will be showing us some of his work, to be followed by club members’ images of Laxey.

The society meets every Wednesday at the Art Society building in Withington Road, Douglas, meetings starting at 7.30pm.

All meetings are open to the public and all are given a very warm welcome, non-members with an entry fee of £2.

Full details of our programme can be found on our website www.iomps.com.