For some years now, the Isle of Man Photographic Society has annually held a three-way digitally projected image competition with the Oldham Society and the Rochdale and District Camera Club.

It is a very special competition in that each club submits 25 images, while one of the Oldham members videos the competition on our behalf and we get to show the result a few weeks later as a film show - the only such event in our calendar and one much anticipated as the video is always of a very high standard.

There are also the added benefits of being able to watch a (usually very well qualified) UK judge comment on our images as well as compare our skills with two similar clubs from the other island.

We have only won this competition once, the Oldham Society otherwise having been the winners each year - they are a very competitive club with a number of members winning at UK national level.

All images are marked out of a maximum of 20 points, the usual judging process being a quick review without comment of all the entries, followed by an in-depth analysis and the award of a score.

Images of particular interest demanding closer examination are normally held back till later - usually for the award of a high mark, and adding considerably to the suspense.

At the half-way stage with those images scored, we were in close touch of Oldham with Rochdale already lagging somewhat - but Oldham had more images in the ’yet to be scored’ category.

As these later scores emerged, Oldham moved into a decisive lead, the eventual result giving Oldham a score of 416 versus the Isle of Man Photographic Socity with 400 and Rochdale on 380.

As club president Chris Blyth pointed out, the key to such a competition is strength in depth - scoring just three-quarters of a point more on average per image would have given a different result.

As it was, an image from our own Jeremy Broome-Smith of a buzzard eyeing a wasp flying close by was awarded the "best image of the evening" and a maximum score of 20 - we just needed a few more of that quality! Maybe next year....

The society meets at the Art Society building in Withington Road, Douglas, our next meeting being on April 17 for the annual general meeting starting at 7.30pm.

All meetings are open to the public and all are given a very warm welcome.

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