A Two Way Digital Battle with the North West Bristol Club was the subject of this week’s meeting of the Isle of Man Photographic Society - an event which has been running for a number of years and one always keenly fought between two broadly equivalent clubs.

The event is unusual in that the event is judged at both clubs - 30 images from each club being entered, each with a maximum score of 20 points - with the scores of the two judges being amalgamated to decide the overall winning club.

Fortunately, the judges have always agreed which club has won although the scores of individual images have obviously varied, sometimes quite significantly.

Our judge was Steve Babb, well-known local photographer, a media arts teacher, and chairman of the Western Society, so well qualified to assess the images being presented.

He duly performed above and beyond all expectations, with an enthusiastic and knowledgeable commentary which held the attention of our members.

He had very clearly studied all the entries in great detail, and provided a full justification for all his scores - assessing each with an excellent eye and a real appreciation of the opportunity taken by each photographer to ’get the shot’, and of just how each might have been improved.

At the halfway stage, our home team had a modest scoring advantage - but any image thereafter scoring a low mark could have had a major impact on the result, so suspense remained high.

However, our final entry - appropriately titled Last Catch of the Day - saw Jeremy Broome-Smith’s image gaining the only maximum score of 20 on the night and ensuring the win for the Isle of Man society - a club total of 492 points to Bristol’s 470.

The Bristol judge happily agreed with the result, having scored the competition overall in very similar fashion 482 for the Isle of Man Photographic Society to Bristol’s 461 - though with 4 of the IOMPS entry getting a maximum score from the Bristol judge compared with just one for their team.

The society meets at the Art Society Building (Thie Ellyn) in Withington Road, Douglas, with all meetings starting at 7.30pm.

Our next meeting on Wednesday, April 3, will be the Three-Way Digital Battle with the Oldham and Rochdale Clubs, always shown as a projected video recording made by a skilled videographer from the Oldham Society.

Meetings are open to the public, with a modest entry fee for non-members, and all will be given a very warm welcome. Full details of our programme can be found on our website at www.iomps.com.