The second half of our season has now started, our opening evening being a two-parter - society president Jeremy Broome-Smith treating the members to a travelogue on India in the first half, followed in the second half by images of Laxey taken by a number of members in a non-competitive assignment.

Jeremy, in the company of two friends, Mahindra and Bob, (the former himself an Indian and clearly delighted to show off his home country), spent several weeks in 2011 touring the country by car and taxi.

The resulting images and videos showed a country of extremes - of wealth and poverty, of grandeur and ordinary, of busy roads and quiet countryside.

It started with a video of the traffic conditions from Delhi airport to their first stop-off point - and the quite terrifying volume of vehicles, constant sound of horns, and apparent lack of ’normal’ road safety rules - an interesting introduction to the country and fortunately survived!

From there we moved around, visiting the Golden Temple of Amritsar, the Red Fort of Delhi, the Taj Mahal and various palaces and religious sites, as well as a visit to the traditional summer stop-over of Shimla - the architecture, the people and the scenery all very obviously much enjoyed, with great hospitality being shown to the tourists - the presence of Mahindra a great help in ensuring that arrangements went smoothly.

The second half saw images from Nigel Owen, Ruth and Chris Nicholls, Chris Blyth, Barry Murphy and Steve Johnstone of Laxey, all taken over the summer and intended to show the different interpretations taken by each member given the same assignment.

While most of the images could be described as ’poster shots’ of Laxey scenes, Barry’s excellent sporting images were all of a football match between Laxey and Rushen (the action being particularly well caught), while Nigel had chosen to emulate the well-known American photographer Elliott Erwitt with a highly artistic sequence of shots taken from low down (a ’dog’s eye view’) of the Laxey tram station, the railway tracks leading off into the distance and of the church.

Our next meeting is on Wednesday, January 22, when Ray Kelly will be judging an assignment competition on Shapes and Patterns.

Ray is well known on the island as a photographer with an excellent eye and as a good judge of an image - so sure to be an entertaining evening.

The society meets at the Arts Society Building (Thie Ellyn) in Worthington Road, Douglas, on Wednesday evenings, all meetings starting at 7.30pm, and all open to the public (with a modest fee for non-members).

More details of the society and its programme can be found on our website at www.iomps.com.

Chris Blyth