The annual competition for the Isle of MAan Photographic Society - the major event in our competitions calendar - was this year judged by husband and wife team, Phil and Gwen Charnock.

They both hold the distinctions of FRPS (Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society) and MFIAP (Master of the Federation Internationale de l’Art Photographique) - the highest awards possible from these societies, and both were founder members for Wigan 10, a small and select photographic group that went on to win several club world championships.

The second evening of the event is always given over to digitally projected images - and with some 180 images to judge over the 5 sections of Open Colour, Open Mono, Nature, Creative and Record, perhaps something of a marathon.

Our judges however, made light work of their task - having judged numerous competitions at club, national and international level, their experience and expertise was obvious.

The emphasis throughout was on ’quality’ - a word heard often while our images were on display - quality of concept, quality of execution, and quality of presentation - and the obvious impact each image created.

In our standard group, Jonathan Carey took first place in both Open Colour and Record sections while Kevan Osborn took honours in the Open Mono section.

As in the previous evening’s annual print competition, Joy Brodie took first place in all five sections - giving her a clean sweep, and probably something unique in the society’s history!

In the advanced group, Jeremy Broome-Smith won the Open Colour, Nature, and Creative sections, while Sue Blythe led in the Open Mono and Sue Leeming the Record section.

Jeremy’s lovely sports action shot of two kayakers was judged the best digital image in competition.

The evening finished with a superlative presentation from our two judges, their pleasure and enjoyment of photography evident throughout, and the emphasis on ’having fun’ and taking time to enjoy life made clear with images we have all taken, albeit perhaps not quite of such high quality - of family, of pets, of favourite landscapes and of holidays taken both at home and abroad.

Our president gave the vote of thanks for a real ’tour de force’ from our two judges.

Full details of the Society and the programme of events can be found on our website www.iomps.com

Chris Blyth