The season of weekly evening meetings for the Isle of Man Photographic Society has been another successful one.

Membership has again increased, attendance and participation in our meetings has been excellent, speakers and presentations have been much enjoyed, as has the sheer quality of many of the images seen - so a cause for considerable satisfaction.

However, the season is now complete, and being replaced with some irregular summer outings and social meetings designed to encourage members to get out with their cameras and to obtain images which may then be seen during our next season.

These outings are open to non-members who hopefully will be tempted to have a go, and to see whether membership of a photographic society is for them.

All will be given a warm welcome - details will be available on our Facebook page or our official website www.iomps.com.

The experiment to switch from a three group membership (standard, intermediate and advanced) to a simple two-way split appears to have worked, with a significant increase in the number of intermediate members participating in competitions and making for a better balance between the two groups.

In the intermediate group, Claire Schreuder has shone, taking most of the awards - including best intermediate photographer - but Steve Johnstone, Janet Henry, Richard Shafto, Jonathan Carey and Beryl Quayle in particular have ensured a competitive group with some top quality images being shown, and shared in the awards.

The advanced group has seen serious competition right through the season - always a stimulus to raise the quality of entries.

Sue Blythe and Jeremy Broome-Smith have been the main protagonists, vying with each other for top spots, in particular both producing some spectacular natural history images, but Sue just pipping Jeremy for the award of Photographer of the Year.

As with the intermediate group, Ron Shimmin, Nigel Owen, Barry Murphy, Sue Leeming, Ruth and Chris Nicholls were never far behind and also shared several of the awards.

But competitions, noteworthy as they are, are only one part of our programme.

Our speakers and their presentations have provided great entertainment and stimulated members’ interest in developing their skills.

The Astronomical Society presentation, for example, led several members to have a go at star shots and to shoot the recent lunar eclipse, whilst the in-house practicals on studio portraiture and table-top photography were well attended and proved very popular.

Our year finished with the annual dinner and the hand-over of the Presidency to Jeremy Broome-Smith - one of our most skilled workers and certain to share his enthusiasm and knowledge with all the members in the new season starting in September.

Chris Blyth