Wednesday, March 29, saw another inter-club battle take place, this time Isle of Man Photographic Society was pitted against North West Bristol Camera Club.

The two clubs exchanged 30 images which were judged in Bristol by David Southwell ARPS, EFIAP and, here on the island, our judge was Andrew Barton LBIPP, LMPA.

Andrew praised the extremely high standard of all of the images submitted and explained that it was very difficult to find fault with many of them.

picky

By being very picky he was able to highlight some areas for improvement and suggestions for alterations.

All of the images were marked out of 20 and although often Andrew and David had scored images with similar marks in some cases there were variations between the two marks.

The Bristol judge awarded three images 20 points - two of these were by Isle of Man photographers -’ The Leap’ by Sue Blythe and ’Catch of the Day’ by Jeremy Broome-Smith.

Both are advanced members of the club and have had great success in UK competitions. Ralph Snook of the Bristol club also received 20 points for his image ’Nemoptera Sinuata’.

Andrew awarded 20 marks to nine of the images including pictures by Isle of Man members Joy Brodie, Sue Jones, Barry Murphy, Richard Leach, Sue Blythe and Nigel Owen.

Andrew also named Joy Brodie’s image Deadvlei Namibia as the best in competition, praising the composition and bright colours and the way the lighting conditions had been carefully managed.

The final marks awarded by the Bristol judge were Isle of Man 473 and Bristol 468.

Andrew Barton awarded Isle of Man 531 and Bristol 501, so the Isle of Man were the clear winners with combined totals of 1,004 against Bristol’s 969.

The club will now receive the Sylvia Kelly trophy, introduced this year in memory of Sylvia Kelly who initially instigated the two way battles.

Next week there will be a lighting and editing workshop for members giving them the opportunity to learn about the process of using studio lighting and then downloading and developing the image in Lightroom.

As always visitors are welcome and the meeting will start at 7.30pm at Thie Ellyn in Douglas.

Hazel Walsh