The second half of the season at the Isle of Man Photographic Society is now under way - and a superb programme has been lined up for our members!

There is a full package of activities combining a mixture of presentations, monthly assignments, members’ competitions, two ’battles’ with clubs off-island, a folio of images from our Federation, and the highlight of our year, the annual competition during mid April which brings our year to its end.

The presentations include several by our own members, including Chris and Ruth Nicholls, Sue Blythe and Tony Curtis, while we are very much looking forward to welcoming back Mr Suddahjit Sen after a number of years with a demonstration of his skills and techniques as a landscape photographer, as well as Graham Harvey with an African safari presentation.

Our two off-shore battles - both regular annual fixtures in our programme - provide an interesting variation to our usual competitions.

The battle with the North-West Bristol Camera Club is unusual in that both clubs hold the competition using the same entry of images - with both being judged locally - but the results from the two venues then being amalgamated to produce an overall winner.

While the scores for individual images will vary (sometimes significantly), thankfully there has to date always been an agreement amongst the judges as to the winning club.

The three-way battle with Rochdale Camera Club and Oldham Photographic Society is again different in that the Oldham Society video professionally the judging of the competition and send a digital copy to us - with their members sworn to secrecy so that we are unaware of the result until the recording is shown.

The Oldham Society in particular includes a number of top quality photographers so it is always a keenly fought evening and one we have always very much enjoyed.

Our annual competition comes in mid-April, and this year is being judged by Jeremy Malley-Smith LRPS DPAGB BPE2*, an acclaimed wildlife and landscape photographer based in Lancashire who, as well as judging our images, will also be presenting some of his own work over the two days of the event - so again something sure to be enjoyed.

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, January 16, will be presentations by Chris Nicholls of his travels in Slovenia and his wife, Ruth Nicholls, with images of Rovinj in Croatia.

Meetings are open to the public and all will be given a very warm welcome.

Full details of our programme can be found on our website at www.iomps.com.