It was a spectacular start to our new season, with more than a dozen of our members showing their enthusiasm by taking turns to show images of their summer activities.

The intent was to have a social evening and the opportunity to chat and reminisce - and it turned out to be a much enjoyed evening.

Holidays and travel obviously featured large - with Chris and Ruth Nicholls showing images of life in rural France as well as a major wedding anniversary celebrated on a break in Annecy on the Swiss border.

Jonathan Carey also celebrated an anniversary, sharing some excellent images taken on a Mediterranean cruise around Greece, while Ron and Brenda Shimmin, threatened with strike action in France, took the opportunity to switch their destination to Genoa.

Closer to home, Sue Leeming enjoyed kayaking and time on the Calf of Man, Beryl Quayle showed a love of natural history shots as well as an evocative image of Archallagan in the mist, Barry Murphy enjoyed shooting kite surfers at Ballaugh, while Richard Leach demonstrated a multi-talented range of skills, including both cake-making (we look forward to a practical evening?) and his fitness, having completed a 15km marathon swim on the Thames.

But Jiri Podobsky is possibly our fittest member, showing images of his exploration of the Manx countryside using a hybrid scooter/bicycle - a scooter with bicycle size wheels and capable he says of more than 30mph and on which he has so far travelled more than 1000miles.

Projects were well demonstrated, with Bill Callow wandering the streets of Ramsey looking for dogs and their owners to photograph, while Martyn Parnell continued to show his TT bike expertise as well as the image quality possible with an 800mm ultra-telephoto lens - a shot of Kate’s Cottage taken from Douglas Head was pin sharp and very detailed.

At the other end of the photographic world, Jeremy Broome-Smith enjoys macro work and his images included several close-up images of a very hairy jumping spider - some in the audience thought it cute, others perhaps not so sure !

Richard Shafto provided the ’aaah’ moment of the evening with a lovely shot of two kittens while the Red Arrows and their Italian counterparts provided several members with action shots including Mike Trout.

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, October 10, will be a presentation by Shan Fisher on her portrait work.

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.

Chris Blyth