The second open competition for both prints and digitally projected images provided the topic for last week’s meeting of the Isle of Man Photographic Society - ’open’ in the sense that the images on display could be of any subject.

Our judge, from the Western Society, was Pat Tutt, well known as an architect and keen photographer and a popular visitor to our society, with a reputation as a good speaker with an excellent eye.

And so it proved - her commentary quick to identify areas for improvement such as a colour cast or a highlight spot which drew attention from a main subject, but also scrupulously fair in identifying the good points of composition and the hard work or artistry of the author in getting the shot.

In the intermediate mono prints competition, Richard Shafto did well with a lovely, well printed image of a Dutch windmill, just gaining the edge over Steve Johnstone’s image of a grey heron.

Steve however dominated the intermediate colour prints, with a superb image of a red kite in flight taking the honours, as well as the award of best print of the evening.

The advanced mono prints saw Barry Murphy get top score with the thoughtfully titled Eccentric Framing, a characterful man in a window set to one side in the composition.

Chris Blyth’s attractive portrait of Georgia, taken at a recent club studio evening, scored top marks in the advanced colour section.

Minimalism and natural history proved the winning themes in the digital images competitions.

Janet Henry’s shot of trees in snow - the branches and trunks the only detail as shadows against a white background - gaining her the top spot in the intermediate mono section, whilst Steve Johnstone’s lovely shot of a chiffchaff eyeing an insect for its meal did the same in the colour section.

Sue Blythe dominated in the advanced group, taking top spot in both mono and colour sections - her minimalist shot of posts emerging from a white mist on Derwentwater gaining the mono award and a natural history action image of gannets arguing over a fish lunch taking both the colour section and gaining Pat’s favour for the overall winning image of the night.

Club President Jeremy Broome-Smith gave the vote of thanks.

The society meets at the Arts Society Building (Thie Ellyn) in Worthington Road, Douglas, on Wednesday evenings, all meetings starting at 7.30pm, and all open to the public (with a modest fee for non-members).

Our next meeting, on December 18, is a social evening but will also include a showing of members’ images from a recent assignment on Manx bridges plus a folio of winning images from clubs in Lancashire and Cheshire.

More details of the society and its programme can be found on our website at www.iomps.com.

Chris Blyth