Date Published
Fri 28 Jan 2022
With the current covid situation continuing to cause some concerns for the holding of the normal weekly indoor meetings, the IOM Photographic Society committee took the decision to switch to an outdoor session for the society’s meeting this week.
Noel Coward may well have alleged that only “Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid-day sun”, but what do keen photographers do on a very cold January evening for their entertainment? Well…. some of them, enthusiastic members of the IOM Photographic Society anyway, arranged to meet for a "low light" workshop being held by local professional photographer Andrew Barton LBIPP on the old Gas Works steps near the lifting bridge over the Douglas Marina.
With model Alan Kneen proving an excellent subject, complete with suitable cloak and top hat, Andrew with assistant Sue Jones providing the technical expertise, and Tony Curtis some additional lighting, we set off for the steps where the corporation lamp, halfway up the steps provided a surprisingly bright light source for our workshop – and which ensured only fairly normal settings were required on our cameras rather than the very high ISO normally required for a night-time shoot. In addition, whilst a modern replacement lamp rather than the original, and perhaps not totally in keeping with a “Victorian” mood for the shoot, the Douglas Corporation lamp also provided near perfect daylight-balanced lighting ideal for our images, requiring little adjustment to the white balance on our cameras.
Alan Kneen then posed in differing arrangements – some up, some down the steps, some sinister, some amusing, but all to give variety to our images and the hope that some at least will figure in future competitions for the society. And meantime, Andrew was ensuring that all those present were gaining from his expertise and experience. In particular, he stressed the importance of being able to handle the technical details of one’s camera and its various settings almost as second nature such that the photographer can then concentrate on developing a rapport with one’s subject and to get the very best possible images from the session.
The next meeting of the IOM Photographic Society will be on Wednesday, 2nd February with a practical evening then on 9th February John Keelan will be judging the second assignment competition on the subject of “Environment”. All meetings are held at the St John Ambulance HQ on Glencrutchery Road in Douglas, the meetings starting at 7:00pm. Full details of our programme may be found on our Facebook page. Meetings are open to the public (non-members with a modest entry fee), and all will be given a very warm welcome.
Chris Blyth
