The “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” provided us with a very windy evening and heavy rain for this week’s meeting of the IOM Photographic Society – so perhaps not surprisingly it was a rather smaller group of members than usual in attendance for the 1st Open Competition of the new season. The competition, for both mounted prints and digitally projected images, was judged by Andrew Barton, well-known local professional photographer as well as a Life Member of the Society. The judging was done “on the fly” – the images seen only on the evening and judged accordingly rather than given some days prior. This is the process used by most societies in the UK where judges perhaps practice their skills more regularly than opportunity allows here on the island.
The evening also allowed for something of an experiment for the IOMPS – members’ images being judged as if in one competition but with scores to be allocated after the event as to whether an Intermediate or Advanced entry. With some 60 images in competition, Andrew had a busy evening but gave a very considered and well paced commentary on all entries – with particular emphasis on the need for “punchy” images in the monochrome class, with deeper blacks to give added impact and depth to those images. There was a general agreement that the entries were all of a very high standard, the printing quality and the mounts in particular showing the benefit of continued mentoring and the “edge” competition provides.
Chris Blyth’s entry of a “Bee on Eryngeum” proved the winner in the Colour Prints section, the warm colours of the bee providing an obvious focal point against the cool shades of the holly. In the Monochrome class, a delightful dog portrait of “Dotty” by Sue Blythe narrowly edged Steve Johnstone’s image of shelducks taking off at Langness, with Martin Sanderson, Geoff Atkinson and Chris Blyth all in close pursuit.
In the digitally projected images section, Steve Johnstone reversed the situation in the Mono Prints competition, taking the honours in the Colour DPI class with a super image of mating dragonflies, just edging Sue Blythe’s image of a Myanmar fisherman as the judges preference, but again closely followed by entries from Martin Sanderson, Barry Murphy and Chris Blyth. Showing the widespread talent of our membership, it was Barry Murphy who provided Andrew with his winner in the Monochrome DPI (as well as the overall winner of the evening) with a lovely image “Return of the Master”, a yacht re-entering harbour, the wake giving lovely detail.
Club President Tony Curtis, gave a well-deserved vote of thanks.
Our next meeting will be on Wednesday 10th November when Chris Blyth will be giving a presentation on American Parks. The Society meets at the St John Ambulance HQ on Glencrutchery Road in Douglas on Wednesday evenings, all meetings starting at 7:00pm, and all open to the public (with a modest fee for non-members). More details of the Society and its programme can be found on our website at www.iomps.com.
The Society gratefully acknowledges the support of the Arts Council.
Chris Blyth
