Experienced photographer, judge, author and researcher, Patricia Tutt was the guest when the Isle of Man Photographic Society members (and several guests) gathered for the first ‘open’ competition last week.

Patricia, says her career in Malawi, and the British Isles has informed her passion for photography and vice versa.

Her illustrated publication: ‘An introduction to Architecture of the Isle of Man’ still adorns many a coffee table.

The society is pleased and proud to be able to regard Patricia as a ‘friend’ who has accepted such invitations over many years both to present her work or to judge.

Judging any ‘open’ competition can prove rather a daunting prospect because it is often difficult to pick a favourite image when such a variety of subjects is entered.

However, showing her wide experience, Patricia set about her task with typical enthusiasm.

She was patient with her comments and yet took sufficient time to give her honest assessment of each one. As always, Patricia’s comments were succinct and well considered.

Results:

Colour Prints: Canopy by Ron Shimmin with 19 points (out of 20) was overall print winner.

Mono Prints: Done Fishing by Barry Murphy was the winner with 19 points.

Mono DPI (digital projected images): Oxburgh House Norfolk by Chris Blyth was the winner with 18 points

Colour DPI: Heavenly Encounter by Barry Murphy with 19 points was the overall DPI winner

Patricia pointed out possible improvements, where appropriate, and described Ron's winning colour print as being ‘an excellent pattern picture’.

She observed that Barry Murphy's winning digital image was made even more stunning by including Jurby Church.

The club’s non-competitive October challenge topic of ‘100 Meters from Your Front Door’ produced a wide variety of subjects.

More than 30 images were projected, purely for their entertainment value.

The idea of the challenge is to encourage members to experiment, and take numerous photos with a specified theme within a limited timescale.

The non-competitive challenge enables members to experiment by utilising any device, with most opting to use their mobile phones to great effect.

Many of the resulting images were very pleasing to the eye.

Many of these images can now be viewed on the IoMPS Facebook page and details of the society’s events and programme for the year can be found online at www.iomps.com

The next gathering of members and guests will be on November 6 at the St John Ambulance headquarters starting at 7pm.

Jason Kinrade will be conducting a studio shoot and offering a tutorial on editing images.

ANTONY HAMILTON