Motorcycle racer Carolynn Sells is captured by UK photographer Anita Corbin as part of a future exhibition on pioneering women

A major new photographic exhibition set for 2018 to celebrate 100 years of female suffrage in the UK will feature an Isle of Man resident.

Carolynn Sells, who lives at Foxdale, said she was pleased and flattered by the approach. She was the first female winner in the 98-year history of racing over the TT Mountain Course when she secured first place in the 2009 Ultra-lightweight Manx Grand Prix.

Professional photographer Anita Corbin, who lives in Somerset, has worked for such illustrious publications as the Sunday Times but said she hoped her project would provided a lasting legacy.

‘I was approaching my 50th birthday and started thinking about what legacy I might leave behind,’ she said.

‘I kept hearing about trail-blazing women so that became the theme of my work. I’m hoping to produce a coffee table-type book and have an exhibition starting in central London before travelling around. I’d like to bring it to the Isle of Man if a suitable venue can be found.’

So far she’s covered subjects ranging from Baroness Betty Boothroyd, first woman speaker in the House of Commons to Felicity Aston, who skied solo across Antarctica: ‘I had not covered any women in motorsport though and a friend who is mad about the Isle of Man and the TT suggested Carolynn. The island is renowned for its motorsport so it seemed sensible to photograph her there.’

Ms Corbin said she had been keen to capture the fact that Carolynn was also a mother and had photographed her sitting on the bike, an FZR400, with her young children. Terrible weather on the day of the photo-shoot precluded going onto the mountain, instead using Murray’s motorcycle museum for some of the pictures, while a number of others were taken in the pit lane of the grandstand with the trophies, and at the Creg-ny-Baa.

Manx women received the vote in 1881.