Photography in Moray: Hopeman Happiness wins national award
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This joyous family snap on Hopeman beach has won a national photography competition despite being taken with an ordinary mobile phone.
Jacky Pratt captured the image in August last year using her Samsung phone.
It features her two daughters Adrienne and Jenny, plus three of her grand-daughters – Rosie, Robyn and Holly.
Due to lockdown it was the first time everyone had been together for six months.
Jacky said: "It was such a beautiful evening on the beach and the light was so nice.
"We were just calling it a day when I took one last photo."
Jacky sent us the picture and we published it at the time.
Unsurprisingly, the image garnered a great response from readers.
On the back of that Jacky decided, in March, to enter it into the Shipwrecked Mariners' Society 2021 photography contest.
Afterwards, she quickly forget all about the matter.
Then, at the start of September, she received an email informing her she was one of the winners of a competition.
Believing it must be 'spam', Jacky promptly deleted the message without opening it.
Thankfully, however, the Shipwrecked Mariners' Society were persistent.
The judges of the charity's annual maritime photography competition had chosen 'Hopeman Happiness' as the winner of the 'people and recreation' category.
The upshot is that Jacky has now been invited to personally collect her prize from Princess Anne, the society's patron.
Jacky said: "I'm thrilled. I've never entered a photography competition in my life before, let alone won one.
"I do have a lot of connections with the sea though.
"My brother Trefor used to be the captain of a merchant vessel.
"My son Michael is an RNLI volunteer in Jersey.
"And my son-in-law Mark is a paramedic winchman who works with Bristow's at Inverness.
"I decided to enter the photo into the contest simply because I'm aware of how much good work the Shipwrecked Mariners' Society does."
The annual photography competition is one the charity's main fundraisers.
This year it received more than 1500 entries from amateur and professional photographers alike.
Jacky is due to meet Princess Anne in London on October 5.
