With National Photography Week starting on Monday, STEPHEN LEWIS celebrates some award-winning Evening Press photos - and seeks advice on how to take great pictures.

SNOOKER ace Ronnie O'Sullivan flicks his tongue across dry lips as he ponders a shot at the Powerhouse UK Championships in York last December.

This intimate picture, which captures the intensity of the snooker star's concentration, was one of a portfolio which won Evening Press photographer Mike Tipping the title UK Sports Photographer of the Year in the recent 2003 regional Press Awards.

This was just the most recent in a string of awards won by the Evening Press photographic team. With National Photography Week beginning on Monday, it seemed the ideal chance to showcase a few of their best pictures - and to seek a few tips from the experts on how to take a great photo.

Snapping snooker players at work isn't always easy, Mike admits. "You have to be acutely aware that clicking the camera is going to distract their play," he says of his Ronnie O'Sullivan picture. "Sometimes you can see a picture and think 'if I take this now, I'm going to be escorted out!'.

"But Ronnie O'Sullivan has a malleable face. I just caught him at the right moment, with that look of concentration."

Mike's winning portfolio also included a remarkable photograph of racehorse Lydia's Look up to her ears in water. It was taken during the 2002 Malton Stables Open Day when trainer Tim Etherington was demonstrating his methods for getting his horses fit.

Lydia's Look had already done one circuit of the circular pool, Mike says. "I know from a jockey that any horse who gets water on its top lip lifts its lip so it looks as if it is smiling. I had already seen the horse do it once. I just kept my camera on it."

It is by no means the first time Mike has been a prize-winner. Only last December he was named Sport England Sports Photographer of the Year with his stunning image which showed a Cambridge University Ladies RUFC player heading off a Leeds Met opponent during a match at Pocklington.

He's not the only Evening Press snapper to have been in the awards. Chief photographer Garry Atkinson was named Newsquest Photographer of the Year in 2001 for his humorous picture of the Duke of Edinburgh.

And the same year Frank Dwyer was named Yorkshire Photographer of the Year for a portfolio of pictures which included a great photo taken at the time of the Great Floods.

"I had been sent out to take a flood picture," says Frank, "and I saw this guy sitting down at a bus stop for a joke. There was the riverside gardens sign, the bus stop, and this man - all the elements that make a picture come together."

So what is the secret to taking a great photograph?

There are no hard rules, Mike says. A good photo is simply one that grabs the attention, for whatever reason. But for those who struggle to get the results on film that they have in their mind when they point the camera and shoot, he has a few suggestions.

Many amateur photographers make the mistake of standing too far away from their subject, he says.

"It's as if they think the camera is going to magnify whatever it is they are looking at. You've got to fill the frame with stuff that's interesting. You've got to decide what your subject is and photograph that, rather than try to get everything in."

There is nothing wrong with holiday snaps of friends and family smiling to camera, Mike says. Photography shouldn't be snobbish, and smiley pictures can be a great record of a happy holiday. But if you want to try something different, he suggests photographing somebody unawares instead of posed - a great way of capturing a genuine moment.

And don't have the sun shining directly in your subject's face, Mike says. This inevitably makes people squint. "The eyes are very important, so you've got to be able to see the eyes." So you can either try taking pictures with the sunlight behind (which can be technically difficult) or get your subjects into the shade.

If you are photographing buildings, the opposite applies: they benefit from having the sun directly on them. "Buildings don't squint!" Mike says. "And the sunlight brings out the texture of the architecture."

With landscape photography, trying to capture the beauty of the Yorkshire dales, for example, the light is crucial. The best time to take pictures, Mike says, is early morning or late afternoon. Then, he says, you get long shadows which bring out the contours of the landscape, and great colours. He also suggests having someone or something in the foreground.

"It gives a picture scale and depth," he says.

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Updated: 08:47 Saturday, July 12, 2003