OUR award-winning photographers bring you dramatic photographs every day in The Press. They seldom come more arresting than our two main images today, however.

Both pictures – one by Mike Tipping and the other by Anthony Chappel-Ross – have been selected from among hundreds of submissions from newspaper photographers around the country to feature in an exhibition in London to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ).

Mike’s photograph, first published in The Press in 2002, shows racehorse Lydia’s Look swimming in an equine pool at Tim Etherington’s yard in Malton. The horse’s teeth are bared with the effort of swimming, its upper lip curled back, ears pricked. It is one of two photographs Mike, 45, has had accepted for the exhibition at the offices of The Guardian newspaper near King’s Cross.

He took the picture at an open day at the Etherington yard. The horse, which was clearly enjoying the water, had already done one round of the pool. “Horses lift their top lip when it touches the water, and I had seen it do this at one point,” Mike says. “So I waited for it to come round again and I clicked away.” It makes for an eye-catching image with a touch of humour about it, he says.

“It looks as though it is grinning as it swims along.”

The photograph was part of a portfolio of three that helped Mike win the Press Gazette Sports Photographer of the Year award in 2003. But to have it accepted for an exhibition as prestigious as the NCTJ’s in London is a real honour, he said. “It represents the work of the top local, regional and national photographers across the country over the past 40 years. To get two of my pictures accepted… I was delighted.”

Anthony’s photograph shows horse Nagor de la Roche and rider Faith Cook taking a tumble at the water jump at the Bramham Horse Trials in 2009. The photograph helped Anthony scoop the Photographer of the Year Award at the O2 Media Awards in Leeds last year.

He’d been at the event little more than half an hour, and was settling down next to the water jump, when the horse and rider approached, Anthony says.

“The horse had gone over the jump and was coming out of the pond, when I could see its feet weren’t really going to make the jump right. I had put my camera down. I picked it up, and just started pressing the button, and I ended with an entire sequence of photos.”

The award-winning picture was this one of the horse seemingly balanced on its nose. But Anthony, 28, also had an entire sequence from the moments before and after.

He, too, is delighted to have his work represented in the exhibition. “All the top photographers I have looked up to have been trained by the NCTJ. To have an exhibition representing the 60 years of that organisation, and to see one of my pictures in it… that means something.”