Your stories

Pete Bridgwood has beaten off thousands of other photographers to win the 'Your View' category of the Take A View Landscape Photographer of the Year 2008 competition.

The Nottinghamshire GP isn't new to winning. In 2007 Pete was named Amateur Photographer of the Year 2007 by Amateur Photographer magazine.

The winning photograph is of Hope Valley in the Peak District, with Castleton Cement Works poking out of the mist (see below). 

It took Pete five trips out to Derbyshire to capture the image.

"It's an exercise in persistence. I was watching the weather for a two year period, waiting for a day I thought the mist was going to appear.

"It's very satisfying when [what you've envisaged] happens. I was lucky."

Pete admits he's fiddled with the image a little bit.

"My view is that as landscape photographers we're creating art. It doesn't matter to me if I make slight changes. What I'd never do is add something that didn't exist in the first place. 

"I optimise the image to bring out the best in the soul of the place at the time."

Hope Valley in the Peak District (near Castleton)

Pete first got into photography when he was a child, developing his own pictures in the family home, but says the digital revolution has reignited his obsession.

An exhibition of Pete Bridgwood's photography is to be held at Patchings Art Centre, Calverton, from Saturday 14 March to Sunday 19 April 2009.