A PASSIONATE young photographer from Woodborough near Pewsey has won a top nature photography award.

Jake Kneale, 15, entered his picture in the International Garden Photographer of the Year competition not expecting to win but was delighted when he got the call that his photo of flowers in a local meadow wowed the judges.

“I like to go out early to photograph nature,” he said, “on that morning in early May last year I set my tripod up in the field to take photographs of the flowers Ladies of the Meadow.

“I backlit it so the rising sun highlighted the glistening dew drops on the flowers.”

He said his interest in photography began on a family holiday in New Zealand when he borrowed a camera.

Since then he has bought his own digital single lens reflex camera along with lens and has submitted photographs to his school magazine at Bishop Wordsworth’s Grammar School in Salisbury.

“Wildlife photography is my thing,” said Jake. “it’s the first competition I’ve won and to be a professional photographer would be my dream.”

The photography competition is run in association with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London.