A SOUTH Lakeland photographer has won an international award for an unusual photo of his pet dog – in a washing machine.

Richard Gill, of Sedgwick near Kendal, took the top accolade from almost 1,000 images for his shot of cockerpoo Obi, entitled “Where R the socks”.

The contest was run by Photocrowd and attracted entries from all over the world in the pet portraits category. The brief was for a photo that might be “poignant, silly or somewhere in between”.

"Pets are never short on personality. They can be the sweetest companions or the cheekiest troublemakers, but they’re an important part of many people’s everyday lives - and can also be a great source of photographic inspiration,” said the organisers.

Richard, whose business Great Impressions specialises in property, architectural and commercial photography, is always looking for imaginative ideas to expand his portfolio.

“My aim was to create something that would stand out from the conventional style of pet portraits,” said Richard, whose dog is named after Star Wars’ Obi Wan Kanobi.

“He was only about 18 months old at the time the photo was taken. The difficult bit was getting Obi to stick his head into the washing machine and then make sure everything was in focus and well lit. I had to use a remote control to trigger the camera and flash.

“I put some dog treats inside the washing machine to tempt Obi to put his nose inside and took quite a number of shots until I get the one I wanted. I managed to get half a dozen good shots and choose the one for the contest as he had his tongue just poking out ready to get a gravy bone biscuit.”

The judges said: “This is a very cool image. Great to see creativity that goes outside the norm, and out of all the images we’ve seen for this competition, this has to be one of the most creative.”

Richard recently won second prize in another competition for which the brief was “Straight Lines”, with a photo of paving stones taken on the recently redeveloped One Street in Manchester.