A GLOBETROTTING photographer has won a national award for her travel pictures.

Chiz Dakin has been given the Outdoor Writers' and Photographers' Guild Award for excellence in photography for pictures she took during a walking festival in Madeira.

Ms Dakin runs Peak Images at the Banks' Mill Studios in Bridge Street, Derby, and her main focus is travel photography.

The 31-year-old said: "I was stunned when they announced my name at the awards ceremony.

"I was a bit jet-lagged as I'd literally just arrived back from a job in Australia so, when they said my name, I thought I must have misheard them."

Ms Dakin's winning portfolio was a collection of 15 images taken while working on commission for the Madeira Tourist Board at the island's first walking festival.

She said: "I had to run ahead to see what the scenery was like, wait for the group to catch up and try to get them to work with me on how I wanted to illustrate the scene with minimal disruption to their enjoyment of the walk.

"I then rushed ahead again, to get in front and see where the next good photo opportunity lay."

Ms Dakin is now focusing her lens on the Peak District.

The photographer will be illustrating a series of pocket guides to easy rambles of between three and eight miles long in Derbyshire.

Her work can be seen at www.peakimages.co.uk.