FIRST up, an assurance from photographer Elaine Graham - no pets were harmed in the taking of her wonderfully quirky photo of a dog eating a birthday cake.

Her photo ‘Happy Birthday Woody’ really was taken on Elaine's pet Woody's eighth birthday. "But the cake was made especially for Woody using dog-safe ingredients!" Elaine says.

It's the sheer eagerness in Woody's eyes that captures the attention. Small wonder that the photo has been chosen to adorn the flyer for the York Photographic Society's upcoming annual exhibition at Poppleton Tithe Barn.

The free exhibition, which runs over the weekend of Saturday and Sunday, July 3 and 4, from 10am-5pm each day, will feature more than 100 images from YPS members - many of them award-winners.

They include Alison Taylor's spectacular photo of a breaking wave, taken during a storm. "It was hard work trying to gauge where the waves would break and also keeping the front of the lens dry - but the results were spectacular! Alison says. The photo featured in a recent York Hospital exhibition - and was also part of the submission that earned Alison the right to call herself an 'Associate of the Royal Photographic Society'.

York Press:

The Clam by Alison Taylor