A MUM-OF-THREE is celebrating winning an international portrait competition for a photograph taken of her teenage daughter.

Maria Shickle, 39, won the 2013 child portrait award out of 14,000 entrants for the Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers (SWPP) awards last month.

The Oxford-born photographer is also due to be featured in Vogue and Tatler magazines next month.

Mrs Shickle took the winning shot in January last year while walking in woods with daughter Lilly, 16.

She said: “For me the photo was about how she had grown up over the last year – she was becoming very lady-like.

“The light was just perfect and she was walking up through the trees when I just snapped it. It wasn’t planned really.

“It’s about her choosing which path to take and the light was helping on her way.

“She is very sweet, she puts up with me snapping at her all the time.”

The winning portrait is proudly hanging in the living room of their family home.

Oxford Mail:

  • Maria Shickle

Mrs Shickle, who grew up in Great Milton, set up her first company, Maria Glen Photography, in Shutford, near Banbury.

She now lives with husband Tim Shickle, 42, and children Lilly, Arthur, 11, and two-year-old Herbie, near Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire.

Mrs Shickle, who runs Shickpics, said: “I’m so busy taking photos of other peoples’ families and children now that I have to remind myself to take photos of my own.”

She was also nominated for the overall photographer of the year award at the same ceremony at the Hilton Metropole Hotel in London and was one of the top five of 15,000 entrants.

The ex-pupil of Wychwood School in Banbury Road, Oxford, went on to study photography at Henley College.

She then helped develop the camera system which recognises car number plates for Sensormatic in Harefield, Middlesex, before starting her own business.

The picture was printed in Vogue magazine last March and Mrs Shickle is due to be featured in the magazine again next month.

She said: “I really didn’t think there was any chance I was going to win, so I sat right at the back of the ceremony.

“It was a complete shock, I had to walk all the way up to the front to get my trophy.”

The SWPP judges called the image “simply stunning”, and a picture many of them wished they had taken themselves.