The above photo eventually led to me winning £1000 worth of camera equipment in the Amateur Photographer of the Year (APOY) 2013 competition. As with most of my success in photography there was a fair bit of bad luck surrounding it. I'd walked through muddy fields and thigh-deep snow drifts in inappropriate footwear to get to the British Wildlife Centre, so I was already cold and wet by the time I got there at 9:30am. That wasn't too bad as I was delighted about the opportunity to photograph animals in the snow. Things turned bad after I took the above shot and dropped my Canon G1 X in a lake! Without a thought I jumped into the lake to rescue it. So now I was really cold and even wetter. And I didn't have a change of clothes or shoes so went to a gig that night still cold and wet.

At around the same time the APOY "Animal Kingdom" round was announced and I'd had a fair bit of positive feedback for the yawning fox photo, so I entered it. I finished 13th (appropriate). Anyway, that gave me the incentive to enter more rounds which led to the £1000 Panasonic win - here's the bad luck again - shortly after I'd mysteriously scratched the lens of the replacement to my water-damaged Canon G1 X. The lens cap does fall off quite easily - I'm not usually this clumsy with cameras, honest!

Photos taken with the Canon Powershot G1 X and Canon Powershot S5 IS compact cameras at the British Wildlife Centre in Surrey.

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