A bug's life

This year's UK winner of the EISA Maestro competition is Angi Wallace. Here she tells Amy Davies more about her inspirations and her images

-  Amy Davies

To be in with a chance of taking home the national prize of this year's EISA Maestro competition, entrants were tasked with submitting a series of between five and eight images on the theme of 'The Animal Kingdom'. All entries had to be taken for the purposes of this competition, and we were looking for a selection of images that hung together as a coherent whole. The subject matter could be any type of animal, including wild and urban wildlife, pets and farm animals.

It's not difficult to see why we were so drawn to Angi's portfolio. While it's true that the subject matter might not be exactly to everyone's tastes, nobody can deny the skill with which the images were created.

Here, we learn more from Angi about her background, and what it feels like to win the national round. For this portfolio, she wins a digital subscription to Amateur Photographer and goes forward to the final round of the EISA Maestro Photo Contest 2023, where she will compete against other international photographers to take home one of the top prizes - over €4,250 is up for grabs. Visit: eisa.eu/maestro/

AD: Tell us about your background

AW: My background is in nursing. I worked as a rheumatology specialist nurse but needed to change my career due to health problems. An opportunity came up for me to work as editor of a reptile magazine, which I jumped at as one of my hobbies was keeping reptiles and frogs. Part of my job was writing articles and supplying photographs; luckily my ex had three reptile shops so I had lots of opportunities to photograph a wide range of creatures. I had no experience but threw myself into learning both photography and magazine-related stuff.

AD: How did you get into photography, and what was your first camera?