A photographer from Burnley has snapped-up two top portrait awards in a prestigious industry competition.

Phil Hargreaves, who owns Studio 33 Portraits in Gisburn Road, Barrowford, won both the Top Dog and the Creative Open portrait category at the Xperience group awards ceremony on November 12.

Mr Hargreaves said: "I've entered these awards before and was lucky enough to win one last year in the Teen Portrait category.

"I feel honoured to have won two awards this year as the competition was of a really high standard with over 5000 entries from professional photographers across the UK and Ireland."

The 59-year-old, who has been a photographer for 10 years, walked away with two trophy's while the subjects of his winning photos were given a framed wall portrait worth £500.

Mr Hargreaves continued: "In the last few years I've also won several Gold awards and been nominated for photographer of the year four times in the Society of Photographers annual photography competition.

"I wanted to enter the Xperience Portrait Awards to push my creativity and help my photography improve even more.

"I always believe you can never stop learning; also, my customers love having photos submitted into the awards as they have a chance of winning a wall portrait."

Xperience chief trainer Mark Cleghorn, developed the awards to challenge members of The Xperience Photography Group, and to make the photographers ‘step outside their comfort zones and get even more creative every day’.

Mr Cleghorn said: "Smart phone technology makes it even harder for the professional photographer today, that is why we should always inspire our photographers more than anything else.

"I was blown away by the standard of entries this year from the Xperience photographers, and Phil’s winning portraits were unanimous with the judging panel, the portraits are full of emotion and intrigue with trendy composition and technique."

Mr Hargreaves will now have his work displayed on promotional material at trade shows and events across the UK.