TWO thousand pounds in prize money and a photography accolade was awarded to an occupational psychologist from St Albans on Monday evening.

Colleen Addicott’s photograph “People at their best” won the University of Hertfordshire’s Reflection on Research photography competition which challenged students to produce an image that reflects their own research programme.

She is currently studying at the uni and is looking to develop a model to identify where people are at their best in work.

Her photograph taken at Jersey Farm on a cloudy afternoon shows silhouettes of people jumping with a prop to represent their profession.

They included a journalist with a pen and pad, a cook with a hat and spatula, a builder with a hammer and pliers, a wind turbine engineer with a mini turbine and a business consultant with a laptop.

Colleen said: “Putting together the photograph was really exciting.

“The whole process of trying to capture the idea that when people are at their best they feel that they can jump for joy was great.”

Dr Susan Grey, Director of Research Degrees and Director of the Doctoral College, said: “We received a very wide range of submissions from so many different areas of research and the quality of all the entries was excellent – a great challenge for our judging panel.

“Colleen’s photograph captured the spirit of her research of when people are at their best.”