Photographer Louise Naylor has survived her first taste of life with the paparazzi.

The 22-year-old found herself battling with a scrum of seasoned snappers when she was sent on a special assignment to capture the Queen.

And although she was taken aback by her first experience of the hurly-burly of Royal photography, she is proud of the pictures she took.

Louise, of Greenville Drive, Low Moor, Bradford, was commissioned to take offbeat shots of the Queen when she made an official visit to Harrogate Theatre.

She was given the job because theatre staff were so impressed with work she had done during Ilkley Literature Festival's 25th anniversary year in 1998.

Louise, a former pupil at the Yorkshire Martyrs School in Bradford, said: "It was just mad! There were these other photographers there from newspapers and agencies. They were big blokes and I was the only girl.

"I'd never done anything like that before and as soon as she came they shot off running to see who could get to the front."

Marketing officer Ben Jeffries said Louise had been chosen because the theatre wanted a more unusual photographic record of the occasion rather than just formal portraits.

"Our executive director Sheena Wrigley saw quite a lot of the pictures which Louise took during Ilkley Literature Festival," he said.

"They were not just your standard photographs but pictures of people milling around and shots of performances. They got a real flavour of what the festival was like and that's what we wanted as well. We wanted to show what happened and what it was like when the Queen came rather than just the usual kind of pictures of her which you would expect."

Louise, who completed a one-year foundation course in art at Bradford College before gaining a degree in Design Photography at Staffordshire University, said she was delighted to have had the opportunity to photograph the Queen.

"It's not everybody who has a Royal commission like this in their portfolio," she said.

Louise has just landed a job with the Jessop Photo Centre in Bank Street, Centre, and says she will always have an interest in photography.

l An exhibition of Louise's pictures recording the Queen's visit will go on show at Harrogate Theatre in the New Year at a date yet to be fixed.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.