Shrewsbury mum delighted to star in BBC's Great British Photography Challenge

But she found herself lining up with five other competitors in the Great British Photography Challenge, led by celebrity photographer Rankin, and travelling across the UK taking part in the weekly challenges he posed.

Ali, 44, from Shrewsbury, says that the experience was scary but has given her a huge amount of confidence.

The mother-of-two, who works for the police in a civilian role, said the filming for the six-part series began in September.

"I saw the competition in a post on the Shrewsbury Photo Club social media, looked at the application form and starting filling it in. I quite enjoyed answering the questions and I sent it off not thinking anything would come of it," she said.

"I had a call back straight away but then it went a bit quiet until another call asking if I was still interested."

When she was told she was in the final six, it dawned on her that she would have to go away for the filming and worried about leaving her sons, 10-year-old Joel and six-year-old Bodhi.

"My husband, Stu, was amazing, really supportive," she said.

"It was really scary going off and meeting everyone. I have never had a huge amount of confidence but this had made me realise just what you can do if you want to."

She said that straight away the six amateur photographers got on really well together.

"I was in awe of everyone and although we all have very different styles, what was lovely was that we all inspired each other. We straight away got on so well, we were a lovely family."

In the first episode of the series, screened last week, the amateurs met Rankin for the first time and shared their homework assignment with him and the audience.

The challenged included a visit to Brighton where they had to produce a photo using only a mobile phone and a nature assignment with Chris Packham, who tasks the photographers with finding and presenting him with a stand-out image from his own backyard in the New Forest.

The contestants were then thrown in at the deep end with a brief to capture a celebrity portrait, tasked with taking a magazine cover photo of Rankin’s good friend and actor Anna Friel.

Ali said: "I love nature and I love trees so the nature assignment was perfect and Chris Packham was so passionate about the subject.

"Anna Friel was really sweet and absolutely brilliant as model."

She said that her her late father had been the inspiration for her love of photography.

"At home we had a cellar and he built a dark room down there," she said.

"I remember the first photo I ever took. I lit something in me that has stayed with me ever since."

"I took a photograph with me on the challenges so that he was with me."