KENT Messenger Group photographer Katharyn Boudet-Fenouillet has been highly commended in the Newspaper Society 2005 Awards for UK photographer of the year.

She was runner-up in the free newspaper category with a wide-ranging portfolio of pictures, which included a pensioners' protest, a grief-stricken tsunami victim and a Charlton FC soccer picture.

Barry Hollis, the KM Group's picture services editor, said after the ceremony: "Since Katharyn joined the Kent Messenger Group in August, 2004, she has displayed immense enthusiasm and is learning new skills within digital photography after working with a newspaper group that were still using film.

"She volunteered for a trip to Sri Lanka because, despite the difficult conditions, she wanted to report the trauma and devastation inflicted on that country and its people."