When photographer Tim Fisher opened the Northern Lights art gallery in Keswick 17 months ago, he discovered that the top, fourth-floor window offered spectacular views over the western fells.

So he started photographing them – and a set of 10 of the resulting images has now won him a prize in an international competition.

The 55-year-old photographer has picked up second prize in the landscape category of this year’s International Photography Awards in New York.

The pictures will be on show at Manchester Art Fair from October 11 to 13, and in New York later that month.

Limited edition prints of the winning pictures, signed by Tim, will also be going on sale from his gallery.

They are no ordinary photographs. They are collaborations with some of the painters who exhibit work at Northern Lights.

He has overlaid his black and white photos with paintings of the same views, to blend the two media together and create something new and unusual.

Tim accepts this new approach is experimental, but feels strongly that it is also necessary to move the art forwards.

“My problem with landscape photography is that it’s very objective,” he says. “You can’t bring any context to a single shot, it’s not part of a project. It bores me rigid. All my work is project driven.”

The set of images is called Ruskin’s World and focuses especially on the skies and clouds of the Lake District.

Victorian artist, writer and critic John Ruskin was born 200 years ago this year and Tim explains that Ruskin was always preoccupied with the appearance of the sky both in London and at Brantwood, his home at Coniston.

Tim has been working as a photographer for 29 years and has received ‘honourable mentions’ in the competition in the past, but this year is the first time he has been placed in the top three.

He also received honourable mentions this year for photos from Appleby Horse Fair.