By Patricia Thompson and Emma McCleary

There is a wonderful passage in Spike Milligan’s satirical novel Puckoon in which, having partitioned a town overnight, a motley crew of boundary commissioners pose for a commemorative photograph.

The photo session descends into chaos and one of their number suffers the indignity of being captured for posterity with a hat stand protruding from the top of his head.

Various obstacles sticking out of heads, strange shadows on walls, reflections in windows – all are fairly common mistakes in amateur photography.

Even professionals can fall into the trap. My chief bridesmaid – a Sunday school teacher - was snapped in front of a tree at our wedding with two protruding twigs giving her ‘devil’s horns’ resulting in her being permanently framed on our mantelpiece looking like something from a Hell Pizza advert.

Former premiership footballer Stan Collymore suffered a similar photographic faux pas after being pilloried in the UK media over his stormy relationship with TV personality Ulrika Jonssen. Shortly afterwards he signed for Leicester City, aka the Foxes, posed for press shots in front of the club logo featuring a pointy-eared fox head and a devilish looking image of him was promptly splashed all over the tabloids.

That howler was, however, an exception. Sub-editors are notoriously eagle-eyed and the more likely reaction will be some choice language and savage prodding of the ‘delete key’.

A picture speaks a thousands words – providing a good-quality photograph with a story, be it a sponsor’s presentation, company event or a portrait to accompany an opinion piece or appointment announcement, makes it more likely your story will be used – and used well.