"NOT pretty but just as sweet."

That's how Dawn Tivnan described her photo of two extremely shapely strawberries which she submitted to Oxford Mail Camera Club this week on our theme of 'ugly'.

Frankly, we couldn't agree with her more – especially when someone commented on her picture 'eww, not sure I'd eat them' and Ms Tivnan replied 'I did, very nice'.

That was exactly the response we were hoping for with this week's theme: trying to find the hidden beauty in unexpected places, or discovering a new angle in a face or place that others might consider 'aesthetically challenged'.

Another great example is the furry moth spectacularly captured by Ben Adams in close-up: when he asked on Facebook 'does anyone know what type of moth this is?', camera club regular Ritesh Vyas responded: "Looks like a vampire bat."

Hairy spiders, bald birds and gruesome grotesques all fit the fit just as well.

Some of you also responded in a more philosophical style, meanwhile: Duncan Becker, Jeff Higgs and Martin Pritchard all sent in photos of local beauty spots defaced by litter or felled trees.

Dawn Tivnan also submitted a picture of an Oxford wall sprayed with graffiti, which some people have long said is 'just art in the wrong place', and Becca Collacott took an extremely artistic shot of a massive metal electricity pylon, doing a great job of making the ugly beautiful.

There was also a lot of humour this week: Dawn Tivnan sent a second picture of a rotting banana in her food waste bin, while James Ruderford sent in a stark shot of a massive chimney belching out clouds of smoke simply captioned 'my place of work' (we hope he has a sense of humour about it!).

One of the best and most thought-provoking of all the photos this week, however, was submitted by Susan Carruthers.

This is a simply black-and-white shot of a hand grasping a wire fence. She explained in her email: "The photo is called 'ugly side of Oxford" and the image is of a homeless man grabbing a fence."

For anyone who knows about this city's homelessness problem, the picture does indeed speak a thousand words.

Hopefully, all of this will inspire your snapping for next week's theme – and what else could we choose on a week like this? – cooling off!

Email your pics to picturedesk@nqo.com, send them via the Facebook group or tweet us, and remember to wear lots of suncream when you're out and about!