Six months after retiring at the age of 83, Gillian Outerbridge has reconnected with her vocation as a photographer.

She was an entrepreneur for much of her life and spent the past eight years working as the administrator of St Peter’s Church, a role she found “hugely exciting” and “rewarding”.

Retirement left her facing a significant void but it also gave her the time to follow the urging of her three children and do something with her photography.

Her idea was to transform her photographs into notecards, a project she believed would be “very manageable”.

Ms Outerbridge had loved taking pictures since the age of eight when her grandfather gave her “a box brownie” camera.

First, she worked as a journalist in Britain and then Bermuda, taking pictures as part of the job before moving into hospitality and shooting photographs of tourists.

For a while she took a break from professional shoots but in 2019 submitted a photograph of a decaying palm to Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art’s Charman Prize and won $2,000 and the Distinctive and Convincing Style Award.

“I've been in photography all my whole life. I joined The Royal Gazette about 60 years ago and I’ve been carrying a camera ever since and so I've got a huge store of some very colourful and wonderful images,” she said.

The photographer selected 12 of her favourites for her cards. The pictures are all local scenes – of sunsets, of flowers, of road signs and other captured sights.

To her delight, they have been attracting attention in stores across the island over the past few weeks.

“I'm very pleased. I've had a very nice response from the retailers and I’ve already had to restock them at Dragon’s Lair art gallery. So people are buying them, which is very heartening,” she said.

She insists that the cards are more “a hobby” than a business but she loves that they have given her the opportunity to showcase her talent again.

“Just working with my own photographs again, that's been very rewarding for me – picking my favourites and seeing them in print. They are very nicely presented; they're on very good quality stock.”

The cards were printed by ProServe. Ms Outerbridge was pleased to find a company that was willing to accommodate her short-run print rather than the 3,000 or so copies that are standard.

“The stock is sturdy enough so it actually stands up. If a person receives one they can stand it on the bedside table or on a shelf. It's not just something you’d toss away,” she explained.

The cards are generic, giving people the freedom to write a message appropriate for the occasion.

“I hope people will send them as a thank-you note for a party or for a birthday gift or condolences or just lovely to see you, that sort of thing,” she said.

“Today with e-mails, we dash something off and then it's lost immediately. If you can take the time – just five or six minutes – and write a little note to somebody, it means so much. You can set it aside, you can reread it, look at the picture. I'm trying to encourage everybody to think about writing, about taking the time to write a personal note.”

Her cards come with custom envelopes that are colour-coded to the image in the photograph. While in the store, they sit in a plastic sleeve.

“They're kept in a very nice quality until somebody buys them. It's all part of the package and I'm just really enjoying doing it. But I'll be honest, it's a hobby, you don't make a lot of money selling cards. But that's not always the purpose.”

The cards can be bought from stores in St George’s, Hamilton and Dockyard.

“I'm currently developing a pack of four different images of St Peter's Church that will be a fundraiser for the church,” Ms Outerbridge said. “I'm quite happy to be doing that too. That's a lot of fun.”

Once she had decided on a game plan it took “probably two or three weeks” before she was able to get them into a store.

“It took me a while to track down a good printer. Some of them only print large quantities and ProServe have been great. I can do quite a short run if I need to. They came back very quickly.”

Although there was once a time when she had “wonderful photography equipment” it has since been sold. Ms Outerbridge now uses an iPhone to snap shots.

“It’s fairly adequate but I also carry my regular camera, which has basically shot all my photographs for me for many, many years. It’s a little Olympus, a pocket camera.”

Ms Outerbridge had never had a formal lesson and had previously entered the Charman Prize without success, so winning the award five years ago was “a highlight of her photography career”.

“That was very exciting. I don't have to enter the Charman Prize any more,” she laughed.

• Look for Gillian Outerbridge’s cards in St George’s at Robertson’s, The Dragon’s Lair, Long Story Short, Trustworthy Gift Shop and Bermuda Perfumery. The cards are also available at Indigo Song in Hamilton and the Bermuda Arts Centre at Dockyard