First the film, now the album.

Byline: By BARBARA ARGUMENT

TEESSIDE'S amateur army of extras in smash-hit blockbuster movie Atonement will be able to spot themselves in a stunning new book.

They were snapped in action on Redcar beach during filming by award-winning Thornaby photographer Pam Ainsley.

Most of the atmospheric images were caught on camera from the window of a seafront flat.

Now Pam has put 140 of them in a top-quality album commemorating the film's local connections.

The book even has a foreword praising it from Atonement author Ian McEwan.

Two of the 80-page albums specially signed by star James McAvoy and director Joe Wright will raise money for charity.

One is to be auctioned by extra Michael Farrell from Marton in aid of the special care baby unit at Middlesbrough's James Cook University Hospital which helped save his toddler Megan's life.

And Pam is raffling hers for leukaemia charities. "This book is dedicated to my mother Dorothy who died from the disease and always encouraged me to be a photographer," she said.

"When mum was dying of leukaemia, she kept her illness from me because I was starting my business. After she died, I looked at the camera and couldn't use it because it had kept me away from her. Then I realised she would have wanted me to carry on doing what I love."

The Atonement album costs pounds 49.95 and is beautifully bound.

She hopes Teessiders will buy the book, especially the 1,000 local extras who appeared in the film's amazing Dunkirk beach scene.

A taster of them is on her website and at an exhibition at the Python Gallery in Gosford Street, Middlesbrough for three weeks from Tuesday.

She won the UK Event Photographer of the Year for her fantastic photographs of the Jet Ski Championships on the Tees.

This year she is heading for the final for some amazing shots of Lugsy, a friend's pedigree Devonshire Rex cat.

The mum-of-three worked in Teesside banks before changing career to turn her hobby into a profession after spotting a Gazette advert for a photographic course at Middlesbrough Art College.

Then she took an MA in business studies and multi-media at Teesside University before joining Durham University's Entrepreneur course.

After going professional, Pam jetted off to Brazil to photograph football star Juninho's wedding and was commissioned to take photographs during the Queen's Jubilee tour of Wales.

"She often waved to acknowledge me," said Pam who specialises in events and is booked up for weddings until 2010.

"I feel as a woman you have years when you are bringing up the children, but then it is nice to do something you have always wanted."

BUY the book from www.pamainsley.co.uk or at Redcar - Coastal Fine Arts and Framing, Station Road; Gifted in High Street, Stockton and at the Guisborough Bookshop in Chaloner Street.

CAPTION(S):

ON FILM: Pam Ainsley and one of her shots of the movie Atonement; EERIE: Pam caught the haunting power of these Dunkirk scenes