Our judge was Ken Barrett.  Many many thanks to him for taking a lot of time and trouble in the judging.  Ken's full judgement is as follows:-

"I have looked at all the entries several times over the past few days, and I keep coming back to the images that attracted my attention when I first viewed the entries.

First of all, I was very impressed with the high standard of all the images, but some were just that little bit better, either by the use of the light or the simplicity of the composition.

The winner of the Best Shot of the day is B3 (John's No 3). I liked the limited palette of soft colours, the composition and the artistic feel to this image.  The background is thrown well out of focus but there are sufficient areas in focus, in particular the leaf on the right hand side.

For the sequence of three images, I felt that A 4, 5 and 6 (Eve) were very good but again competitor B (John) had the edge with either 4, 5 and 6 or 7, 8 and 9.  The use of the available light, the technical ability amply demonstrated and the strong compositions all attracted me to these entries. The best three were B 4,5 and 6.    Finally, for the best non leaf entries, I thought that F5 (Alida)was the most appealing image.  It was technically very sound with the fruits very sharp and well exposed, the composition was excellent with a dark green area on the left which concentrated your attention to the right of the image where the fruits and husk filled the frame. The only slight downside was the flower in the background which ,although well out of focus, was in rather a dominant position.  However without cutting it off, it was difficult to see how it could be avoided as a side view would cause problems with focussing on the fruits, which needed to be taken head on.

Judging is not an exact science as you are only too well aware, and no doubt if someone else had been the judge you could well have had different results. In my view however, photographer B (John) had an exceptional panel of 9 images."

So, many congratulations to John for sweeping the board, to Eve for what sounds like a close second and to Alida for the best no leaf shot.  Thanks also to everyone for taking part.   Don't forget the single best shot of 2008 competition; closing date 5 January 2009.

The entry criteria for the Westonbirt competition are set out below: