I was asked to judge the ‘Coast and Castles’ landscape photography category in this year’s Amble Through The Lens photography competition, organised by St Cuthbert’s church in Amble, Northumberland.

It was great to see so many great landscape images of the Northumberland coast – many familiar locations but also one or two that I didn’t know so well, so I had my work cut out in selecting the top three places for the adult competition and top two in each of the age group categories for younger entrants.  And there were plenty of images left in my final round of judging which were worthy of a highly commended award too.

The annual competition also had a portraits category with some fantastic people images, judged by alternative wedding and portrait photographer Kat Timmins.

There was also a People’s Choice award for the top three favourites voted for by members of the public during the exhibition weekend, which was over the first May bank holiday weekend earlier this month.  Naturally everyone goes for photographs not selected by the judges, but I was pleased to see the winners were all images that had made it through to my last round of judging but just missed out.

The Amble Through The Lens competition will return in 2014, so keep an eye on the St Cuthbert’s website or Facebook page for details of next year’s categories!