Photo finish

The results of the Independent Payphones Photography Competition

Betty Borthwick, a 23-year-old photo technician from Falmouth, has won the top prize of pounds 3,000 in The Independent Payphones Photography Competition.

Her photograph of a payphone on a misty autumnal morning was judged the winner in a competition run in association with BT, which attracted entries from more than 1,200 photographers.

Betty's photograph of a telephone box just outside the village of Tittensor in Staffordshire will be shown alongside the other winners at an exhibition in the Business Design Centre in Islington, north London.

Other winners include: Vinod Sinhal from London, who won both the Urban and Payphones at Work categories; 11-year-old Mary Gudgin for a photograph of an old-style telephone box on the Isle of Harris; Ken Booker, a 61- year-old art student at Wickham College, Buckinghamshire, who won the traditional category; Barbie Lindsay, who snapped her husband making a call from a model payphone in the middle of a cornfield, and Anthony Aduhene, who won the Romance category with a picture of a girl looking lovelorn in a rain-streaked phone-box.

Bob Warner, Director of BT Payphones, said: "The competition certainly caught the imagination of the nation's photographers, but the public telephone has been an integral part of British lives and landscape for 110 years, and the entries reflect the affection with which it is viewed by the British public."

The eight winning entries, plus runners-up and 'best of the rest', are all on show in the Independent Payphones Photography Exhibition at the Business Design Centre, Upper Street, Islington, London from 20-27 Oct (excluding Sunday 22 Oct). Entry is free, the nearest underground station is Angel.