See the Winners of the 2015 Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize
by David Schonauer
Sometimes a portrait reveals so much.
Sometimes it doesn’t — and that can be intriguing.
Such is the case with UK-based editorial and commercial David Stewart’s photo ‘Five Girls 2014' a group portrait of his daughter and her friends.
“I have always had a fascination with the way people interact — or, in this case, fail to interact, which inspired the photograph of this group of girls. While the girls are physically very close and their style and clothing highlight their membership of the same peer group, there is an element of distance between them,” says Stewart.
The photograph was recently named the winner of the 2015 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize. Established in connection with London’s National Portrait Gallery, the competition honors both traditional and contemporary approaches to the photographic portrait. Stewart, a widely-acclaimed photographer known for his off-beat and often humorous views of people, receives a £12,000 (about $18,300) prize.
Stewart’s winning image mirrors a photograph he took of the girls seven years ago, which was displayed in the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize in 2008, notes the British Journal of Photography.
A winner of the American Photography 31 competition (as well as past editions of the competition), Stewart was the subject of an AI-AP Profile earlier this year.
“I think the humor in my pictures is very British,” he said. “It comes from the culture in the UK, which can be seen as eccentric and quirky. I find the humor is greater when you feel something for the characters in the photos; if you don’t like them, people turn off. Often, I think people associate with a situation or a person in the images — they recognize something from their own lives. And when that is presented in a photograph which may have certain elements exaggerated, it makes them smile.”
Second prize in this year’s Taylor Wessing competition went to photographer Anoush Abrar for the portrait “Hector,” a photograph of a young boy inspired by Caravaggio’s painting “Sleeping Cupid.”
Third prize went to Peter Zelewski’s photo ‘Nyaueth’ a photograph of a woman he spotted on Oxford Street while working on a series called “Beautiful Strangers.”
Fourth prize was awarded to Ivor Prickett’s photograph ‘Amira and her Children’ a portrait of a displaced Iraqi family who had fled their village near Mosul after ISIS took control of the area.
The competition’s John Kobal New Work Award, worth £5,000 (about $7,600) was won by photographer Tereza Cervenová for her portrait of her friend Yngvild.
The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2015 exhibition runs from 12 November 2015 to 21 February 2016 at the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Originally published at AI-AP
David Schonauer is Editor of Pro Photo Daily and Motion Arts Pro. Follow him on Twitter. Jeffrey Roberts is Publisher of American Photography (AI-AP) the finest juried collection of photography in hardcover as well as Pro Photo Daily. Follow Jeffrey on Twitter. Follow Pro Photo Daily on Facebook.
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