Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2012

I visited the National Portrait Gallery recently to see the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait prize.  The standard was excellent once again with some outstanding entries.

The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2012 offers a unique opportunity to see sixty portraits by some of the most exciting contemporary photographers from around the world.

The images are drawn from editorial, advertising and fine art.  They explore a range of themes, styles and approaches to the contemporary photographic portrait, from formal commissioned portraits of famous faces to more spontaneous and intimate moments capturing friends and family.

The competition is open to amateurs, students and established professionals.

A selection of the photographs are shown below:

"Mark Rylance" by Spencer Murphy

This portrait is of Mark Rylance, an actor.  Actors make good subjects for portraiture as there is no awkwardness or discomfort in front of the camera.  The purple background in this portrait contrasts well with the subject's green eyes.

"Margarita Teichroeb" by Jordi Ruiz Cirera

The subject of this portrait, Margarita is a Mennonite from a colony in Bolivia.  Photography is forbidden for Mennonites, which explains her awkward expression.  The light from the window provides excellent illumination of the subject.

"Lynne, Brighton" by Jennifer Pattison

The subject of this portrait is a friend of the photographer.  The green background contrasts well with the reddish colouring of the subject.  This is an excellent portrait that captures the subject in a straightforward pose, bare and undaunted, looking straight down the lens and beyond.  The fact that the subject is not wearing any clothes is almost incidental.  The thing that really stands out is the chipped mug.  It catches your eye like the punctum in a photograph described by Roland Barthes.

"The Nine Lives of Ai Weiwei" by Matthew Niederhauser

This portrait is in a way a contextual portrait as the artist is posing outside his studio with one of the many cats that live there.  The blue of Weiwei's shirt blends well with the doors of his studio, with the ginger cat's fur providing a good contrast from the opposite side of the colour wheel.  The portrait was taken while Ai Weiwei was held under virtual house arrest and forbidden to leave China.  The cat has a symbolic presence due to its reputed nine lives echoing Ai Weiwei's many scrapes with the state in China.