After my yummy noodle soup in london's chinatown, I headed over to the National Portrait Gallery yesterday to see the Taylor Wessing - Photographic Portrait Prize.
I love going to see the latest contemporary portrait competitions... there's something so personal and intimate about a photographic portrait that can be so moving - it compells me to pick up a cam and try to emulate what other talented photographers do (but i just never achieve anything half as good and i don't have a good camera).
I wanted to post my favourites - sharing the most moving photographs with my followers. Here they are:
This was part of a series of photographs documenting the livelihoods of regular civilians in Bangladesh. Arif made a living by collecting railway passengers rubbish and selling this on.
This won 3rd prize. The photographer took a series of pics of inmates at a high security prison. He described this subject as distant and almost unresponsive. He later found out he had been sentenced for murder.
This was a commissioned piece to act as the architect's portrait for a magazine. Something about the perfect balance of lighting and saturation captured my attention. Beautiful.
This was from a series of portraits showing various birth defects in Vietnam. I thought this was particularly interesting as the eyes are usually significant into learning about a person through portraiture. There's something very uncomfortable and moving about this image.
I almost started crying in the middle of the gallery when I saw this. (click to see a bigger pic) From the series 'Rape is a Weapon of War' - "Forgotten woman of Genocide" was difficult to look at. The woman's tears and sorrow is clear and the scar from the rape looks brutal.
All photographs and captions courtesy of National Portrait Gallery
I love going to see the latest contemporary portrait competitions... there's something so personal and intimate about a photographic portrait that can be so moving - it compells me to pick up a cam and try to emulate what other talented photographers do (but i just never achieve anything half as good and i don't have a good camera).
I wanted to post my favourites - sharing the most moving photographs with my followers. Here they are:
This was part of a series of photographs documenting the livelihoods of regular civilians in Bangladesh. Arif made a living by collecting railway passengers rubbish and selling this on.
This won 3rd prize. The photographer took a series of pics of inmates at a high security prison. He described this subject as distant and almost unresponsive. He later found out he had been sentenced for murder.
This was a commissioned piece to act as the architect's portrait for a magazine. Something about the perfect balance of lighting and saturation captured my attention. Beautiful.
This was from a series of portraits showing various birth defects in Vietnam. I thought this was particularly interesting as the eyes are usually significant into learning about a person through portraiture. There's something very uncomfortable and moving about this image.
I almost started crying in the middle of the gallery when I saw this. (click to see a bigger pic) From the series 'Rape is a Weapon of War' - "Forgotten woman of Genocide" was difficult to look at. The woman's tears and sorrow is clear and the scar from the rape looks brutal.
All photographs and captions courtesy of National Portrait Gallery
