Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize
According to the National Portrait Gallery 'Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2020 is the leading international competition, and celebrates and promotes the very best in contemporary portrait photography.'
The competition has been held every year since 2003 and has been sponsored by the law firm Taylor Wessing since 2008.
Each year 60 entries are selected to be exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery between November and February, this year the exhibition will be held online.
Below are some past winners of the competition:
Claudio Rasano | Thembinkosi Fanwell Ngwenya (Winner in 2016) - https://www.rasano.com
Jordi Ruiz Cirera | Margarita Teichroeb (Winner in 2012) - http://jordiruizphotography.com
César Dezfuli | Amadou Sumaila (Winner in 2017) - http://www.cesardezfuli.com
The prize for first place is £15,000 - there are also prizes for 2nd and 3rd place
Below are some other prize winners from previous competitions:
The judges change every year, one employee of Taylor Wessing is part of the panel each year. Previous judges include: photographers, curators, artists and writers.
I have been tasked with creating a portrait that could be entered into the competition, it must be a true biographical portrait. I plan on finding a model by searching through local community Facebook groups to try and find someone that I feel has an interesting backstory which I will represent through my portrait, I will be referring back to previous successful entries to judge whether or not I feel as though the model is suitable for the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize.
What is a portrait?
According to Wikipedia: 'A portrait is an artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person'. Portraits are done in a number of different ways, for example through paintings, drawings or photography.
What tools are used in portraiture to convey the subject's character?
Photographing the subject in their own clothes
The image below is titled 'Luigi The Forcella Playboy' it was captured by London-based photographer Sam Gregg. Gregg said 'In many ways, Luigi’s nickname says it all, although words do little justice to the exuberance of this man. He struts through the impoverished streets of Forcella with a pride that is reminiscent of the dandies of sub-Saharan Africa.' We get a hint of Luigi's 'exuberance' from his very smart attire in the portrait.
Photographing the model in their own clothes can give the viewer a deeper view into their personality, you can tell a lot about a person based on what they are wearing. For example, in the image below we can tell that Luigi is a smart, formal man who appears to be relatively wealthy - the name of the image reinforces this.
When shooting my images for this project, I plan to photograph the model in their own clothes as I feel like it will really help portray their character to the audience.
Sam Gregg - Luigi The Forcella Playboy (http://www.sam-gregg.com)
Shooting the model in their own environment
The images below are from Dignity a series by Greek photographer Alexandros Vrettakos in which he photographs people he met in Balkans, documenting the simplicity of their lives. This series was selected as a finalist in the 2020 LensCulture Portrait Awards. Photographing the model in their environment does a couple of things, firstly it means they are likely to be more comfortable in front of the camera - meaning that the photographs you capture will be a more accurate representation of that individual. Secondly, it allows us (the viewer) to get an insight into their world which enables us to get more of an idea about who they are, what they do and the kind of life they lead. This is definitely something I plan to do in my images, I intend to show the model in a space they are comfortable in. I want the model to feel comfortable and almost as though I am not there, I plan for my final images to come across as intimate and feel genuine.
Alexandros Vrettakos - Dignity (http://www.vrettakos.gr/bio_en.html)
Focusing on the subject's eyes
Below is Simple Beauty by Sarah Wilkes, it won her the Portrait Photographer prize in The British Photography Awards in 2019. Here the focus is on the model's eyes, this can give the impression of looking into the soul of the individual pictured - forming a connection between them and the viewer.
Another way that the eyes can be used is if they are looking away from the camera, this is most likely what I will do in my final image. I like having the model look away from the camera as, in my work, I try and create a feeling of intimacy, capturing the genuine, authentic mood at the time the image was captured.
Sarah Wilkes - Simple Beauty (https://sarahwilkesphotography.co.uk/w/)
Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2020
During week 9 of the course we visited this year's exhibition, due to Covid-19 it was held virtually rather than in the National Portrait Gallery as it would have been in normal circumstances. It was good to experience a virtual exhibition as it gave me some ideas for the other unit I am working on at the moment - To Begin.
It was interesting to see the kind of images that were accepted into the exhibition, some of them were really strong but, in my opinion, some were not quite of the standard that I was expecting. To be honest, this made me feel better about my own work and as though I might actually have a chance to get it exhibited.
Some of my favourite images from this year's Taylor Wessing exhibition
Inspiration
Photos by Hajar Benjida (https://www.instagram.com/hajarbenji/?hl=en)
Hajar Benjida has photographed many musicians, many of them backstage at concerts. This means she often has very little time with the model - because of this the only light source she uses is the flash built into her camera. Her images do a great job of capturing a specific moment in time, I think this is at least partially due to the fact that she doesn't have much time with each person so she has to make use of her surroundings and things that are already set up. I intend to do the same in my images, my goal is to portray a narrative in my final image and I think that using the model's normal environment will help me do that.
Artwork By Ashley Birch (https://therp.co.uk/portfolio/ashley-birch/)
Ashley Birch specialises in the human form, in his own words his work addresses 'the instinctive conflict of reality, showing [his] curiosity in the human condition and the unconscious'. Birch particularly focuses on depicting 'people as individuals' - I can really see this in his work, each subject is unique and has their own identity. This resonates with me as it is one of the main things I aim to do when photographing people - particularly for this project, I want the audience to be able to lean about my model from the image.
Original Idea
I had originally planned on finding my model for this project by posting on a number of local community Facebook pages, giving a short overview of who I am and the brief. I wanted to find an interesting person, for example someone with a unique job or hobby; or someone that had a backstory that I wanted to tell through my image(s). However, on 5th November we went into a national lockdown because of the Coronavirus - this meant that my idea would be impossible to execute as I was unable to meet people from other households. I decided that the most sensible (and safest) thing to do was to come up with a new idea.
New Idea
Due to the new restrictions put in place because of the Coronavirus, my options were very limited when it came to choosing a model. I decided to use one of my roommates as my model, he is a guitarist and I thought it would be interesting to try and capture how a musician has had to adapt during the pandemic. He has been unable to preform or practice with his band for the best part of a year, he now is stuck to writing and practicing in his bedroom. I chose to do the shoot in his bedroom to try and show that he is confined to that small space.
Moodboard/ Inspiration
Photos by Barrie Wentzell (https://barriewentzell.com)
British-born Photographer Barrie Wentzell worked as the executive chief photographer for The Melody Maker (England's most renowned music publication at the time) between 1965 and 1975, during this time he photograph many musicians who went onto become household names (pictured above are Albert King, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix). For my final image I am drawing inspiration from Wentzell's use of shadows, I am going to use them to enhance the sense of intimacy in the image, giving the viewer the impression that they are glancing into the private life of the model. Unlike Barrie Wentzell, I will be shooting in colour, I think that a slight bit of colour will cut through the shadows, adding another dimension and making the image more interesting to look at.
Moodboard for my idea
The Shoot
I did my shoot while my model was practicing in his bedroom with his girlfriend, he was sat on the bed playing his guitar and she was sat on a chair playing the keys. I also captured some images of them both playing the guitar in the kitchen as the lighting was much better.
Some of my favourite (unedited) images from the shoot
Final Image
Above is the unedited version of my final image, I chose this image as I think it really fits what I was going for - it has a lot of shadow and a slight bit of colour piercing through. There is also a sense of privacy/ intimacy about the image, the model isn't looking at the camera, he is simply focused on his craft - the guitar.
I made a few changes to the image in post production, I lightened up the shadows a little bit - making it easier to see the details. I added a slight brown tint to the image, giving it a slightly aged feel, something that I have done a few times previously in my work. I also made the orange in the shirt slightly brighter, this was to make it really stand out from the rest of the image and to add another element to the image.
Evaluation
I think I managed to create the image I was planning on taking, based on the other artists' I have looked out and the idea I had in my head - I am very pleased with the final result. One thing I would have done differently is to do more physical revisualisation, such as a sketch of my idea, this would have helped me set up for the final shoot as I would have known exactly how I wanted the model to pose - however, this may have taken away from the authenticity of the image so, in that respect, I am glad I didn't do too much previsualisation as I may have got tunnel vision and missed out on the opportunity to take a better picture.
In an ideal situation, I would have used someone I had never met as a model. I think it would have been a good experience to go through the process of finding someone that I felt fit the brief and, also, would be interesting to photograph - this is not something I have done before so it would have been useful to do.
Undoubtedly the biggest challenge in this project was having to scramble to find a model and come up with an idea because of the Covid-19 restrictions, I think this made the project much more difficult. However, I think it was a helpful experience because it meant I had to adapt and be creative with the limited options that were available to me. To summarise, the project went very differently to how I thought it would to begin with but I am very happy with my idea and the final image I produced.
