Taylor Wessing Prize 2009

Not so long ago, I went to see the entrants for the Taylor Wessing Prize up at the National Portrait Gallery. I was a first-time visitor, and decided to pop along after seeing an advert in Practical Photography. I'm not usually one for these sorts of things, but I thought that I might learn something from the best entrants. A selection of photos is available online:

http://www.npg.org.uk:8080/photoprize/site09/index.php

You can also view the top four entries at http://www.npg.org.uk:8080/photoprize/site/exhibition_winners.php

The winning entry, "Quints", I find technically sound - but ultimately, it's not my thing. I find it trying hard to be artistic, and when I think that about a photo, it turns me off. I like art to be a little more subtle, generally. The second place entry was "Bag" (the woman with the carrier bag on her head) which I have to say does absolutely nothing for me. I don't get it. However, the third-place entry, "Ines connected to Anna" I think is excellent - the two teenage girls, intimately close to each other and phycially connected via their laptop and iPod, yet completely distant and remote from each other says an awful lot about modern communication. I remember seeing the life-size version of this and staring at it for ages. I think it's a classic. The fourth prize went to "Murdoch Reflects", a clever portrait of Rupert Murdoch in a thoughtful mood, perfectly reflected physically into the table below. I like the simplicity of the shot, and the clever way the physical reflection apes the subject's mood.

Murdoch Reflects - Tom Stoddart

My favourite of the whole exhibition was "Five Girls" by David Stewart - a bleak shot of five teenage girls in a fast-food restaurant, all with mobiles in front of them, yet nobody actually talking to each other or even acknowledging each others' presence. I think it says a lot about modern teenagers and our drive for communication through technology, and a corresponding decline in social skills.

Five Girls - David A. Stewart

The exhibition is still on and it's completely free. I don't make much of a habit of going to these sort of things and, to be honest, I didn't really get excited by a lot of what I saw. However, I thought that the few images that really caught my imagination made the trip thoroughly worthwhile - so if you're afraid of galleries and exhibitions (like me), this is a great place to start. Officially, the exhibition was closed on 15th February, but to my knowledge it's still going - and very soon the displays for the 2009 prize will be going up.