This fascination with the familiar isn’t a new phenomenon, says Phillip Prodger, head of photographs at the National Portrait Gallery and a former judge of the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize. “We live in a world of the free exchange of imagery and social media and perhaps the photographs that once were considered more private aren’t considered so private anymore. I think people have been making those photographs all along but perhaps not sharing them in that way.”
“If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough,” said Magnum Photos co-founder Robert Capa, famously. This week Magnum Photos is revisiting Capa’s concept with its Square Print Sale, part of a cycle of four print sales it’s running to celebrate its 70th anniversary.
The winners of the third BJP Breakthrough Awards will showcase their work in a special exhibition in East London
How do you shoot a great portrait? It’s all about connection, says Dan Wilton, one of the Portrait of Britain winners last year. “Sometimes that can be hard – especially with very short shoots – but that’s one of the challenges and one of the reasons I love it so much.”
The Dutch photographer’s epic Imperial Courts project, which was shot over 22 years, impressed the judges with its “affirmation of photography’s power to address important ideas through pure image”
The ten winners are: Carl Bigmore, Georgs Avetisjans, Kazuma Obara, Lua Ribeira, Martin Seeds, Matthew Broadhead, Michael Vince Kim, Monica Alcazar-Duarte, Sam Ivin and Sian Davey.
“Taking someone’s portrait is always a disruptive and often very awkward event. Everyone has their default portrait pose. The role of the photographer is to push beyond, to find that mysterious intimate moment that only a camera can freeze.”
The world-famous photo agency goes to town with four exhibitions, a live residency, a swap shop, a book launch, a series of talks and discussions, and even a t-shirt collection
Questions of truth and fiction, doubt and certainty, and the relationship between the observer and the observed are the key themes of the £30,000 prize – which rewards a living photographer, of any nationality, for a body of work felt to have significantly contributed to photography
“Individually these photos represent the moment that we crossed paths, but collectively they represent my portrait of London – a confident city, a city of the future, a city I call home,” says Niall McDiarmid, who has been shooting portraits on the streets of Britain’s capital for the last six years.
