Iraqi family who fled Isis feature on Taylor Wessing prize shortlist
A photograph of a displaced Iraqi family who fled their village after
the area fell under Isis control is on the shortlist for the 2015 Taylor Wessing prize, the National Portrait Gallery has announced.
Ivor Prickett, a London-based documentary photographer, took the image, Amira and her Children, in northern Iraq in September 2014 while working on an assignment for the UN refugee agency.
Prickett met Amira and her family in their tent at the Baharka camp
near Erbil. They had fled their village near Mosul after Isis took
control of the area.
“I spent some time speaking with Amira about what her family had gone
through,” said Prickett. “As they became more comfortable with me being
there, they really started to express their closeness and became very
tactile. It was a beautiful moment to witness in the midst of such a
difficult situation.”
Peter Zelewski’s photograph of Nyaueth, taken on Oxford Street as part
of his Beautiful Strangers series. Photograph: Peter Zelewski/PA
Peter Zelewski is also shortlisted for a portrait taken from a series
called Beautiful Strangers. The photographer, who was born in Detroit
and moved to London in the 1980s, spotted the subject of his portrait,
Nyaueth, on Oxford Street in central London, and was moved to take her
photograph.
“The aim of Beautiful Strangers is to challenge the concept of
traditional beauty with a series of spontaneous and powerful street
portraits of everyday citizens who show character, uniqueness and a
special inner quality, which I try to interpret in my photographs,” he
said.
Anoush Abrar, a photographer born in Iran who now lives and teaches
in Lausanne, Switzerland, is shortlisted for Hector, a photograph of a
young boy inspired by his fascination with Caravaggio, and particularly
the artist’s 1608 painting Sleeping Cupid.
“Somehow I needed to make my own Sleeping Cupid,” he said. “I found my portrait of Hector so powerful and iconic that it inspired me to continue this project as a series called Cherubs.”
Detail from Anoush Abrar photo of a young boy, inspired by Caravaggio’s painting Sleeping Cupid. Photograph: Anoush Abrar/PA
The fourth shortlisted work is Five Girls 2014, by David Stewart, a
photographer born in Lancaster and based in London. The five girls of
the title are his daughter and her friends, a group he first
photographed seven years ago when they were about to start their GCSEs.
“I have always had a fascination with the way people interact, or in
this case fail to interact, which inspired the photograph of this group
of girls,” he said. “While the girls are physically very close and their
style and clothing highlight their membership of the same peer group,
there is an element of distance between them.”
Detail from David Stewart’s portrait of his daughter and her friends. Photograph: David Stewart/PA
All four photographs will be included in an exhibition of the best of
this year’s entries. The winning photographer, to be announced on 10
November, will receive £4,000 and a commission. The four photographs
were chosen from 4,929 submissions entered by 2,201 photographers from
70 countries.
Nicholas Cullinan, the director of the National Portrait Gallery,
who chaired the judging panel, said: “The strength of the four
shortlisted works reflects the outstanding level that photographers
across the world are working at today.
“The exhibition will be especially exciting this year as we will be
displaying a number of photographs that were submitted as a series of
portraits, as well as new and unseen work by acclaimed photographer
Pieter Hugo.”
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