The National Portrait Gallery has announced the shortlist for the 2025 Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait Prize, one of the world’s leading awards for contemporary portrait photography.
The annual prize celebrates outstanding portrait photography from around the globe, encouraging entrants to interpret the term ‘portrait’ in its widest sense. Open to professional, amateur, and emerging photographers aged 18 and over, this year’s competition attracted 5,910 submissions from 2,054 photographers representing countries from Malaysia and Sweden to New Zealand and Argentina. Fifty-four works by 51 photographers will be displayed in the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition.
This year’s shortlist features four photographers whose work explores identity, community, and resilience in strikingly different ways. London and Brighton-based photographer and director Hollie Fernando is recognised for Boss Morris, part of her series Hoydenish, which reflects on the changing gender balance within the traditionally male sphere of Morris dancing. The photograph depicts the all-female dance side Boss Morris, posed in folkloric dress amid nature, their soft romanticism combined with an untamed energy.
London-based fine art photographer Luan Davide Gray is shortlisted for We Dare to Hug from the series Call Me by Your Name. The black-and-white portrait captures a moment of tenderness between two men in their sixties, an image of mature intimacy that challenges conventional depictions of love and physical closeness.
Malaysian and UK-based photographer Byron Mohammad Hamzah is recognised for Jaidi Playing, part of the series Bunga dan Tembok (The Flower and The Wall: The Stateless Youths of Semporna). The portrait shows a child cradled by a playmate, an image that conveys innocence and tranquillity in the face of marginalisation and uncertainty.
Stockholm-based freelance photographer and writer Martina Holmberg is shortlisted for Mel from her series The Outside of the Inside, which portrays people with facial and physical differences. The image shows Mel, a burn survivor, gazing from a window as if lost in thought.
The winner will receive £15,000 (approximately $20k), with £3,000 for second place and £2,000 for third. One shortlisted photographer will also be awarded an £8,000 (around $10,800) commission to create a portrait for the National Portrait Gallery’s permanent collection.
Victoria Siddall, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, commented on this year’s competition: “Each year, the Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait Prize offers a unique opportunity to reflect on our world today, from intimate glimpses into individual lives, to images casting light on global issues. The portraits submitted tell incredible stories of people around the world today. My congratulations to the photographers shortlisted for this year’s Prize and my thanks to the judges who have selected them.”
The winners will be announced at the awards ceremony on November 11, with the accompanying exhibition opening on November 13 and running until February 8, 2026.
Author: Kalum Carter
Source: DigitalCameraWorld
Reviewed By: Editorial Team
