The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2010

The National Portrait Gallery's Photographic Portrait Prize - sponsored for the third year running by Taylor Wessing - is open to photographers of any nationality over the age of 18. The exhibition of 60 selected images (of 6,000 entered) which will be on view at the NPG until 20 February 2011, provides an opportunity to showcase the work of talented young photographers and gifted amateurs alongside those of established professionals and photography students. Through a range of methods, the entrants explore a range of themes, styles and approaches to the contemporary photographic portrait, from formal commissioned portraits to more spontaneous and intimate moments capturing friends and family.

First prize this year went to David Chancellor for Huntress with Buck, a portrait of 14-year-old Alabaman Josie Slaughter on her first hunting trip to South Africa; 'a powerful and beautiful portrait,' according to NPG Director Sandy Nairne.

The second prize was awarded to Panayiotis Lamprou for his controversial Portrait of My British Wife, with Jeffrey Stockbridge taking third prize for Tic Tac and Tootsie, an image of twin prostitutes in North Philadelphia. Untitled 2, from the series Childhood Obesity, was awarded fourth prize. 'I looked away to change the film in my camera. When I looked back the picture was suddenly there,' says the photographer, Abbie Trayler-Smith. 'I shot one frame'.