NPPP

Sooo.. we visited the National Photographic Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery.. Have to say I was pretty impressed.. The level of the entires was pretty high.. So the Image I would have seleted to be the winner?? Well that was harder than I thought. I liked quite a few of the images and selecting the single most impressive/technically correct/and all around "best" image was pretty hard!

Surrounded by Music 2008

by Heide Smith

Surrounded by Music is an image that struck me straight away as a powerful image. The spot lit subject in the middle of the frame draws attention to the main focus, while the darkness around the rest of the frame, reduces its importance. The books provide a great background, it is simple and repetitive and doesn't distract the viewer, but if you want to spend some more time looking at the image you could spend ages looking at the finer details. Technically it is correct, and the subject and the details around it match well.

After deciding which image I liked, I had an easier time deciding which I didn't.. I decided on

Paddy Mann 2008
by David Van Royen

I decided on this image for a few reasons. Firstly because to me it simply looks like a snapshot.. Why, it is dull, flat and poorly composed.. Also the "concept" behind the image is "It's a visual metaphor of struggle and making the bar!".. To me it seems like a shot that was taken with a camera-phone then the photographer made up a concept behind it..

Ah well.. Overall I enjoyed all of the images..

btw.. Hi Class!!

Jez