LONDON.- Today, the National Portrait Gallery has announced the four photographers shortlisted for the Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait Prize 2025, the prestigious international competition which celebrates the very best in contemporary portrait photography. The shortlisted photographs will be displayed in the Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait Prize 2025 exhibition, open from 13 November 2025 to 8 February 2026.

The 2025 judges panel comprised photographer and educator Sunil Gupta; art historian, curator and writer Katy Hessel; Senior Curator, Photography at the National Portrait Gallery Sabina Jaskot-Gill; and photographer Tim Walker.

Selected from 5,910 submissions from 2,054 photographers, the shortlisted photographers are:

• Hollie Fernando for Boss Morris – from the series Hoydenish

• Luan Davide Gray for We Dare to Hug – from the series Call Me by Your Name

• Byron Mohammad Hamzah for Jaidi Playing – from the series Bunga dan Tembok (The Flower and The Wall: The Stateless Youths of Semporna)

• Martina Holmberg for Mel – from the series The Outside of the Inside

The winner of the competition will be awarded £15,000, with £3,000 going to second place and third prize receiving £2,000. A commission to the value of £8,000 will also be awarded to one of the shortlisted photographers. Supported by Taylor Wessing, the chosen photographer will create an artwork that will form part of the world’s largest collection of portraiture at the National Portrait Gallery.

Submissions for the Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait Prize 2025 were open to those aged 18 and over from around the world, whether a leading professional, a talented amateur or an exciting emerging artist. Photographers were encouraged to interpret ‘portrait’ in its widest sense, with ‘photography focused on portraying people with an emphasis on their identity as individuals’.

Hollie Fernando

Hollie Fernando is a photographer and director based in London and Brighton. Her work is inspired by the natural world and classical painting, particularly pre-Raphaelite portraits, which she fuses with an inimitable dreamlike vision and dynamic use of colour. Fernando has worked with a wide variety of sitters and clients, including Adidas, Barbour, BAFTA, Dickies and Gucci.

A form of English folk dance, Morris dancing rings were traditionally male dominated. Now, women make up more than half of its participants. With her portrait, Boss Morris, Fernando wanted to explore the shift in gender equality within Morris dancing. Boss Morris is a young, all female Morris side based in Stroud.

Part of her series, Hoydenish, the photo presents Boss Morris adorned in folkloric dress and make up as they huddle together for a group portrait. Pictured in communion with nature, with flowing hair and long dresses, the image recalls pre-Raphaelite muses and the photo portraits of Julia Margaret Cameron. Their hyper-feminine, traditional costume juxtaposes with the unusual and somewhat feral placement of flora and fauna across their faces. Romantic and soft yet full of energy, the photograph powerfully conveys the spirit, creativity and ambition of the subjects.

Luan Davide Gray

Luan Davide Gray is a fine art photographer based in London. Gray has a degree in Visual Communication from the University of Brighton and over 20 years of experience as a hairstylist and creative image consultant. His work explores the unseen and emotionally raw layers of identity, often focusing on themes of intimacy, marginalisation and the moments of beauty found within everyday acts of survival.

Gray’s portraits have been featured in Photo Vogue Italia, and his current body of work explores the visible invisibility of homelessness. We Dare to Hug is part of a photographic series, Call Me by Your Name, which was created to illustrate that love is love regardless of the form, face or name of those connected by it.

This black and white portrait of two men in their 60s sharing a tender embrace tells a quiet story of trust, love and the passage of time. It captures a moment of mature intimacy that defies conventional representations of physical closeness, as one softly holds the other’s bare chest, gently kissing him on the cheek. Their skin meets and their bodies intersect without barriers, forming a continuous, intimate loop in which the flow of affection drifts equally between giving and receiving. The image evokes sculpture through its composition and in its use of light and shadow to create areas of contrast and connection between the sitters and their interlocking bodies.

Byron Mohammad Hamzah

Byron Mohammad Hamzah is a doctor and photographic artist based in Malaysia and the UK. Hamzah has an MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography from University of Arts London and his work has been featured in the Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait Prize 2023, the Paris Photo Carte Blanche Award, and Europe Queer Photo Festival 2022. He was also a winner in the 2020 Portrait of Britain Photography Awards.

For the past two years Hamzah has been working as a volunteer art and photography teacher with an NGO based in Sabah, East Malaysia that provides free schooling for stateless and marginalised youth, particularly from the Bajau Laut ethnic group. Working in Semporna, a coastal town with a large enclave of stateless Bajau Laut, Hamzah began documenting the lives of the local youths and their community as part of a collaborative photographic and documentary project.

Amidst such challenging lives, Hamzah wanted to document the innocence of youth and the relationships that form between the children. Play was a crucial expression of these. Jaidi is one of the stateless children who attend the free school where Hamzah teaches. This gentle portrait of Jaidi playing, his head cradled in the hands of a fellow child, captures a moment of tranquillity within a tumultuous and uncertain existence. Despite the injustices they experience, the outcome of the project encapsulates the spirit of these young people; resilient, colourful and full of hope and pride.

Martina Holmberg

Martina Holmberg is a freelance photographer and writer based in Stockholm. Her interest in photography began early, sparked by accompanying her father when he would develop his own prints and photos. Holmberg’s work has been published, awarded and exhibited internationally, including in the Sony World Photography Awards 2020, the Tokyo International Foto Awards 2023, New York Photography Awards 2024 and the Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Women Photographers 2024.

Holmberg’s work focuses on portraying people’s living conditions around the world, often those of women. Her portrait, Mel, is part of her project The Outside of the Inside – a photography series that documents people with facial and physical differences that fall outside of the norm. The series is a tribute to the rich diversity of appearances that exist among us and endeavours to bring more visibility to the discrimination those with physical differences experience.

Reminiscent of a princess looking out of her tower, this stunning portrait shows Mel, a burn survivor, gazing thoughtfully out of a window. Appearing lost in a daydream, it immediately captures the imagination as viewers wonder what might be on her mind, as well as what her story is. When Mel was two years old, she and her sister were waiting for their mother in the car while she went to make a quick purchase at the convenience store. When she returned, the car was on fire. Tragically Mel’s sister died in the accident; Mel survived with severe burns.

"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 many thanks to the judges who have selected them. I am very grateful to Taylor Wessing and their long-standing relationship with the Gallery that makes this Prize possible. I look forward to seeing the works displayed at the Gallery and to announcing and celebrating the winners in November."
Victoria Siddall ---Director, National Portrait Gallery