Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2014

I'm surprised I haven't paid more attention to the National Portrait Gallery's annual photographic portrait prize. The last time I went was five years ago; having some time to spare this evening, however, I decided to drop in to view the 2014 exhibition - and I am glad I did.

The 2014 exhibition marks the last one judged by Sandy Nairne as director of the National Portrait Gallery (Nairne has announced that he will step down later in the year).  Over 4,000 submissions were received, and whittling them down to the 60 on display must have been a daunting task.

The top three prizes awarded by the panel for 2014 went (in reverse order of merit) to:

3.  Braian and Ryan
     Birgit Püve
     (Third place)

Two ash-blond twins, nine year old Braian and Ryan, crouch in the garden at their great grandmother’s house in Saue, Estonia. Braian, the younger twin, stares moodily at the camera, his arms crossed over his knees; while Ryan, the elder, looks up less guardedly, holding a large hen between his legs.

2.  Skate Girl
     Jessica Fulford-Dobson
     (Second place)

A waif of a girl, dressed in a shimmering blue hijab, holds a skateboard almost as large as she is tall. Her little fingernails are painted orange, and her toes (which peek out of a pair of dusty sandals) are painted blue. The photograph was taken in Afghanistan. 'What I loved about this girl,' explained Jessica Fulford-Dobson,'was how immaculately dressed and composed she was. The skate hall is a dusty, noisy place filled with laughter and yelps of excitement as the girls skateboard freely up, down and around with their robes and scarves flying.' There is something in the little girl's expression that suggests a masked restlessness - I assumed this was an eagerness to get back to the fun of skateboarding, but I would later learn that she was in fact rushing for the school bus home.

1.  Konrad Lars Hastings Titlow
     David Titlow
     (First place)

The top prize for 2014 went to David Titlow for his portrait of his infant son. The child, aged nine months, stretches out his stubby fingers to touch the nose of a little black and white dog. I love the look of wonder on the child's face and the dog's slightly perplexed expression at the encounter. The shot was taken in Rataryd, Sweden, the morning after a midsummer's party: a hazy Nordic light bathes the scene, and a couple of empty cans of beer are still visible in the foreground. 'The composition and backlight was so perfect that I had to capture the moment,' commented Titlow.

My personal favourites also included:

• a portrait of  Freyja Haraldsdóttir, MP and disabled rights activist, outside Parliament in Reykjavik, Iceland, by Gabrielle Motola;
• Felix, a portrait of a tousled-haired boy being nuzzled affectionately by his pony, by Tracy Howl; and
• Ann-Christine Woehrl's powerful portrait of Christine and Moses (pictured below), from a series on the lives of women who have survived acid attacks.