Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize 2015

Five Girls, 2014, by David Stewart – the 2015 winner. This group portrait of Stewart’s daughter and four friends mirrors a shot he took of them seven years ago, which featured in the Taylor Wessing 2008 show. In the original, the friends were about to start their GCSEs. Here, they have just graduated from university. (Photo by David Stewart/Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize 2015)

Hector by Anoush Abrar – £3,000 second prize winner. Abrar’s portrait is inspired by Caravaggio, particularly his painting Sleeping Cupid from 1608. Abrar explains: ‘Somehow I needed to make my own Sleeping Cupid. I found my portrait of Hector so powerful and iconic that it inspired me to start a series called Cherubs’. (Photo by Anoush Abrar/Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize 2015)

Nyaueth by Peter Zelewski – £2,000 third prize winner. This was taken near London’s Oxford Street as part of Zelewski’s series Beautiful Strangers. Zelewski explains: ‘The aim of Beautiful Strangers is to challenge the concept of traditional beauty with a series of spontaneous street portraits of everyday citizens who show character, uniqueness and a special inner quality’. (Photo by Peter Zelewski/Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize 2015)

Amira and her Children by Ivor Prickett – £1,000 fourth prize winner. Prickett took this photograph in northern Iraq in September 2014 when he was working on an assignment for UNHCR. Prickett says: ‘I met Amira and her family in the tent they were living in at the Baharka camp near Erbil; they had fled their village near Mosul after Isis had taken control of the area. As they became more comfortable with me being there, they really started to express their closeness and became very tactile. It was a beautiful moment to witness in the midst of such a difficult situation’. (Photo by Ivor Prickett/Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize 2015)

Yngvild by Tereza Červeňová – £5,000 John Kobal new work award winner. This portrait is of the photographer’s friend the day before another friend’s wedding at Veluwe National Park in Holland. (Photo by Tereza Červeňová/Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize 2015)

Fagira D Morti by Birgit Püve – shortlisted image. From the series Estonian Documents, which aims to ‘treasure the psychological state of one post-Soviet country in the 21st century’. (Photo by Birgit Püve/Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize 2015)

André on his Couch by Jouk Oosterhof – shortlisted image. From the series My Muse André. Oosterhof says: ‘I photographed André in women’s clothing without crossdressing him with an excessive feminine characterisation. No wigs or makeup, understated and simple, as he is an heterosexual man who does not wear organza or blouses’. (Photo by Jouk Oosterhof/Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize 2015)

Stephen Lee Playing Hide and Seek by Mattia Zoppellaro – shortlisted image. From the series Appleby, taken at the oldest and biggest horse fair in Europe that happens every June. (Photo by Mattia Zoppellaro/Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize 2015)

Luke, Gaskell’s of Wigan by Guardian photographer Sarah Lee – shortlisted image. Punters queue up for fish and chips at Gaskell’s. This shot comes from the series Nighthawks at the Diner, which accompanied an Observer Food Monthly article about Friday night takeaway habits. (Photo by Sarah Lee/Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize 2015)

Jules in the Sink by Sophie Ebrard – shortlisted image. From the series Finca la Prospera, shot on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, of a family she met a decade ago. Ebrand says: ‘I wish I could spend more time with them. Days seem to be longer, time spent with one another are of better quality. There’s no rushing around. There’s this tranquillity of life that comes with long summer days’. (Photo by Sophie Ebrard/Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize 2015)

The Obamas by Gillian Laub, December 2014. This portrait of was an unpublished pose from a commissioned sitting for People magazine at the Marine Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, Washington DC. (Photo by Gillian Laub/Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize 2015)