2019 sees the ninth edition of Portrait Salon. This year we’re accepting rejected work from the National Portrait Gallery’s Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize. The Taylor Wessing Prize received 3,700 submissions from 1,611 photographers.
Portrait Salon exists to question the place of competitions within the photographic industry, and their role in determining current trends. By accepting submissions which have been rejected from the NPG Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize our intention is to show that there is excellent photography which doesn’t always get selected. We try to show the best of the rest and offer photographers another platform.
Portrait Salon 2019 is now open for submissions and photographers will be able to upload their rejected work via the Portrait Salon website until September 27th.
The selected images (chosen by Peter Dench) will be shown at The Royal Photographic Society in Bristol from November 21st to 24th. The photographs will then be shown at Photo North Festival in Harrogate from November 30th to December 2nd.
Our key dates:
August 21st to September 27th – Portrait Salon submission window open via our website.
October – selected photographers notified.
November 21st to 24th – Portrait Salon at The RPS, Bristol.
November 30th to December 2nd – Portrait Salon at Photo North Festival, Harrogate.
We’d like to say a big thanks to everyone who attended our opening night at Pub on the Park in London Fields on November 16th. The exhibition is now at Ravensbourne (Greenwich Peninsula, 6 Penrose Way, London, SE10 0EW) until December 7th.
A big thanks also to Julie Cockburn who made this year’s selection and also chose James Perolls’ portrait (below) to be the cover of this year’s poster. The full 2017 selection will be on the website shortly and we hope to announce new venues and dates for the exhibition.
Thanks again everyone.
‘Alexander Norton’ by James Perolls.
‘Alexander hid his passion to cross-dress until July 2016 when he finally had the courage to tell his friends and family. This photograph documents the first time he wore womens clothing outdoors. We both decided to make this photograph to help boost Alexander’s self-confidence and also to push the belief that men should reveal feminine elements of their personality without fear or compromise regarding their perception within society’.
Portrait Salon 2017. 16th November, 6.30pm till late.
– Pub on the Park, 19 Martello Street, London, E8 3PE.
2017 sees the seventh edition of Portrait Salon and this year (with the help of Metro Imaging and Stanley James Press) we’re showing our selection of portraits in an outdoor location in London Fields (next to our base for the night – Pub on the Park).
This year’s selector is artist Julie Cockburn who has selected 46 portraits that will be exhibited for one night only. Julie has also selected one portrait to be the cover image of our Portrait Salon ’17 poster (which will be available on the night).
Julie said of the selection process, “As an artist who looks at, and works with portraits everyday, I thought that selecting from the submissions to Portrait Salon would be a straight forward process, but it was one of the hardest things I have done, testing me, educating me and touching me in ways I had not expected. There was something compelling about each photo, each person depicted, but I found myself drawn to particular things. I am not a photographer, but I consider myself an image maker, and composition is integral to my practice, especially when working on a found image. There were powerful images that didn’t make my final selection, perhaps with strong composition or skilled lighting, but I chose ultimately those pictures that introduced me to someone I would be intrigued to meet”.
Notes to editors:
Portrait Salon was founded by Carole Evans and James O Jenkins in 2011 as a response to the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize. A form of Salon des Refusés – an exhibition of works rejected from a juried art show – it aims to showcase the best of the rejected images from the Taylor Wessing Prize, which is organised annually by the National Portrait Gallery in London. The NPG Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize is one of the most prestigious photography prizes in the world, attracting entrants from professionals and amateurs alike. This year Portrait Salon is kindly sponsored by Metro Imaging, Stanley’s Post, Lucid Representation, Creative Advice Network and Stirtingale Design Studio.
We’d like to thank everyone who took part in Portrait Salon 2016. Our sixth year saw us exhibit in and around Clerkenwell and we asked visitors to vote on their favourite portrait. In one week we received over eight hundred and fifty votes and the top three portraits can be seen below.
Nunzio Prenna’s portrait (above) came 1st with 120 votes and the portrait will be exhibited at Metro Imaging during December.
Second place went to Katia Morichetti (above) who received 116 votes.
Third place went to Robert Darch (above) who received 104 votes.
Thanks again to everyone who took part in Portrait Salon 2016 and we’ll be back again in 2017.
A big thanks to everyone who attended our opening on Thursday night at Metro Imaging and The J+A Cafe. For those who couldn’t buy the publication we’ve put the map of where the portraits can be found around Clerkenwell below for you. (Please be aware that some business’ will have shutters down out of hours and at weekends).
This year, Portrait Salon is organising a day of talks and reviews at Craft Central, on 21 November.
2 – 4pm: Portfolio Reviews Your chance to have your work reviewed by a member of the industry – Free of Charge! Reviewers are:
Hat Margolies, Director of Lucid Representation, a London based agency, representing talented, friendly and award-winning photographers. www.lucidrep.com
Emma Taylor, Director of Creative Advice Network
A “Creative Mary Poppins” who offers support and advice to companies and individuals within the advertising, photographic and design sectors. creativeadvicenetwork.com/
Helena Bullivant and Kate Myers, HERO Productions
HERO produce commercials, brand films and other digital content. Speedily and with attention to detail. heromedia.tv
Carole Evans, Co-Founder of Portrait Salon
Carole is a photographer and Senior Lecturer in Contextual Studies at Ravensbourne. She spent seven years working as Gallery Coordinator at Photofusion, and co-founded Portrait Salon in 2011. caroleevans.co.uk
6pm – Panel Discussion: How Delegating can Improve your Work
Worried about working with retouchers? Finding the organisation of a shoot too much? Can’t find a suitable location? Need caterers?
There are people who will plan all of this for you, so that you can concentrate on making fantastic images for your client.
Kate Myers and Helena Bullivant, from HERO, Emma Taylor from Creative Advice Network, and photographer Paul Plews discuss what help is available and the benefits of getting outside organisations to help on shoots.
To avoid disappointment, book a place on our Eventbrite page, here.
7pm – On Judging; Christiane Monarchi and Steve Macleod in Conversation.
One of the motivations for setting up Portrait Salon was the criticism from photographers that the Taylor Wessing Prize looked the same each year; the same images kept on being chosen.
We asked ourselves; why is this the case? What makes an image stand out to judges amongst 1000’s of other photographs? Does the “look” of a competition influence the photographer’s choice of image they enter?
In 2014, we invited Christiane Monarchi, editor of Photomonitor, to judge Portrait Salon. This year, she was invited to judge Taylor Wessing Prize. With the knowledge of both competitions and judging processes behind her, she will be in conversation with Steve Macleod, Director of Metro Imaging and Portrait Salon’s judge this year. They will discuss the answers to the above questions, as well as the role of competitions in this industry, the popularity of competitions, and whehter it’s worth entering them at all…
And, of course, rare chance to get an insight into the judging process of the Taylor Wessing prize!
To avoid disappointment, book your place for this talk on our Eventbrite page, here.
2016 sees the sixth edition of Portrait Salon and this year we’re experimenting with methods of display, seeking to show the work of photographers to as many new audiences as possible. Portrait Salon ‘16 is a multi-location exhibition in London’s creative hub of Clerkenwell. Selected portraits will be displayed in Metro Imaging’s front of house gallery space, the J&A Café, and in windows of assorted shop fronts and business’ in Clerkenwell. A map will be included in the publication which accompanies the exhibition, which will launch at the J&A Café at 6.30pm on 17th November. On the 17th November we’ll be showing a slideshow of every portrait that was entered to Portrait Salon 2016 at Metro Imaging’s front of house gallery. We’ll also be offering visitors to the exhibition the opportunity to vote on their favourite portrait and we’ll release details of what happens to the winning portrait very soon.
This year the National Portrait Gallery Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize received 4303 images, with 58 being selected for the exhibition. This year Steve MacLeod, director of Metro Imaging, and long term sponsor of Portrait Salon joined us in making the selection, which represents the breadth of contemporary photographic portraiture that was entered to and rejected by the NPG.
Meet the Experts: Portrait Salon Symposium. 21st November, Craft Central, 33-35 St John’s Square, London EC1M 4DS.
Join us for an opportunity to network, meet people from the industry, and hear about the judging process from those involved.
2 – 4pm: Drop In Portfolio Reviews. The chance to have your work reviewed by industry experts. No need to book; Just turn up! Featuring – Hat Margolies (Lucid Representation Agency), Emma Taylor (Creative Advice Network) Kate Myers and Helena Bullivant (HERO Productions) and Carole Evans (Portrait Salon).
6pm: How delegating can improve your work. Panel Discussion; HERO Productions, Creative Advice Network and photographer Paul Plews. The panel will discuss what options are available to photographers to help ease the workload.
7pm: On Judging. Christiane Monarchi and Steve MacLeod in conversation. Christiane Monarchi (Photomonitor) was a judge on this year’s Taylor Wessing Prize, and judged Portrait Salon in 2014. She is joined by this year’s Portrait Salon judge Steve MacLeod to talk about the judging process and the place of competitions in the photographic industry today.
Notes to editors: Portrait Salon was founded by Carole Evans and James O Jenkins in 2011 as a response to the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize. A form of Salon des Refusés – an exhibition of works rejected from a juried art show – it aims to showcase the best of the rejected images from the Taylor Wessing Prize, which is organised annually by the National Portrait Gallery in London. The NPG Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize is one of the most prestigious photography prizes in the world, attracting entrants from professionals and amateurs alike.
This year Portrait Salon is creating a multi-location exhibition in Clerkenwell, London. Using Metro Imaging’s gallery space (Great Sutton Street) as our base (where we will be exhibiting selected portraits) we will curate a map of portraits across Clerkenwell where selected photographers will have work shown in retail and business’ shop front windows from the 15th to 26th November.
We will be open for submissions from 15th August to 20th September when photographers will be able to upload their rejected 2016 NPG Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize work via our website.
Steve MacLeod, director of Metro Imaging, will curate a selection of portraits to be shown across the designated locations in Clerkenwell during November. Photographers will be notified of the selection decision by 1st October.
In September we will be releasing a full list of the locations that will be showing the portraits and our launch event will be held at J+A Cafe (Great Sutton St) on the evening of 17th November. To accompany the exhibition we are producing a publication and trail map of all the selected work.
NOTES TO EDITORS.
Portrait Salon was founded by Carole Evans and James O Jenkins in 2011 as a response to the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize. A form of Salon des Refusés – an exhibition of works rejected from a juried art show – it aims to showcase the best of the rejected images from the prize, which is organised annually by the National Portrait Gallery. The NPG Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize is one of the most prestigious photography prizes in the world, attracting entrants from professionals and amateurs alike.
We’re pleased to announce that we’ll be showing the Portrait Salon 2015 selection at The Reminders Photography Stronghold Gallery in Tokyo with Yumi Goto from 13th to 28th February 2016. The opening will be from 4pm on 13th February and is open to all. We also have a Facebook event page for the exhibition here.
Many thanks to The Embassy Tea Gallery for hosting the 353 portraits for our 2015 exhibition from 18th-22nd November. Please find some images of our exhibition below for those of you that couldn’t make it.
