Winston Taylor Photo Portrait Prize 2026

The Winston Taylor Photo Portrait Prize showcases the work of talented young photographers, gifted amateurs and established professionals in the very best of contemporary photography. About The Winston Taylor Photo Portrait Prize (formerly Taylor Wessing) celebrates a diverse range of images and tells the fascinating stories behind the creation of works, from formal commissioned portraits to more spontaneous and intimate moments capturing friends and family. The selected images, many of which are on display for the first time, explore both traditional and contemporary approaches to the photographic portrait whilst capturing a range of characters, moods and locations. The shortlisted photographers for the Winston Taylor Photo Portrait Prize 2026 are: James Clifford Kent for Neisser, Pinar del Río, Cuba – from the series Yuma. Born in South London, photographer James Clifford Kent was drawn to images from a young age, intrigued by the artform's ability to access the blurred spaces between fantasy and reality. Kent has spent the last 20 years transfixed by storytelling in Cuba, where he began using photography to document his time there while teaching at the University of Havana in his twenties. Entirely self-taught, he credits the black and white post-revolutionary Cuban photo books he had access to as his guide on how to photograph. Invited to return to Cuba in 2025 to work on a documentary film, Kent encountered the sitter in portrait, 16-year-old Neisser, in Pinar del Río while shooting stills. An aspiring pentathlete, Neisser hails from an accomplished family of musicians and composers. Though deviating from the family tradition, Neisser's prowess and his ranking as one of the top fencers in the country is a great source of pride for his father, who was present when the photograph was captured. Conversing in Cuban Spanish, the artist and sitter naturally relaxed into a dialogue based on trust. What resulted from a serendipitous five-minute interaction was the most emotive photograph Kent says he has captured in his 20-year career. Neisser stands in full fencing regalia in his family living room. His face turns towards the only light source - open shutters letting in an even wash of daylight that illuminates his white jacket and knickers. Contrasting sharply with the elegant fencing suit is the modest domestic interior we find our sitter residing in. Neisser stands between a bulky television above a wooden stand displaying decorative figurines and a landline telephone trailing to a tangle of wires below. The blue-green tones of the background wall reveal hurricane repair while creating an atmospheric effect. Marcie Docherty for PE – from the series In Pursuit of Muscle. A graduate from both the BRIT School and Central Saint Martins, Marcie Docherty was drawn to photography from an early age. She first began making pictures with her father, recreating the pose from the cover of a Raymond Carver novel before developing the negatives together in a makeshift darkroom at home. For Docherty, this established portraiture as an act of construction. PE forms part of Docherty's ongoing series In Pursuit of Muscle, exploring the ways masculinity is constructed and performed. Four men stand before an unassuming suburban building dressed as members of an American football team. Their jerseys, helmets and formation evoke the visual language of American high school sport, yet the illusion is quietly unsettling. Wrestling shorts replace football trousers, polished leather shoes sit awkwardly beneath athletic socks, and the ordinary streetscape refuses the attempted construct. Rather than recreating American sporting culture, the photograph occupies a space where cultural myths are borrowed, rehearsed and quietly transformed, exposing the slippages that occur when its imagery is reimagined elsewhere. Working with analogue film, Docherty draws on both staged and vernacular photography, informed by her interest in photographic archives and their social histories. Rather than parodying American visual culture, PE shows identity as assembled through aspiration, imitation and performance. In doing so, the photograph suggests that masculinity is never fixed or singular, but continually rehearsed and reimagined. Katie Hitchcock-Smith for Moroccan (Amazigh) Cowboys – from the series Tajine Westerns. Katie Hitchcock-Smith is an explorer, writer and photographer who was raised in Boston, Massachusetts. Her expeditions have spanned the globe, from the North Pole to the Peruvian Amazon, driven by a desire to understand how humans behave in dangerous, unforgiving landscapes and extreme environments. Largely self-taught, her photographic practice is based around a rejection of a realist, documentary approach. Instead, Hitchcock-Smith's work is highly intentional and curated, presenting a romanticised view of travel and exploration drawing on popular cultural references to interrogate the spread and impact of globalisation. This portrait of Nour and Mohmed was made during an artists' residency near the town of Erfoud in eastern Morocco. Having made friends with the sitters, Hitchcock-Smith arranged a collaborative, Western-themed photoshoot, with the cowboy hat brought with her from home and a jacket and tent brought from a local market. In the final portrait, Mohmed sits and glances over his shoulder, coolly smoking a cigarette, leaning back on the camel, embodying the masculine ideal of John Wayne or Clint Eastwood. Nour encapsulates the whole scene, wearing the classic white t-shirt, leather boots and Levi jeans, but draped in an indigenous Amazigh marriage blanket clasped together by a French colonial chain. The photograph's curation feels like a polished American cigarette advert, and Hitchcock-Smith admits she was intentionally and ironically conjuring memories of Marlboro Man and Joe Camel. But traces of difference like the camel, the sand dunes, the blanket, all undermine the illusion. The cultural references to 'Spaghetti Westerns' – 1960s films depicting American mythologies but directed, acted and shot in Italy – finally reveal the portrait to be a playful, knowing, transcultural animation of visual cliches. Max Pattenden for Havannah, Lee Moor – from the series Men May Come and Men May Go, But I Go On Forever. Based in the South West of England, 24-year-old photographer Max Pattenden creates work that investigates the relationships between time, identity and landscape. Developing his passion for the medium, Pattenden captured fashion marketing on film before enrolling in a Photography Undergraduate course at the University of Plymouth in 2022. It was during his second year that he took part in the National Portrait Gallery's Photo Portrait Now partnership project delivered in collaboration with his university. A passion for photobooks inspires Pattenden's narrative approach. The work of contemporary American storytellers Matthew Genitempo, Mimi Plumb, Kristine Potter and Bryan Schutmaat has provided context, while Devon-based photographer Sian Davey has offered Pattenden 'grounding' mentorship. This portrait of ten-year-old Havannah was taken in Lee Moor, a village Pattenden happened upon while chasing down a fog, driving from his hometown of Plymouth. The community is built around China clay pits established nearly 200 years ago. The lunar-like landscape, on the edge of Dartmoor National Park, is as particular to the region as industry and tradition are to the families that occupy it. Attending gatherings at the village hall and integrating himself over time, residents began to share life stories and reflect on their own unique past. Pattenden was photographing a Halloween party for the residents when he met ten-year-old Havannah with her family. Recognising her 'timeless' appearance, Pattenden invited her to be photographed around the village. Made at the end of the shoot on a cold day, Havannah's expression is subtle, defying definition. Enigmatic and ponderous, Havannah's averted yet intense gaze compels the viewer entirely. The winner of the Prize will be announced on 3 November 2026. Read more Toggle Photography