The £12,000 award was presented to the Kent photographer at the National Portrait Gallery, London, on Tuesday 12 November 2013. The winning portrait goes on show at the Gallery as part of the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2013 from Thursday 14 November 2013 until 9 February 2014.
Taken at Kempton Park Racecourse the winning portrait of Katie Walsh was photographed whilst shooting a series of jump jockeys’ portraits for Channel Four’s The Original Extreme Sport campaign. ‘I was keen to include Katie,’ says Murphy: ‘I wanted to show both her femininity and the toughness of spirit she requires to compete against the best riders in one of the most demanding disciplines in horse racing. I chose to shoot the series on large format film, to give the images a depth and timelessness that I think would have been hard to achieve on a digital camera’.
This is the seventh time the work of the London-based photographer has been exhibited at the Gallery’s annual photographic exhibition and last year Murphy’s portrait of actor Mark Rylance won him Third Prize.
Spencer Murphy (22.09.1978) grew up in Kent and studied at the Kent Institute of Art and Design before gaining a BA in Photography at Falmouth College of Arts.
There were three other prizes from the 2013 shortlist awarded at the National Portrait Gallery, London, last night (Tuesday 12 November 2013), together with The John Kobal New Work Award given for the second consecutive year to a photographer under the age of thirty selected for the exhibition, who will undertake a commission to photograph a sitter connected with the UK film industry for the National Portrait Gallery Collection.
National Portrait Gallery, St Martin’s Place, London, WC2H 0HE. Opening hours Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday: 10am – 6pm (Gallery closure commences at 5.50pm) Late Opening: Thursday, Friday: 10am – 9pm (Gallery closure commences at 8.50pm) Nearest Underground: Leicester Square/Charing Cross Recorded information: 020 7312 2463 General information: 020 7306 0055 Website: www.npg.org.uk