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Tadhg and Aaron, two boys from Pearse House flats in Dublin on their way to the beach Beach Boys by Jeannette Lowe via National Portrait Gallery, London
Photography

Slideshow: Irish photographers are picture perfect winners

Five portraits included in prestigious London’s National Portrait Gallery show.

FIVE IRISH PHOTOGRAPHERS have been selected to have their work included in a prestigious exhibit in London’s National Portrait Gallery.

The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2010 selected 60 portraits from nearly 6,000 submissions for the show which opens in the gallery next Thursday, November 11. Eleanor Macnair of the National Portrait Gallery told TheJournal.ie that the number of Irish photographers included in the final selection shows the high standard of work coming from this country. She said:

Thirty-seven people from Ireland entered portraits to the competition and five of those got in. We got around 6,000 submissions this year and the average chance of getting selected is about one in 100. It would indicate to me the strength of the photography coming from Irish photographers right now that five were selected.

The judging process is anonymous and the competition open, which means that each portrait is selected entirely on the merits of the work itself.

The five Irish photographers who had their work chosen for display were Jeanette Lowe, a Dubliner and fine art photographer; Linda Brownlee, a London-based Irish photographer whose work has been featured in Vogue, Dazed and Confused, Nylon and The Guardian; Kenneth O’Halloran, a former Irish Independent staff photographer from Clare; Michael Donald, a Belfast-born photographer; and Enda Bowe, a Carlow photographer who now lives in London.

Feast your eyes on their portraits, all of ‘ordinary’ people with the exception of Charlie Watts of The Rolling Stones, in an extraordinarily symmetrical pose.

Slideshow: Irish photographers are picture perfect winners
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  • Beach Boys by Jeannette Lowe

    Tadhg and Aaron, residents of Pearse House, Dublin prepare to go to the beach. Jeannette Lowe's grandmother raised a family of 13 in 18E Pearse House. The boys are pictured just outside 18E.Source: courtesy of National Portrait Gallery, London
  • Samantha Nolan by Enda Bowe

    Enda Bowe, who lives in London, took this picture of Samantha Nolan on a trip home to Carlow. Samantha lived in a mobile home in her parents' garden and hoped one day to visit Australia.Source: courtesy of National Portrait Gallery, London
  • Twins: Puck Fair by Kenneth O'Halloran

    Two boys pose at the horse fair event at the Puck Fair in Killorglin, Co Kerry, the oldest traditional fair in Ireland.Source: National Portrait Gallery, London
  • Untitled 2 by Linda Brownlee

    Mother and daughter Sandra and April Parker on Walthamstow Marshes in England. They are the photographer's former next-door neighbours.Source: National Portrait Gallery, London
  • Charlie Watts by Michael Donald

    Michael Donald took this photo of Charlie Watts as a still for the documentary 'Stones in Exile'. Donald noticed Charlie sitting with his feet pointed outwards when he first arrived and asked him to recreate that for the photo.Source: National Portrait Gallery, London