Photos show best of Britain
The winning photographs from the 2023 Portrait of Britain competition are being displayed on digital advertising screens around the UK for the rest of January. Portrait of Britain is an annual photography competition that started in 2016. It is organised by the publication British Journal of Photography to celebrate British people.
The most recent competition opened in summer last year, and photographers were asked to send in pictures that celebrate the many faces of modern Britain and capture the country’s unique traditions. Out of the entries, 200 of the shortlisted photographs have been printed in a book called Portrait of Britain Volume 6. The final 100 winners are being displayed around the UK on screens at train stations, shopping centres, airports and bus shelters.
The winning portraits show people of all ages from lots of different backgrounds. One portrait shows a group of Ukrainian refugees who had just spent their first summer in the UK, after being forced to leave their country because of the war with Russia. There is also a photograph featuring Jessikah Inaba, who made history in 2022 as the UK’s first black and blind female barrister (a type of lawyer). Another image shows a young man called Joseph, who has been working with his neighbours on a 100-year plan to improve their local environment and help the planet. Some of the other winning photographs show rituals and traditions that take place around the UK. One shows Rory, a boy from Shetland in Scotland, who was taking part in Up Helly Aa, a traditional Viking festival. There is also a portrait of a person dressed as Jack of the Green, a character who is a big part of the Gaelic May Day festival that marks the beginning of summer.
Mick Moore, the head of the British Journal of Photography, said, “Portrait of Britain captures the quirky, the mundane, the here and now of the extraordinary everyday in which we live.”