Photo of girl escaping Daesh up for Taylor Wessing prize

A portrait of a girl fleeing from life under the terrorist group Daesh has been selected as a contender for the Taylor Wessing portrait prize.

There contenders shortlisted for this year’s Taylor Wessing photographic portrait prize – which also includes a snapshot of a migrant rescued from the Mediterranean Sea as well as a humanoid robot – were announced by the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) in London recently.

The photograph of the unnamed girl escaping Daesh was taken by Welsh documentary and portrait photographer Abbie Trayler-Smith. The girl was on a convoy of buses after a battle broke out in the region hours earlier.

The portrait was snapped outside Hasan Sham camp for internally displaced people in northern Iraq, where Trayler-Smith was talking to women who had lived under the terrorist group.

“I just remember seeing her face looking out at the camp. The shock and the bewilderment in her’s and other’s faces … it made me shudder,” the photographer said.

The other two photographs shortlisted for the prize include the migrant at sea by Madrid-born photographer César Dezfuli and the Japanese female android by Finnish artist Maija Tammi.

As one of the world’s most prestigious photographic competitions, the annual event has been running since 1993 and is open to all amateur and professional photographers.

The three portraits were selected from over 5,700 submissions by 2,423 photographers from 66 countries.

The winner of the portrait prize will receive EUR15,000, to be announced on November 14, two days before the exhibition opens at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

AI/AG