Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize, National Portrait Gallery - review

One of the potential problems with long-standing annual exhibitions is the possibility of repetition. Babies, pre-pubescent moody girls, pets and red-headed children are regular favourites and some are wonderful. But Jooney Woodward's winning auburn-haired girl holding her auburn guinea pig is sentimental among others more memorable. Yann Goss's surreal fashion shoot won for the young woman posed in fields with a llama, its beauty lying partly in the serenity of the matching muted colours.

Colour tone-matching is a popular device and here perfected by two winners referencing classical painting. Jasper Clarke's Wen posed Wen in her studio surrounded by canvases matching her clothes. It is a calm scene reminiscent of Gwen John whereas Julia Schestag's Elena recreated an archetypal mediaeval portrait of mother and child. Her digital processing transformed skin textures perfectly into marble.

Many of this year's celebrities were disappointing, particularly Keira Knightley's over-familiar open-lipped expression and Kate Peters's unremarkable but suspicious Julian Assange. But Dolly Parton's bored, inexpressive hotel room pose is amusingly different from her usual bubbliness.

Adding contexts can introduce mystery and meaning less possible with character studies and Antonio Olmos's documentary of teenagers standing at a flower shrine for a stabbed friend is a perfect example. The friends' dark clothes contrast with brilliant flowers. It focuses on the teens' detached immersion in texting - a contradiction from the relevant statement by competition judge and photographer Venetia Dearden: "Portrait photography is a considered conversation between artist and photographer."

Until February 12 (npg.org.uk, 020 7306 0055)

Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize
National Portrait Gallery
St Martin's Place, WC2H 0HE