Paul Floyd Blake’s portrait of Rosie Bancroft. Photograph: National Portrait Gallery/PA
Paul Floyd Blake’s touching portrait of Rosie Bancroft, a disabled swimmer with Olympic dreams, has won one of the world’s top photography competitions. And he did it all with the use of 100 year-old technology.
The National Portrait Gallery’s annual Photographic Portrait Prize is one of the most prestigious photography competitions in the world, with over 63,000 entries and a top prize of almost $20,000 to the winner. Blake’s photo (above) was chosen as the winner by a panel of judges who called the piece a “study of youthful determination.”
Taken with a 5×4 Wista field camera, a modern update of the Victorian Age plate camera, the image captures 13 year-old Rosie Bancroft as she sits in the swimming pool changing room in her hometown of Oxford. Bancroft had one of her feet removed when she was a baby, and now she is attempting to win a spot on the 2012 paralympic team.
The photograph is part of a series called “On Track for 2012” where between 2007 and 2012 Blake will take the picture of 12 young athletes who are training to be in the Olympics, which will be held in London of that year. And for Blake, this project is more about capturing change in human beings than it is about the Olympics. “The series is probably less about sport than it is about young people growing up and the transition from childhood into adulthood,” Blake said.
To see more stunning portraits from the NPG’s contest runners-up, check out the National Portrait Gallery’s website.