THE winner of this year’s National Photographic Portrait Prize is Melbourne photographer Shea Kirk.

Kirk takes home $30,000 cash from the Portrait Gallery and $20,000 worth of Canon equipment for “Ruby”, his portrait of friend and fellow photographer, Emma Armstrong-Porter, herself a prize finalist this year.

National Portrait Gallery director Bree Pickering told media on Friday morning how it was notable that over 50 per cent of the NPG’s holdings were photographic, arguing strongly against the common image of photography as a “cold” art. On the contrary, she said, humanity and intimacy were to the fore in the winning of Kirk who, she said, used the camera “uncompromisingly”.

Kirk is no stranger to the Portrait Prize, having previously been a four-time finalist. His winning work, “Ruby” is half of a pair taken from an ongoing series called “Vantages”.

He said that for six years he had been inviting people to his studio to sit in front of simple backdrops and make portraits.

In “Ruby”, he said he wanted “to create the idea of the body is a record, we are our faces as much as we are our limbs, extremities and nooks and crannies”.

His subject, Armstrong-Porter, commented that in working with other photographers making portraits, “I’ve been processing my feelings about the transformation. I’m starting to feel more time in my big, queer body.” She and Kirk are presently exhibiting together at the National Gallery of Victoria as part of  “Melbourne Now”.

Other prizes announced included the Highly Commended, won by Renae Saxby for “Bangardidjan 2022”, her photograph of Kine, Rembarrnga and Dalabon woman Cindy Roston on a road in remote central Australia in the family car, with a buffalo skull painted by her father strapped to the roof. Her prize is a colour ColorEdge 2700S 27” monitor valued at almost $4000. Judges praised the “exceptional cinematic quality” of her work.

As previously reported , the Art Handlers’ Award went to David Cossini for his portrait of Ugandan man, Godfrey Baguma.

The judges, NPG senior curator Joanna Gilmour, Daniel Boetker-Smith from the Centre for Contemporary Photography and photo-media artist Tamara Dean, selected 47 finalists from a pool of almost 2400 entries.

Gilmour said of this year’s entries, “each of the works reveal sitters, who have presented their quirks or flaws or vulnerabilities and photographers who have gently yet uncompromisingly allowed their sitters to be themselves”.

Visitors will now be able to vote for their favourite in the People’s Choice Award.

The 2023 National Photographic Portrait Prize opens at the National Portrait Gallery on Saturday (until October 2), with a free judges’ discussion from 10.30am-11.30am. Highlight tours of the prize will run daily from 11.15am-11.45am, June 19.