Portrait of Britain is an annual British portrait photography competition run by the British Journal of Photography. [1] [2] Its subject is the diversity of British people. [3] The 100 winning portraits are displayed on JCDecaux's digital screens across Britain throughout the month of September. [4] It launched in 2016. [4]
Since 2018, an eponymously titled book has been published with 200 of the shortlisted portraits from each competition.
The competition's subject is the diversity of British people [3] "and the way their narratives reflect its widely unstable political and social landscape." [5] It was partly inspired by Brexit. [4] [6]
It is open to anyone to enter but photographs must have been taken within the previous six years and "depict subjects living in the UK (England, Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland) at the time of the photograph." [7]
The 100 winning portraits are displayed on the outdoor advertising company JCDecaux's digital screens located in railway stations, shopping centres, bus stops and high streets. [4] [3] Each image appears on each screen for five to ten seconds. [4]
The competition ran in September 2016, [8] September 2017 [5] [9] [10] September 2018, [11] [12] [13] [14] December 2021 [15] and September 2022 [16] with winners announced the following year.