One of the motivations for setting up Portrait Salon was the criticism from photographers that the Taylor Wessing Prize looked the same each year; the same images kept on being chosen.

We asked ourselves; why is this the case? What makes an image stand out to judges amongst 1000's of other photographs? Does the "look" of a competition influence the photographer's choice of image they enter?

In 2014, we invited Christiane Monarchi, editor of Photomonitor, to judge Portrait Salon. This year, she was invited to judge Taylor Wessing Prize. With the knowledge of both competitions and judging processes behind her, she will be in conversation with Steve Macleod, Director of Metro Imaging and Portrait Salon's judge this year. They will discuss the answers to the above questions, as well as the role of competitions in this industry, the popularity of competitions, and whehter it's worth entering them at all...

And, of course, rare chance to get an insight into the judging process of the Taylor Wessing prize!

Cover Image: Jean Luc Brouard