We love a good portrait here at ParrotPrint, portraits can give you a real insight into a person’s character as well as the style and direction of a photographer too. With this in mind, we were super excited to find out about a new nationwide portrait exhibition that launches today – the British Journal of Photography’s Portrait of Britain. If you’ve not yet heard of the project you should make time to check it out at an exhibition location near you, which could be easier than you think since it’s showing at bus stops, railway stations and shopping centres across the country!

What is the concept behind Portrait of Britain?
The project aims to explore the ‘modern face of Britain’, our national identity and who we are. It’s made up of 100 portraits from over 4,000 sent to the BJP for consideration and therefore encompasses a range of photography styles along with lots of different faces!

What type of portraits can you expect to see?
From photos of newborns through to portraits of famous Brits like Stephen Hawking there is a real eclectic mix of subjects that span topics that include the circle of life and the development of our towns and cities. However, BJP says “for the most part, Portrait of Britain is a celebration of the ordinary man or woman on the street.” Some of the portraits are one offs while others are from wider series. All of the works can be seen flashing up on the digital outdoor advertising screens of JCDecaux. Sites include Edinburgh Waverly Station in Scotland, The Bullring shopping centre in Birmingham and the Bluewater in Kent. If you do manage to catch sight of the portraits and you’re particularly fond of them, you can purchase them online on the BJP site where the works are also on view for those who aren’t able to catch the exhibition. The Portrait of Britain exhibition will last for all of September.

Feeling inspired to create your own portrait canvas prints?
If the Portrait of Britain project has you itching to work on your own portrait style, perhaps it’s time to get started on a series of your own? You could start close at hand and begin taking photographs of your family and friends referring to ideas in our family portrait ideas blog post and portrait print post for ideas. If you plan to work with younger members of the family, we’ve also shared some ideas for photographing beautiful child portraits in the past.

Moving beyond your front door, you might ask your neighbours to lend their faces to a portrait project of your street or neighbourhood or try and capture the essence of your town, city or college in a smaller scale version of something like the Humans of New York. Whatever direction you head in, you can transfer your best photography efforts onto canvas using our custom canvas builder and put on your own at-home portrait exhibition.

If you catch sight of the Portrait of Britain exhibition let us know what you think. You can leave us a comment below or head over to our Facebook or Twitter to get in touch.