This resource is designed to help secondary teachers create learning experiences that engage students with the artists, sitters, themes and stories of the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2025.
It features different artworks from the exhibition, with strategies that support students to explore photographic portraiture, storytelling and themes through observation, discussion and research. It also provides opportunities for students to respond to the portraits and explore their own creative practice.
The resource is divided into key themes: Winning Works, Self Portraits, Place, Identity and Process. Each theme can be treated as a separate lesson or a sequence of lessons, and the engagement activities can be adapted to suit your specific learning goals.
Within each theme, there are four areas for engagement: Look, Discuss, Connect and Create.
Look: begin with careful observation
Start your exploration of each portrait with activities that encourage slow looking and thoughtful observation. Students will take time to notice details, visual elements and artistic choices before moving into interpretation. This area focuses on independent and collaborative learning through observation.
Discuss: share ideas and uncover meaning through conversation
Build on observations by discussing the portrait as a collective. Students will share perspectives and explore the stories, meanings and themes it might represent. This area focuses on collaborative learning through discussion.
Connect: deepen understanding through research and personal inquiry
Strengthen connection to the artist’s practice through the artist statement and inquiry activities. Students will consider how the portrait reflects social, cultural or personal themes, how it relates to a broader body of work, and how these ideas connect to their own context, interests and identity. This area focuses on independent learning through research.
Create: respond creatively and develop artistic practice
Apply insights by creating an artistic response. Students will experiment with materials, techniques or ideas inspired by the portrait. This area focuses on independent learning through making.
Expanding on this resource
Planning on visiting the exhibition with your students? This resource is perfect to support learning pre- and post-visit.
You can see the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2025 at Geraldton Regional Art Gallery from 11 July until 13 September 2026 and Horsham Regional Art Gallery from 17 October 2026 until 26 January 2027.
Can’t make it to the exhibition in-person? Request a Power of Photography virtual excursion where you can explore photographs from the exhibition and the National Portrait Gallery’s collection with one of our Experience Facilitators from the comfort of your classroom.
About the exhibition
The National Photographic Portrait Prize supports and celebrates the vitality and diversity of photographic portraiture in Australia. Each year the prize attracts thousands of entries from photographers across the country.
In 2025, the judges – Benjamin Law (writer and broadcaster), Serena Bentley (Senior Curator at the National Portrait Gallery) and Leigh Robb (Curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia) – selected 48 portraits from over 1400 entries, from which a winner was chosen. The finalists show the different ways portraits can tell stories, challenge stereotypes, look at identity and expand the ways we think about ourselves, each other and the world we live in.
