A portrait showing three vulnerable First Nations children is the winner of the $30,000 National Photographic Portrait Prize.

Announced on Friday by the director of the National Portrait Gallery, Bree Pickering, Untitled #01 (from the series Code BlackRiot) 2024, by second-time winner, Hoda Afshar, was praised by the judges, Benjamin Law, Serena Bentley and Leigh Robb, as “a portrait of immense power, which creates an urgent conversation between viewer and subjects.”

“While seeming incidental, the relationship between the haphazard staging, blurred background and focus points in the foreground make for a bracing, brilliant photograph taken by an artist who truly knows her craft.”

Afshar, who divides her time between Melbourne and Berlin, was not present.

In her place, Jade Lane, CEO of the the Sydney organisation, Change the Record, was on hand to make a powerful political statement about marginalised First Nations children, saying “they need love, care, and community, but instead, they are criminalised and punished”.

As well as the main cash prize, Afshar, whose work Portrait of Ali, 2014, had won the prize in 2015, receives $20,000 worth of equipment from Canon Australia.

Also announced on Friday was  Sherry Quiambao from Perth as winner of the $3000 First Time Finalist Award, for her portrait, Dreams on a Stone, 2024. This award replaces the former Highly Commended Prize.

Members of the public can vote for the $10,000 people’s choice award, which will be announced at the end of the exhibition run.

Now in its 18th year, the National Photographic Portrait Prize this year has 48 finalists representing artists and sitters from all states and territories, which together, gallery staff say, offer a multifaceted picture of Australian culture.

Many of the works in this year’s finalists show, they say, consider states of change, transition and transformation, reflections on home and ideas of sanctuary, and expanded definitions of family.

Earlier in the week, the gallery announced that Sydney artist and photographer George Fetting had won the $3000 Art Handlers’ Award for his portrait, Antonio Intili – Sartoria (Tailor Shop) #1 2024.

Fetting has eight works in the National Portrait Gallery collection and has been a finalist in the National Photographic Portrait Prize four times, in 2025, 2022, 2014, and 2007.

The National Photographic Portrait Prize finalists’ exhibition, at the National Portrait Gallery, August 16-October 12.