The Percivals 2022

Judge's Comments

“Here are some of the things I considered when making my judgement of David Cossini’s work Double Trouble.

The scale of the image suits the subjects. The work is almost life size, which emphasises engagement of the viewer with the stares of the subjects. The focus on the faces and the natural lighting also keeps us looking at the subjects, who are actively engaged with the making of the photograph, the lenses of their glasses shifting the scale of their eyes so it feels like we are being stared at by the photograph. We are looking through two lenses to see them – the camera and their own glasses. The image portrays the awkwardness of teenage years, a point where we separate from being a child but not yet an adult also where we bond most closely with those our own age. Twins being a visual example of this.

You can keep looking at this photo and find new details – a trait of photography where we are invited to look and investigate in a way you are not allowed in real life. Imagine being stared at in the way we stare at a photograph. You can see the details of the car they are sitting in, the beaten seats and old fashioned blind in the window, the unworn seat belts, is it a place to escape and eat, coming or going, plenty of open questions to ask. There is an outside world, it is adult and far away.

It is both a (double) portrait of two young men but also a universal portrait of adolescence, with all its awkwardness but also certainty, the stamp of cultural proximity that fashion brings, the group with who they need to identify.

It is a work I kept coming back to.”

– Percival Photographic Portrait Prize judge Dr Carl Warner