Huntress with Buck from the series Hunters by David Chancellor won the Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait prize, in part for its beautiful light. (David Chancellor/National Portrait Gallery)

A picture of a 14-year-old girl holding a dead buck on a hunting trip in South Africa has won the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize.

The £12,000 ($19,280 Cdn) award was won by British photographer David Chancellor, who is based in Cape Town and London.

The portrait, titled Huntress with a Buck, is from Chancellor's project documenting hunters and the hunted. It shows Josie Slaughter from Alabama, who was on her first hunting trip to South Africa with her family.

"Josie had hunted her buck earlier in the day and was returning to camp," Chancellor said. "As we arrived, the sun set below the cloud cover and I had almost unreal light for around a minute. The contrast between the peace and tranquility of the location, plus Josie's ethereal beauty and the dead buck, was what I wanted to explore. Here was a vulnerability and yet also a strength."

He said as a boy he was fascinated by the tales of Colonel Jim Corbett hunting man-eating tigers in India. He also finds Africa an inspiring setting.

"I've always been interested in Africa; it's impossible not to be inspired by the place," Chancellor said in a press statement. "Once you are bitten by the continent you never recover. And for an artist or photographer, the light is indescribable."

Chancellor was presented with the award Tuesday at the National Portrait Gallery in London, which is hosting an exhibit of photos competing for the prize.

Other winners at the international competition:

• $4,820 Second Prize: Panayiotis Lamprou of Greece for Portrait of my British wife from the series Human Presence.
• $3,200 Third Prize: Jeffrey Stockbridge of the U.S. for Tic Tac and Tootsie (twin sisters Carroll and Shelly McKean) from the series Nowhere but Here.
• $1,600 Fourth Prize: Abbie Trayler-Smith of the U.K. for Untitled 2 from the series Childhood Obesity.
• Elle Commission 2010 (the prize is the opportunity to shoot a feature story for Elle magazine): Clare Shilland, 36, of London for her portrait Merel.

The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize showcases the work of emerging young photographers, photography students and gifted amateurs alongside established professionals. This year's competition attracted more 2,500 photographers who together submitted more than 6,700 images.