Here's Lucking at you

It's not that difficult to see what makes a striking photograph, especially when it happens to be a portrait. But it's not always so easy to see what it is that makes a winning one.

With his photograph of three Tokyo schoolgirls, Jens Lucking's winning image is certainly very striking. Lucking said he wanted to get away from the stereotype of 'the cute, looking down, Japanese schoolgirl thing' and, with his three teen rebels eyeing the lens defiantly, he's certainly done that.

But, and he's probably more than aware of this, he doesn't get away from the other stereotype: that of the Japanese teen fashionista. Even in (perhaps especially in) their school uniforms, this looks like an image you might find in iD.

There are many stunning photographs here and some have perhaps less to do with compositional brilliance and more to say about the sitter - an often uncomfortable disjuncture between subject and perceiver.

Would I have chosen Hugo Tillman's Martin Parr-esque photo of an upper-class woman in her vulgar, flouncy sitting room; or, perhaps, Zoe Roussadana's meaty waitress settling down to her plate of sausages; or Karina Sutherland Whitelaw's glamorous nude, who happens to be of pensionable age?

All are very arresting, but a winning image also needs something that keeps you wanting to look again and the judges' favourites meet that criteria. The more one comes back to Jens Lucking's image, the more there is to like.

Until Feb 20, National Portrait Gallery, St Martin's Place WC2, daily 10am to 6pm (Thu and Fri to 8.45pm), free. Tel: 020 7306 0055. Tube: Charing Cross/ Leicester Square