Still-life documentaries

The prize money is up from £15,000 to £20,000, it's been given a subtle name change (previously known as Citigroup) and the shortlist has been reduced to four instead of the usual five. But this annual award is still the most reliable barometer of current trends in photographic practice, and this is quite the strongest shortlist for some time.

This year sees a shift from the predominantly theatrical mise en scene to a more documentary approach. Having previously been shortlisted in 2000, Czech-born Jitka Hanzlova gets a second bite of the cherry with a series of quiet portrait studies of female residents of Brixton. These are interspersed with still lifes and lyrical images of woodland.

Dutch photographer Bertien van Manen similarly captures the quietness of the everyday, in this case documenting the lives of young people in China. Shanghai clubbers are shown alongside snapshots of people getting ready to go out or simply hanging out with friends.

German-born Juergen Teller, best known for his influential fashion images, shows more intimate portraits of family and friends. There's an eyecatching close-up of Yves Saint Laurent looking slightly demonic, while other images are more lovingly created, such as the one of Bjork relaxing in a pool with her young son.

But it's British photographer Simon Norfolk who, I believe, most deserves the gong. His classically composed and beautifully lit images of the war-torn landscape of Afghanistan are more like early 19th-century landscape paintings of a ruined Arcadia than ordinary reportage.