Former Kent Institute of Art and Design student Spencer Murphy has won The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2013 for a photograph of jockey Katie Walsh.

The £12,000 prize was presented to the Kent photographer at the National Portrait Gallery in London, on Tuesday, November 12.

The winning portrait will be on show at the gallery as part of the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2013 until February 9, 2014.

Taken at Kempton Park Racecourse the winning portrait of Katie Walsh was photographed while Spencer was shooting a series of jump jockeys' portraits for Channel Four's The Original Extreme Sport campaign.

He said: "I was keen to include Katie as I wanted to show both her femininity and the toughness of spirit she requires to compete against the best riders in one of the most demanding disciplines in horse racing.

"I chose to shoot the series on large format film, to give the images a depth and timelessness that I think would have been hard to achieve on a digital camera.”

This is the seventh time Spencer’s work has been exhibited at the Gallery’s annual photographic exhibition and last year his portrait of actor Mark Rylance won him third prize.

Spencer’s interest in photography started as a boy when he would flick through his mother’s back issues of Life and National Geographic. It sparked an early enthusiasm for photography, so at the age of 11 his parents bought him his first camera and photography quickly became a channel for his creativity.

Spencer grew up near Tonbridge, attending Sutton Valence school in Maidstone, and now lives and works in London, dividing his time between creating his own artwork and taking on photographic commissions.

Spencer contributes work to the Guardian Weekend, the Telegraph Magazine, Time, Monocle and Wallpaper. His portraits have also appeared in Rolling Stone Magazine, GQ and Dazed. He has exhibited throughout Europe and North America and was named as one of the Hyeres Festival’s emerging photographers of 2008.