Firstly it is not very easy to judge from the digital representations shown.

Looking at the image which shows the whole print, with artist and sons, it is clear the image in the article, and indeed the digital gallery,  is a very poor representation of the original.  The composition has been totally changed by cropping off the image in the article. Not only this, it is clear the light has been altered too, a lot of detail has been lost in the image in the article.

This maybe the case with the other portraits too, which is what makes judging an impossible task from these web images. 

However looking at the photograph which includes the original print I have to say the composition is very strong,  the strongest of all the images.   For originality this image scores well with me, many of the others are very cliched, with few signs of originality of thought or composition.
I like the way the subject is handled with the boys mirroring in both: position and character.  It gives the image a lot of dynamic energy to me. 

I disagree with the article and believe it is probably the best photographic portrait .  There is my initial reservations though that it is very difficult to tell from these cropped and altered images we have been shown.  

From me: Yes - top honours deserved .

And every one said, 'If we only live,
We too will go to sea in a Sieve,---
To the hills of the Chankly Bore!'
Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.

Edward Lear
http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/ns/jumblies.html