Interview - Alys Tomlinson

Interview by Mark A Phillips ARPS

For this issue we interview Alys Tomlinson. Alys is an award-winning editorial and fine art photographer based in London. Having grown up in Brighton, she went on to study English Literature and Communications at the University of Leeds. After graduating, she moved to New York for a year and was given her first commission for Time Out, before coming back to London to study photography at Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design. She has recently completed a part-time MA in Anthropology of Travel, Tourism and Pilgrimage (Distinction) at SOAS, University of London, which ties in with her long-term, personal project about pilgrimage. Alys combines commissioned work for editorial, design and advertising clients, with personal work, which she publishes and exhibits. She was named Sony World Photography Awards, Photographer of the Year 2018 and has recently been selected for the New Discovery Award 2019 in Arles. Her work can be found online at: www.alystomlinson.co.uk

Alys Tomlinson

Starting out you did a degree in Literature and Communications. So, what made you take the step into photography?

I did Humanities at the University of Leeds but, whilst there, I also completed a City and Guilds in black and white photography and worked on the student paper. I used my Dad’s old Pentax 35mm. So, I had an early interest in photography. When I graduated, I wanted to work in journalism or filmmaking, and I had some work experience at Time Out, the V&A and at Marie Claire. I did not have a clear career direction, but always wanted to live in New York, and managed to get an internship with a film production company. The films were good, but I didn’t enjoy the work ethos. So, I got in touch with Time Out in New York. I was interested in writing and photographing. There were no outlets for writing, but a job was available as a photographer, so I ended up as a photographer for Time Out New York. I was 23 years old, living and working in New York. It was a bit of a dream.

After a year or so, I moved back to London, also to work for Time Out, but I felt a need to formalise my photographic education, so I enrolled in a post grad course at Central Saint Martins. That taught me to think critically, but also developed the technical side in the studio and darkroom. I really enjoyed the course and thought that this was what I wanted to do. But the ease of my getting that job in New York was also misleading. In London, I found it much harder to get commissions and make enough money. So, my route into photography wasn’t what might be thought of as conventional, but then few photographers do follow a clear path.

My commissioned work is mainly commercial with some editorial. I have worked with some nice design agencies on campaigns for websites and brochures, and I’ve done many personal projects along the way. I’d love to be able to work solely on my own projects, but it’s practically impossible to make money that way. My personal work is nearly all on film and my commercial work mostly digital. I learned on film and I love shooting film. It makes you work in a different way.

Who would you say have been your main influencers in photographic terms?

Early on, I was influenced by American photographers; people like Robert Frank, William Eggleston, Joel Sternfeld, and then more recently Dana Lixenberg, Vanessa Winship, and Taryn Simon. And, also, the black and white work of Diane Arbus and August Sander. In addition, I look to cinematography and filmmaking, particularly the framing and composition, for ideas and inspiration. So, the influences are quite diverse. I also collect photobooks. I have a lot, I don’t know how many, but I’m running out of space! Sometimes I won’t look at a book for years, but then I’ll pick one up and discover something new. I also enjoy reading essays, you can discover a lot from other people’s work.

Alys Tomlinson

For your pilgrimage project, you went back to study at SOAS; how did that change your approach?

My pilgrimage project, Ex-Voto, is the first time I made a conscious decision to focus more on my personal work; to commit and to invest fully in it emotionally, financially and in terms of time. But, after about a year or so of working on the project, I found I was struggling with the direction. It was also difficult because I am entering that arena as an outsider. I am not religious myself. I do not come from a religious background, so I wasn’t familiar with the rituals and didn’t have a deep understanding of the belief system. I felt that if I was going to tackle something as complex as pilgrimage and faith, I really needed to understand it myself. I found that the course at SOAS was the only one that covered the anthropology of pilgrimage. So, I enrolled on a part-time, two-year MA, as a way to enrich my photography.

I started to focus on portraits, landscapes, and still life, but I also completely changed my approach. For the first two years of the project, it was all in medium format colour, and documentary style, so quite editorial. But this didn’t capture the timelessness and the mystery that I felt. These sites have a certain quality to them that I wanted to express. So I went back, slowed everything down, and shot everything in 5x4 black and white film. That was when it all started to fall into place and the images started speaking in a way that I’d hoped that they would. So, it was a change in my thinking and a change in my approach and equipment. It became more a reflection of how I felt in these places. There is a purity and calmness. Although I’m not religious, I enjoyed being there for that sense of stillness and calm, especially after living in London for so many years.

I think it really helped me to think in a different way. It was a theoretical course, and involved a lot of writing, for example about people, place and phenomenology. A lot of photographers work as anthropologists, but not in a formalised way. So, I wanted some formal understanding of anthropology. It expanded my way of thinking. And it was in a seminar that someone mentioned the phrase: ex-voto (from the Latin: “from the vow made”) and I suddenly realised this is what I’d been seeing at Lourdes (my main location at that time). It’s the things that people leave behind; the items of devotion. There might be a small prayer note tucked under a rock, or crosses made of twigs, a photo, a rosary, soft toys or something much more personal. Whatever it is, it carries a lot of meaning for the individual. That was a breakthrough moment. I realised I’d been seeing these ex-voto, but not picking up their significance. As part of the course, I also got into anthropological filmmaking approaches, so that was another influence. It’s hard to say exactly how it influenced me, but it definitely gave me a deeper understanding and enriched my thinking.

The 5x4 requires you to work in a rhythm, it is quite meditative, and there is almost a ritual in terms of how you work with it, which reflected what I was photographing as well. Now it seems so obvious, but it took me two to three years to get to that point in the project.

Alys Tomlinson

When working on a project, do you have a clear idea of what you want?

With Ex-Voto there was not a clear idea, but I was intrigued by the whole process, and the qualities of those who had faith, and this drew me in. But the challenge was how to capture that faith. That is what really took time on the project.

How did you find working across disparate locations in Ireland, Poland and France? How were you accepted in each community?

All the locations were Christian, although only the Polish was orthodox, and so the services, iconography and liturgy were different. But all had recurring themes, for instance, water is important to all three sites in terms of purity and cleansing, and healing properties. All the sites are linked to a history of healing. They all had stones, the rock formations, and forests, which became the natural motifs, in terms of the landscape, and how they connected to faith. And that’s why in the book I do not have any captions. The back of the book indicates the locations, but I didn’t individually caption every image, because I didn’t want distractions looking through the book. I wanted there to be a natural flow and so I didn’t want to give too much information that would break up that flow. That leaves it more open to interpretation and provides a more immersive feel.

Each time I went to a site, I typically spent 7 to 10 days there. But there were several trips over several years. The camera actually helped me to be accepted. People could see it was something I was serious about, as I was lugging all this enormous equipment around. They could also see there was a process, like a ritual. A few people were a little sceptical, and worried that I might do some kind of pastiche, which is quite easy to do in somewhere like Lourdes. But I took along examples of previous images so they could see the work, and how it was respectful and sensitive, so they had a better understanding of the project. Hardly anyone refused to be photographed. People were actually open, and there was a sense of pride, that what they were doing was meaningful, and they were prepared to share that.

What would you hope viewers take away from that project and your images?

I hope there is some reflection, not necessarily in a religious sense, but that people feel they can slow down, look at the images, think about the meaning, and create stories behind them. I think we could all do with giving ourselves some more time and space to think. If people take away the stillness and quiet and calm, it will be successful in terms of how people read the images.

Alys Tomlinson

Alys Tomlinson

Alys Tomlinson

Alys Tomlinson

2018 was a pretty amazing year with the Sony Award. How has that had an impact?

I knew once the project had momentum that it suited a book format. I also felt that it was a project that needed to be published. So, the Sony Award and the exposure opened up new opportunities. It opened doors and made it easier to approach publishers.

You have just published and released ‘Ex-Voto’. What was that publishing and fundraising process like?

I approached Stuart Smith of GOST, and he was quite interested. I was aware of his work and the books they publish. I particularly liked that every book was individually crafted and tailored to that photographer’s work. Once we started working on the book and the edit, we could see there were gaps, so I went back to Ireland to shoot more images.

Initially, I did my own edit. As I was working in 5x4, there were only around 300- 400 images in total. My first edit was 60 or so images. I took these to Stuart Smith and we agreed on most images, but he sequenced it, entirely. He actually asked for all the contact sheets, and from these he picked out maybe 3 or 4 images that I had discarded, that I would never have put in or even shown him. He saw something in them, and they work well in the sequence so he saw different things in my work. You get so immersed in your own work it is really important to have a different perspective. For example, I found that an image I was personally attached to, was removed by Stuart. That is quite hard, but I can now see why he did take it out. That is sometimes important in terms of the coherence of the whole work. He sees in a different way, so it was good to get someone else’s perspective. When you publish, it becomes a collaboration.

Working with a publisher has been a really positive experience. Ex-Voto is published with GOST, but even with a publishing deal these days you also need to raise money, which is why I did a Kickstarter. I did a lot of research first. I spoke to a lot of people who had done book projects and the good thing about Kickstarter is that there is already a community there. Originally, it was going to be 750 copies, but the print run is now 1000 copies. I also took the campaign to GOST for their ideas and got input from friends. It did take a long time to put it all together. And the actual campaign is a full-time job for a month, and you need to be ‘on it’ all the time.

Ex-Voto was always in my mind as a book, but as a result of the Sony Award, I’m publishing a book much quicker than I had originally planned. I have a gallery now (HackelBury Fine Art) as a result of the Sony Award and a talk I gave for the Photo London programme.

Alys Tomlinson

So, what’s next?

Ex-Voto, as a project, is finished. The book provides a natural closure. But I am still interested in exploring notions of faith. I’ve already started the follow on. It is a film about Vera, one of the pilgrims. She’s from Poland but lives in a convent in Belarus. She is an amazing character. A really strong and complex woman. I’ve stayed with her twice now and plan to go back to Belarus in April. Using the Sony grant, I shot a short film called Vera which will be shown at this year’s Sony Awards and at Arles in the summer, but I’m also planning to make a longer film.

And you have been recently shortlisted for Emerging Talent at Arles?

Yes, that’s exciting. All ten of the New Discovery Awards have an exhibition space, at the Ground Control site in Arles. They changed the rules recently, so having a gallery was crucial to the nomination process. My exhibition will be called ‘The Faithful’ and combines work from Ex-Voto and the Vera series. So, it’s been a really busy year.

Information:

Ex-Voto, by Alys Tomlinson, is being exhibited at HackelBury Fine Art, 4 Launceston Place, London W8 5RL until 18 April 2019 and Side Gallery, Newcastle from 6 April until 9 June 2019.

The book, Ex-Voto, is published by GOST books: www.gostbooks.com.

Alys Tomlinson