Polly Alderton is a documentary photographer based in the East of England with her husband and four children. Her work is very filmic and her pictures although always striking on their own are part of wider bodies of work sometimes pointing to themes of loss, transience and the strangeness of play and childhood. Her work has a nostalgic, other-worldly quality in line with photographers such as William Eggleston and film-makers such as Gus van Sant. It's an indefinable attribute that makes her work distinctive, alluring but also unsettling. Her accolades include being part of Paul Sng's 'Invisible Britain' book and selected for BJP's Portrait of Britain Award.
You studied Fine Art at Central St Martin's - not Photography. Has this shaped at all how you use the medium? I don't know how to answer that so much. I really enjoyed the stability of going to university - I had never even thought of going. I'd failed all of my GCSE's and had followed a boyfriend at the time to his sixth form, intending to do a business studies GNVQ. I was apparently pretty shit at that so switched to art GNVQ where I was really cared for by the teacher who led it. She encouraged me to apply for college with a portfolio (to do a Foundation in Art) and I got in. From there I sort of swam with the tide and applied for university. I had my own room/space and was pretty safe in it so long as I paid my rent. My home life was quite unstable so that was the biggest drive to me leaving. My experience studying was a mix of positive and less positive. I struggled a great deal with the language used around Art and so the theory side became really exhausting. I was taking pictures in the same constant way I do now and wasn't even considering it to be part of my 'art practice' at the time, it was separate. I loved being exposed to the people, I loved being able to openly express myself and have opportunities to see things that would never have been on my radar. So I don't know how much art school influenced me but the experience of leaving to live somewhere new and safe definitely did.
Could you talk me through the portrait of Emily you made for Invisible Britain? There's something magical about Emily's portrait - Cartier Bresson called it The Decisive Moment - do you think there's something in that - waiting for the apt moment?
Yes, happily! I'd been staying with Emily for the weekend and knew that I was up against the deadline for the Invisible Britain book and I had to soon send the picture over. So I was really concentrating and focused on getting a picture. I took a really good amount, but when I got home and reviewed them they looked and felt sullied - I think I had been so obsessed about composition and creating something that looked 'cool' that the pictures we didn’t feel organic but staged.
So I arranged to go over again in the week. It was raining and really grey. I only intended to take the picture if it felt right. Emily was clearing out her van and she'd been organising things in the house too, getting ready for festival season. Magnus, her boy in the picture, had been playing with a wrestling mask. He was quite conscious of me taking pictures and wanted to pose for them (stand smiling etc), so I asked if he'd like to keep the mask on. I think that gave him an anonymity but also let him take on a daredevil type persona - it helped him not care about what I was doing. So he was busy jumping around doing tricks and I was focused on talking to/photographing Emily.
In the interview that we'd recorded for the book Emily spoke about opportunity and accessibility to education. She never considered university or even sixth form beyond compulsory education. Her aspirations for herself now and particularly for her children are that she could do anything. So while I was photographing Emily, Magnus was leaping from the back to front of the van and then through the window or door. I quickly stepped back and got him in the frame as he prepared to jump. I'd wanted to get the whole van in but wasn't quick enough to move back so we tried to get him to repeat the jump so I could work that in but it didn't look real. I'd thought I wouldn't use that picture but actually later that day I decided that it felt quite serendipitous -what we'd been talking about re: opportunity and aspirations, to have this kid just about to leap to an unknown in a wrestling mask! So, I suppose if we talk about that 'apt moment' that was it, I just didn't realise it straight away.
My friendship and work with Emily pre-dates Invisible Britain. We've been working together for about 4/5 years and friends for almost 10. We have trust and respect, a great deal in common and so a real understanding of each other's work. I think it's a really important thing to me, for the way I take pictures - that I have a connection to the person. I like to think Emily and I work collaboratively.
There's a strong tradition of photographers using their family in portraits: Richard Billingham with 'Ray's a Laugh', Sally Mann with 'Immediate Family', Sian Davey with 'Looking for Alice' - Did photographing your own family constitute a choice or did it happen naturally? How do you find this process? Yes, it happened naturally. There wasn't a definitive moment where I thought I might pick up a camera, it's just been that way. I've always taken pictures. As my children have got older we've kind of collaborated on ideas and me taking pictures is just part of our family. And it's interesting to look back and see how things change within our family. In the last year there have been really big changes to our family and we seem to feel quieter, being more at our home (because of those changes). My pictures are reflective of this and I guess too, I am sharing a lot less on social media etc, there is a certain cyber battening down of the hatches.
There are masks in some of your photographs reminding me of the series by Johnny Vegas - Ideal - and of the characters, Cartoon 'Ead. How did these mask pictures start and how much are they intended as playful prop or to spark debate/symbolic interpretation?
Oh yeah? That's so cool, I loved that Johnny Vegas show, why did it stop?!
There's not really an intentional symbolism with the masks. I don't know why it is that I come back to them or am drawn to them in my pictures. I've always covered my face when I'm insecure or nervous/scared. I use my camera as a barrier a lot of the time, to hide behind. My camera is like a mask for me. I really like to watch and listen. I want to shout about and be vocal or brave about stuff but it doesn't come naturally to me, I think though that I can be
good at telling or showing a story visually instead of through words. And so I'm interested in seeing how people might behave differently in masks, how they move or express themselves differently.