A powerful stillness

The latest project by award-winning photographer Alys Tomlinson is beautifully shot. For Tim Clinch, that makes her a ‘proper photographer’. Here he finds out more

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I have to put my cards on the table here and tell you that I am a huge admirer of Alys Tomlinson’s work, so was delighted to be asked to interview her for this article. Her use of large format photography (which I shot on for many years) is beautifully controlled and inspires with what I can only describe as a powerful stillness. The portraits in her first book Ex Voto, and the wonderful images in Lost Summer which won her the 2020 Taylor Wessing Portrait Award are superb and, for someone of my vintage, embody the ethos of traditional photography. Beautifully shot, they inspire me to give her my own award. That of a ‘proper’ photographer.

I finally caught up with her in a zoom call to South Africa where she is doing some work for a conservation charity and her first words to me were, ‘Hang on, I’ve just got to put on some bug spray.’ That out of the way, we progressed to discussing some of her thoughts on photography and her new book Gli Isolani: The Islanders.

TC: Where did the idea and inspiration for this project (Gli Isolani) come from?