Welcome to this edition of [book spotlight]. Today, we uncover the layers of 'The Family Album,' by Polly Alderton (published by Setanta Books). We'd love to read your comments below about these insights and ideas behind the artist's work.

In this revealing interview, we step into the personal world of Polly Alderton, a UK-based photographer known for her introspective exploration of family life. Through her lens, Alderton transforms everyday moments into profound narratives. Join us as we discuss her artistic journey, the inspiration behind her intimate portrayals, and how she captures the fleeting moments that define our existence.

Inspiration Behind "The Family Album" Project: What was the initial inspiration for focusing your work around "The Family Album," and what do you hope viewers will take away from experiencing this intimate exploration of family life and memory?

I don’t know whether I would call it inspiration, I have always had a compulsion to photograph. When I first became pregnant and went on to have my first child that usual parental desire to capture special moments was a thing. With my first child I had Post Natal Depression and so in many ways I became quite removed from the classic idealisation of being a mother, I became obsessed with keeping my child alive and had endless invasive thoughts of dropping him, I remember going on an escalator in Debenhams and needing my partner to take the baby, I was so convinced I’d throw him over the edge. I couldn’t put the baby in the pram because I was obsessed by the idea a car would mount the pavement and collide in to it. And so from that I started to take photographs of the baby from an almost curious perspective that when I look back, feel quite lonely. As I started to get well the images became more connected but I guess that feeling of observation stayed and I continued to be an observer to the curiosities my children displayed. We quite quickly became a family of six and photography was I guess, my only creative outlet, hence - the Family Album. I’ve always said that having my children was like a rebirth for me too, it was a privilege to grow up alongside them to connect with my ‘inner child’ (hate that term) and to be born as a Mother.

I don’t know that I particularly mind what people take from experiencing family life through my perspective, it was (is) a personal record of myself as a parent and how I see them. I’ve never quite been able to articulate why I shared so much of that journey other than for me, it’s a love letter that exists beyond me.

Documentary Compulsion: You describe a compulsion to document the everyday moments of family life that fall between milestone photographs. Can you share more about what drives this compulsion and how it shapes your approach to photography?

Yes, I had a very fractured childhood and we moved around A LOT. I commented before that I didn’t have time to gather and process things or surroundings in a maybe usual way. The homes I lived in, in my mind, sometimes morph in to one and I struggle to remember layouts etc. I also didn’t get to hold on to things, one of my childhood homes - I returned from school one afternoon to find brown metal shutters over the windows and doors, everything inside was imprisoned. I remember keeping watch whilst my dad broke in through the roof to try and get some stuff. We lost our cat even, I was so troubled by that. I didn’t get to see my things again, the things that had been rescued went in to a lockup garage and by the time we could get back to them years later they were too damaged by damp and mould to be salvaged. But something I did have was photographs, My Granny Marj was a really good photographer (not professionally, more ‘prolifically’), she had reems of pictures and when she died I was able to see so many images from my childhood, her visiting etc and I loved tracing the backgrounds of photographs for clues of things I owned or that existed in our homes. Like, in one image the curtain might be hanging over the sofa in such a way that will mean nothing to you but to me, that physical memory of sitting on the back of the sofa and feeling the tension from the curtain pole fighting to stay up is so visceral. So catching the in between things in anticipation of needing the memory recall later is really important to me. And the more frivolous shots of us maybe playing a game, or sitting watching Tv, I’ll notice my sisters skinny knock knees, or a bruise, a favourite shared t-shirt, and recall something we did together maybe that day.

So sometimes, I’ll want to move something to make a better picture, like a bottle of coke or the positioning of a nice blanket and I try to remind myself that there might be something, a clue?, in the future for my children that I can’t see and I must remind myself to stay faithful to truth.

Class and Personal History: With a focus on examining class in the UK and your own background, how do these elements inform your photographic narrative, especially within the context of "The Family Album"?

Ha! Well, you know when Instagram became a big thing? I would say that it had a big influence on me twice. The first was, with the big parenting Instagram users posting beautiful things in beautiful homes I felt really ashamed of my home, its probably a year long period of time in our Family Album where the images I was making were so sugary and hid our truth, not that our truth was anything particularly unusual – but I sort of became a bit fixated with this aspirational idea of being really ‘proper’ which unrealistically meant, having immaculate children who drifted ethereally around flower fields and wore little Hunter wellies. I think I’ve always felt from a young age that I was quite ‘below’ people and not whole. So I fell in to that. But I’ve always had an anti authority streak and after a while I got bored of it and maybe a bit chip on my shoulder-y so I kinda did a fuck you (not that I think anyone noticed or cared!). And the second wave of influence came where I started to just put stuff up that I liked, not focussing on likes or followers. And maybe that was when I started to feel like I could see more clearly what I was doing and that I could put pictures out in this space without needing validation that where there as my personal record.

I am defensive when it comes to being from a working class family but I’m also proud of it now, I spent so much of my teen years pretending to be like people I perceived to be ‘better’ than me and I realised I was doing a disservice to my children by bringing them up feeling ‘lesser’. When I look at the work of Richard Billingham (which I was obsessed by when I got in to art school), I’m home. I can feel it deeply when I go somewhere to photograph, I was in a homeless centre for young adults earlier this month photographing for a charity, - I’m there holding a posh camera and the people I’m photographing don’t know my background, I can feel them shrink sometimes (or have that bite towards me), they think I’m there to judge or ‘other’ them, they think I think I’m better than them or that they’re lesser than me,  but all I wanna do is say thank you for trusting me, thank you for sharing this amazing and hard life and thank you for letting me feel home.

Influence of Fine Art Education: Having studied Fine Art at Byam Shaw School of Art and Central St. Martins, how has your education influenced your photographic style and the conceptual underpinnings of your work?

Maybe, it’s difficult to answer this one. I never expected to get into university, I never even considered it as an option. In truth university for me was a combination of two things, firstly, I had real stability, I lived my first year in halls of residence in Tuffnell Park, I was so stable there, my own room and I felt very secure or safe, I made some wonderful friends (I met and started dating my now husband), we all lived together in our second and third year. That stability gave me such precious pause, I started collecting and gathering information, making work etc. But the university experience was quite difficult in itself, I struggled to understand the language, how to write essays. I especially struggled with having my work critiqued, everything I made was so devastatingly personal to me and I felt humiliated in the ‘concourse crits’ because I didn’t understand, I responded quite aggressively and I think I was viewed as being quite petulant, in reality I was so defensive because I felt so stupid. The work I was making was all over the place, like one big vomit, I lacked direction, I think that came much later in spite of my degree when I calmed down a bit and just did what I did for me. The whole time I was at university I was taking roles and roles of film but never once did it occur to me that this was my practice, or that this could be my art. I was doing heaps of printmaking and some mad painting. I also did a load of knitting, in my next life I’m coming back as a knitter (a knitter who can read and follow knitting patterns).

Collaborations and Professional Work: Working as a stills photographer with the BBC and other notable projects, how do these professional experiences intersect with your personal work, particularly in terms of technique and storytelling?

If I think about my personal pictures, often I see them as stills in a longer film. If I’m working alongside a film-maker I see my role as catching the smaller details/memories/hidden tales that might be just off camera, like the in-between bits, or clues? My role professionally is always different, so I guess it depends what my brief is. It’s a wild privilege to me that I get this work.

Future Projects and Evolution: As your work continues to evolve, are there new directions or themes you are interested in exploring, particularly regarding family, memory, and class?

There’s been some weird & sad old times in our family the last year, I’ve been making pictures about it but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to share it, I hope I do get to but it needs to be when the time is okay for the whole family, I suppose it doesn’t matter if you get to see it. I’ve been doing a lot of writing, I’m trying to shake off the thing biting my neck that tells me it’s not good enough, I’m going to see what it can be. I turned 40, I feel a bit calmer and like I’ve got a bit more time to work out what I’m doing so I’m doing that.   

To discover more about this intriguing body of work and how you can acquire your own copy, you can find and purchase the book here.

Polly Alderton (Website) is a UK-based photographer who focuses on capturing her immediate surroundings, particularly her family. Her work delves into the intricacies of the family album, documenting the nuances of everyday life that lie between significant events. Alderton's approach is deeply introspective and sensory, as she explores memory, sensation, and the physical spaces families inhabit. Her photography acts as a personal archive, a collection of moments and memories that form a more reliable narrative than her own recollections.