Alex Telfer, Photographer, Alex Telfer Photography
Jul 26 2010 by John Hill, The Journal
KINGSLAND Church stands fast against the railings of a Byker school, flanked by houses and a communal green.
It’s been many years since the sound of a choir echoed within its walls, but last week it was home to a road safety commercial.
It might be seen as an unusual home for a prestigious photographic studio, but then Byker could be described as an odd home for one of the country’s top advertising photographers.
Last year, Alex Telfer was ranked by industry magazine Campaign as the best in his field in the UK. He has done shoots for companies such as Nike, Sony Music and the BBC and has agents in Milan, London, New York, Paris and Hong Kong, but for most of his career he has worked not far from his County Durham birthplace.
He says: “It’s something I’m really proud of, that I actually managed to do what I wanted when I was young, when I was too naive to realise that what I wanted was impossible.
“I could have relocated to London, become a top photographer and maybe achieved everything more quickly, but it’s important that I’m here.”
Telfer was born 40 years ago in the village of Dipton. His early interest was art, but he fell in love with the lens as a teenager at Derwentside College in Consett.
“It just gripped me right from that moment and everything else took a back seat”, he says. “I had a basic 35mm camera and I tended to shoot in black and white film because you could process that yourself.
“There was a real excitement about what you were going to come back with each day, and the characters you were going to find.”
Inspired by photojournalists such as Don McCullin and Henri Cartier Bresson, Telfer stalked around Consett in the sunset of its steel boom.
He says: “Black and white in the late 1980s was geared toward documentary still photography, and Consett had a rich vein of subject matter because the steelworks hadn’t been long closed.
“If I was based in rural Sussex, it probably would have been different. You’re shaped by the area you find yourself in. I still go in search of dereliction. I like nothing better than finding something that’s derelict and shooting it.”
More than two decades later, Telfer’s style is famed for its powerful imagery, and he has been called upon for award-winning campaigns on topics such as knife crime.
He says: “It’s been described as realistic and gritty. I think it’s just realistic and honest.
“When you look at a portrait of mine you can tell I’ve spent a lot of time with that person. My stills involve drawing a performance from someone.
“If you want a great shot you have to adapt to get on their side. I don’t think you can have a set formula.”
Telfer argues you can see the germ of this style in his early shots at Derwentside and later at Newcastle College. In the meantime, he learned about the profession by assisting Consett-based ad photographer Alan Bennington for free.
He says: “What became apparent was that I very much wanted to do things in my own style, but I wanted that style to be deployed by the advertising world.
“I enjoyed – and still enjoy – looking at good advertising. Art photographers are admired by people who like their work. As an ad photographer you have to resonate with everybody that looks at it.
“A lot of photographers tend to drift toward the fine art route when they’re established, and I can see why, because you can produce work that you love without restrictions. I sell prints and I’m involved with galleries, and I assume that will interest me more as time passes.”
