You don’t take your best pictures in the studio. You do them in the street. The rest is bullshit.
Introduction
Dougie Wallace is a photographer with a keen eye and a distinctive visual style. His images are immediately recognisable by the way they do not so much capture a moment as grab it by the throat. While he makes work in many different parts of the world – from Milan to Mumbai, Blackpool to Bangkok – I wanted, in our conversation here, to focus on three series made in England. In each he captures the spirit of the times as it is expressed in a specific place and within a particular social milieu. It is a journey that takes us from the blue-collar bacchanalia of Blackpool, via the uber-wealthy who haunt London’s Knightsbridge, to the latter-day bohemians repopulating post-pandemic Soho. While these are three series taken from many, for me they map distinct loci in contemporary English culture, pinpointing extremes from which one might triangulate the shifting nature of class.
The class system is deep-rooted in the English psyche, its rhizomes running tacitly through the social subsoil. But, above ground, the old species of land and lineage have in recent years mutated as the New Right ennobles the neoliberal credo of personal wealth. The denizens of high-class retail are no longer solely the heirs to blue blood and a stately heap but rather parvenus armed with a panoply of bling and black-label logos. For those at the furry end of the socio-economic lollypop, the inevitabilities of life outside the curtain wall of privilege lead to other forms of excess that provide a brief disinhibited diversion from the inescapable. Meanwhile, in the metropolitan backstreets a cosmopolitan cocktail of urban tribes is vividly redefining the notion of self-expression and personal identity while, consciously or otherwise, advancing the processes of gentrification.
Caught in the pulse of his flashgun, Dougie Wallace pins the eccentric and the exotic to the page with the precision of an entomologist. For, while these are colourful, often funny, images, they are not superficial. Beneath the surface drama runs something deeper, something that – counterintuitively – connects these diverse social contexts through their very disparity. The underlying taxonomy of class that frames the whole by defining its divisions as if they were genetically immiscible species, each caught up in its own rites and rituals.
Alasdair Foster
Interview
How did you begin as a professional photographer?
I joined the army straight out of school, and when I left I bought and sold cars for a bit. About fifteen years ago I started to get into photography more seriously. I was backpacking in Nepal when I bought my first camera – just cheap, grey market – took a lot of travel pictures. Then, when I got back to London I started taking pictures around the Shoreditch area where I lived. At the time, I wasn’t trying to make a living or anything.
How would you describe your approach to photography?
When I started off photographing round Brick Lane and Columbia Road, I guess it was street photography. But then I quickly started documenting. I don’t really like street photography – just photographing whatever is happening on the street. See, with the Blackpool work, I don’t have one single shot that is just random – a leg coming out from behind a tree or a cloud that looks like whatever… I just think that’s a lot of graphic nonsense. I do use things like juxtaposition in my work but it is only when it fits the thing I am documenting. When I go out there I know what I am looking for – my intentions are pre-focused.
© Dougie Wallace – from the series ‘Shoreditch Wild Life’ 2010
Your work has a strong signature style – how would you describe it?
Growing up in Glasgow has shaped my style and living in Shoreditch has helped me develop an eye for the tragi-comic, messy side of uninhibited human behaviour. It’s been described as visually exaggerated and hard-edged. Well maybe. But to me these are just cultural and social realities. I like life on the street. It’s like tribes really, down Shoreditch or Soho. It’s social documentary – raw. You’ve got to get out there. You don’t take your best pictures in the studio. You do them in the street. The rest is bullshit.
It started with ‘Shoreditch Wild Life’. I was living there for about twenty years… It was just me taking my camera out at night – go partying. All night partying… then looking for somewhere to go on after. All day Sunday, people lying on the floor – crazy times. Then I began to think about it as a book and started to shoot with more of a plan. More social documentary.
© Dougie Wallace – from the series ‘Stags, Hens & Bunnies: A Blackpool Story’ 2013
The first time I saw your work was ‘Stags, Hens & Bunnies: A Blackpool Story’. What took you to Blackpool and why did you focus on this aspect of the seaside resort?
For years I’ve been buying and selling camper vans and doing them up. This took me up and down to Blackpool a lot, so it was like a free trip. It was one of those trips when I took the first picture in this series – the man cling-wrapped to the lamppost. (It’s funny that, because it now comes at the end of the book.) Once I saw that shot, I saw it everywhere: the stag parties and the hen nights. They’re usually from the North – from Scotland or round Durham, Wigan, Liverpool, Manchester… It’s quite rowdy, yeah – they’re all having a good time. It’s different from shooting in Soho; they’re in big groups – mixed – so their line manager might be there or their uncle.
I ended up making thirty trips to shoot the Blackpool pictures.
© Dougie Wallace – from the series ‘Stags, Hens & Bunnies: A Blackpool Story’ 2013
What attracted you to this particular aspect of Blackpool?
Every weekend turned into the heart of social darkness. Marauding packs of brides and grooms, friends and family, on a mission to consume liver-crushing levels of alcohol. A rite of passage marking their last night of freedom before the conventions and responsibilities of marital life, mortgage, children… The unbridled hedonism is magnified by an inter-pack competitiveness that manifests itself in drinking games, fights, or sex in the toilets! Its twisted and ghoulish, and it’s hard not to laugh.
In situations like that, where people are quite disinhibited, do you have to take precautions?
It can switch really quickly. You don’t know if they’re drunk, but you just take it that they are. But that’s just part of the job. I’ve been doing this sort of thing all my life. And I only know what they’re gonna do next because I have done it myself.
© Dougie Wallace – from the series ‘Harrodsburg’ 2015
With ‘Harrodsburg’ you travel to the other extreme of the social spectrum.
Knightsbridge is like another world. The people round there, the money, it’s unreal. There’s so much human theatre and drama on the street. You wouldn’t believe the things you see. So, I just went back shooting and shooting and shooting… The thing about the money is it’s all there, on display. It’s all part of the show. That’s what I wanted to capture.
© Dougie Wallace – from the series ‘Harrodsburg’ 2015
One of the things that struck me about this work is how close-up and personal you got with your camera.
To take a portrait you have to get near to people. I’m shooting with a 35mm lens and two flash guns, one above and one below so you get the bling, no shadows. I have the aperture set at f11, so the shutter speed controls the background. You couldn’t really get any closer. I’m so close in that instant of taking the picture that I am effectively part of it.
What kind of response did you get from those you photographed?
The area is changing. Some of the old eccentrics, they don’t seem to mind being photographed. But the Sloanes and the old money are being replaced by a new breed of international super-rich. The new money people seem to hate getting their picture taken. They certainly don’t stop and chat. I’ve had people threaten to call the police. I just say: go ahead and give them the number – 999.
© Dougie Wallace – from the series ‘Soho Unlocked’ 2023
How did ‘Soho Unlocked’ begin?
So, when Covid came, things shut down. Then, about three years ago in July, the unlocking began. That’s when I started the Soho pictures – from then to now. It’s always been a vibrant neighbourhood at the forefront of the global zeitgeist, attracting a mix of edginess, sleaze, and high class. The pandemic had forced the closure of Soho for two years, but when the socialising resumed, the desire for self-expression surged. The area is filled with extravagant characters from heavily made-up drag artists to DIY fashion kids whose accessories inspire the catwalks of tomorrow. Soho’s vibrant LGBTQI+ community is stand out, challenging old hegemonies and ushering in a future that is rainbow: open-minded and inclusive.
From that wider scene you get these more specific themes which develop into their own series. At Christmas I started shooting all the glitterball rickshaws [glitzy, human-powered three-wheel pedicabs] that were everywhere at that time. I got them just in time because the government have announced they intend to ban them.
© Dougie Wallace – from the series ‘Soho Unlocked’ 2023
Then there are the guys selling balloons filled with nitrous oxide [known as ‘laughing gas’ because of the sense of euphoria is induces]. That’s getting banned as well. It’s funny, the newspapers will print pictures of drug dealers in Colombia and that, but they’ll not show pictures of the balloon guys in Soho. No-one would publish that series, so I made it into a wee ’zine.
What are you looking for in Soho and how do you go about capturing it?
It’s about their style, what their wearing, what they’re doing. They have to look authentic to that place. You’re walking around and then something might happen. It’s just out the corner of your eye but you know it when you see it. And when you see it you need to go for it. Of course, its awful awkward for some photographers to do that kinda thing. But it’s an occupational hazard. And being able to talk to people helps me connect with them for the photograph.
Some people think that I’m just thick skinned. That I go up to people and go bam! It’s not like that. I am super sensitive really. My awareness is way out there – all around me. Down in Soho at night taking pictures, you know they’re watching you. If I went down the street just shooting everything indiscriminately, I’d seem like a sociopath… but I am just shooting one wee thing, you know. It’s clear I know what I am looking for… I have a theme… That’s how they know you’re not a nutter. It’s just common sense…
© Dougie Wallace – from the series ‘Well Healed’ 2016
How has your approach to making photographs changed over the years?
I’m a little bit more kinda asky than before. Shoot a portrait? But it might just be a phase I’m going through, you know. I go organically from one thing to the next. So, while I was shooting ‘Harrodsburg’ I started photographing all these dogs – it’s all about what the owner and the dogs are wearing, the shoes and that. So, then I went to Milan, and Tokyo, and New York to build the series. The book is called ‘Well Heeled’. The great thing about progressing organically is that you never have to look at your work and say: Oh, has somebody done that before? I just do it. So, now my Soho work has led me on to doing a series on tattoos. One thing leads to another. I’m not copying anybody.
[Left] © Dougie Wallace – from the series ‘Stags, Hens & Bunnies: A Blackpool Story’ 2013
[Right] © Dougie Wallace – from the series ‘Harrodsburg’ 2015
What, for you, is the purpose of your social documentary work?
Well, hopefully you are documenting human behaviour. People’s interactions and emotions fascinate me. I want my work to reflect societal trends and incongruities. To convey a believable yet absurd point of view. To do that, the pictures have to have a twist. To be funny in one way or another. The Blackpool pictures are kinda slapstick; ‘Harrodsburg’ is more ironic. But I’m not an activist, you know. I show the pictures and people can decide for themselves.
Over the years, what has making photographs taught you?
It’s about discipline. It’s the same as going to the gym. I’ve always gone to the gym – I was a PTI [physical training instructor] in the army and my degree is in sport. I go to the gym most days. It’s just … if you say I’m going to go to the gym every day then you have to do it, even if you just go there and touch the door and walk away. Because once you’ve done that, you’ll likely say to yourself: alright I’ll just go in for a sauna. And, while you’re in the sauna, you think: I might go for a wee swim… Just by doing it every day it becomes normal. A habit. So that, if you didn’t go, you’d miss it or you’d feel guilty. It’s the same with taking photographs, you feel guilty if you don’t get out there on a Friday night and shoot. It has to become part of your life.
Biographical Notes
Dougie Wallace was born in Glasgow in 1974. He enlisted in the army after leaving school, becoming a physical training instructor. He began taking photographs when, while on a trip to Nepal, he bought his first camera. His images have featured in a number of solo and group exhibitions in the United Kingdom, but his main focus is on publication. Widely featured in newspapers and magazines (print and online) his photographs have also been collected into six monographs: ‘Stags, Hens & Bunnies: A Blackpool Story’ (Dewi Lewis 2014), ‘Shoreditch Wild Life’ (Hoxton Mini Press 2014, 2016), ‘Road Wallah’ (Dewi Lewis 2016), ‘Harrodsburg’ (Dewi Lewis 2017), ‘Well Heeled’ (Dewi Lewis 2017), ‘East Ended’ (Dewi Lewis 2020), and ‘Bus Response’ (Dewi Lewis 2022). In 2016, he was the subject of a BBC TV documentary in the series ‘What Do Artists Do All Day?’ (episode 26). He lives and works in London and internationally.
This interview is a Talking Pictures original.