Viva Brighton Issue #52 June 2017

PHOTOGRAPHY
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JJ Waller
People-watching in Benidorm
Photo of JJ Waller by JJ Waller
“Yes, there is a certain
theatricality in my pictures,
and I think that harks back
to my performing days,”
says JJ Waller, who this
month shares with us a selection
from his new Benidorm
project. “A lot of my
pictures are shot square on,
as if looking at a stage set. I
find a location and wait for
something to happen, and
it usually does. It’s life. I’m
inquisitive about the world
around me. I think there’s a popular word for it
now – a flâneur – and I definitely see myself in that
category. Wandering, absorbing, watching people
moving around as if extras on a giant film set.”
There was a time when things were the other way
around, and people watched JJ. First in Covent
Garden, as a street entertainer, then later on stage,
at festivals and comedy clubs. His transition from
performer to photographer was “not planned and
not based on any particular ambition. Just a series
of swinging doors and taking steps through them.
I was performing at the time, and I was beginning
to feel stale and uninventive.” So a photography
evening class turned into an editorial-photography
degree, and a change of career. “It took a few years
before I developed a style that might have been
recognisable as a JJ Waller style.” It’s a style that
has been described as ‘beyond the postcard’ and
‘saturated with life’.
Having captured Brighton in his first two books,
his third was shot over a nine-year period further
along the coast. “My wad of train tickets was thicker
than a pack of playing cards. I’d been to Hastings
a few times and thought it was interesting,
but I soon realised that the story, for me, was in St
Leonards. It reminded me
of aspects of an eighties
Brighton, rough around
the edges with a faded
grandeur, but also a town
on the cusp of change.
It’s an amazingly eclectic
little town.” Next JJ
headed north, having won
a commission to capture
modern-day Blackpool.
“I chose a long weekend
when there was a same-sex
ballroom-dancing competition,
Blackpool Pride and an air show. I was
out for ten hours a day; the place really captured
my imagination. I loved it, and went seven times
that year.” The Blackpool book didn’t sell as well
as the others. “Blackpool’s visitors have a nostalgic
vision. I tried to present the town in a very positive
light, but you have to be honest, and I couldn’t fill
a book with just pages of donkeys and trams. I’m
very proud of the final book, though.”
Thinking about where to go next, he concluded
that it had to be Benidorm, “because it carries on
the continuity of the British on holiday. The package
holidays of the 60s changed the Brit holiday
experience forever. Benidorm seemed the logical
place to carry on my picture story.” What did he
think of it when he got there? “It’s like Blackpool
with sun. There’s a whole area called the British
Square that offers loads of picture opportunities.”
Whilst he’s made a career of watching the British
at play, the work has taken on a serious purpose
for JJ. “I think my images will offer up an insight
and significance for future generations. I would
like to think that I’m making a contribution to the
towns I photograph and their evolving histories.”
Interview by Lizzie Lower
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