Eye Spy: Meet Alfie White
A lot gets overlooked on the well-trodden path of daily life.
Yet amongst us are a gifted few who find depth in the superficial; beauty in the everyday. Alfie White, who made his name capturing the transient scenes of our city, is such a person. Sat in a café in his native south-east London, he talks me through his practice, his process and his understanding of people.
‘I’m generally known for the photos I made at 18 and 19 years old,’ he shares. ‘I’ve never felt fully part of things – maybe that’s down to my autism – so a lot of these photos and my work is a result of that and this general lack of understanding.’ Alfie has been photographing London for seven years, observing interactions and exchanges between passers-by in his distinctly intimate fashion.
‘When you think about it, you’re always being watched in London,’ he muses. ‘There’s that weird element to what I do where I’m almost spying on people, capturing them without them knowing. But I’m not surveilling them.’ It’s a distinction worth making. No technology has the capacity to capture what Alfie can. After all, being visible isn’t the same as being seen. ‘People can ask me to see the photo,’ Alfie points out, ‘and get a print of some moment in their life that they thought was gone forever.’
Our popular imagination tends to dress the street photographer in film noir tropes: shrouded in a dark overcoat, simmering with mystique. But what’s it really like? Alfie laughs, saying, ‘Maybe I’m bad at blending in, but people always know when I’m watching.’ He iterates the importance of existing with the people you capture, and how occasionally, it’s necessary to spend days with subjects before any moments worth shooting materialise.
‘I still don’t fully understand people. But, in the instances when I do get to see someone’s reality, even for a second, I want to keep that.’ Alfie rummages through a cotton bag and plants a 6×6 camera on the table. Whilst I’m gleefully fiddling with the viewfinder, he says softly, ‘More and more though, I’m drawn to finding those moments with people I know well rather than with strangers’.
Drumming a finger on the old coffee table, Alfie adds, ‘I’ve been thinking about the places where I feel comfortable. That’s with my family. My friends. And especially in my bedroom.’ I give him the camera back, before I break it. ‘I’ve been in the same bedroom since I was five. It’s in a space like that that the mask people wear – out there – comes off. That’s when I want to use this new camera.’
I still don’t fully understand people. But, in the instances when I do get to see someone’s reality, even for a second, I want to keep that.
Digging deeper into his creative approach, Alfie tells me: ‘In the arts right now everyone seems to think the important thing is drive and motivation.’ I sigh a little; because it’s so true. With the relentless dissemination of visual art and media, the space has become deeply competitive. Artists and creators everywhere are constantly watching each other, comparing, responding, and silently stalking. In this sense, the internet has spawned a culture of constant performance amongst those who used to simply exist alongside each other. And it’s not very conducive to letting your guard down – or even being inspired.
Pointing at a tabletop-turned-chess-board Alfie unpacks the trend. ‘If I started played chess right here, right now, I wouldn’t be striving to be the best. I’d be enjoying it because it’s what I chose to do in that moment. I apply the same attitude to my photography. I keep picking it up because I enjoy what happens as a result; but I don’t think about it all the time.’
So what does Alfie spend his time thinking about? ‘I’ve been thinking about death’, he says. We both chuckle. ‘People like Kafka and Van Gogh died without knowing they impacted so many lives. It’s different now, work gets exposure faster, so gratification comes quicker. It’s lovely to know you’ve affected someone – but it isn’t what’s important.’
It’s different now, work gets exposure faster, so gratification comes quicker. It’s lovely to know you’ve affected someone – but it isn’t what’s important.
Pulling out a box of fibre-paper prints, Alfie shows me some of his more recent work. It’s all good friends, graveyards, and safe places – reflecting exactly what Alfie thinks is important. His signature intimacy is still there, but with a new level of introspection. ‘I’ve been re-reading the Earthsea series by Ursula K. le Guin’, he says, picking up his well-worn copy. ‘She had a strong connection to Taoism, and her work has helped me look further into religion and human life. My new work is growing darker, more abstracted, but I think it’s good for me to augment where I’m at in my twenties, and not stick to what I did earlier on.’
Alfie’s love of books shines through, and we elatedly exchange some treasures. ‘How people talk about books, or good pubs, or anything they really care about is revealing. That’s when you can really observe them,’ Alfie says. ‘Something that’s normally invisible, and inside, comes out.’
Suddenly a new expression comes into his eyes. ‘I’ve never heard Haley Heynderickx played anywhere before’, Alfie says, as a song of hers comes on in the cafe, ‘she’s one of my favourite artists!’ The social mask slipped, and momentarily, I glanced behind it.
These are the moments Alfie White is watching for.
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Bill Rice
Excellent piece. Well written.