Trigger warning: This article contains references to suicide.

Charlie Tallott’s debut monograph At Least Until the World Stops Going Round is unflinching, intimate and evocative. The project stems from a suicide attempt in 2021, and despite the grief from which the work was born, Tallott’s photography is instead imbued with an agitated energy and feverish desire for experience. The London-based, Yorkshire-born photographer captures the crevices of life’s extremities as friends climb trees naked in the dead of night, back scratches are shot so vividly you can almost feel them, and corners of Friday night house parties are littered with empty beer cans.

For Tallott, the project posed an opportunity for escapism during a time when he wanted to be anywhere but his reality, and in the process he has created a body of work as personal as it is poignant. Free from the shackles of agenda or meaning, Tallott invites viewers to look for themselves in the ambiguity of his photography and grapple with whatever they may find staring back at them.

Ella Joyce: What’s the story behind the title, At Least Until the World Stops Going Round?
Charlie Tallott: The book itself, as well as the title, stems from a suicide attempt in 2021. After this, my mum would say things to me like, “The sun’s always gonna come up tomorrow,” and, “The world will still keep turning.” These reminders stuck with me for a long time, and the half-repetitive writings you see in the book are also from around that time. Photography became a form of escapism for me, and I was making these quite blissful aesthetic images of a utopian world. You never think about it at the time, but you’re so desperate for a way out of your life, you’re trying to create a new world in those images.

Around this time, I was under the care of the NHS Leeds Crisis team. I was only allowed to go out for about an hour a day, walking. This is where I started getting the essence of this book and figuring out what I wanted to say. I would go out during this hour and try to hunt down something that felt like a window into another world, a flash-laden swan in the snow, or just going to visit my grandad at Crossgates Snooker Club. I was looking to use the camera as an escapist vessel, I wanted to see something else other than my own world. I guess the title is a reminder of life’s temporality, everything and everyone passes, and the world keeps turning. These photos offered me a permanent window into a world much better than the one I was running from. Now, I look back at the pictures feeling lucky that I want to be here now and I’ve left that lonely place. The phrase At Least Until The World Stops Going Round is also a line in Marching On Together, a Leeds United song, which is where I first heard it. I’d sung it a thousand times, and never thought anything of it before. Only after making the book, I realised it would be a perfect fit.

EJ: Your subject matter is so varied, we see portraits alongside landscape shots and close-ups of everyday objects. What is it that attracts you to the things you photograph?
CT: I think it’s always something that you see a bit of yourself in. You’re looking for your reflection in the images. When I photograph something I’m looking for something ambiguous or slightly symbolic, I don’t want the meaning of my images to be overly determined. I like the viewer to wrestle with the meaning of the images. As long as they feel something, I think I’m doing my job.

“These photos offered me a permanent window into a world much better than the one I was running from.”

EJ: Is there an overarching theme or idea you’re trying to articulate through this body of work?
CT: There is a quote by photographer Paul Graham, in his ‘post-documentary’ photography essay The Unreasonable Apple which has always stuck with me, and helps sum up the meaning of my work: “Form the meaningless world into photographs, then form those photographs into a meaningful world.” It’s just me, trying to create a new world, escape my own, or at least try to make sense of this one.

EJ: A lot of your images appear as diptychs, how do you go about pairing images together?
CT: Pairing images to me is a craft in itself. When you look at how photographers like Albert Elm or Paul Kooiker pair their images, it becomes clear how much of an important part it plays in how the viewer reads them. I’ll put images aside for years waiting for the right picture to pair it with. With the right pairings, you can give something a new lease of life, and thread this needle of narrative through the pages.

It’s all about sequencing and picking your punches. You can’t just go full throttle with powerful images one after another, people need a breather, something to punctuate your images with. I like the democratic nature and consistent rhythm of the photobook, every image the same size, it lends itself to pairing and sequencing – they all get the same sized platform to sing off.

EJ: How did growing up in Yorkshire influence you?
CT: I liked growing up in East Leeds, I’m a proper home bird. I live in London now, but I’m in Leeds three weekends out of four every month usually. I miss home loads, so I want to be back all the time. I’ll always go back for Leeds United games. I think some of the interiors you see in the book show my background, my nan’s house, Crossgates Snooker Club, and pub carpets. When you’re a kid in those environments, you don’t realise you’re soaking it all up, and now they seem to leak into my work without ever really thinking about it.

Those environments, alongside things like my dad’s work, seem to influence my work. My dad is a welder, and one of the first zines I made Problems… Problems…Problems… Solution. was all shot in factories with him welding. When I was a kid, I would always go to work with my dad during half-term or holidays, just to save me dossing around. Eventually, I started to bring my camera, probably out of boredom. I think the ‘hard graft’ mentality of my family has always helped me to keep churning out work. Photography is easy really, you can’t be complaining about it, and I don’t think I’d get too much sympathy from my family anyway. The artist Allan Gardner, who wrote the foreword for At Least Until The World Stops Going Round, said “Yorkshiremen love to speak in metaphors.” I’d never thought of that before, but, when I think of listening to my mates or my dad, I realise we do tell a good story. I think that helps me when taking photos, it’s that same knack of storytelling.

“It’s just me, trying to create a new world, escape my own, or at least try to make sense of this one.”

EJ: Are there any photographers who were formative in developing your style?
CT: I think the first photobook I bought was when I stumbled into Village Books in Leeds with a Christmas voucher. I picked up Albert Elms’ What Sort of Life is This and instantly went to buy it. I didn’t know what it really was, but that was the first time I’d seen ‘post-documentary’ photography, and the pairing of images in that way. Other than that, a lot of Provoke Era Japanese photographers helped form my style, and I’ve always liked British photographers like Chris Shaw and Kingsley Ifill. Ryan Mcginley as well, of course. I’ve always appreciated how Sam Hutchinson seems to challenge photography as a medium, his books are amazing. His show at Village Books years ago was the first proper photography exhibition I’d been to, Sam’s an important figure too.

Check out Charlie on Instagram here and purchase At Least Until the World Stops Going Round here.