Alys Tomlinson

Alys Tomlinson (born 1975) is a British photographer. She has published the books Following Broadway, Ex-Voto (2019), Lost Summer (2020) and Gli Isolani (The Islanders) (2022). For Ex-Voto she won the Photographer of the Year award at the 2018 Sony World Photography Awards. Portraits from Lost Summer won First prize in the 2020 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize.

Life and work Tomlinson was born and grew up in Brighton, UK. After graduating in the mid-1990s, she moved to New York City for a year, where she undertook her first commission as a photographer, shooting all the pictures for the Time Out Guide to the city. She returned to London to study photography at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and later completed a part-time MA in anthropology of travel, tourism and pilgrimage at SOAS University of London. and the book at number 3 in his "Top 15 photography books of 2019", about which he wrote: "Ex-Voto gathers her stark monochrome portraits of pilgrims, large format landscapes and mysterious still lifes of offerings left in rocks and trees at Lourdes, Ballyvourney and Grabarka. The results possess a kind of serene calmness that befits the subject matter, her portraits in particular capturing the reverent otherness and simplicity of the devotional life."

Tomlinson's film Vera, which accompanies her Ex-Voto work, is a "short film about a young nun, Vera, who works with wild horses in a convent in Belarus".

Lost Summer (2020) is a book of black and white portraits of young people aged between 15 and 19 in north London. With the cancellation of final exams and ritual events such as proms and graduations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Tomlinson photographed her subjects in the outfits they would have worn to prom, in their gardens and local parks.

As well as personal projects, Tomlinson works commercially for editorial, design and advertising clients.

Publications Books of work by Tomlinson Following Broadway. London: self-published / Eyebox, 2013. . Edition of 250 copies. Lost Summer. Self-published, 2020. Gli Isolani (The Islanders). Gost, 2022. . With an essay by Sabrina Mandanici.

Publications with contributions by Tomlinson New York. Time Out Guide. Written by Shawn Dahl et al, photography by Tomlinson. London: Penguin, 1999. Seventh edition. .

Short films Mother Vera (2019) Sony World Photography Awards, Somerset House, London, 2018 The Faithful, Rencontres d'Arles, Arles, France, 2019.

Awards 2018: Photographer of the Year (overall winner), Sony World Photography Awards, London. A prize of $25,000 USD. 2018: 1st Place, Discovery Category, Sony World Photography Awards, London 2019: Audience Award: 2019 Louis Roederer Discovery Award, Rencontres d'Arles, Arles, France 2020: First prize, Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize, London, for portraits of Samuel, Jack and Jameela from the series Lost Summer. A prize of £15000.