INTERVIEW: Balladette Alexandra MacLeod interviewed the hauntingly beautiful Paulina Otylie Surys; Photographer for the lost sole Ballad Of Petra Doe. We have an extra treat for you online lovelies - Here we have images never before published in OR on Ballad … and as if that wasn’t enough..? To raise awareness for Petra’s plight when you buy a Petra Doe, we are sending you her haunting partner; issue one Mary Maud, too. Just e mail SAVE PETRA to [email protected] and we’ll do the rest. Sign the petition here.
In a world where fashion embraces the meticulously airbrushed, digital images that fill the pages of numerous glossy magazines, Paulina Otylie Surys sits in her hallway, for lack of her own darkroom, developing and painting her enchantingly composed photographs by hand. “I tried,” she insists, ”its not like I discredited shooting in digital, I just find there is no connection to myself.” It is late afternoon, and the sun beats through the window of the café as Paulina spreads collections of her photographs across the tiny table with breathless enthusiasm.
“The first time I came across this kind of photography was in college”, she explains. “I had no idea how to take a photograph, so I went to the photography department and there was a crazy guy. He was the professor’s assistant, very tall, very skinny, very long grey beard, and always wearing jumpers and long riding boots, all year long! Always the same clothes, but he was doing the same sort of thing with photography, and the first time I saw it I was absolutely enchanted.” She puts her lemonade on the ground in fear of spilling it on her work, a wise move, as she gestures wildly as she talks. “I paint the photographs with chemicals, and the colours are a result of the reaction of the chemicals. Isn’t it beautiful? It seems so true, natural.”
Truly fascinating as her photographs, Paulina grew-up in Poland where she was introduced to art by her mother, who would take her to the theatre, and ballet. “Our house was just filled up with albums, paintings, and photography. My grandparents had this beautiful apartment filled with old furniture and antiques. I adore old furniture! I can remember the smell even now,” she sighs in nostalgic joy.
Despite her reputation within the fashion industry: - she has shot several magazine editorials, and various lookbooks, and is just finishing developing backstage shots from London Fashion Week - she makes it perfectly clear that she never wanted a career in fashion. “I love the clothes,” she muses,”but there is a side to industry I find very cold, and shallow.” In fact, Paulina studied Fine Art in Poland for five years as a painter, before moving to London. “I appreciate the city for its various style and inspiration, and I was quite impressed at the beginning, but now I’m just looking for inspiration inside myself.”
It is admirable how true to her heart her stories remain, despite pressure from magazines and fashion designers. Her ideas blossom from her discovery of a location or beautiful clothes, although she admits with a coy smile, ”My boyfriend is one of my biggest inspirations.” Could anyone admit anything anymore of a romantic? Adorable!
“He’s a musician, and plays folk music,” she goes onto explain. “Its funny you know, because we’re sitting there in the same room, he’s singing a beautiful song, and I can’t shut my ears and just stop listening. We live in a crazy house, I’m either sitting in the dark room or painting or processing photos, and he plays his music. We have the same music taste, and especially enjoy a band called “Coil”. They have such beautiful lyrics - so poetic!“
Her vigilance to gain recognition as a unique talent means she works twice as hard on shoots. “If I’m not happy, it is very clear,” she admits. “I only work with certain stylists, there are some which I trust so much!” The choice of models, set, and hair and make-up are all integral components to the creation of the composition envisaged in her mind. “I try not to compare my work to anyone else’s, I’m doing all I can to avoid similarities, and try make every shoot different, by using different papers and colours.” she says.
“If influenced at all by another photographers work, I love Joel-Peter Witkins.” Witkins is known for his interest in corpses and death, resulting in “scary but mesmerizing images.” A true martyr for the beauty of analogue photography, she similarly expresses her admiration for the romantic, soft aesthetic of Italian Vogue’s Paolo Roversi’s work, and consequently blows the trumpet for film photography in an unrelenting fashion, while clawing at the cold nature of digital commercial art. She concludes, “More people should be doing this kind of thing!”
It seems days off are something of an alien concept to some as passionate as Paulina, she lives and breathes her work, immersed in experimentation and new ideas. Her eyes glisten with anticipation as she explains her decision to return to university, to study photography at Middlesex, in order to gain access to a large variety of materials and darkroom facilities. “I don’t have the money to explore into the cameras that much,” she says. At the moment she uses a 35mm Nikon f2, a medium format Hasselblad – “the first camera taken to the moon!”- and a large format camera.
“ I think every camera brings its own beauty, and I would love to experiment. Hopefully at university I will be able to.”
She practically bounces off her chair in explaining her next venture, developing photographs onto glass, an old photographic process that dates to the 19th century called The Collodiun Process. “You just sensitise the glass with iodine, and collodiun, which is a medicinal juice used to treat wounds on soldiers, and expose it to UV rays,” she explains. The process of achieving the image is much slower, so the light, when it changes creates these beautiful shapes and shades, and imperfections that are really beautiful. There is nothing like it!”
She goes on in her charming gush of excitement, “I’m planning a strict art project which will be about human disfigurations, and imperfections. Disfigurations of the body shot in a fashion style! I can’t wait for the reactions!”
She begins to stack up her photographs, slipping them into their plastic sleeves with precaution and loving care.
“I can’t imagine doing anything else,” she admits. “If they don’t want me in fashion I will go back to art. Either way, I’m never going to resign in doing what I love.”
There are up to 15,000 bodies buried beneath the Borough, just off Redcross Way; the inspiration for Ballad Of Petra Doe. An unconsecrated graveyard for prostitutes… and they’re going to build on it. Sign the petition here for a public memorial garden so that the outcast dead aren’t forgotten. Read more on Ballad here.
RIP x
