ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN DE MODE OF LITERATURE JAN-FEB-MAR 2022 (Vol V, Issue XXV) | Article Published on: 9TH JAN 2023 | www.demodemagazine.com
Photographer Alexander is an advertising fashion photographer, visual designer, and artist, with more than 10 years of experience in the creation and production of campaigns, graphic pieces, and audiovisual solutions for models, people, and companies in Bogo
JOURNEY OF PHOTOGRAPHER ALEXANDER ALEJO (in his own words)
It all starts with my eternal curiosity towards creation, in wanting to communicate in different ways my perspective of the world that I live in and that I share with people. For this reason at a very young age, I found graphic arts and alternating with music the best tools to transmit what my restless mind, builds without stopping. In the national university after studying for a diploma in digital photography, I found a connection that allowed me to communicate and explore other expressions. I started with conceptual photography where art was always the inspiration. Time after studying visual design, I found more and more tools to enhance this medium of expression where the mobile image, design, and animation among others became my work and my life. Time after working for a Colombian fashion magazine, I found a school of photography specializing in fashion and advertising although my opinion towards fashion was not the closest, I discovered that I could implement a stamp, leave a mark, and communicate with the body and its acting with its expressions and combined with a styling could build a differential, investigating the environment.
I found various references that enhanced and enriched this thought and stamp that I have always wanted to implement and that this is who speaks for me. That is who builds and is the protagonist who conquers various places and media. Now I can say that after many years of struggle (which continues) I can say that I am a photographer of editorial fashion with a little more than 10 works published in international media around the world, including DE MODE.
Always working with impressively talented people, beautiful and original, showing that you can travel without boarding a plane to embark on a ship, that your work transcends borders and that these allow you to be eternal. That's why I'm fighting, that I want now if I board those flights and sail those seas, to conquer these squares and so be able to build more editorials, work on more campaigns and continue telling stories through the models that pose for my lens. In increasingly diverse scenarios, with garments and designers, with make-up artists and assistants, with comfort and discomfort, with sun or rain with heat or cold, where there is some light there, we can compose and propose everyday bold photographs, much more elaborate, that break schemes and say that fashion photography is not perfect, that my photography is and will be irreverent, but with purpose and concept, not an empty one that does not communicate, A photograph that contributes to the brands and my clients, to my models and collaborators, that more and more places and landscapes, that more and more faces and their expressions accompany me.
SERVICES OFFERED BY PHOTOGRAPHER ALEXANDER ALEJO
Services he currently provides are fashion photography, advertising photography, commercial photography, product photography, campaigns, as well as audiovisual production for companies and individuals.
ALEXANDER ALEJO'S INTERVIEW WITH DE MODE
Q: What was your first thought when you started photography?
A: Trying to decipher the first thoughts is a complicated task because in my head came up and came up various thoughts, some of amazement, others of questioning some epic and even absurd. The only thing clear is that my mind wanted to continue... I wanted that feeling in my head... in my hands and eyes!
Q: How do you as a photographer make sure that the thing, person, or landscape you want to shoot looks the way you want it to?
A: To assure it is complicated, but I always trust that a good direction, good planning, and above all a good attitude contribute to a great result, however, we will always have to overcome the fears or limitations of our models and contribute to these through a sample of how they look before the camera is great therapy, for them.
Q: From your point of view, what makes a good picture?
A: A good image is one that manages to transmit feelings whether positive or negative, that allow you to investigate, question, and even bother, there are good photographs because if your image has a concept or an intention and someone expresses it there you achieved a great image.
Q: What is your favorite subject to photograph?
A: Without a doubt, I would say that fashion photography, but not the perfect fashion that everyone talks about but the real fashion, the one that has no margin of perfection that does not limit the model, nor the styling that does not put in perfect locations and neat a perfect model, but the one that allows you to tell and transmit that allows you to explore art, fashion, commercial and what does not fit.
Q: Since photography techniques and equipment change quickly, it is important to stay up-to-date. What do you do to always keep up with the times?
A: Clearly it is an important and necessary factor, but it depends on you as a photographer to know how to do and know how to be, if for various reasons you do not have enough money for the last category of equipment, you must make the most of your equipment, but you must always investigate, study and implement new techniques and even try to be one step ahead. But becoming a photographer is a long road and brings with its equipment and techniques.
Q: Nowadays almost everyone has access to devices with which it is possible to take pictures. What do you think is the difference between a professional photographer and any other hobby photographer?
A: The difference is in the eye that is behind each tool, be it a mobile device or a professional camera, if you know how to communicate if you know how to compose and if you know the technique and most importantly you have the sensitivity that makes you a real photographer.
Q: Are you a detail-oriented person?
A: I would not know how to answer this question, the client has a need and we must meet that need, but from my perspective, it is important to give opinions and advise our client.
Q: Which one is your favorite lens and why do you prefer it?
A: Without a doubt the 50mm 1.8 allows you to do many things, it is a beautiful lens to portray, a lens with bokeh on its point, additional it is versatile for photo and video and is a perfect lens.
Q: Who influenced you the most? Is there any other photographer that you consider a kind of idol?
A: One of my most important references is without a doubt the master Peter Lindbergh, who allowed me to question myself in what I do today, the treatment of light, the direction of models, his spots, and his look is something that inspires me and challenges me to be a better photographer every time.
Q: Among your works, which one is your favorite? Why?
A: A publishing house that I managed together with a great team majo Barbosa, Marija, and my younger brother, where each one inspired and contributed his contribution to achieve some incredible photos that managed a publishing house and a back cover for an Italian magazine.
Q: What, in your opinion, is most important to consider while shooting portrait pictures?
A: Capture the essence of whom you have in front of you to get that person to open his soul and allow you to capture it.
Q: Which editing software do you usually use? As for how good would you describe your skills in that software?
A: Photoshop and lightroom are my main working tools for post-production that I use, I'm interested in using them and getting the most out of them so I study these and their infinite possibilities and tools without leaving others like lain aside I'm beginning to investigate it.
Q: In your free time, what kind of pictures do you like to shoot and which ones do you avoid?
A: I think I still have a lot to prove as far as photography is concerned I love to capture and compose, maybe political photography is something that doesn't kill me, but it is even a challenge to me to prove what that is.
Q: How do you feel about working with DE MODE?
A: It was a rewarding experience that I would like to repeat and that I hope will be accompanied by good rewards, I expect a new project soon.
