Interview with Photographer Alexander James
Alexander James has recently relocated from Australia to the UK and has been shooting for over twenty years as a commercial advertising and fine art photographer with past clients including Samsung, Versace, Shangri-la, and Ermenegildo Zegna to name a few.
He has had his work featured in Qvest Magazine, Creative Review, Designscene, Design Week and Schon Magazine.
What is interesting about Alexander’s photography is it is always presented ‘as shot’ without cropping and post production. In his work he has featured a lot of beautiful landscape pictures and also photography which captures certain random themes. A particular Sketchbook favourite is his photography of taxi signs at night in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Shanghai, which were all shot hand held on medium format and the images illustrate Alexander’s fascination with the urban energy of taxis at night.
Can you remember the first time you picked up a camera and have you always been interested in photography?
I can go one better than that - here I am aged four and a half, with yes you guessed it a pink camera. All through my teenage years I was messing with camera’s wondering why I could not take a decent shot until i became a dive photographer in the Caribbean - film is so unforgiving when you haven’t got a clue……
You recently relocated from Australia to the UK. Where was it you grew up? And what drew you to move to the UK?
I am a Londoner originally, but I moved away over ten years ago - spending time living in New York, Tokyo, Paris and Sydney, Australia. I got back to London just over a year ago - and I can honestly say I am thrilled to be back. There is such an earnest willing to collaborate in London which is hard to find anywhere else in the world right now.
Where do you find inspiration in everyday life?
One of my biggest sources of inspiration is to simply stop what you are doing, take a deep breath and look around. It is amazing what you can find as a complete surprise even in the most familiar of spaces. I am always trying to spend my time interpreting what most people simply walk right on by without ever noticing.
I particularly loved the pictures from your portfolio ‘Taxi’,what is it about taxi’s in Tokyo and Shanghai which interest you? And would you like to get images of taxi signs from other areas of the world?
I have shot this series in virtually every city I have ever been to, but Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo just do it for me. There is such an explosion of light interaction between the neons of the city and the reflective surface of the taxi, all focussed around their own illuminated piece.
You explore some pretty interesting environments in your pictures, such as a lot of landscape pictures and shots from the underground. How do you like to display everyday in your own unique way of photography?
Most of my landscape work is un-choreographed and I rarely take more than one shot of each subject, which on transparency film can be quite scary - but I find it is the best way to get an immediate response to a scene - then quietly moving on to the next.
You have completed work with various clients and different forms of editorial work. What type of photography interests you most?
Right now I am re-starting my fashion interests, we have some very fixed ideas of what we want to shoot right now and there are some amazing concepts and this can only be undertaken with a profound technical imagination. I am just itching to get onto it, I am so lucky to have such an amazing team.
A lot of your work you say you present ‘as shot’ without any post production. This is a particularly interesting aspect to your work as a lot of photography nowadays tends to rely on the editing of pictures. Do you feel this creates a more personal aspect to your photographs and do you not believe in editing photographs once they are taken?
All of my commercial work is exposed to all manner of post work from CGI to your usual photoshop editing. With my personal work I believe in presenting only what I captured originally. With that in mind all of my personal works without exception are always presented ‘as shot’ without cropping or post production of any kind. I see the process as cathartic rather than a critical one, and this dedication to ‘in-camera’ purity establishes a predominant focal point for my practice. It can play havoc with things but it can also provide a very fluid feel to my work which acts like a chameleon allowing me to interpret a scene in any style that I happen to find there.
What has been the greatest highlight of your career so far?
Tomorrow, no sense sitting around talking about your laurels - I believe my next shoot will always better the last - its been that way for over 20 years now and I am stunned at what we are capable of producing these days - it’s just getting better and better….
What projects are you currently working on?
We are pushing ahead with the Water Parkour series, we have a couple of highly stylized fashion shoots on right now and we are shooting a beautiful series for a charitable christian group - remaking scenes from the old testament. The most amazing part of my life’s work is that I never know what’s around the corner - fantastic.
What do you hope to achieve in 2010 and where would you love to see your work featured next?
I really want my work to be seen by some of the institutional curators, I have never sought any institutional critical review before but I have been thinking about it a lot recently so I must act on that. Perhaps the reason I haven’t before is that they might not get it, that’s ok I guess. But I should face up to that possibility and get on with it.
Text: Russell Arkinstall
Photography: Alexander James
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