"Everything is autobiographical here, as Alexander is "committed to bringing as many lights outside the studio as possible" - recreating studio aesthetics to "complex-ify" his lighting, the simple flash will no longer suffice. Although it's simple, Alexander forewarns "we're no longer within simple times." He's sworn to "entering the world of the hat", (a reference to Stephen Sondheim's song Finishing The Hat, a classic tune all about the reverence of everyday objects) and in the process, Alexander is tailoring each subject to its setting, finding each item or person's most interesting light."
"Evidently, Alexander's storybuilding skills are exercised in a diptych of photos that show a funeral and a birthday, both equally solemn, emotionally vague, intimate but also faraway. There's worry in the water and something in the air in New York City - and Alexander communicates it, whether it's through the narrative thread that effortlessly ties everything together, the jobs and routines and lives of transients, the invisible, but deeply felt, waveforms of city-life."
"Theatre plays a character in these photos - "a face you cannot read is theatre, it is life, it involves the viewer," says Alexander, as the strange beauty of death and another rotation around the sun somehow become one in the same. "I've always been pretty committed to visible, liminal emotionality. Raised in theatre, I enjoy the task of squeezing everything I've loved about that ethereal, ephemeral theatre into stock-still and palsied photography. I'm just tryin' to getch-ya to look a while longer.""
Lighting is treated as a complex craft, with studio aesthetics recreated to bring more light into the world and to move beyond simple flash. Subjects are tailored to their settings so each person or object receives its most interesting light. A diptych pairs a funeral and a birthday, both solemn and emotionally ambiguous, creating intimacy that still feels distant. New York City is portrayed through worry in the water and something in the air, communicated through narrative threads that connect transient jobs, routines, and lives. Theatre is used as a lens for presence, emphasizing unreadable faces and involving the viewer. Visible, liminal emotionality is pursued by translating theatre’s ephemeral qualities into still photography to hold attention longer.
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