"When I first met Alexander he was photographing a wedding. When I ran into him again it was at another wedding where he was the photographer. I always wanted to know just how he felt about the whole process because it was clearly his career and a big part of his life.
When we finally had a chance to talk about it he was very honest about it. He told me stories about how things can go wrong and how they can go right. He told me about about the honing of his skills, the risks that he has taken, and the big leaps in creativity that sometimes hit him out of no where.
All that was informative and began to form a picture for me of what his vocation was, and how he accomplished it but there was still a big piece missing. The motivation. I do a lot of things in my life because I believe they should be done but the best things I do have true reasons and passion behind them. I wanted to know what the driving force was. His answer was "the people I get to meet." It seemed very matter of fact, kind of a usual answer. Who doesn't like working with people?
When I began to work with him I began to understand that it was different than I had thought. I began to read the emails that people sent him, inquiring about his photography, them wanting to meet him, wanting to hire him to photograph their special moments. The way that they wrote to him was different.
Over the years his photography developed into a specific art, and there were a few years that we can call the wandering years. Up to a point in time he had been experimenting wildly, trying so many things, putting himself out there to see what happened, traveling across the world to see how everyone else lived, how everyone else got married. Then when he gathered all this together he began to develop it all into the work that he creates now. It's specific and is driven by specific things.
Relationship, storytelling, and realism. Anticipation of moments in time.
Now his body of work doesn't appeal to everyone. Now it reaches out and grabs people by the heart and a connection is made. And that's what he meant by 'the people I get to meet'. Because now he gets to meet people that see his work and say 'that guy. that's the one we want.' And he gets to do his best work because he has gotten that great 'yes', that confidence from people who say 'do your thing because we love it.' Photography has two really important aspects; those behind the camera and those in front of it. And when the ones in front of the camera trust the ones behind it then it makes all the difference in the world."
"I started second-shooting for Alexander last wedding season, after four years of training and post production work. I am in the moment in my development that I am copying his style and developing my own, but I have so much joy that I get to follow behind for now, to watch and to learn, and I am so excited to see what our life has in store for us!"
-Miriam
