Ep 017: Alexander Saladrigas
A SHOT: So to start, can you describe this photo that we’re going to talk about?
ALEXANDER SALADRIGAS: This is actually an image I took most recently. It was an advertising job that I ended up creating this image for, which is why I wanted to talk about it because, a lot of times, images like this are mostly either personal work or some kind of editorial work, so it’s really special to me because I was kind of given the freedom to create what I wanted.
So this was shot, I wanna say it was in December. And it was shot for Nordstrom. The interesting thing about this project is that they kind of came to me and really the only thing that they told me was that they just want me to make people feel good when they see the photo. When I heard that from the client, I just got a lot of ideas, and the next part was trying to explain to them the idea or concept and seeing if I could trick them into letting me do it.
So how does your process start then?
For me, it was first thinking about the things that made me feel good. And obviously, that’s kind of tricky and hard to do when you’re stuck inside, right? But I kept going back to thinking about being a kid and thinking about how — even though this pandemic is impacting kids — as a kid, you know, life is just simpler. You just enjoy things, and I just remember I could be, like, gaming or throwing a ball or doing whatever with my friends or with my family or brothers. Really the idea for this and what I was thinking was how do I bring back those childlike or childhood moments that adults and kids could still feel joy doing, and then how do I portray that indoors because I knew that we were going to be shooting dead of winter. So I started thinking how it would be really unique to try to do things you would normally do outdoors and do them inside.
How receptive were they when you pitched that?
They were very much supportive of like, “Hey, we want you to really push yourself and do what you want,” so it was really nice to hear that, but yeah, anytime you hear that, you still have to wonder how far are they gonna let you go. So for me, the interesting thing was trying to figure out how to pitch it where it didn’t sound kinda crazy. You still have to keep in mind what the demographic or the end consumer is for this product. But yeah, they were super receptive. I don’t think they knew what they were gonna really get, but they definitely loved the mood board that I put together, which was basically references of old images of young kids in the ’50s flying kites and weird stuff like that I found on Pinterest and just doing a lot of research.
I find it interesting that I didn’t — I see it so clearly now — but I didn’t even understand this as somewhat of a pandemic-inspired campaign. What do you like about that balance there? Because I’ll watch TV at night, and all you see are things that have some kind of COVID element to them. But here you’ve managed to figure out a clever way of tapping into the feelings of it without being literal with it.
Yeah, exactly. One of the things we did talk about between myself and the client was the idea of this whole pandemic advertising and how people are really overdoing it and it’s all about staying at home with nowhere to go but you’re dressed super nice or whatever. So I love that you said you really didn’t see that at first but now that I explain it, you are kind of seeing it. For me, it’s like I feel like I would have shot this even if there wasn’t a pandemic. When I approach my work, I always try to find ways I can add a little bit of humor but also a bit of a theatrical feel to the photos. So something like this, where it just feels like, “Why is she inside flying a kite?” is something I definitely would have done regardless, but at the same time, it was just a perfect opportunity to create it because of the pandemic.
And I think the nice thing that it toes the line with is that something like this has the potential to be really corny, and it’s not.
Yeah, you know it’s funny you mention that because I feel like that was my fear. I feel like it could have gone down the wrong route pretty quickly. With that said, I feel like I love this image because it feels like it’s a part of me and also a different part of me at the same time, and it feels like it was pushed a bit more into a magical type of feeling. And I made sure that throughout the images that I did shoot — I know we’re just talking about this one — but I did make sure that throughout the photos I did pull back a little bit on the fantasy of things so it didn’t feel too fantasy-like.
I always think that at some point when you’re avoiding that cheesiness factor in an image, a lot of it comes down to your references and your taste. What kind of things were you looking at for inspiration?
I shoot all on film. We handprint the images, so it’s pretty traditional the way I work. So because of that, I like to look at old references. The mood board is really just a bunch of old references from the early 1900s. You’ve got the traditional young kids running in a field with some kind of kites, and they’re not even really flying the kite. They’re just holding it and running. And then I had a bunch of other references that were different things, like I had a reference for a trampoline, a bunch of kids jumping on a trampoline. Like, I even had a reference for pogo-sticking, like old-school pogo-sticking. Really, it just kind of first came to me in my brain and how I saw it, and then it was like, “Alright, how do I find these images? Do they even exist? How can I show someone what I’m thinking?” And then obviously I had to write a little bit to explain how I would create this, and in there, I was able to gear them toward more of a modern vision of what I’m lookin’ at.
The interesting thing for me in that is you’re not giving them fashion images.
Yeah, I know. It’s definitely interesting, and you know, I’ve gotten to a point now in my career where people like to send me my own images for references, so clients will hire me and say, “Here, we love all these photos of yours. We wanna do something like this.” So it is nice to get that because you’re not looking at other photographers’ or your peers’ work, which is definitely what I was getting at the beginning of my career. But whenever I have to come up with a new idea or something, I don’t like to reference my own work because I feel like I don’t wanna keep creating the same thing. I wanna create something new, something fresh, put a new perspective or spin on something, so I like to go and just look at things that happened over the last 60, 70 years and then see how I can translate that into a new point of view, basically. Yeah, it is tricky for clients sometimes to kind of see it. And even for me sometimes. This is definitely not what I thought I was gonna end up with, but it’s exactly what I wanted in many ways, so it’s quite funny and interesting.
So what’s your setup for when you’re taking a photo like this?
Because I’m shooting on film, I like to use continuous lighting, so almost like if you’re on a movie set, for example. The lighting in this scenario comes from continuous light on my left side. So I’m taking the photo pretty much straight on. To my left, there are a few continuous lights set up, and they’re going through a scrim or some sort of diffusion so that it’s not too strong because I don’t like the images to look really, really lit. I want there to be a balance because, in this scenario, I have natural light coming in through the windows. So I wanted there to be enough light that you know it’s lit but where it doesn’t overpower the scenario and you lose the shadows and the feeling of the room. And then I did have, just because I really wanted to emphasize the mood of the talent, the model, I did have a specific smaller light that was just for her face, so right over my shoulder, there’s a light specifically for that going through a softbox.
Is this in a location, or did you build this as a set?
So the interesting thing about that is it’s a location. So the location, the walls and the roof and the floor was there, the carpet, but everything else in the picture was put there. My girlfriend’s a set designer and prop stylist, and she’s also the model in this picture, as well. She is a model. She’s done very well, but she’s always been an artist, just inside. The pandemic hit, and she started thinking about, “Hey, I kinda wanna try new things. I wanna do different things.” So I brought her on as a set designer slash prop stylist. So the last five or six jobs or shoots I’ve done, she’s kinda done it all. And what’s nice about that actually is obviously she’s in my head, so she understands me I think more than anyone else. When we’re working together, she just has a really great eye as to pieces and things that can work, and she understands how I shoot.
So, like, that couch, she literally spent a week looking for that couch. We wanted a printed couch. We wanted an interesting design. And it was like the perfect couch that I could ever imagine. And she also hand-made the kite, so that kite was hand-made the night before, actually. The table was thrifted by her. The newspaper — and I can go into a bit deeper as to why we used newspaper for the kite — there was also some newspaper on the table. The little cloth that you see under the apple bowl — which, by the way, that’s just a vintage bowl that I have in my apartment; my girlfriend loves vintage everything, so we thought it would look really nice — but the cloth that you see under it is her grandma’s, and her grandma is about 101, so that thing’s probably very old. And we got really lucky: The frame was there. We didn’t do a scout, but we had pictures of the location, so we knew kind of what was there and how we could use certain things. So about a week before, we started sketching on the actual images of the location, like, where we would put the couch, where we would put certain things. We kind of sketched an image that looked like this and bought it to life.
So what is the significance of the newspaper?
I feel like news is the fastest way to feel bad about yourself or what’s going on in life. They never tend to tell you the good stuff, always the bad stuff. So we wanted to subliminally turn that negative thing into something positive because it’s just sending a message that you can turn things that you’re receiving negatively into something that’s very positive, so here she’s flying this kite and enjoying herself. I don’t know if a lot of people are going to understand that when they see it, but hopefully when they hear me talk about it, they’ll get it a bit more.
So then how quickly do you take this photo?
I actually did a few different scenarios of this photo. I guess the best way I can explain it is I like to work in a sequence kind of way. I like to do multiple options in a certain look so if I love the look… And I knew going into this that this Simone Rocha look was one of my favorites. I wanted to try out two magical ideas that I had, and I actually kind of kicked myself at the end when I did see the photos because there were two really good ideas, and I could have just used a different look for the second idea. But I just really wanted to nail this image. So this one was the way we first started off, so I probably shot this for maybe 30 or 40 minutes, just trying to get it all right, everything situated, and then once I felt like I had it, we had three Dalmatians show up, and I did this exact look with three Dalmatians, but there was no kite; there was no table. It was just a last-minute “I need dogs” kind of thing, and my producer was like, “You need dogs? It’s two days ’till the shoot. What do you mean you need dogs?” and I was like, “We need Dalmatians. That’s it. We just need ‘em.”
So when you’re working on this for 30 minutes before you start moving on to the next steps, what’s taking 30 minutes?
A lot of people have never really seen me work, but the way I work is I like to find an angle of where I feel like the best shot can come from for the specific scenario I’m in. So once I figure that out… Which for this one, I just liked a very straight-on shot because I wanted it to feel almost like almost you were sitting at home looking at a TV screen or you were sitting in an audience at a theater and you’re just kind of watching a show. I didn’t want it to feel like the photographer was playing tricks with the lens or was trying to get a warped photo from below. I just wanted it to feel like, as far as my point of view, it was simple.
Once I figure out where I wanna be, the next thing that’s important is for me figuring out number one, the pose that I wanna capture, but also does it make the outfit look good as well because we’re also still selling the clothes, right? As much as I’m trying to play to my vision and my dreams and everything I’m trying to create, I’m also still thinking about the client and for her body and for the shape… This is a pretty tricky outfit. It can get really big quickly on certain angles. This felt like the nicest shape that we could create, so to get here, we tried different poses and angles that — not my lens, but her moving around — that just didn’t work with the clothes I felt, so once I figured out how the clothes looked best, then it was all about getting the kite and the string and everything to be perfect.
So when you’re doing that, are you just kind of moving and not shooting?
Yeah, some people tell me that I shoot like old photographers. I don’t have the camera on a tripod for this shot because I had enough light that I could hold it, but people that are on set with me for the first time, they will sometimes mention to me that I work kind of like the older guys, where the camera could have easily been on a tripod and I’m just directing and creating the scene and what I’m trying to do, where I know a lot of other photographers are more engaged, so they’re just trying to get the picture as they’re moving and taking the photos. But yeah, I think that because I didn’t have a lot of money when I was first starting shooting film and when I first started shooting film, which was 2017-ish, it wasn’t as popular as it is now where everyone’s trying to shoot film and you’ve got all these labs and all that kinda stuff… So at that time it was still kinda risky to be doing it. You know, obviously not wanting to spend all of your money — you still have to pay your rent — I kinda slowed down and really focused on how to create images that didn’t cost a lot. It still sticks to me to today, so that’s kind of how I still work.
How important is play to your work and where does that manifest itself here?
So what I do is I actually have the model or the talent that I’m working with move around and do a bunch of things, I’m just not taking pictures. I’m watching. I’m watching, and I’m seeing. I don’t even look through the lens yet. At that point, I’m really just looking to see what I find interesting, so I’m almost looking at the situation like a movie. I’m just in there watching. And I’ll say, “Keep moving. You’re on the left side; go to the right side or the wall. Sit on the couch. Jump on the couch. Jump off the couch. Lean this way. Do this, that.” And then maybe I’ll say, “Okay, now do it with the kite, and let’s see how that works.” You know, it’s definitely important to have that synergy or that play between myself and the talent. In this case, obviously, it’s my girlfriend, so there’s a really close connection that we have, and to be fair, when we casted this shoot, I actually put up a bunch of different talent and models, and Nordstrom came back and was like, “Hey, if you wanna shoot your girlfriend, we would love that.” Obviously they’re being COVID safe. They just knew we had a really good connection and synergy. We’ve taken other photos that people really love, so that kind of made me excited.
But in general, there’s something that’s really important, and I think you kind of create that in the beginning. I like to be very human-like when I first meet someone that I’m working with, kind of be honest with them and let them know that number one, they’re the most important thing for me on the set and then obviously that I want to push to create the best thing I can create but that I will be very open to them and how they’re feeling. And I think that when they hear that and they know that you’re there for them and you’re there to work together, that’s a really nice synergy and a great start to a shoot day. Once we’re working, I give people direction, so there’s this play between me and the subject where they have direction from me, but at the same time, I do let them feel like what they would do as that character that I’m trying to explain to them. Sometimes I’m not even behind the camera. I’m actually in front of the camera, talking to them, and they’re talking to me as they’re acting out what I wanna see. So I’m able to see what is happening before even taking a photo, and if it feels good to me, just standing there then I know, okay, I can go behind the camera, and I can start taking these pictures.
I really love how much this photo plays and interacts with the edges of the frame. What do you like about that here? It’s such a dominant element of this photo.
I feel like most of the time, you don’t see this kind of framing. Obviously there’s a lot of space on the couch. Your eyes can get drawn there for sure. But I think that the power of her outfit and the kite, the posing and her expression, even the hair — I love the hair. The way that the hair is put together in this image, I just really love the shapes that we get in everything. So I think it’s sometimes you have an image that’s really strong, and it can live at the edge of the photo. And you also have that [picture] frame there, which is kind of interesting because it’s like these little angels that are just looking and watching her which is kind of interesting and a whole ’nother element. I don’t want it to feel like she’s actually running around this apartment with a kite. So I like the weirdness of it floating above her. Obviously, the chandelier is allowing that to happen. I really love the minimalism to what I’m trying to create but yet it’s not a minimal photo.
How important is the idea of outside to the image?
Very important because I think when you first see this picture, you kind of wonder like, “This is cool. Why is she flying a kite indoors?” And that was the shock that I wanted to capture for people. Yeah, before the fashion element or anything like that, like anything else sunk in… Because, obviously, when you start looking at the photo, you start to realize like, “Oh, look at the outfit,” and even the outfit kind of matches the couch, and the couch kind of matches the floor and the walls. There was a lot of thought that went into all of it. But I think it’s really important for people to understand that what I was trying to invoke first was the “Wow, that’s so cool or so different,” or “That’s so interesting,” and the way that I look at it, right, is like, if I was walking on the streets, and I’m talking about we just got out of this pandemic. Let’s just say things are getting better, and you’re out shopping or you’re strolling around let’s say Fifth Ave or whatever’s happening there, are you going to stop if you see a photo on a window or on a billboard that’s just another photo we’ve seen for the last five, 10 years? It’s just someone twirling a dress or holding a dress. That stuff, to me, doesn’t really pull you in. I feel like right now it’s so important to create stuff that’s pulling people in and giving them that moment of happiness or joy or excitement or a lot of those things that we’ve been missing. I knew creating an image like this would do that.
There are certain elements of this photo where I can feel the fact that it is photography. The little bit of a bend toward the bottom right corner gives me an idea of the presence of a lens being used. Obviously there’s a surreal element to this. But how much of this feels real, and how much of that is balanced by the idea of something that’s been created?
It’s funny because a lot of people have told me — and it’s a weird thing to hear because I feel like my work is nothing like this person’s — but some people have said some of my work can remind them of Tim Walker a little bit. But what they say is where Tim Walker creates fantasy, and so he warps everything and it’s an entire, just a whole different dimension or world that you’re looking at, they say that my images have a feeling of that, except for it feels very real. And so, like, even though this can have a bit of a fantasy to it — obviously, flying a kite indoors is kind of a fantasy — it’s still shot in a very realistic way. It’s still shot very real. The person looks human. I’m not desaturating them or warping them or whatever. The posing is super simple. It’s the kind of posing you would see in images from the early days, from some of the biggest photographers that we know existed. So I’m not really pushing the envelope and trying to create this surrealistic type of environment. I’m actually trying to create a photo that any person from any walk of life can look at, find interesting and be like, wow, they can actually see that. Like, you could walk into your house and see that happen.
Let’s talk about the crashing elements in this image, too. Because I see the kite against the chandelier, and my first thought is an art director on set being like, “Can the kite just be moved a bit to the left because there’s so much space right there?” Other than just logistically being able to stick it to the chandelier, what do you like about its placement?
We tried placing it in a couple different areas actually. What I like about the chandelier and the way it plays a roll in this picture is that number one, it’s not on, which is kind of odd, right? It’s the centerpiece of an apartment or a living room, so that’s kind of odd. And then number two, what I find really interesting is kind of how the… Well, the dance between the chandelier and the kite, right? So a couple things came to mind when I saw this placement on the chandelier. The logistics of you flying a kite in your house, it’s probably going to get caught against something, a ceiling fan or a chandelier. So I thought that was kind of funny. So that’s kind of the humor that I always talk about how can I get a little bit of humor in the image.
That started in late 2017, early 2018, when I was really deep into shooting a lot of fashion stuff, and I was traveling a lot and didn’t have a lot of time to breathe, to be honest. And I started to think like, “Wow, they take fashion so serious. People are too serious with fashion.” So I started to add things to my photos that felt like I was almost creating a little bit of a joke or a little bit of humor or something. For me, that idea invokes that.
And also, I like that it’s not perfect because I feel like the more perfect that this photo becomes, then the more fake it feels. Then if it feels fake to me, then it’s not buyable, and if I can’t buy the idea, I don’t like the idea, if that makes sense. It’s really weird because there are so many things that go into an image that we don’t even think about when we’re creating it. But then later on, you look at it, and you’re like, “Yeah, I probably wouldn’t even have wanted to print this photo if it didn’t have all of these things in it.”
What does color convey in this image?
Color’s a big part of my work, actually. There’s a lot of photographers who shoot black and white mainly, or even have a blend of black and whites in their images, which I find really beautiful. But for some reason, I haven’t really dove into playing around with black and white. I really wanted to find a relationship between my work and color from the very start. So now, it’s 2021, and I finally feel like the colors in my work are very cohesive and you find them throughout all my images, which is something I’ve been working for.
I don’t like things to feel too poppy. But I don’t like things to be too muted. So I feel like there’s a really great balance that we have here in this image. The color tones and the vibe that’s happening feels very similar throughout the range of colors that we have in it. But yet, they do feel very strong on their own, which is kind of interesting, right, because they’re very similar tones. The touch of the apples was just to kind of, not brighten the room up a little bit because, obviously, it’s not a bright red apple or something, but you know, it’s a nice green and played off a little bit from the [picture] frame. The frame had a little bit of an undertone of a yellowish green in it. So we tried to play around with that and add it into the frame a little bit more so it didn’t feel like the greenish-yellowish tone of the frame on the left drew your eyes too much. There’s a nice balance there with the colors. So yeah, a lot of that was thought about as we were putting together this frame.
How would you describe the emotion in this photo?
I love the emotion, actually. It’s very strong, and she seems very focused, just like exactly what I wanted it to feel. She forgot about everything else that’s happening in the world, and she’s just flying this kite. I think she did a really good job in making us feel that. It doesn’t feel awkward. It doesn’t feel like it’s something she shouldn’t be doing. It feels like she does this on a daily basis. She’s super into it.
How did your collaboration with your girlfriend start?
Well, we started working together early on as photographer-model. We first met at a Whole Foods in Miami, actually. She had just been discovered [as a model] a few months prior, and she’s from Iowa so kind of Middle America. So [her agency] sent her out to LA. She was in LA for, like, two months, I think, and then they sent her to Miami. Usually when models first get signed, they get thrown around to a couple different places, just to see where they work best. So I was in Miami at the time. I hadn’t even really taken my career that serious. I was shooting already, but I wasn’t thinking about a full-time career or anything like that. So we met at a Whole Foods, which is very weird but a great place to meet. And we started collaborating early on.
We would plan shoots and do shoots together, and they were nothing great, but you have to start somewhere, so what’s really interesting is we both kind of moved to New York at the same time. So we’ve been following each other and helping each other grow throughout the last seven years of our journey. So I’ve seen her do amazing things in modeling, and she’s seen me achieve many dreams that I’ve wanted to achieve in photography. I think what really set in stone us working together was we did a cover for Ukrainian Vogue, and she’s kind of on the ground, and there’s a [sculpture of a] black panther behind her, and it kind of went viral. To this day, people tell me that they love that image. So we just work really well together.
Sometimes she’ll say that I’m a bit…that I’m very stuck in my vision. In the beginning of us working together, I didn’t give her much room to explore herself in the image. I was very much like, “You gotta do it like this. Do that.” So I think she was a bit frustrated the first couple of years. But I think I’ve learned to pull back and not be so harsh or controlling about what I wanna create and really work with someone to create that together, and this is a true collaboration.
What do you think Alexander 10 years ago would think of this photo?
I don’t think he would understand this photo. Ten-year-ago Alexander was taking pictures of his cat and some flowers and maybe his girlfriend at the time. He couldn’t fathom where he would be today in photography, and I don’t even think really he understood… You know, I tell people all the time: I’m Latino, and I was raised by my grandmother, who came from Cuba. There wasn’t art and things like that in the household. I didn’t understand that you could be a photographer. You could make money. You could have a living. I didn’t know that. All I know from since I was a kid is hustle, right? Hustle, hustle, hustle. And that’s kind of what my family had always had to do. So yeah, 10 years ago, it wouldn’t even be in my mind. But if you would have asked me a few years ago, maybe my girlfriend would have said that she believed in me. She’s always been a big fan and has always pushed me. And because of her pushing me, I believe that I am where I am. You have to have tough bones to be in this industry, but it’s always nice when you have someone that’s supportive.
What have you learned that’s given you the instinct to take this photo specifically?
Technically, I’ve learned a lot to be able to take this photo. That’s for sure. Technical growth happens just over time. So technically, I probably couldn’t have done something like this or didn’t understand how to do something like this five, 10 years ago. Today I can kind of do this with my eyes closed. I would say that the relationship between me and the subject is something that I’ve learned over time. I’d say working with sets because sets are not easy. Sets are tricky. Sometimes you get into a situation where the set’s setup, and then it just doesn’t work. So it’s very tricky for me…
I used to always be the type of photographer that wanted to use natural light, that wanted to go into a location that already had furniture, that already had existing stuff because if it was already there, then most likely it was working already because other people have worked in these spaces. Most of the time when you find a location, you’re not the first one to shoot it. I always wanted things to feel natural, which I do still want that in my work, but I mean “natural” in a way that felt almost easy, right? I just wanted to make it easier on myself to win, to take a great photo. To do something like this, which is very intricate and you’re thinking about a lot of elements and you’re having to work very closely with the set designer, prop stylist, and with the actual stylist for the outfit that’s gonna work for this look because none of the other outfits would have worked here; they would have just been a mess... All of that is years and years of learning and working and experience.
I always used to tell myself, “Why is it that the photographers who assist Steven Meisel, when they leave, that they start getting work like crazy or they get signed by the biggest agency?” and I always kinda found that kinda dumb. Isn’t it better if you did it on your own because then an agent would say, “Wow, this guy had to fight harder to get to where he is — or this girl or this person had to get to where they are — because they had to figure it all out? And if you can figure it all out, you have some serious talent.” That’s how I always looked at it.
So to close our conversation, what’s something unrelated to photography that’s been feeding you creatively lately?
It’s hard to say unrelated to photography because I will be honest: One of the things I’ve been really trying to figure out the last year has been my personal journey as far as personal work. This is kind of a mixture between non-photography and photography, and the reason why I say that is because I’m going down this personal-work journey where it has a lot to do with my real father. So my real father wasn’t in the picture when I was young. He actually wasn’t in the picture at all until I was around 21 and he reached out to me on Myspace. Then we had a few meetings, but it just didn’t really work out. I think I was still angry about the situation. So now that I’m 34, I’ve kind of revisited it, and it all happened during the pandemic.
My mom, she wasn’t at work, so she’s more at home and she’s like, “Hey, I found these letters that your dad wrote,” and my dad had written me a letter — me and my brother, individually to each of us — a letter when I was around 3 years old. And he was in jail at the time when he wrote it, but the interesting part about the letter is that it was the first time I could see how my dad writes. I’m 34 years old, and I’ve never seen my dad write. I didn’t know what his writing looked like. I didn’t know what was his tone in the message. I didn’t know if he spoke in English or if he spoke all Spanish, or if he was writing in Spanish or English. And what I come to find out is he was writing in Spanglish, which is both Spanish and English. I found that to be so interesting because I don’t know much about him. What happened was that letter was really powerful, and it wasn’t anything that he wrote. It wasn’t poetry or anything like that. It was just really honest, like, “Hey, I’m in a place that I don’t really wanna talk about, but when I get back I wanna see you. I miss you. I’m sure we’ll be together soon,” but it was all in English and Spanish and it was a mix.
So the first time I’m reading this, it starts to paint a picture of my dad back then that was completely different from what I had maybe perceived him to be like. I’m thinking this cold guy, just didn’t wanna be in our lives. And so as much as a lot of that is true, it is nice to read a letter and for a split second see him in a different light, understand that at one point he really did feel like he was a father and he did love us.
So it sparked this entire conversation with me about how an image or even writing can change the way you view a father. I know it sounds weird or a little bit hard to understand, but basically, I’m working on a bunch of personal work that has to do with dads, and it’s the relationship between father and children, and so it’s interesting because I’m trying to tie it into fashion as well because, obviously, I’m a fashion photographer.
So we’ll see. We’ll see what happens. My plan is to hopefully release a book by the end of the year or by next year at some point. That’s where my energy is coming from right now, so whether it’s commercial work or something’s happening in the world, my focus is trying to put this together and really create it. It’s giving me that driving force that I haven’t felt in a long time.
Interviewed on March 3, 2021.
(This transcript has been edited for brevity.)
Links:
Alexander Saladrigas
Taja Feistner
Nordstrom Spring 2021 campaign