The Things That Remain: Photography, Memory, and the Act of Looking
I have never been particularly interested in photography as a way of demonstrating what I know. I am more interested in what I do not entirely understand, in those moments when something in front of me produces a feeling that precedes thought. A photograph often begins there, in the interval between seeing and recognizing, between the world as it appears and whatever it happens to awaken in me. And after years of working as a photographer, I have come to understand that having a photographic language does not mean having arrived at a definitive understanding of one's own work. If anything, the opposite is true. The longer I photograph, the more I find myself returning to certain questions. What makes an image stay with us? Why does one ordinary encounter become meaningful while another, apparently more extraordinary, leaves us indifferent? And how much of what we see belongs to the world itself, and how much comes from the accumulation of things we have already seen, read, heard, loved, and lost? I don’t believe that photography can be separated from the rest of one's life. The camera is only one instrument through which a much larger experience finds its way into the world.
I was three years old when I went to Sardinia with my parents. It was the only time I ever visited the island, and what remains of that journey is not a sequence of images or a coherent narrative. It is something much less reliable and, perhaps for that very reason, much more persistent. So I remember the smell of myrtle carried by the wind. I remember going with my father up the mountain near Birori to collect water from a spring. I remember being called inside a cave, where a man gave us an entire basket of prickly pears. Whether every detail has survived exactly as it happened is almost beside the point. What matters is that these fragments have remained with me, detached from the ordinary mechanisms of recollection, preserved somewhere between experience and imagination.
Today, living in Mexico, I eat prickly pears and find myself thinking of Sardinia. The taste brings back the red earth I remember seeing there, the landscape, the particular quality of that distant place. Two territories separated by geography and by the greater part of my life suddenly become connected through something as simple as a fruit. I find this extraordinary. A sensation can survive decades without asking permission from memory. It can remain dormant until an apparently insignificant encounter brings it back. The present becomes a passage through which the past returns, not as a complete story, but as a physical presence. Perhaps this is one of the reasons I photograph the world as I do. I am drawn to things that carry more than their immediate appearance, to places that seem to contain traces of lives I cannot fully reconstruct, to ordinary situations that awaken an inexplicable familiarity. Sometimes I feel that I am not photographing something new so much as recognizing something I have encountered before, even when I know perfectly well that I have never been there.
The camera cannot recover the past, but it can give me a way of remaining attentive to the sensations through which the past continues to exist. This relationship between experience and recognition has also shaped my understanding of photography as a sign. Charles Sanders Peirce's semiotics offers a useful way of thinking about the photograph as something that points beyond itself. An image does not exist in isolation. It establishes a relationship between what is visible, what it represents, and the person who interprets it. Photography is particularly fascinating because the image is not simply a sign of something. It is also the trace of an encounter with something that existed in front of the camera. Yet the presence of that trace does not guarantee a single meaning. A photograph can record a place without explaining it, preserve a gesture without telling us what preceded it, or show a face while leaving the person's life almost entirely beyond our reach.
Roland Barthes understood this ambiguity with particular sensitivity. In Camera Lucida, he describes the photograph as “literally an emanation of the referent.” I have always found this idea compelling because it returns photography to something physical. Light once reflected from a person, an object, or a place reached a sensitive surface. Something existed before the image, and the image carries the trace of that existence. But a trace is not an explanation. Barthes's distinction between studium and punctum is important to me precisely because it acknowledges that a photograph can contain something that escapes the intentions of its maker. The punctum is not necessarily the main subject, nor is it something that can be manufactured through a set of compositional rules. It is the detail that unexpectedly pierces the viewer, establishing a personal relationship with the image.
What moves one person may leave another indifferent. What I recognize in a photograph today may be entirely different from what I will recognize in it ten years from now. The photograph remains the same, but the person looking at it has changed. This is where photography becomes inseparable from memory. The image does not merely preserve something that happened. It enters a new life, acquiring meanings that were not available when the shutter was pressed. I don’t want to eliminate this uncertainty from my work. I would rather leave room for it. My encounter with Oaxaca began in 2015. Since then, my relationship with that part of Mexico has developed through successive visits, each one adding something to my understanding of a territory that continues to occupy a particular place in my imagination. I love Oaxaca, but that affection has never felt like a conclusion. It is a relationship that keeps opening itself, revealing new details and new reasons to return. And there is a difference between visiting a place and gradually allowing it to become part of one's inner geography. The first can be an encounter; the second requires time. A place begins to acquire its own history within us, composed not only of what we have seen, but also of what we have come to associate with it, the people we have encountered, the light we remember, the things that remain unresolved. Oaxaca has become one of those places to which my thoughts return even when I am somewhere else. I do not need to be there to feel its presence. It has become part of the way I imagine Mexico, just as Sardinia remains part of the way I imagine childhood. The two experiences are radically different, but both remind me that our relationship with a territory is never exclusively geographical.
We carry places with us. We revisit them through memory, through photographs, through the smallest details that have somehow survived the passage of time. This is also why I am suspicious of the idea that a photographer must always approach a place as if discovering it for the first time. There is a value in unfamiliarity, but there is another kind of attention that develops through repeated encounters. Returning allows us to move beyond the first impression, to recognize changes, contradictions, and details that initially escaped us. It also allows us to recognize the limitations of our own perception. I am not interested in pretending that I can exhaust the meaning of a place by photographing it. I would rather accept that my relationship with it remains incomplete, and that this incompleteness is precisely what makes returning worthwhile. My own photographic formation has followed a similarly uneven path. In 2011, Los Angeles became an important turning point. It was there that my practice of street photography truly came into its own, almost as a baptism after several years of learning, photographing, and finding my way. For the first and only time in my experience of the United States, I felt what it meant to inhabit the world of street photography from within. I met and photographed alongside other photographers, sharing the streets and the experience of looking. There was a particular atmosphere to that moment, a sense of participating in a photographic culture that had not yet reached the worldwide expansion it would soon experience.
I don’t mean to suggest that street photography had not existed before, or that Los Angeles was the beginning of something that belonged to many generations of photographers. What made the experience important was its place in my own history. It was the moment when something I had been developing privately became, for a time, a shared experience. I became conscious of belonging to a community of people who approached the world through a similar impulse, even when their photographs and their reasons for making them were different from mine. Looking back, I can recognize the importance of that period without feeling the need to turn it into a legend. Every photographer has moments that acquire a particular significance in retrospect. They are rarely as definitive as they seem at the time, but they help us understand how a practice takes shape. And Los Angeles gave me a sense of arrival, but it did not provide a final destination. The years that followed continued to change my relationship with photography, gradually moving my attention away from the need to define myself through a particular genre and toward a broader understanding of what it means to work as a photographer.
Today, I am less interested in being identified exclusively with street photography than in the possibilities of photography itself. Documentary work, portraiture, editorial assignments, and personal projects are not necessarily separate territories. They can be different ways of investigating the same fundamental questions: how people inhabit the world, how places carry evidence of human activity, and how an image can make us attentive to something we might otherwise have overlooked. Cinema has been central to the development of this sensibility. I have always felt close to Mario Monicelli's I soliti ignoti, a film whose humanity emerges through imperfection, absurdity, and the distance between what people imagine themselves to be and what they actually are. Its characters are neither heroes nor symbols. They are people attempting to negotiate life with the means available to them, often with very little success. There is something deeply photographic in this understanding of human behavior. The world is not composed of protagonists who know their roles. People hesitate, improvise, contradict themselves. They are ridiculous and tender, selfish and generous, sometimes within the same gesture. A camera that allows these contradictions to remain visible can tell us more than one that insists on making its subjects coherent.
François Truffaut's The Man Who Loved Women has a different but equally important place in my imagination. What interests me is not simply the film's portrait of desire, but its understanding of looking as an appetite, a form of movement through the world. To look is to be attracted, distracted, disappointed, fascinated. It is to pursue something that may never become entirely comprehensible.Photography shares this restless quality. The photographer moves through the world looking, but the act of looking is never neutral. We are drawn to certain faces, gestures, and arrangements of space because something in them corresponds to a private constellation of experiences. We may recognize the attraction without being able to explain it. Dino Risi's Il sorpasso has taught me something about the visual character of places and the relationship between people and their surroundings. Its roads, interiors, beaches, bodies, and landscapes belong to a world in which modernity arrives through movement, appetite, and a peculiar mixture of exhilaration and melancholy. The film understands that a landscape is never merely a landscape. It is also a social condition, a way of inhabiting time, a stage upon which people reveal themselves without necessarily intending to. I am drawn to this capacity of cinema to make an environment inseparable from the people who pass through it, even when those people occupy only a small part of the frame. The world surrounding a person is not background. It is part of the portrait. This is particularly true of places altered by human presence. A building, a road, a commercial sign, a vacant lot, an improvised structure, the remains of an earlier use: these things describe our presence even when no one is visible. The landscape becomes a record of human decisions, ambitions, failures, and desires. Sometimes the person is absent, but the evidence of a life remains everywhere.
Literature has offered me another way of approaching these traces. Nabokov's Lolita is a disturbing demonstration of how language can shape perception, how seduction can be constructed through the very act of narration. Its brilliance is inseparable from the moral danger of its narrator's gaze. Humbert attempts to control what we see by controlling how he tells us to see it. The novel forces us to confront the difference between looking and understanding, between aesthetic fascination and ethical judgment. For a photographer, this distinction matters. The ability to make an image beautiful does not automatically make the act of looking innocent. Nor does visual sophistication guarantee honesty. Photography can reveal, but it can also persuade, conceal, manipulate, and turn other people's lives into material for the photographer's own mythology. Alberto Moravia's Agostino belongs to a different emotional territory, one in which childhood encounters the adult world and discovers that experience is more complicated, and often more painful, than previously imagined. What stays with me is the fragility of that passage, the moment when familiar surroundings acquire an unfamiliar meaning. Something changes, although the world itself may appear unchanged. And perhaps, this is close to what I seek in photography: not the illustration of a particular emotion, but the instant in which an ordinary reality becomes strange enough to be seen again.
Music reaches me through a similar route, although it often bypasses language altogether. Luigi Tenco's melancholy, Gino Paoli's intimate understanding of desire and everyday life, Mina's extraordinary ability to inhabit a song, and the emotional landscapes of French chanson belong to a part of the creative process that is difficult to explain in purely visual terms. A melody can return me to a place I have not visited in decades. A voice can restore the temperature of an afternoon, the atmosphere of a room, the feeling of being young and not yet knowing what would eventually become important. I may not remember the precise circumstances in which I first heard a song, but the sensation survives. Sometimes it becomes stronger than the memory itself. I think of the smell of myrtle in Sardinia, of prickly pears eaten in Mexico, of a song whose melody suddenly transports me elsewhere. These experiences belong to the same territory. They remind me that memory does not always preserve events in the order in which they happened. It preserves fragments, sensations, associations. It allows apparently unrelated things to coexist and, sometimes, to illuminate one another. My relationship with photography is grounded in this same openness to what is already there. Luigi Ghirri taught me to recognize the extraordinary possibilities of the ordinary, and to understand that the world does not need to be spectacular to become visually compelling. His photographs suggest that looking carefully is not a passive activity. It is a way of discovering relationships that were present all along, waiting for someone to notice them.
Stephen Shore offers another kind of attention, one that allows the apparent neutrality of a place to reveal its complexity. A street, a room, a meal, a roadside building: the ordinary world becomes a subject in its own right, without requiring the photographer to transform it into a spectacle. There is a particular freedom in this approach, a refusal to assume that significance must announce itself through dramatic light, unusual subjects, or carefully manufactured compositions. Josef Koudelka has shown me a different intensity, the capacity of a photograph to hold physical and emotional tension without resolving it into a comfortable narrative. His work reminds me that a photograph can be uncompromising without being illustrative, and that the relationship between the individual and the surrounding world can carry a weight that extends far beyond the immediate scene. With Garry Winogrand, I find the exhilarating instability of looking in motion. His photographs understand that life does not arrange itself for the camera, and that the attempt to impose too much order on experience can become a way of avoiding experience altogether. There is a willingness to accept the unpredictable, to photograph before everything has settled into an easily understood arrangement. These photographers do not offer me a single method to follow. They represent different possibilities for remaining attentive to the world. Their work has helped me understand that a photographic language is not necessarily built by repeating a recognizable visual formula. It can emerge from the consistency of one's curiosity, from the kinds of relationships one notices, and from the questions one continues to ask.
Over time, I have become increasingly interested in the photograph as an immediate response rather than a construction designed to demonstrate mastery. I am drawn to a directness that does not exclude thought, and to an apparent simplicity that may contain years of accumulated looking. I prefer the image that retains something of the uncertainty of the encounter to one in which every element seems to have been brought under control. This doesn’t mean that decisions are unimportant. On the contrary, restraint requires decisions of its own. It means that I am wary of confusing technical refinement with expressive necessity. The photograph does not become more truthful simply because it has been made more immaculate. Sometimes the smallest intervention is enough. Sometimes the image needs nothing beyond the decision to recognize that the moment has occurred. My preference for working with a single camera and a single lens in personal projects is connected to this conviction. Limitation can be liberating because it reduces the distance between the world and the act of photographing it. Familiarity allows me to concentrate less on the equipment and more on the situation unfolding in front of me. It encourages a certain economy of attention, a willingness to accept what is available rather than constantly searching for a more advantageous position. I am interested in photographs that retain the character of an encounter. The gesture that is not quite complete, the expression that has not yet settled, the relationship between a person and an object that may last only a fraction of a second. These things cannot always be anticipated, and I have little desire to make them conform to an ideal of perfection. The photograph is made in a moment, but the photographer arrives at that moment carrying an entire life. And this is perhaps the most important distinction between collecting images and developing a personal practice. We all see things. We all encounter faces, places, and situations that could potentially become photographs. What differs is the network of associations through which these encounters acquire meaning. A childhood memory, a line from a novel, a scene from a film, the voice of a singer, the light in a room remembered from years ago: all of these experiences remain somewhere within us, often dormant, until the world offers a point of contact.
I don’t always know why I photograph one thing rather than another. I can explain my choices afterward, and sometimes those explanations are accurate. But I have learned to distrust any account of the creative process that makes it appear more deliberate and coherent than it actually is. Understanding often arrives later, and even then it remains provisional. There is a temptation, especially after years of working, to turn one's experience into a set of rules, to define a style and then protect it from change. I understand the usefulness of having a recognizable language, but I do not want that language to become a closed system. A photographic practice must remain capable of surprising its author. Otherwise, it risks becoming a repetition of its own achievements. I photograph in color and in black and white because neither is, for me, a universal solution. They are different ways of relating to the world, different forms of attention. Color can carry the weight of a place through its particular relationships, through the way surfaces, objects, and light coexist. Black and white can redirect attention toward other relationships, but it does not automatically make an image more essential, more serious, or more honest. The choice must emerge from the photograph itself, not from a hierarchy imposed upon the medium. What interests me is not the demonstration of a photographic identity, but the possibility of extending it. To remain recognizable to oneself without becoming predictable. To work with a certain economy of means while allowing experience to complicate the results. To accept that the same world can produce radically different photographs depending on the state of mind with which one encounters it.
Perhaps, ultimately, photography is my way of negotiating the distance between experience and memory. The camera cannot return me to Sardinia, restore the afternoon when I walked with my father toward a mountain spring, or recover the precise feeling of eating a prickly pear as a child. It cannot contain all that Oaxaca has come to mean to me, nor can it reproduce the particular sense of recognition I experienced in the streets of Los Angeles in 2011. These experiences belong to different times, different places, and different versions of myself. Yet they continue to coexist. The taste of a fruit can make a landscape return. A familiar street can awaken the memory of another continent. A photograph made years ago can reveal something I was unable to see when I made it. The present and the past are not always as separate as we imagine them to be. Of course a camera cannot preserve the world as it was, because the photograph itself becomes part of another time, acquiring meanings that were not available when it was made. But it can leave a trace. A person was there. The light fell in a particular way. Something happened between one moment and the next, and for reasons that may never be entirely clear, I felt compelled to acknowledge it. The resulting image may mean something different to me tomorrow, or to someone who has never shared my experiences. It may contain details I did not notice when I pressed the shutter. It may become important for reasons I could not have anticipated. I find this uncertainty reassuring. It means that a photograph can continue to exist beyond the intentions of the person who made it. It can become part of another person's memory, another person's imagination, another person's understanding of the world.
I don’t expect photography to explain life to me. I would rather it keep me attentive to its contradictions, its ordinary beauty, its moments of absurdity, its silences, and its small, almost invisible ruptures. I want to remain receptive to the things that cannot be planned, to the sensations that arrive without explanation, to the memories that emerge from a smell, a color, a face, or a particular quality of afternoon light. After all these years, I still find myself photographing in order to understand what it is that makes me look in the first place.
Alex Coghe, Mexico City 2026
Gonzography: When Presence Becomes Language
Gonzography: (noun)
A photographic approach pioneered by Alex Coghe, emphasizing raw authenticity, spontaneity, and a deep connection with street and other subjects. Derived from the Spanish word "gónzo," meaning quirky or unconventional, and rooted in the spirit of Hunter S. Thompson Gonzo Journalism, gonzography embodies a style that transcends traditional boundaries, focusing on capturing through the direct experience of the photographer, unfiltered moments of life and human expression. Breaking away from mainstream narratives that often involve photojournalism and giving emphasis on cultural insight, the gonzographer challenges mainstream photographic norms by delving into the raw essence of street and documentary photography, reflecting the photographer's intimate relationship with his subjects and their environments. In Alex Coghe's mind this term encompasses all his photography (including intimate portraits), as an authentic reflection of his life, of a photographer and writer who lives a reality and narrates it, carefully avoiding the search for the exotic, bitterly fighting the colonialist gaze, and the lens-based approach of many photographers that are worry more about the settings of their cameras than the life around them.
TO BE A GONZOGRAPHER
In photography, especially in photojournalism and documentary, there’s often a search for objectivity. Particularly widespread in Street Photography the idea to be invisible, to disappear behind the lens. But what if presence is the point? What if the photographer’s idea, contradictions, biases, and the direct experience are not only unavoidable, but essential to the final image?
That’s where Gonzography comes in. A term I coined, rooted in the spirit of Gonzo journalism by Hunter S. Thompson, it reflects a photographic approach where my unique perspective, emotional response, and very presence become an integral part of the visual proposal. I am not an outsider documenting a scene. I am inside the frame, even when I am not visible. I make you feel my presence, maybe only with a particular perspective or intentional camera movement.
Gonzography is not a technique. It is not a preset, a camera setting, or a composition rule. It is a philosophy - my philosophy and approach - raw, participatory, and unapologetically subjective. It rejects the illusion of neutrality and embraces the fact that every image I create is filtered through me: my stories, my geography, my personal mythology, what I am living, for real.
I don’t live in a nice place of the city. I am not a rich kid. I live in a barrio, a popular neighborhood in the north of Mexico City, near the border with EDOMEX. I am not the photographer who is always present and who waits for subsidies from the institutions. My idea of being willing to bleed refers to showing intimate aspects of my life through photography. I always have a camera with me. Mine is not a pose or an attitude, it is a way of life. I don’t accept a generalist narrative, but I offer my point of view, direct and not dictated by someone at the top, because I know is most of the time a lie. Because of my attitude and approach, I have been discriminated against and excluded from certain dynamics and I consider this a medal of valor for my fight against the system. Real journalism and real art are similar: they must be real opposition to the system.
In the street, this means I don’t hunt for perfection or wait for “the decisive moment” in the classical sense. I respond to the energy, the chaos, the rhythm, the accident. My photos are not just about what is in front of me: they are about what moves me. Sometimes it can be an expression, sometimes a shaft of light, sometimes a political tension simmering beneath a casual sidewalk interaction. The photo becomes a mirror of my state of mind as much as a record of the world outside.
Gonzography also breaks with the academic coldness often found in modern visual storytelling: yes, also in street photography I see a lot of image accountants, in a costant reasearch of the perfect and clean composition...so fuckin’ boring! Gonzography is an open door that allows emotion, distortion, and even contradiction. It allows me to be inconsistent, because life is inconsistent. It is photography with blood in its veins.
This way of working is especially present in my black and white photography: a choice that strips away the distraction of color and lays everything bare. It enhances the intimacy between the photographer and the subject, while adding a layer of timelessness and ambiguity. In Gonzography, the grain, the blur, the imperfect focus, all of it can carry meaning. All of it is part of the experience.
In a time when many photographers chase the algorithm, polish their feeds for sponsors, or imitate trends in hopes of visibility, Gonzography is my declaration of independence. I’m not photographing to win awards or please curators. I’m photographing to feel, to understand, to express. The result is not always beautiful in the traditional sense. But it is real. Honest. And, I believe, it is powerful.
Because in the end, Gonzography is not about the subject alone. It’s about the relationship between the subject and the photographer. Between the world and me. The camera is not just an eye: it is a mouth. A mouth that most of the time is not politically correct. It speaks not only about what it sees, but about who is seeing it. And who is seeing it is ME.
And that is the real truth of photography.
Deconstruction in poetry finds its photographic parallel in anti-composition. This is not, mind you, a simple denial of the rules. Rather, it is a different way of thinking and therefore observing. By not accepting - a true and genuine refusal -the pursuit of the canonical way of taking photographs, I affirm myself. Because for me, being myself within photography is more important. And I don’t care if many don’t understand me. There’s a priority that constantly demands space: personality. This produces a mental framework that shuns what is commonly accepted as “photographic beauty” and embraces becoming an author. Proactive and free to express my opinion. The harsh, unsightly shadow becomes aesthetic. The cut produces authoritative affirmation. I force you to enter my world, to the point of risking your escape. I don’t accept a usual and therefore convenient interjection. I claim my own language, right or wrong. And perhaps more wrong than right. My photography is my scene.
IRREGULAR SPACE
If there is something that truly interests me, it is friction. The image that does not flow smoothly, that cannot be consumed in a second. I want the gaze to stumble, to slow down, to feel resistance. Anti-composition is born precisely from this need. It is not chaos, not randomness, not pure instinct as it is often romanticized. It is choice. A decision made against visual automatism, against what we have been trained to accept as natural.
I do not seek balance, I seek tension. I am not interested in guiding the eye, I prefer to unsettle it. Because discomfort produces something. You stop looking in order to recognize and you begin looking in order to feel. The image should not confirm, it should destabilize. Even myself, first of all.
When the body enters my photographs, it is never there to be celebrated. It is not meant to be desired in the lazy, immediate sense of the word. It is presence. Weight. Occupation of space. A body that does not ask permission, that does not arrange itself to be read correctly. Cut, partial, sometimes uncomfortable. The body becomes narrative structure, not decoration. It is not there to please, it is there to speak.
And what does it say. It says that photography is not an exercise in style, but an act of positioning. I position myself within the image as I position myself in the world. Without seeking approval. Without softening the gesture. Hard light is not a lack of grace, it is a stance. It is the refusal of comforting illumination, the kind that reassures and flatters. My light does not console. It exposes. It reveals. At times, it wounds.
There is a deeply physical component in the way I photograph. I do not observe from a distance. I do not build a safety buffer. I enter, I move closer, I tighten the frame. The tight crop is not an aesthetic choice, it is a declaration of proximity. I am close to you, I take away your air, I force a reaction. You can stay or you can leave. Both are acceptable. Indifference is not.
A photograph that truly works, for me, is one that divides. That draws a clear line. I am not interested in unanimous applause. I prefer a strong reaction, even a negative one, over lukewarm approval. When someone says “this photograph is wrong,” I know I am on the right path. Because error, when conscious, is an immense space of freedom.
I do not believe in improvement understood as approaching a model. I do not believe in photography becoming increasingly correct. I believe in photography becoming increasingly necessary. More urgent. More aligned with the person who produces it. This is why my work does not seek a definitive form. It is unstable, mobile, sometimes incoherent. As I am.
Every image is a negotiation between control and surrender. I do not plan everything, but I leave nothing to chance. Anti-composition is a fragile balance between what I decide and what I accept. I know when to break a rule, and I know why I am doing it. And when I do not know, I prefer to stop. Freedom without awareness becomes noise.
My photography is a stage, yes, but not in a theatrical sense. It is a place where something happens. Where I expose myself as much as the subject. I do not hide behind the camera. I use it as an extension of my gaze, my character, my limits. I do not want to be invisible. I want to be present, recognizable, even when this carries the risk of rejection.
There is a subtle violence in all of this. I do not deny it. Photographing is an act of force. Even when it is delicate. Even when it is silent. I choose not to mask it. I prefer to make it evident, to assume it, to bring it into the open. The image becomes a site of confrontation, not an aesthetic refuge.
Ultimately, what I seek is not the right shot, but the true one. True for me, in that moment, under those conditions. Tomorrow it may no longer work. It does not matter. Photography does not need to be eternal. It needs to be honest. Even when it is imperfect. Even when it is uncomfortable. Even when it is more wrong than right.
Because it is there, in that irregular space, that I can finally be an author. Not because I sign an image, but because I take responsibility for what I say. My photography does not ask to be understood. It only asks to be confronted. And if someone chooses to turn away and leave, that is fine. The stage remains. The scene continues. I remain inside.
With black and white I escape from a world I don't like: sloppy, superficial, noisy and vulgar.
Black and white corresponds to entering a world apart, parallel, still cloaked in poetry and elegance.
WHY BLACK AND WHITE?
I live in a world that often feels like an assault on my senses: sloppy, superficial, noisy, vulgar. Colors shout at me from every corner, competing for attention, overwhelming me with their chaos. It’s too much. Sometimes it feels like I don’t belong here, like I’m out of place in this technicolor reality. And so I escape. I escape into a world apart, a world parallel to this one, but infinitely more quiet, more restrained, more elegant. I escape into black and white. In a more elegant world, listening jazz at night.
When I pick up my camera and look through the lens, I’m not just framing a scene, I’m already constructing an entirely different reality. It’s a world without noise, without excess, without the distractions that color so easily brings. In black and white, everything is simplified, reduced to its essence, but that doesn’t make it lesser. On the contrary, in that reduction, there is poetry. In that restraint, there is elegance.
I turn my back on the world as it is: the one that flashes and blares and tries to dazzle me. I want nothing to do with it. I create my own world with every shot I take. A world where light and shadow are the only languages that matter. A world where subtlety reigns over spectacle, and where the smallest detail, a wrinkle, a glance, the curve of a hand, speaks louder than all the noise of color ever could.
It’s not that I hate color. No, I know it has its place. But it’s become too easy. In this age of instant gratification, we don’t look beyond the surface anymore. We let color do all the talking, and we forget to listen to the deeper stories. In black and white, there are no shortcuts. You have to feel your way through an image. You have to stop and think, to really see. You have to pay attention.
Sometimes, I wonder if I chose black and white, or if it chose me. Did I step into this world because I was tired of the other one? Or was I always looking for a way to strip things back, to get closer to some truth I couldn’t find anywhere else? Maybe it’s both. All I know is that, with black and white, I feel at home. Here, there’s space to breathe, to observe, to discover beauty in simplicity.
When I capture a moment in black and white, I’m not just freezing time. I’m distilling it. I’m filtering out everything that doesn’t matter, leaving only what’s essential, the emotion, the structure, the core of the image. The distractions disappear, and all that remains is the truth, naked and raw. There’s something timeless in that, something that speaks to me on a deeper level.
In a way, today black and white photography is an act of rebellion. I dare to say that is a political act. It’s my way of saying no to the noise, no to the chaos, no to the vulgarity that dominates so much of modern life. It’s a refusal to be swept up in the tide of trends, the endless parade of colors that demand our attention but give us nothing of substance in return. I’ve never cared much for being part of the crowd, and black and white lets me stand apart. It allows me to return to something pure, something true.
Maybe that’s what I’ve been searching for all along: truth. Not the kind that shouts, but the kind that whispers. The kind that reveals itself slowly, over time, if you’re patient enough to look for it. Black and white is patient. It doesn’t rush. It doesn’t overwhelm. It waits for you to notice what’s really there, beneath the surface. It can be metaphysical and direct at the same time. That is perfect for my photography. I can see now that people gets my work better. While I showed last years that I can make a very good work in color, my choice reveals a decision, a precise decision that is better accepted: if you do both, people can't define you and this can also be detrimental in the business world. And I am a photographer who does this as a profession. My choice is certainly also linked to a discussion of a professional proposal because this decision encompasses all of my photography.
Black and white is my way of seeing, my way of understanding the world. It’s the lens through which I filter my experiences, my emotions, my ideas. It’s where I find meaning, where I feel grounded, where I can breathe.
So yes, I escape into black and white. Not to run away from reality, but to find a different one, one that makes sense to me, one that reflects the poetry and elegance that, too often, the world forgets.
AFTERNOON
There are photographs that scream and others that whisper. This one doesn’t ask for anything. It just exists, suspended between desire and indifference, the way reality often is when it stops pretending to be something else. A woman’s body, not nude, not dressed. A bed, floral, patterned like memory. The light filters in with that pinkish violence that belongs to certain afternoons in Mexico City, when the world outside goes quiet and the inside of the room becomes an entire universe.
People often look for the portrait in the face, but that’s a mistake. The portrait lives in the gesture, in the fragment, in the bruise that tells a story without language. This, for me, is a portrait, even if it refuses to behave like one. I’ve never been comfortable with the taxonomy of photography, with the tidy shelves of documentary, fashion, street, portrait. I prefer the blurred zones where meaning dissolves, where the image becomes the battleground of form and instinct.
Helmut Newton taught me that eroticism isn’t about the body, but about control, about the thin, dangerous line between power and vulnerability. Richard Kern, on the other hand, injected the dirt back into beauty, the noise back into the frame. And Efrem Raimondi, he’s the one who reminds me that photography must breathe, must offend, must never kneel to the predictable. They are not my teachers, but my conspirators. Their ghosts are always there when I shoot, whispering, pushing, daring.
Yet my real education came from words and cinema. Pasolini taught me that the act of showing can be an act of revolt. That truth, to be real, must come from the body and its contradictions. Carmelo Bene showed me the sacred absurdity of performance, that being human is already theater, that art is born from the refusal to make sense. Godard taught me to cut where I shouldn’t. To mistrust the narrative. To embrace the fracture as form. And Scola, Ettore Scola, taught me that the human comedy is always tragic underneath, that life is composition and chaos intertwined.
When I photograph, I don’t think in terms of capturing. I think in terms of revealing what’s left when everything has already been seen. The political element lies in that, in deciding what stays inside the frame, and what I leave outside. It’s a gesture of defiance, because to choose a frame is to declare where I stand in the world.
The body in this picture is not passive. It’s not an object for consumption. It’s a territory. It’s the map of something unspoken. The cigarette (that kind of…cigarette) in the hand, the nail polish chipped, the bruise on the thigh, they are not details, they are declarations. Small acts of resistance against the perfection that photography, an life, has been enslaved to.
I want my images to disturb comfort. I want them to smell of skin and dust and silence. Photography should be dirty again. Should risk again.
This photograph, like many I make, is born from refusal: the refusal to conform, to decorate, to please. I don’t want to make “good” pictures. I want to make necessary ones. Pictures that talk about the tension of being alive.
Maybe that’s why I don’t believe in genres anymore. Because I am a better photographer than being trapped in a classification. And because genres are prisons made of polite words. My photography stands where Newton’s eroticism meets Pasolini’s dirt, where Kern’s rawness crosses Godard’s poetry, where Bene’s delirium collides with Raimondi’s honesty. Somewhere in that friction, brutal, imperfect, human, is where I try to (r)exist.
Because the only true position for an artist today is to refuse.
To refuse the dogma.
To refuse the easy.
To refuse to be categorized.
And in that refusal, to find, even for a moment, something that still breathes.
AMBIENT LIGHT AND PORTRAIT
As a photographer, navigating the interplay between ambient light and the environment is both a challenge and an art. Whether working outdoors or within the confines of a specific locale, the variations in natural light become an integral part of the portrait-making process. Unlike controlled studio settings, here, you must adapt to what the environment offers, coaxing out the best from your subject while harmonizing with the surroundings.
Natural light encompasses the entirety of illumination present at a given place, time, and day. It’s a photographer’s task to decipher its nuances and leverage them effectively. Yet, equally crucial is the interaction with the individual being photographed. This person, willingly stepping into the frame, expects guidance and responsiveness to ensure their natural essence shines through.
Consider the scenario of capturing a portrait in a rural village like San Martin, away from bustling urban centers. Here, despite technological advancements reaching even remote corners, the approach differs significantly. The subject’s familiarity with being photographed may vary, shaped by local customs and personal comfort levels. For instance, in Tilcajete, known for its vibrant carnival and warm hospitality towards visitors, cultural sensitivity intertwines with artistic intent.
Reflecting on a recent portrait session, capturing the essence of a young woman in such a setting posed its own challenges and rewards. My aim was not to impose a conventional sense of fashion but rather to reveal her natural allure and dignity, akin to an indigenous princess. This approach eschews the glossy expectations of high-fashion magazines, opting instead for a portrayal that resonates with authenticity and cultural richness.
In the technical realm, the choice of a wide-angle lens allows for a broader embrace of ambient light, preserving the integrity of the environment while framing the subject with respectful distance. It’s about capturing the charisma and presence that initially drew my attention—a balance between the surroundings and the individual’s inherent charm.
Photography, especially portraiture, extends beyond mere documentation; it’s a dialogue, a visual semiotics where meanings are crafted and communicated. While critics might fixate on technical imperfections or idealized aesthetics, true portraiture transcends such constraints. It’s about conveying significance, embodying a narrative that speaks to the subject’s essence and context.
Ultimately, as a photographer, my role is to offer a perspective that not only captures but also interprets. It’s about translating moments into meaningful representations that resonate beyond the frame—a testament to the beauty found in authenticity and cultural diversity.
In conclusion, the art of portrait photography hinges on embracing the interplay of light, environment, and human connection. It’s a pursuit that requires not only technical prowess but also empathy, cultural understanding, and a keen eye for moments that transcend superficial beauty to reveal profound truths.
THE TRAGIC DANCE OF THE PHOTOGRAPHER
The photographer, an enigmatic yet grotesque figure, dances on the fine line between the present and the past. Immersed in fleeting moments, they manipulate light to freeze those moments that are destined to fade in the continuous flow of time. They are artisans of impermanence, aware that each shot is a pact with the past, an obsession with memory that crystallizes in grain and pixels.
The photographer is not merely a chronicler of the present; he is an alchemist of instant history. In his hands, the camera becomes a tool to capture the soul of today, weaving threads of emotions and details that future eyes will scrutinize to understand who we were.
In this dance between light and shadow, the photographer embraces their personal tragedy: being a witness to a changing world while trying to freeze it in static images. It's a struggle between the desire to stop time and the cruel awareness of its inevitable passage.
Thus, every photograph is an act of resistance against oblivion, a silent scream challenging time to erase what has been captured by the lens. In their gaze, the photographer continually renews the pact with the past, transforming the present into a mosaic of memories that defy time itself.
The photographer constantly deals with death. In doing so, they deny it, in a desperate attempt at immortality. Every click of the shutter is a challenge to fate, an attempt to fix the ephemeral in an eternal present. The camera becomes a sort of modern memento mori, reminding us all that every moment is destined to vanish, yet in film or pixels, it finds a new form of existence.
This battle against time is imbued with poignant poetry. Every portrait, every urban landscape, carries the awareness of human finiteness. Yet, in the cold mechanical click, there is human warmth, a humanity that shines through the lens. It's as if the photographer tries to hold onto a bit of life, a fragment of the soul, in the rigid and immutable frame of the image.
In their relentless work, the photographer confronts their own reflection. Each image is a window into their soul, an attempt to understand themselves and the world around them. Ferdinando Scianna, master of black and white, often spoke of this intimate relationship between photographer and subject, between capturer and captured. Just like Scianna, the contemporary photographer cannot escape this dance with death, this embrace with the infinite that each shot represents.
In every image, a truth is hidden that only the lens can capture. It is a silent truth, speaking through glances, gestures, shadows, and lights. The photographer is the interpreter of this wordless language, the mediator between the visible and the invisible. In their work, a constant tension is felt, a search for meaning that goes beyond mere visual documentation.
This quest for immortality, this struggle against oblivion, makes the photographer a tragic and fascinating figure. In their ongoing dialogue with death, the photographer finds a form of redemption, a promise of eternity that, even if fleeting, gives deep meaning to their existence.
The photographer, trapped between the moment and the eternal, not only faces death but also the superficialities of modernity. In an era dominated by algorithms and likes, the depth of photographic work risks being buried under a heap of fleeting images, designed to capture the attention of a distracted audience. The inequity of Instagram and social media, with their relentless pace and obsession with the new, often stifles what truly matters in photography: the ability to tell stories, evoke emotions, and stop time.
As a photographer, I confront this distorted reality daily. Photography, for me, has never been merely about aesthetics or popularity. It is a means to explore humanity, find beauty in the folds of everyday life, and give voice to those who often remain silent. My shift to black and white is not just a stylistic choice but a declaration of intent: to eliminate the superfluous and get to the heart of things. In a world saturated with gaudy colors and artificial filters, black and white becomes an act of resistance, a return to essence.
Instagram, with its relentless algorithms, rewards repetition and predictability. But true photography, the kind I love and practice, lives in unrepeatable moments, sudden insights, an unceasing quest for truth. It is work that requires time, patience, and a keen eye for detail. It is the ability to see beyond the surface, to capture the soul of people and places. Herein lies the tragedy of the modern photographer: struggling to maintain artistic integrity in a context that often neither understands nor values it.
I see photography as a form of dialogue, a silent conversation between the photographer and the world. Every shot is an attempt to better understand reality, to find meaning in the chaos. This approach sets me apart from current trends, where appearance counts more than substance, where the image is reduced to a commodity to gain fleeting attention. I seek depth, authenticity, that intimate connection that only true photography can offer.
The inequity of social media reflects a society that often rewards the ephemeral at the expense of the enduring. But in this disparity, I find my strength. My decision to photograph exclusively in black and white, focusing on portraits and street photography, is not just an aesthetic choice but a declaration of war against superficiality. It is a way to reaffirm that, despite everything, photography can still be a powerful means of expression, an art capable of touching the deepest chords of the human soul.
In this fragmented panorama, I remain a tragic and fascinating figure, a guardian of memories and truths. Like a modern Charon, I transport the souls of captured moments across the river of time, desperately trying to preserve their essence against oblivion. It is a relentless struggle, but also an act of hope, a promise that, despite the inequities of the present, the art of photography can still reveal the hidden truths of our world.
Mexico City, July 2024
It doesn't have to be real. It has to be photographic.
TACTILE
Have you ever wondered how photography can represent material? I do, and I do it constantly. For example, I don't do anything with photographs that are just figurines, and I care that you can live an experience to the point of feeling yourself inside the photo.
This thing has become for me a priority of intent that inspires me to photograph certain things and to ignore others. For example photographing, just to do it, a series of people walking in front of me appears to be a sterile operation, and I like it when I manage to solve a composition through an aesthetic reason that supports the content. In the material, and in an almost tactile experience, I find refuge as an observer and creator of images.
In this sense, with this mental and creative approach, the studies done on certain landscape photographers who are or were well aware of how different the photographic medium was for example from the pictorial, or television or cinematographic medium are revealing to me. In the awareness of the partial truth of photography, as far as we can explore with our subjectivity but also with an aseptic attitude, almost as an extraterrestrial one that is suddenly called to record scenes without showing emotions, we can understand how a place can be a revealing heart of a society and therefore of the space that surrounds us.
And the heart of the document is there. A document that can be passionate or algid, but always testimony of something and therefore useful to others to understand. The picture that bears a lot of information is the one I like most, which I study, admire and try to do.
COLOR
Joel Sternfeld, great master of color photography, says that photographers must choose their own palette, as painters do. What is certain is that color photography has always undergone the taste and preferences of the photographer. Think of the saturated colors of Werner Herzog, the yellowish and greenish dominants of Stephen Shore, the full-bodied reds of William Eggleston then taken up again by Wim Wenders in the exploration of the American West that finds its archetype in the film "Paris, Texas".
Moreover, the natural vision of the world can also be monotonous and devoid of that personality which helps us to recognize the style of a photographer. Today, photography is above all digital, photographers can experiment much more, no longer bound to the results of the films and processes, thanks to the controls with a post-production software. Several camera manufacturers offer their jpegs with various filters, but the danger is just around the corner: the risk of finding a visual homogenization is even more exaggerated and probable.
It is up to us photographers, through study and I dare to also say good taste, knowing how to choose our way of narrating and this goes through the photographers who prefer color with the choices that are made both at the time of exposing and photographing and later, in post production. I photograph directly in jpeg, which is not however how many mistakenly think "let the camera do". First of all because you work is more similar like once was with the positive film, because the jpeg allows you less flexibility in the file management, and exactly for this reason the choice must be careful and well thought out before shooting.
Many cameras today allow you to change the parameters of white balance for example, and get as close as possible to what is our personal vision. I'm here to write these thoughts that are best known to myself. Object of reflection and self-analysis, they reflect part of my concerns that I have taken a long time in photographing in color. Then it happens to find boxes of old photos: dominant red, green, even blue.
A chemical exasperation that didn't even depend on us and that fills memories of atmospheres and fills them with unreality, in the middle between dream and real life. The shots of my father in Sardinia with a Russian and red camera, for reddish photos of an even redder earth. Rocks smoothed by the wind that promise desert, while the smell of myrtle caresses the nostrils. Cork and salt. Flashbacks that I can't grab. It's memory and vision. Acid is the photograph I learned to love. And the analysis becomes revelation.
ETHICS
Ansel Adams gave great value to the technical mastery of his profession, carefully evaluating the nuances of light in the image, manipulating the degree of exposure and constantly experimenting with new techniques.
Altogether with Imogen Cunningham and Edward Weston, he founded the group f / 64, dedicated to what they called "straight photography", in contrast to the images staged and embellished. Adams was also fundamental to the establishment of the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art, and animated by a sincere environmentalist spirit he was responsible for the creation of ad hoc laws on the preservation of nature reserves. This happens when a photographer, with his activity, does not think only of himself, but uses the photographic medium with awareness, ethics and responsibility.
The act of photographing should never be a selfish act, but aimed at making society better. The photographer, in his best expression, is one who is in love with the world and life, genuinely and sincerely turned towards others, in a continuous communicative exchange. No matter what type of photography you do. Respect and healthy curiosity, openness to life and in favor of the world we live in should always be placed at the center of our actions.
THOUGHTS OUT OF TIME AND SPACE
When we think of a good photo in general we come to mind the photograph of a master whom we appreciate because we have studied it, it has become familiar and therefore welcoming, even when it appears unattainable.
A mental operation that commits us to research into the archive that we hold in our memory and that requires an effort aimed at remembering that image. I sometimes ask my students to remember a photograph they particularly like, to try to describe it to me as much as possible, explaining to me how many more details come to mind. It is a very useful mental path that leads those who are remembering the image to understand better not so much about photography, but rather about themselves and what they consider important in a photographic image. The cognitive aspect that leads us to be attracted to certain photographs and, before that, to certain visual messages is the basis of what we will be as photographers and what we will be led to tell. Moreover, this mental exercise is useful for training the brain in that fundamental task of reading an image, which will then become simpler when the photograph is physically under our eyes.
Doing this, of these distracted times and volatile memories, becomes a gym for our perceptive ability. And it will be very useful, at a later stage, as the creator of images, becoming, in fact, a precious tool in our photographic approach.
The question to be asked is: what do we want from our photographing? Do we want it to be art, document or what? Do we want to use it just to stay healthy? Do we want to do it to communicate something we have inside and feel we deserve to be shown to others? Depending on the answers we will give, we will have a clearer picture of the situation, and perhaps we will actually be starting to listen to our inner voice, the one that allows us to express what WE have to say.
I both as a teacher and as a content proposer, both as a writer and as a photographer, I believe that photography and words walk together and the more we know how to use one and the other and the more we will be able to create interesting content. No, I'm not talking about using descriptions or titles to give strength to an image, but when we aspire to express concepts through our images, we will also need to know how to describe and talk over our photography. Just think of a synopsis of a photographic project. When we are already projected towards a photographic project the only images will not suffice. And this even with the awareness that the act of photographing leads to sensations that often cannot be described with words, in this sense a metaphysical component comes into play, linked to atmospheres and perceptions, for example certain intimate childhood memories, something we cannot or cannot grasp with words, but remains suspended inside us, hidden within us, real but impalpable. The ambiguity of photography is part of his magic. It surprises his own author.
The more we focus on conceptuality, the more indispensable the word will be. And the word, which goes neither dodged nor disgusted, is today a saving oasis, which dissociates us from the oppression of non-thought, from shooting and not thinking, from that extreme aestheticism that conditions, impoverishes and consumes shared photography today on the net, flattening it into the banality of homologation, of visual homogenization, of easy consent. Unfortunately, fewer and fewer people are reading, let alone wanting to read about photographs. When a photographer rewards us with a long explanation, with a wise essay of the path that led him to a certain work not only highlights the research carried out and the knowledge of the proposed theme, but actually acts by digging into deeper channels, and this indicates respect in that particular relationship that is established between author and user.
The most outstanding authors of each art have been and are distinguished people, capable of engaging in interesting discussions in many fields. I'm sorry but for this reason I can't and I don't want to believe the ignorant and mute photographer, the one who has nothing to say if he can't do it through his photos. Henri Cartier-Bresson, Stephen Shore, Carmelo Bene, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Paolo Villaggio, the first names coming to my mind, names of artists that went beyond their specialization and that show how much culture, knowledge and well-speaking leads the author towards a different dimension, much more stimulating, multifaceted, innovative. At this point, perhaps, we can understand how improvised photography that arrives proposed by those who do not have certain processing abilities remains mediocre, without a future, comparable to a crust in a neighborhood market.
Today more than ever we must expect that there is substance behind photographs. Or better yet, that there is someone who is not throwing things at random, but who shows knowledge and culture that allows him to go beyond the aesthetic result. Thoughts out of this time and this space, on a hot Mexican afternoon.
Alex Coghe, 2019 © - All Rights Reserved
ABOUT STREET PHOTOGRAPHY
Street photography, bro, is a wild beast prowling the urban jungle, capturing life in all its gritty, unfiltered glory – from the ironic to the tragic, the unpredictable to the cruel, and yes, even the rare moments of beauty that can be found amidst the chaos.
As a street photographer, I've heeded the call of the masters: Lee Friedlander, Garry Winogrand, Stephen Shore, and Joel Meyerowitz. I've adopted their straight-shooting ethos, zeroing in on raw content and untamed stories, eschewing heavy editing and flashy effects in favor of unadulterated truth. Street photography, in my view, is not about pumping up contrast or concocting contrived shadows; it's about what the photographer's keen eye and lived experiences reveal in the streets. It's about capturing the genuine, unfiltered essence of what I've witnessed.
I make no grand claims of being a maestro behind the lens, but one thing I pledge is unwavering honesty, beginning with myself and resonating through my photography. Street photography, you see, isn't merely a photographic style; it's a state of mind, a perspective, a way of apprehending the world.
A street photographer's grind is relentless, a daily odyssey through the concrete labyrinth. It's both the simplest and most intricate genre of photography. Simple because all you need is a camera and a sturdy pair of shoes. Complex because it requires an intimate understanding of aesthetics, motivation, and lateral thinking. And in the end, it's all about crafting an exceptional image.
Street photography is an art form, shaped by form, content, curiosity, emotion, and a bold artistic spirit. The only rival is oneself. It's a genre in perpetual metamorphosis, a mirror reflecting society's ever-evolving facets.
When I think of street photography, I prefer to invoke the notion of energy. The concept of the decisive moment, once paramount, has yielded to a more nuanced understanding. Today, street photography is about capturing the urban pulse, the palpable tension coursing through our cities.
But remember, street photography is more than just capturing public spaces; it's about embodying the street itself. To borrow a phrase from Bruce Gilden, "If you can smell the street by looking at the photo, it's a street photograph." That's the essence of it. Without a profound connection to the street, one cannot truly master this craft.
There are no boundaries in street photography. Attempts to impose limits smack of academic rigidity, and street photography is anything but academic. It's a wild, untamed beast.
In the annals of street photography history, Joel Meyerowitz, Lee Friedlander, and Garry Winogrand are like Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Led Zeppelin for metalheads. You might have personal preferences, but you can't ignore these giants. And if I were to choose a bible for street photographers, it would be "The Americans" by Robert Frank, a tome of immeasurable influence.
Composition? Content? Vision? Aesthetics? To truly stand out in street photography, one must possess something else: ideas. Fresh ideas that yield new and audacious photographs, images that defy the ordinary. Without them, you're just another ordinary photographer. That's why I admire those street photographers who venture beyond the comfort zones, charting their own course. I aim to do the same, whenever possible.
As a street photographer, I straddle the realms of film and digital without prejudice or snobbery. Yet, I have a soft spot for manual settings and compact, lightweight cameras that allow for seamless interaction with the streets. My experience has taught me that the old ways often yield the best results in street photography. I prefer to zone focus and peer through an optical viewfinder, feeling the city's pulse with every frame.
I'm enamored with every facet of street photography. I live for those moments on the streets, where adrenaline courses through my veins as I prepare to snap the shutter. I relish encounters with fellow street photographers, sharing ideas and perspectives.
Street photography, my friends, is well-worn shoes. It's that cafe rendezvous with a camera resting on the table, gazing out the window, attuning to the city's rhythm. It's a smile exchanged with a passing stranger. It's about experimentation, embracing mistakes, and the unfulfilled shots that linger in your mind. It's like staring at the ocean, awaiting that perfect wave. It's about forging ahead, even when fatigue threatens to consume you. It's seeing art in the mundane, a form of artistic existence that borders on zen meditation. It's a solitary moment with yourself. Street photography is what I crave.
One of the most enchanting aspects of street photography is its refusal to conform to political correctness. If you seek politeness in this genre, you're barking up the wrong street. Perhaps it's time to consider joining a golf club, my friend.
Street Photography Thoughts
Street photography for me is simply my way of living and seeing the world. It is about going out with my camera always, even if I go to the supermarket, and capture what attracts me. Some people think it is a photographic genre. For me it is an approach and a way of living photography that allows me to never get tired of having a camera with me.”
Alex Coghe - From the interview by Sergio Burns on streetphotography.com
We can be street photographers without being constrained in a category. I think that is more important to talk about the experience as a street photographer and the concept to be there, to capture the moment. About to be into street photography genre… I have some issue with that, because it would limit our vision and creatively fence it in. When I go out on the street I am not thinking to respect some street photography code: I am on the street and I simply photograph what looks interesting to me. That’s all.
Alex Coghe
Street photography is both a school and a gym; the lessons learned and the discipline honed on the streets equip us to excel in any other genre we choose to explore."
Alex Coghe
The best street photography happens when you get into the flow, letting the street guide you.
Alex Coghe
"Street photography thrives in the flow, transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary. It's a deeply personal journey where the photographer's experience and creativity define the art, making it more a personal expression than a mere genre."
Alex Coghe
Street photography is not about showing off; it’s about seeing.
Alex Coghe
WRITINGS
A curated selection of essays, interviews, and articles written by Alex Coghe, exploring photography, visual culture, and personal research.