ALEKS BLACK
I’ve been photographing people since I was in middle school. Even then, I loved the candid shot—the moments when people weren’t posing, weren’t thinking about the camera, and were simply being themselves.
Years ago, I hired a photographer to photograph my own family. When we got the pictures back, my first thought was:
This isn’t us.
The pictures were fine. But that wasn’t how we dressed. It wasn’t how we acted. Somehow, it didn’t even feel like how we looked. They were photographs of us, but I didn’t recognize us in them.
That stuck with me.
It also helped shape the kind of photographer I eventually became.
I don’t want to make stiff photographs of people trying desperately to look natural. I want to get past that part. I want the expression that happens between poses. The laugh that wasn't planned. The moment you stop worrying about what your hands are doing and forget about the camera for a second.
Because whether I’m photographing a portrait, a professional headshot, or a room full of people at an event, I’m ultimately photographing the same thing:
People.
And the best photograph, at least to me, is the one where you look at it and think:
Yeah. That’s me.