Alejandro Cartagena
Fine Art | Last Updated: April 4, 2024
I live and work in Monterrey, Mexico. My projects employ landscape and portraiture as a means to examine social, urban and environmental issues. My work has been exhibited internationally and is in the collections of several museums including the Sfmoma, the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Portland Museum of Art, the Museo de Arte Moderno in Rio, Brazil, the Fototeca de Nuevo Leon, Mexico and the Fototeca Nacional in Pachuca, Mexico.
I started taking pictures in 2004-2005 with a Minolta 35mm. I basically left my old life behind and decided I wanted to be an artist. I got a job in a public photo center because it was clear there were no real schools here in Monterrey to actually learn fine art photography and that led me to work there for 5 years.
I specialized in digitizing the archive and reprinting old pictures. I fell in love with the physicality of the photograph and the idea of creating work as an author. During this time period, I shot with a Mamiya RB67, a Sinar 4×5 Camera. By the end of the 5 years I started curating exhibitions and decided to do a Master degree in art. During all that I was doing my personal projects; photographing people and landscapes.
Now I am happy to be able to just live from shooting my personal work and some assignments. I bought my first “serious” digital camera during this time. I was going on a shoot to Cuba for Wallpaper magazine and just fell in love with the Canon 5D Mark II. I always have a sense of amazement when I see the images on the computer. That camera is a bomb.
It’s been a short ride but I felt I had little time to actually do something in photography so the gas pedal is still all the way down when it comes to learning and doing projects.
Check out these 8 essential tools to help you succeed as a professional photographer.
Includes limited-time discounts.
