Alex as seen by Philippe Pourhashemi

Despite his slender frame, soulful eyes and soft features, you probably won’t notice Alexánder Castro Luque. He may know fashion better than you do and be equally passionate about photography as a medium, Alex works in the shadows. He’s the ultimate insider figure, happy to blend in with the crowd and stand into the background. He also knows what you’re wearing today -and he may have tracked you down in Paris, New York, Milan or Tbilisi- but do you even know what makes him tick? The answer is probably “No”. 

Having studied at Cambridge School of Art, Alexánder loves to capture the stylish, the rare and the beautiful ones, but he also has the elegance of the people he shoots. Rather detail-oriented, he can rely on his Spanish roots to give him that special sense of colour, atmosphere and composition. His life in London has made him even more bohemian and cosmopolitan, somewhat restless and rootless. Alex is the symbiosis of many contradictions and his energy is contagious.

Talking to him between shows, you might feel suddenly anxious that he’s not even sure where he will be next week and how many things unfold last minute in his life. Alex displays a certain nonchalance, which allows him to navigate the treacherous tides of fashion without getting hurt. He’s a gentleman, too, and doesn’t have the massive ego you’ll find in other industry insiders, making it difficult to genuinely like them as individuals. 

With clients including the likes of Karla Otto, Inditex, NSS Magazine, Vanidad, Vogue Russia, Indigital amongst others, his eye allows him to seize the unusual and the transient. Alex never stands still, but he’s an old soul as well, despite only being in his late 20s. His curiosity for people is endless, something you feel strongly in his photographs and the way he talks to you. Their directness touches you, and you find yourself looking at the world through his eyes, discovering a new sense of wonder in all the beauty he captures.

Alex as seen by Gustav Hagild

With his face hidden behind the lens, unruly black hair, and his finger making silent, repetitive movements, you find Alex, photographer and traveller standing on a corner, combing the streets. At twenty-nine, he has covered a wider array of fashion weeks than most street style photographers will cover in a lifetime. Many simply don’t bother travelling to Tbilisi, for example. Or Oslo. Especially not after Paris, Milan, New York, London. But Alex does.

It is a relentless obsession with beauty that drives him. No city is too small, no destination too far away. Because style can be found anywhere, like rare birds or eatable flowers, if one is patient enough to look. Alex hunts the picture.

Having studied at Cambridge School of Art, he moved from stylised pictures into photographing real, albeit well dressed, people going about their day-to-day life. And this is where you will most often find him. Leaning against a building, early morning, enjoying an espresso through fingerless gloves, looking.

It is this patience and perseverance that has resulted in covering fashion weeks for clients such as Mercedes Benz Fashion, NSS, etc. and doing backstage for upcoming industry darling Carlota Barrera. It has earned him jobs with Inditex, work for Karla Otto and it is what led him to co-found VIII Magazine – what also taught him, that not every project will survive.

Alex’s work interferes with in monologue between his subject and their intention, catching them off guard as they smoke in stilettos on cobblestones, or hide under newspapers in rain, or rush between meetings into a taxi. The subjects are lives portrayed as they are lived. The clothes, is seen not simply as displays of aesthetic pleasure, but like skins worn as part of a larger story – about who we are collectively, on our own and tomorrow.