All images © Alex Leme
This work is titled Literary Ghosts and was sent in from Alex Leme. He tells me that he discovered his love of photography at an early age through his many family trips around Brazil where he was born and raised. From these roots sprang a desire to explore the world and its innumerable facets through the lens of a camera. He attended the University of Westminster in London, England then completed his formal education in 2002 at Cambury College in Goiana, Brazil. After teaching English, producing theatre, and working as a marketing director, he moved to San Francisco, California. 2004 marked the beginning of a successful career in corporate finance as a consultant for a major investment firm.
Thankfully, in 2009, he answered his heart’s calling by abandoning his financial career in order to pursue his lifelong dream as a photographer. Since then, he has been part of many group exhibitions in the US and also won several awards. His pieces can already be found as part of the permanent collections for the Museum Of Contemporary Art and Theo Brandao Museum in Brazil as well as private collections in the US, Brazil and Europe.
Talking about this particular project, he says:
"Initially I started this essay motivated only by personal reasons since libraries were such an important part of my upbringing. However, once I started the project I began to notice the changes those institutions have undergone and continue to experience through the years. Some of them were influenced by the technological evolution, others by sociological transformations. In light of those facts, I realized the need to expand the scope of my essay and start to explore those changes such as the contrasts among smaller and larger libraries, older and newer ones, from small and larger cities, from different countries, with different budgets and so forth. With that in mind, those photographs represent only the beginning of this project, which I like to reference as the more personal depiction of the content and the geometry of those spaces."
