PRACTICE

Photography is the central and sustaining axis of the work; other media are employed, including film, sculpture, lighting, and site-specific installation; these, however, exist only in service of photographic research and the conditions required for it to occur. The photographic work emerges from these conditions as a resolved physical object, formed through direct interaction between subject, material, and light. In many cases, the photograph constitutes the sole surviving material resolution of a constructed and irreversible physical event.

All photographic bodies of work produced after November 2013 are realised as unique photographic works, accompanied by two artist’s proofs that differ in scale and execution. No editions are released. This marks a deliberate and sustained departure from the reproducible logic historically associated with photography, positioning each work as a singular photographic object rather than a repeatable image.

Projects are frequently developed outside conventional gallery contexts and unfold over sustained periods through residencies, remote solo expeditions, or site-specific research environments. These contexts are not ends in themselves, but frameworks that allow photographic processes to operate under real physical, environmental, and temporal conditions, where sculptural staging, material transformation, and environmental forces converge within a controlled photographic moment.

Long-term initiatives over the past four decades have been developed through a dedicated expedition program, extended residencies, and site-specific research environments, often situated in geographically isolated or historically complex locations. These projects have involved the reactivation of dormant sites, temporary research infrastructures, and purpose-built environments designed to support sustained photographic investigation over time. Each project functions as a complete photographic infrastructure, enabling the construction, observation, and resolution of singular photographic works.

Together, these works reflect a consistent commitment to analogue photography as a research-driven, materially grounded practice, developed over time and anchored in the physical realities of light, water, and process. The resulting photographic works exist not as reproductions of external subjects, but as primary artefacts of carefully constructed physical encounters between material, environment, and light.

Alexander James Hamilton
(also known as Alexander James)
born 1967, London.
Studio, Madrid.