Alejandro Meter

Pro Type: Photographer

I photograph because I am curious about people, but curiosity has always taken me much farther than the portrait. I am interested in memory, borders, literature, politics, and the ways people make sense of the worlds they inhabit. Much of my work begins with an encounter—with a person, a place, or an idea—and develops from there.

When I photograph someone, I try to remain open to what the encounter might reveal. I don't necessarily know what I'm looking for when I begin. Observation, empathy, and a willingness to follow where the work leads are important to me. The portrait is a way of getting closer, but also a way of discovering something I couldn't have anticipated.

Reading is an essential part of how I work. My academic engagement with Latin American literature and culture has deeply informed the way I look at photography, and the two have always been in conversation. I am particularly interested in what happens when words and images meet. A photograph can suggest something that language cannot, while a text can open up a photograph in unexpected ways. My books and projects often bring the two together, whether through writers' contributions, literary texts, or conversations with my subjects.

Travel has also been central to my life and work. As an immigrant and the child and grandchild of immigrants, crossing borders has always felt both familiar and necessary. I enjoy being outside my comfort zone, in places where I have to pay closer attention and reconsider what I think I know.

My work has taken me across the United States, Mexico, Latin America, Europe, and beyond. Some projects develop over many years, through repeated encounters and relationships that continue to shape the work. My portraits of writers along the US-Mexico borderlands grew out of this kind of sustained engagement, as did Postales del confinamiento, a book of portraits made during the pandemic, and Rostros del crimen, my ongoing project with crime fiction writers. Across these projects, photography and text often come together, reflecting my longstanding interest in literature and in the people who create it.

I don't think of photography as a way of arriving at a predetermined answer. I am more interested in what happens along the way—what I encounter, what I learn, and what the camera allows me to see.