INTERVIEW
In his latest work, Alan Schaller captures monochrome urban landscapes to highlight the idea of being lost in the modern world
Alan Schaller’s photography journey began while he was still pursuing a career in music production. However, he decided to express his creative vision through the camera lens rather than a mixing desk. With a precise sense of light and composition and a keen eye for capturing fleeting moments with a narrative, Schaller soon established himself in the industry. Starting with a series of images taken on the London Underground, he later photographed people on the streets of cities such as New York and Tokyo.
As one of the co-founders of the Street Photography International Collective (SPi), Schaller is passionate about promoting talented and unrepresented photographers. He enjoys sharing his knowledge with aspiring photographers through his YouTube video tutorials, giving an insight into various techniques. We met up with Alan to find out how to capture that perfect moment and also spoke to him about the inspiration behind his new book Metropolis, published by teNeues, in which Schaller uses minimalistic images of urban architecture to visualise the idea of being isolated and lost in the modern world.
Street photography is known as an unpredictable genre but how unpredictable is it in your opinion?
Yes, it’s unpredictable – but I think the more experienced you get, the more you can try and, not necessarily predict, but pre-visualise what might happen. I tend to try and control as much of the image as I can. There are controllable factors, for example, where I am standing to frame the scene. I always ask myself what could happen – or what is it I want to see happening? As I progressed through my career, I’ve learned what I want and what I don’t want. It helps cut down the randomness of the street and gives me a better chance of achieving a decent pi
