Spotted! Alvelyn Alko
THE PHOTOGRAPH
Alvelyn Alko is a second year art student at Lasalle, College of the Arts. She also teaches art in primary and secondary schools around Singapore.
Alvelyn about how it all started. “I received a Lomo Colorsplash when I turned sixteen. Before that, I was shooting skies, buildings and my shoes with a cellphone camera. The first decent set of pictures I ever shot were about skateboarding. I’ve been skating for four years and during that time I was heavily influenced by photographs I saw in Transworld Skateboarding.”
About her photographs, Alvelyn says, “I am greatly influenced by the expressionist and the romantic movement. My photographs are very autobiographical in a way. It’s like keeping a digital journal. Each time I shoot a portrait, I am very motivated by basic human emotions. I believe that nothing is stronger than emotions. And I tend to agree with what Caspar Friedrich once said, “a picture must not be invented but felt.”
The photograph of her friend Red was inspired by the attitudes of the romantic movement; imagination, escapism, reflection, mood and emotion, nature and self. Alvelyn explains, “I am always trying to find something peculiar about the people I shoot. For Red, I was captivated by his orange brown hair, the queerness of his body structure and his natural hunch. The texture and the brown colour of the rocks he is standing on re-echo his hair-color, his skin tone and the color of the cup. The distant blueish hills and waters match the blue in the boxer shorts he’s wearing. I also gave the photo a tighter crop in order to evoke a sense of togetherness.”
Spotted! is a digest of fly work by fresh off creatives.
