HUNTER
City fashion photographer Dean Alexander shares his most treasured possessions
Take 10 is a series of occasional features on prominent local residents and the possessions dear to them.
It took Dean Alexander 12 years to figure out his career — the first 12 years of his life.
At the time, he was living and going to school at Andrews Air Force base, where his father was Command Chief of the Air National Guard.
“In seventh grade there were interest classes for last period of the day. I took photography. Right then and there — literally, I’m 12 — I knew I’d be a photographer. I went home. My father had built us a toy room under the basement steps. I emptied that toy room out and made it a darkroom,” Alexander says with a laugh.
That passion has never left the Roland Park resident, now 52. He’s a fashion photographer who has shot the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Richard Branson and Claudia Schiffer. However, photography has hardly been his only fascination. He just learned to attach it to many other interests.
“Like, airplanes. At one point, I thought, ‘I’ll be an aerial photographer.’ Then I was a ski instructor, and I thought, ‘I’ll be a skiing photographer.’ Then I just really clicked into travel,” he says.
1920s-era fishbowl stand
1 A Baltimore antiques store find. “It’s just such a quirky thing. It’s so cool. I’ve had it for a long time. It was one of the first things I thought of when you asked for my 10 favorite things.”
Baby alligator lamp
2 “This alligator lamp from the 1920s is just so quirky.” It has its original wiring, so he and his wife don’t plug it in. They’re afraid it would immediately go up in flames.
That also happened early. Living at Andrews, Alexander says, he came into contact with kids who had lived all over the world. His best friend had been born in Spain and had lived in Germany. So the two took off for Germany after 11th grade to work on a castle restoration project.
That was the first of many summers spent traveling around the world, always with camera in hand.
Combining interests is what brought him to the Baltimore area. The University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s visual arts program covered still and motion photography, as well as design and aesthetic approaches.
Early on, he worked by day as the in-house photographer for a D.C.-based ad agency, at night as the party/society photographer for The Baltimore Sun.
“I’d been doing it three weeks, and realized the mayor, the governor — they all know my name. It was like, wow, so amazing,” he says.
But his urge to travel had never disappeared. By the early ’90s, it was time to move on.
Alexander maintains a studio in Federal Hill but indulges his wanderlust — often with wife Donna Schaefer, a graphic designer, and daughter Chloe, 12, in tow. They roam for play and for work, whether that’s magazines like Marie Claire and Elle or corporations such as IBM, Nike and Under Armour.
Alexander has been earning recognition, racking up more than 150 international prizes for his still photos. His cinematography has brought him awards at fashion film festivals around the world, as well as an Emmy. His secret to success? “You need to do your own thing. No one does your own thing better than you. Yes, there’s a technical aspect to it. But your interest in it far exceeds anything else. Because things are going to go wrong, and they’re not going to be precise. But your passion and your perseverance will carry you through.”
For more of Alexander’s story, look to 10 objects he treasures.