The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
The dance of city light
New Haven area through an immigrant’s lens
Often a photographer has to be nimble afoot. Alejandro Ulloa has that covered, since his main occupation is dancer, choreographer and ballet teacher.
Ulloa’s photos, which we discovered in an email from him during this pandemic lockdown, offer a fresh look at the New Haven area from a man born far away. A shot of the Pearl Harbor
Memorial Bridge is bathed in a rich blue, a closeup of a man he met on the street is full of life, and there are sunset and sunrise shots on Long Island Sound.
“New Haven is a pretty great city,” says Ulloa. “I mean, I am very impressed with how much art is being developed over there, one. And two, how incredibly supportive they are” (at places such as Artspace).
Not bad for a native of Nicaragua who came to Connecticut for dance reasons eight years ago but didn’t pick up photography until 2017 when he needed to send out photos of himself for auditions.
“So I had the camera sitting there, and that summer I remember I spent like $500 on a camera and a couple of lenses,” Ulloa said in a phone chat. “So I decided to pick it up and, at the time, I was living in West Haven, and I went into the Boston
Post Road and I took a picture of this guy. And I brought it back to the computer and I was like, ‘Well, there is something here I think.’”
He caught the photography bug, doing more street photography around the New Haven Green, snapping images almost every day and exchanging greetings with homeless folks there. That led to landscapes, portraits of friends and submitting photos to the group I Love New Haven. (He also is doing some paid real estate photography.)
“I started learning more about it by just going to YouTube and just Googling some stuff,” he chuckles. “... I’m self-taught.”
Like most people under 35, his way of sharing images so far has been through Instagram.
“We cannot forget that social media is the way to do business now,” says Ulloa, who is building a website for his art-business interests. “One thing I struggle with is, when I give someone their photo and I spent maybe an hour editing a photo or two, then you see those filters they use on those platforms, like on Instagram, and they put a filter on that photo that I took time to edit. I’m like, ‘No, why are you doing that?’”
Last year, the 30-year-old started East Coast Contemporary Ballet with Claire Mazza, which began performing in Connecticut and New York until the pandemic halted live performance. He makes his home in New York City now, but he lived in Mystic in 2012 and the New Haven area for three years until late 2019.
Ulloa, who has has performed contemporary ballet with the Connecticut Ballet and Ballets
With a Twist, along with teaching at New Haven Ballet, has been trying to stay engaged with the audience for his new troupe, East Coast, by taking turns with staff to do livestream classes (and accepting donations to a relief fund for the six artists).
During the “really tough” pandemic slowdown, Ulloa has also started a YouTube channel where he records the editing process of making a photo from his own archive.
From the Big Apple, Ulloa has photos to remind him of what he loves about New Haven — the food, history and diverse population, he says. You get the feeling he’ll be back before long.