How Alexander Zoltai Makes a Home Within the Lens

Alexander Zoltai doesn’t let fear hold him back. Taking a leap of faith is second-nature to the photographer and director, recently signed with cake-factory for North American representation. After all, it’s in his DNA. 

“My folks were both freelancers growing up”, he says. “My stepdad was a luthier - he made harps. And my mother was a photographer herself”. 

So, when it came to taking the plunge and forging ahead with his own business straight out of the gate from college, Alexander didn’t stutter. “All of my family are used to not taking work for granted”, he explains. “And we know that, if you’re good at what you do, you’ll find work”. 

Fortunately, then, Alexander is good at what he does. To date, he’s shot for a slew of household-name clients including ESPN, McDonald’s, FedEx, and The New York Times. What sets his work apart is his uncanny knack for capturing a moment of humanity - for taking a product and visualising how it feels in the context of somebody’s real, lived experience. 

Now, he tells LBB, he’s at a point in his career where he’s ready to do more. Longer-form branded content has always been something to which he’s been drawn - not least thanks to his Emmy-winning work for ESPN telling the story of college football player Taquarius Wair. At the age of four, Taquarius was left with severe burns following a house fire. What’s remarkable about UNSTOPPABLE (an eleven-minute short film shot by Alexander), however, is once again that humanising element. It’s not a story about the house fire, or about college football. Rather, it’s a story about Taquarius Wair. 

At a time where there’s a focus on six-second storytelling and short, sharp, YouTube pre-rolls, longer-form work like UNSTOPPABLE feels distinctive. But, as Alexander goes on to explain, a longer runtime doesn’t necessarily have to clash or feel out-of-place in 2024. 

“People say that two minutes of runtime is too long - but what kind of a two minutes are we talking about?”, he asks. “That kind of time can drag and feel like ten minutes, or it can fly past and feel like a few seconds. Look, I’m a parent, you don’t need to tell me how precious time is! But that’s exactly why we need more quality time, not just endless short-form stuff which we can blink and miss”. 

That dedication to quality and craft is a foundational building block for Alexander - and it’s present, too, in his photography. Those skills - as well as the ability to find human moments - came to the fore in his work for McDonald’s, which presented Alexander with a particular kind of challenge. 

“The goal was to travel around the world and capture images of people from all walks of life at McDonald’s”, he recalls. “Some of the people we chose would say ‘oh, okay, I’ve only got five minutes’. I loved that challenge - where the clock is ticking and I’ve only got a few precious seconds to find the right light. I think that makes for even more interesting photographs”. 

There’s little doubt that creative challenges bring the best out of Alexander. That’s a theme which stretches right back to his first ever professionally-commissioned work, for Bauer Hockey. Even then, the imagery dripped with the kind of authenticity which brands are so keen to capture in their communications today. 

“I was lucky in that my first-ever client was someone that would push me and challenge me in the way that they did”, he recalls. “At the same time, they trusted me in terms of my style - it was the perfect way to cut my teeth”. 

That aforementioned ‘style’ is hard to describe succinctly, other than that the people in Alexander’s photos feel like people. Often, that’s because they’re captured very candidly - but that’s not something which happens by accident. When invited to reflect on this, Alexander recalls the formative time he spent in Guatemala. He spent a year of his life living in the Central American country, and recently returned there following his partnership with cake-factory. 

“In Guatemala, I started shooting with a lot with people that weren't used to being photographed”, he explains. “That might be where a lot of my patience comes from, and I accept that I need to earn someone’s trust before I can take their picture”. 

That initial year was hugely influential for Alexander, not only informing his skills and his career but also his style - the more intangible qualities that make his imagery his own. “Having joined up with cake-factory, and getting to a point in my career where I wanted to compete with people in New York and all over the world, I wanted to remind myself what got me into this”, he says. “So I went back to Guatemala and shot in the same town where I used to live. I saw a lot of the same faces that I met fifteen years ago”. 

There’s something etched on the faces of the people in these pictures which can be found throughout Alexander’s work. It’s more than the emotion they’re feeling in the moment of the shot - it’s a broader sense that they’re at home. That kind of ease and warmth is hard to fake, and it makes for poignant imagery. 

For Alexander and cake-factory, the only question is what ‘home’ is going to look like next.