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Jeff T. Alu
www.jeffalu.com
animalu@animalu.com
Jeff T. Alu is a Photographer/3D Artist/Animator/Composer & Amateur Astronomer. He was born in Anaheim, CA, and grew up in Orange County. After two years of college as a music composition major in Rochester, NY, he returned to Orange County for a while until moving to downtown Los Angeles, where he currently resides.
“After studying at the Eastman School of Music I somehow landed a job at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, CA. I guess what helped get me in was the huge interest I have in astronomy. I found myself working for Eleanor Helin’s asteroid project, the “Planet Crossing Asteroid Search” (PCAS), hunting for near-earth asteroids and comets with a 18” Schmidt telescope (actually a camera, not a telescope) at Palomar Observatory, for five or six nights each month. After leaving the JPL (my time there sort of faded out, rather than ending suddenly) I felt a bit of a void. I still craved the thrill of discovery. So I replaced my search for objects in our solar system (many of them five miles or more across) with the search for objects on our home planet, and my love for the desert tempted me to take long hikes in search of the unknown. And I continue that search today.
For me photography is an extension of some of my beliefs about life, such as the importance of constant searching. I’ve always been a seeker, and I always will be a seeker. What am I seeking? Answers to nagging questions on the meaning of life? Am I trying to collect heavy, provocative data so that I can form some kind of philosophical treaty in my mind about the workings of the world around me? Partially I suppose. Photography allows me to communicate the ways in which I see the world to others. Through it, I also discover new ways to see the world.
My shooting style is very spontaneous. Very rarely do I plan anything out, and it’s the element of surprise and discovery that drives me forward. While I do enjoy traveling distances to obtain my shots, I realize also that there are many, many great shots waiting to happen right next to me. I just have to stop, breathe, and observe to find them.
I don’t work with professional-grade cameras, and have never owned one. I use cheaper point and shoot cameras without any special lenses or filters. Rarely do I use a tripod. Photoshop is my “second camera”, and if I become Indiana Jones when I’m out shooting, I also become a calm Zen master when working in Photoshop.”
RECENT EXHIBITIONS
2010 “Lit”, BLEICHER/GOLIGHTLY gallery, Santa Monica, CA (Group Show)
2010 “After Hours”, Galeria-Z, Brataslava, Slovakia
2010 “Digital Art LA” Los Angeles Center for Digital Art - Downtown Los Angeles Film Festival
2010 “e.impulse”, Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA. (Group Show)
2010 “After Hours, Individual Stories”, O. County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA
2009 Exhibition of 11 images at The Annex LA, Downtown Los Angeles
2009 EXPLORATIONS OC : An Art Scene Subjectively at the Artery Gallery in Costa Mesa, CA
2009 Larchmont Charter School benefit auction, Kopeikin Gallery, West Hollywood, CA
2009 “250: a group show”, Crussell Fine Arts, Orange, CA
2009 “New And Improved II”, Los Angeles Center For Digital Art, Los Angeles, CA
2009 Rooftop Gallery, Downtown Los Angeles, CA
2009 2009 Digital Art LA, Rowan Gallery, Downtown Los Angeles, CA
2009 Eclat, a group show, Crussell Fine Arts, Orange, CA
2009 “Battlestar Abstractica”, Nomadic Image Gallery, Santa Ana, CA
2009 “The Art of Imaging”, Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA
2008 “(R)Evolve”, Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA
2008 “Cusp”, Crussell Fine Arts, Orange, CA
2008 “Nomadic Image”, Gallery B-12, Santa Ana, CA
2008 “Animal Magnetisim”, Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA
2008 “12th Annual Orange Open”, Guggenheim Gallery, Orange, CA
2008 Rancho Santiago’s Digital Media Center, Santa Ana, CA
2008 Solo Exhibition, Strong Island Designs, Santiago Art District, Santa Ana, CA
2008 “Top 40”, Los Angeles Center For Digital Art, Los Angeles CA.
2008 group exhibition, The Artery Gallery at The Lab, Costa Mesa, CA
2008 Feb, Solo Exhibition, Pangea, Santa Ana, CA
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* None of the artworks may be copied or reproduced without the written permission of the Artist