La Lenga Art Gallery

"My journey as a photographer began as a kid growing up in the Midwest of the United States, surrounded by cornfields. Bored with school, the surrounding landscape, and the prospect of living a mapped-out future, I began looking at nature photography as a kind of escape from the reality I was living in. The combination of creativity, exploration, and risk required to succeed as a landscape photographer appealed to me from a young age. By the time I finished high school, I had determined that I would commit myself to the lifestyle of the most talented photographers in the world, and stick with photography until my work was equal to or better than that of those same photographers.

After years spent traveling in the western United States, I began to feel as if the novelty of traveling in my home country had worn off. Confused about what direction to go in as a photographer, I decided on a whim to buy a ticket to Peru. I immediately fell in love with travel in South America, and it wasn't long before I started dreaming about moving there permanently, and opening a gallery. After tens of thousands of miles covered via backpacking, hitch hiking, and by motorcycle, countless months spent camping under the stars, and years struggling as an artist trying to achieve excellence while simultaneously make a living off his craft, I finally opened my own gallery in El Chalten, Argentina."

What you see displayed in my gallery is the result of over 7 years of exploration in South America, and over 15 years as a photographer."

- Alex DeMets

"As a photographer, my goal is to create one of a kind images that capture both the bigger and smaller aspects of a landscape. While it has become commonplace among photographers to prioritize quantity over quality in the search to gain followers on social media, I decided to take the opposite approach. As a result, I have made under 20 images in the past several years, which are what you see here. Not a single image was complete after the first attempt. Most of the images required much scouting in advance. This often means spending countless hours researching in order to find unknown but promising locations, and multi-month expeditions exploring these locations in order to find places which, if I'm lucky, may have a vague paragraph written online explaining how to arrive. Once I have visited a place that has potential for a great image, I will typically return anywhere from 5 to 15 times to perfect the shot, photographing it at different times of year, under different lighting conditions, and experimenting with different compositions."

"None of the compositions in my portfolio have been done before by other photographers, and many of the locations where my images were made are unknown in the world of photography. In reality, most locations I explore lack critical elements such as symmetry, visual flow, unusual light, etc. needed to create an outstanding composition, and thus, maybe only one in ten of the places I visit results in an image. The adventures and experiences I have while in search of the perfect image more than make up for the many times I walk away empty-handed."