Want More

Want More is a stark and hard-hitting portrayal of late capitalism in action. In a series of arresting, atmospheric, and strikingly beautiful images, Alex Schneideman captures the alienating and numbing effects of mass consumerism as he photographs shoppers in stores, at the mall, and on the street. Tedium, anxiety, frustration, and exhaustion are the dominant emotions in evidence as his subjects appear ground down by their duty as consumer-citizens to spend, spend, spend. Mostly unaware of the photographer's lens, these individuals of all ages and backgrounds unwittingly express a collective desire that is both inescapable and universal, one that transcends a specific time and place. Wherever we look, haunted and desperate faces betray a driven compulsion to consume. Recurring gestures, expressions, and clothes reflect the homogeneity of modern material life. Inconspicuous details words inscribed on shop fronts and advertisements, the watchful and seductive eyes of models and mannequins, the chance coming together of random elements contain a hidden logic that reveals further truths about our global consumerist society and the relentless imperative to buy. But amidst these scenes of joyless alienation there remains the potential for human love and beauty. A foreword by behavioural scientist Paul Dolan considers the photographs as evidence of the old adage that money cannot buy us happiness, while writer Harry Eyres celebrates the photographer's gift for serendipity and his use of dark, ironic humour to examine the effects of constantly wanting more. Positioned somewhere between documentary and art photography, Want More confronts us with the lived reality of the 'have-it-all' culture of needing the latest products and coolest brands and shows how the contemporary world works, and works on all of us.