"After over 10 years of performing live I have one photograph that I think is good enough to hang in my apartment. That photograph was taken by Alexander Hallag. I can't think of a higher compliment to give to a photographer."

Bryin Dall - Guitarist for Thee Majesty, 4th Sign of the Apocalypse, Loretta's Doll

"Alexander has been shooting Cairo Knife Fight for years now; going far out of his way to be a part of the bands experience all over NZ, and helping to share those moments through his work with our fans. When we were putting together the artwork for our debut album The Colossus and the accompanying EP The Isolator, Alexander went above and beyond to help us create iconic imagery that we're immensely proud of. He's absolutely the most enthusiastic and accommodating photographer we've ever worked with and I can't recommend him highly enough."

Nick Gaffaney - Cairo Knife Fight

"What separates the great artists from the mundane, is whether or not one is able to bring something new, something unique, to the viewing audience. In todays world of 'x-factor' mentality (where technical merit is the goal - not originality), it is a refreshing joy to view the photography work of Alexander Hallag. Clearly, Hallag focuses on the emotion and feel of his subjects as prime importance. By doing this, his photos are alive with their own personality, their own soul. This is something rarely seen in the world of photography today."

Mont Sherar - Author of Twilight of the Mortals

"I’ve known Alexander for about 11 years now. I have been an avid follower of New Zealand music for years and it was with this following I discovered Alexander. I realized Alexander was the creator of what have become my favourite live music images of all time. New Zealand is so lucky to have him as the power, precision and emotion that he has the ability to capture is truly breathtaking. His experience internationally and his incredible work ethic has cemented his status as a premier music photographer. I reached out to Alexander a while back to help me with my own photography. I wanted to learn technical skills as well as learn how to develop the timing to take a truly memorable photograph. Alexander provided me with the knowledge and yet the most important thing he gave me, and it’s something that still exists within me today is an unrelenting passion for taking pictures. Alexander takes pictures with soul and emotion. Whilst we use machines to capture a story it’s the person behind the machine who really tells it how it is. He is a hero to me, he was my inspiration to travel across the globe to pursue photography as a career. His work will always continue to inspire and his passion will be passed on to others for years to come. Arohanui brother!"

Nick Paulsen - Instagram.com/nickpaulsenz 9/November/2017 Paris, France

Capturing the moment A knackered doctor's bag full of spit-soaked harmonicas. A bass guitar, its strings and pick-guard streaked with blood. An anonymous woman's stockinged foot, tapping out the beat beside an electric guitar lead. An oily puddle of spilt booze, splashed across a crimson stage. In a new book of photographs by Alexander Hallag, there's no shortage of more traditional portraits of musicians bashing out a racket under bright lights, but sometimes it's the close-ups, the telling details, that speak loudest about rock n'roll reality. What better book to poke your nose into at the tail end of New Zealand Music Month than this? A heavy hardback 200 pages long, Shhh… The Music Is Talking, arrived in my mailbox a couple of months ago, but I was up to my arse in other work and had no time to have a gander. I finally picked it up this week, intrigued by that odd title, which seemed to be advising the reader to pipe down so that music could invade their senses more fully; to look and to listen, rather than speak. Shhh… The Music Is Talking suggests Hallag agrees with the old adage that a picture paints a thousand words, and therefore, everyone should just look at his pictures and STFU. Born in Austria, raised in Seattle, and now based in Palmerston North, Hallag is dyslexic. In his world, words are tricksters, while images tell the truth, so he picked up a camera in his early teens and set about documenting his own view of what contemporary music meant, without too many twisted words getting in the way. Consequently, it's a book unencumbered by band interviews, historical contextualisation, or beard-stroking from learned music critics. It is instead a non-chronological photographic record of the NZ music scene over the past five years, as jumbled, colourful and messy as that scene itself. The few words that have made the cut include a brief introduction by British writer Neil Gaiman, who Hallag once photographed wearing John Lennon sunglasses and leather jacket in Seattle "when we were both young, pressed up against a hotel balcony railing, and made something beautiful out of a moment".Description goes here Gaiman had flicked through Hallag's more recent photos and loved the feeling that he was in the room with all these unfamiliar New Zealand bands, in a country "a very long way from anywhere else", yet so close to the action that "you can almost smell the spilled beer". Right place, right time, right shutter speed. A former drummer in a punk band, Hallag cut his teeth photographing musicians during the grunge era in Washington, poised stageside during a time when a tiny underground scene went mainstream with a vengeance.

Alexander Hallag's photos capture the magic of music.
Grant Smithies - May 25 2016 - Part 1

He contends that something equally unique and special is happening here in our little South Pacific hamlet right now, which is what provided impetus for this book. Hallag himself has done sterling work here, whittling around 60 000 photos of local musicians down to just 200, the best of them capturing something of their subject's character that feels vivid, insightful and true. We see Lorde in her second ever show, at Wellington's now defunct Mighty Mighty bar. It was a time when things were just starting to go nuts - the gig sold out in just 45 seconds - and she seems tense and tentative, as if bracing herself for the updraft to come. Bret McKenzie from Flight Of The Conchords is shot from below against a blinding blue sky, the feel more earnest singer-songwriter than deadpan comedian, his engineer's cap and corduroy jacket recalling folk pioneer Pete Seeger, his pose a sly nod to Bob Dylan's Nashville Skyline album cover. Drab Doo Riffs' frontman Dr Karl Steven is snap-frozen on his knees, face puckered with effort, looking like a dyspeptic John Waters, and there's a telling 2013 portrait of Chris Knox, fronting a band again for his first time since his stroke, prowling the stage with that old malevolent gleam still burning in his eyes. But my favourite shot captures Lower Hutt's foremost electro-pop auteur, Luke "Disasteradio" Rowell, drenched in sweat, eyes bugging out, almost swallowing his microphone under a bilious green stage light. To look at this picture is to be transported to one of Rowell's thrillingly manic live shows, crammed into a loud, happy room with a hundred other punters, your body flooded with adrenaline, your ears assaulted by the glossy squeal and clatter of Rowell's home-made synths. Over the past few decades, Hallag has also photographed Black Sabbath, Debbie Harry, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, Metallica, Nirvana, Radiohead, U2, his shots appearing everywhere from his own teenage fanzine in Seattle to the New York Times. But here he brings an outsider's eye on our own music scene, and is blessedly unswayed by what local taste-makers have deemed "cool", so mainsteam and underground acts are equally represented. By the end of the book, I was left feeling grateful. Without Hallag, all these telling moments would have simply passed on by, unfrozen and irretrievable. In fact, if we assume most of these pics were taken at shutter speeds around 1/ 200th of a second, the whole book only adds up to a slim second or so of real time, spread out over five long years between 2010 and 2015. But even though his book's finally finished now and in the shops, Hallag's still out there almost every weekend, stockpiling those split seconds. Assorted music industry mates in Wellington tell me they still see this guy at nearly every gig, right up the front, camera in hand, clad head-to-toe in black: an obsessive documentarian with an unplaceable accent, eyes peeled and shutter cocked, always jockeying for the best angle and looking around to see which way the light is falling.

Alexander Hallag's photos capture the magic of music.
Grant Smithies - May 25 2016 - Part 2

"Alexander, a mighty photographer."

Neil Gaiman - International Best-Selling Author of The Sandman, Good Omens and others