Meet Jim Alexandrou of Los Angeles

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jim Alexandrou

Hi Jim, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I grew up in a small picturesque town in Greece. My first memories are of me sitting down on my home’s floor either drawing on a notebook or playing music on a small plastic piano in front of the tv, while all the kids were out playing.
From a very small age, I started watching horror and sci fi movies, that helped me teleport to another dimension, the infinite space of my mind’s imagination. I’ve always found reality so boring and normal, so I had to create surreal and exciting worlds to live in.
I remember spending all day in the basement, where I had a little room transformed into a special effects studio, creating sculptures of imaginary beings, prosthetics, fake blood and everything I saw in the movies I was obsessively watching! My parents and my little brother were very supportive and always taking part in my weird artistic ventures.
But my small town was just very ‘small’ for me and needed to escape and explore the world.
So after finishing school, I moved to Athens to study painting and sculpture in the acclaimed Athens School of Fine arts, took acting classes for a couple of years, music classes , you name it. I just wanted to absorb knowledge like a sponge and dive deep into the art world that made me feel complete.
Long story short, I was creating art in photoshop back then and was looking for a way to make some money, when a friend mentioned the word ‘retouching’ , a word that never even crossed my mind until then. That was the moment when my career as a creative retoucher began! Downloaded un-retouched images that I found on the internet, retouched them in order to create a portfolio to show to agencies and photographers back in Athens. Started working immediately with the best people in the industry there and the rest is history. Lived and worked in Madrid, London, Paris, New York and for the past 10 years in La La land, my favorite place in the world.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It’s never a smooth road and that is the beauty of it!
When you are on that bumpy road, it really feels like a huge struggle, emotionally distressing at times, repetitive thoughts of giving up your dreams circulating in your mind in a chaotic fashion, but in retrospect you realize that it was all worth it!
You become better and stronger through those hard times, you learn from your mistakes and realize that every single experience is a new weapon in your armory.
I am very grateful for my journey so far. And for me, its always the beginning, I never stop, there is no end, I keep moving forward and conquer my fears along the way.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’ve been working in the fashion/ad industry as a creative retoucher throughout my career so far .
Photoshop is my tool and my wacom pen is the magic wand that I create imagery with.
Definitely being a fine artist and a highly creative mind , makes me stand out of the crowd in the industry.
I’m well known for my ‘speed of light’ retouching. But I really am like that in general, i walk fast, talk fast, think fast, eat fast etc.
Comping images together, doing impossible image extensions and creating beautiful colors I would say is my expertise.
I can also make anyone look beautiful : )
Every job is a new challenge for me and so fascinating to take a photo and transform it into something else, sometimes into completely different!
After working in this industry for 18 years and collaborating successfully with the ‘top of the crop’, worked on every major fashion magazine and campaign out there, I have built an unstoppable confidence, that is my biggest weapon.
Some of the photographers I’ve been working with are Steven Klein, Glen Luchford, Craig Mc Dean, Solve Sundsbo and many others and have retouched images for clients like Gucci, Tom Ford, Alexander McQueen, Dolce & Gabbana, Channel, Dior, Prada, Dsquared, Calvin Klein, YSL, V magazine, Vogue, Interview, Elle, Vanity Fair and so many more.

What’s next?
Yes, big changes, oh I love big changes haha!
Besides my career as a creative retoucher , I’ve been working on my personal art projects for many years.
I write and produce my own music, sing, create visual art, direct, shoot and do the post production on my music videos under my alter ego ‘KENNSIX’.
For now Kennsix exists on the interweb, you can find my music in all major streaming platforms like spotify, my videos on youtube, I am on instagram, tik tok etc.
I want to take all this to the next level and do live shows, my dream and biggest goal has always been to perform on stage and create unique audiovisual worlds for people to experience.
Also, I want to do exhibitions and currently working on a couple of big projects that i want to present to galleries.
Wish me luck!

Pricing:

• I charge per client/project

Contact Info:

• Website: https://kennsix.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/noizblur/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@kennsix/videos?view=0&sort=dd&shelf_id=4
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0phm75Zhb2pjvyAWHZmtUd?si=aWBuaO9ATOWPM3gk-w6nyw

Image Credits
Steven Klein, Glen Luchford