Jesse Alexander

Jesse Alexanders involvement in motorsports began in the early 1950s with the birth of the sports car movement in the USA. As racing became popular he visited tracks like Pebble Beach and Palm Springs to photograph these early races. One of his first memories was seeing the famous film star, Clark Gable making a lap of honor at Palm Springs in his Jaguar XK120. And of course there was Phil Hill in his Ferrari and Alfa Romeo as well as Johnny von Neumann driving the first Porsche 356 to appear in California. These were the personalities who introduced him to motorsports. In 1953 he travelled to Mexico to cover the Pan American Road Race. A year later he sailed to Europe with his family. They landed in Holland, then promptly took a train to the Volkswagen factory at Wolfsburg to pick up a new Microbus. With wheels to explore the Continent, he found himself at Reims on the fourth of July, 1954 shooting the French Grand Prix. He witnessed the debut of the fabulous Mercedes W196. In the hands of Juan Fangio, Karl Kling and Hans Herrmann these new race cars brought the Germans back to Grand Prix racing. Today, these are still some of favorite images. Over the years his work has appeared in most of the worlds prominent automotive publications including Car & Driver, Road & Track and Automobile. In 1965, he covered the 24 Hours of Le Mans for Newsweek, and in 1967 his work was used in Sports Illustrated for a feature on motorcycle racing. Most recently, Jesse was commissioned by Nissan and it's Infiniti luxury division to photograph the drivers, crew, and race cars that made up the 1997 Infiniti Indy Project.

Jesse Alexander Images:
Dutch Grand Prix, 1962
Grand Prix of Belgium, 1955
Grand Prix of Monaco, 1956