SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Trib­utes con­tin­ued to pour in yes­ter­day for vet­er­an and long-stand­ing ace pho­tog­ra­ph­er An­dre Alexan­der, who died at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope, on Wednes­day, fol­low­ing his bat­tle with can­cer.

Alexan­der passed away less than a month be­fore cel­e­brat­ing his 64th birth­day next month.

Some of the touch­ing trib­utes were post­ed on so­cial me­dia by mem­bers of the me­dia fra­ter­ni­ty, friends and mourn­ers.

Ear­li­er this year, Alexan­der had been in the US for med­ical treat­ment.

At Guardian Me­dia Ltd (GML) where Alexan­der worked from 1997, his col­leagues spoke high­ly of him as a pro­fes­sion­al in his field and one who al­ways gave sound ad­vice.

Pho­tog­ra­ph­er Nicole Dray­ton, who worked along­side Alexan­der for many years, de­scribed him as a stal­wart who took his job se­ri­ous­ly.

“At any event An­dre cov­ered for the T&T Guardian, he po­si­tioned him­self to get the best pho­to­graph for the news­pa­per. I learnt a lot from him,” Dray­ton said.

“Pho­tog­ra­phy wise, he was a cut above the rest. I al­ways ad­mired the pro­fes­sion­al man­ner in which he car­ried about him­self. It was one to em­u­late.”

Dray­ton said she will miss Alexan­der for his raspy voice and his scan­dalous laugh­ter in the news­room.

“Even if you were an­gry and you heard An­dre’s laugh­ter you would smile. He was the last of the Mo­hi­cans,” Dray­ton said.

Dray­ton said when­ev­er Alexan­der went on an as­sign­ment, be it cock­tail, po­lit­i­cal, news, busi­ness, fea­tures, sports and came back to the of­fice to down­load his pho­tographs, he had a sto­ry to tell of how he cap­tured the pic­tures or what dif­fi­cul­ty he faced.

GML se­nior pho­tog­ra­ph­er Shirley Ba­hadur said her heart broke in­to a thou­sand pieces when she saw a Face­book post that Alexan­der had died. She re­called that when Alexan­der re­turned to Trinidad af­ter seek­ing med­ical treat­ment abroad, he brought back a CNN mug for her. Ba­hadur said the mug was to­ken of ap­pre­ci­a­tion for be­ing there for him dur­ing his dif­fi­cult time.

“I used to call him reg­u­lar­ly on What­sapp to find out how he was do­ing and to cheer him up. One thing I would nev­er for­get about An­dre is when­ev­er he saw you he would give you a warm hug and kiss. Al­so, he al­ways had a nasty joke to tell and loved his liquor.”

For­mer Port-of-Spain may­or and Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment mem­ber Louis Lee Sing de­scribed Alexan­der as a unique and spe­cial per­son who gave yeo­man ser­vice to the me­dia in­dus­try for decades.

“I re­mem­bered An­dre as a warm, car­ing and sup­port­ive in­di­vid­ual. He cared for his col­leagues more than him­self. Many peo­ple trust­ed An­dre for his pro­fes­sion­al­ism. An­dre, as it were, took the pho­tographs that told the en­tire sto­ry. On a per­son­al note, his pass­ing is a tremen­dous loss to the me­dia fra­ter­ni­ty.”

Lee Sing said in his con­ver­sa­tions with Alexan­der he al­ways shared an ob­jec­tive view on any top­ic.

For­mer ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter and Op­po­si­tion MP Dr Tim Gopeesingh was close to tears as he re­lat­ed the mem­o­rable times he shared with Alexan­der.

“I am sad­dened at his pass­ing. I know he was suf­fer­ing for a while. When­ev­er we met I would al­ways try to give him some words of en­cour­age­ment to keep him go­ing.”

Alexan­der made an en­tire cir­cle in the print me­dia, as he worked in the T&T Ex­press, News­day, To­ba­go News, T&T Mir­ror and Sun­day Punch be­fore join­ing GML, where he pi­lot­ed the “Talk of Trinidad” pho­to es­say for a num­ber of years and al­so did the Busi­ness Guardian’s pho­to page.

For­mer T&T Guardian ed­i­tor in chief Judy Ray­mond, now at News­day, in a Face­book post on Wednes­day, said she could not be­lieve Alexan­der was gone.

“I’m just glad the suf­fer­ing of the past few months is over. He was one of the best news pho­tog­ra­ph­er I’ve worked with, not for tech­ni­cal rea­sons but be­cause of his in­tel­li­gence which meant he knew what he was go­ing to hap­pen be­fore it hap­pened, and made sure he was there when it did.”

Ray­mond said Alexan­der worked hard­er than he par­tied, had his naughty ways which made for very fun­ny sto­ries and nev­er held any mal­ice.

“If he need­ed an idea for what he should pho­to­graph, he read the pa­per. How many pho­tog­ra­phers would do that? He was a sweet and lov­ing friend for 30 years and de­served so much more than to die now.”

Among those who ex­tend­ed deep­est con­do­lences to Alexan­der’s fam­i­ly, friends and me­dia col­leagues was the T&T Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so Or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Alexan­der leaves to mourn his wife Mary, six sis­ters and one broth­er as well as his ex­tend­ed me­dia “fam­i­ly”.