Alex Schneideman

Positioned somewhere between documentary and art photography, Want More is a stark and hard-hitting portrayal of 21st-century capitalism in action. In a series of arresting, atmospheric and beautiful images, London-based photographer Alex Schneideman captures the numbing and denaturing effects of mass consumerism by photographing shoppers at large. Despite the instant beauty of each frame, tedium, misery, anxiety, frustration and occasional anger seem to be the dominant emotion, as they appear ground down by their duty to spend, spend, spend. A text by behavioural scientist Paul Dolan examines Schneideman's photographs as demonstrations of the social and psychological effects of boundless consumerism, and the addictive and herd-like behaviour it demands, and evidence that as we become richer, we do not necessarily become happier. Writer Harry Eyres addresses what the photographs tell us about 21st-century life and considers alternatives to the culture of constantly wanting more.