Alleys & Ruins:
the book
In 1987, Xavier Nuez's nervous system collapsed without warning. Within a day, he went from being outgoing and confident to being unable to hold a conversation. There was no diagnosis, no treatment, and no name for what he had.
Six years later, he walked into a dark alley at night with a camera – and the terror stopped. So he kept going. For twenty-five years and 1,200 nights across fifty cities, he wandered the alleys and ruins of North America with a 50 year old Hasselblad – chased by gangs, guns pointed at him – returning every time, because the only place the fear couldn't find him was in the dark.
This is the story he planned to take to his grave.
Strip away the photography and you still have a riveting narrative. Strip away the memoir and you still have one of the most unusual bodies of work in contemporary photography. Together, they create something without a clean precedent.
This book tells two stories. One is how I became the kind of person who would plant a camera in a city's most dangerous places and think, "Yeah… this feels right. I'll just stand here flashing bright lights for the next three hours. Hope nothing bad happens." The other is the collection of things that happen when a man does such a thing, consistently, for twenty-five years.
Signed, limited first edition of 1,000 copies
Preorder now for early September 2026 delivery.
Cover photo during the day
“Masterpiece” -The New York Times
“The light isn't just compositional; it's redemptive” -Creative Boom
“You will never see a dark alley the same way again” -PBS
“Ruin is his gig… Nuez is the closest thing to a national authority on the subject of urban alleys” -San Diego Weekly Reader
“A psychologically precise and unusually compelling account of trauma and recovery – and a rare example of creative practice functioning as self-repair”
-Dr. Lyssa Menard, Clinical Psychologist, Northwestern University
“Alleys & Ruins documents a twenty-five-year quest to reclaim disowned psychological spaces by insistently occupying and depicting many of society's most forbidding physical spaces. It is an odyssey of discovery and redemption for both eye and mind” -Dr. Harold Kudler, Psychiatrist, Duke University
Sample pages from Alleys & Ruins
Sample story from Alleys and Ruins
Alleys & Ruins no. 142, Luv
2012, Chicago, IL, 10:00 pm
The five rapid gunshots are loud and close. I instinctively drop low, eyes toward the sound, my hand rises up to my face. I look around, a couple people have dropped to one knee. We all hold still, listening.
Nothing.
“Holy crap.” And we all get back up.
I return to my camera and lighting equipment and resume planning my photograph.
A few minutes later, flashing lights approach. It’s a cop car. The officers step out cautiously. One rests his hand on the top of his holstered sidearm. The other barks, “What’s going on here?”
I start explaining that we’re setting up for a photo.
The cops look at us, then at each other, like none of this makes sense. And why would it? Who sets up in a dark, abandoned back lot in Chicago’s notoriously dangerous Lawndale neighborhood, with bags and bags of expensive equipment, in the middle of the night... to take a photo?
They glance through our gear, flip open a few bags, and realize we’re telling the truth.
“Look,” one of them says, “you guys take your photo. But be careful out here. We had a report of shots fired. Do you know anything about that?”
We tell them about the five shots that rang out 10 minutes earlier and point in the general direction. They nod, then get back in the car and speed away, looking for the shooter.
And I get back to work.
It’s dark, but I can still make out the crumbling, ugly eyesore that remains of the building. And if all goes well, I’m going to make it pretty by lighting it up with bright, colored lights.
I focus on my camera again. I make adjustments to the settings. Then I choose the lights I’ll be using from my big selection of spotlights and flash units. Next is the color scheme. I pull out the gels I need and start attaching them to the lights.
There’s a shriek behind me. One of my assistants has just seen a big rat.
I return to the camera. I’m about to begin the first of several 25-minute exposures (we’re going to be here a while). During each long exposure, I’ll be walking through the scene with a light in my hand, slowly building up layers of light and color. I click the shutter. The first exposure begins.
Now I’m going to step in front of the camera to do my lighting. It’s the only way to create the detailed, precise lighting I need. But of course I don’t want myself to appear in the photo. Over the years I’ve built up a big bag of tricks. It’s almost pitch black and I’m wearing a black hoodie so it’s hard for the camera to see me, and as long as I keep moving while in front of the camera, I won’t appear on the negative, only my lighting.
I flip the hoodie over my head and step into the scene to begin lighting the picture that would become Alleys & Ruins no. 142, Luv
“Your stories and photos brought me back to my midnight shifts on patrol. You were fast thinking and very smart out there – that's why you stayed alive.”
-Lisa Hale, retired police officer, 18-year veteran, Detroit
Signed, limited first edition of 1,000 copies.
8.5 × 11 · 304 pages · 240 photographs
Smyth-sewn hardcover · printed on 100# Sterling Premium Silk text · soft-matte laminate cover with spot UV.
Signed Limited Edition Hardcover – $125
Preorder now for September 2026 delivery. Order the hardcover and receive the complete PDF and ePub editions immediately.
Personal inscription available – add a name at checkout.
The Book