LensCulture: It seems that a lot of your work concerns the “internal” world (both yours and your viewer’s). How much do you let the external world—politics, the cultural climate—impact your photography?
Todd Hido: The internal/personal is often quite political, and external forces have always influenced my work. However, I learned from my mentor, Larry Sultan, that it is through the personal connection that one could relate to another in a truly impactful way.
For one of my last books, Excerpts from Silver Meadows, I was deeply influenced by a television that is constantly running in my kitchen, playing CNN. As I worked on my edit of photographs, there were a lot of really crazy things going on politically. These things absolutely filtered into my work.
Dorothea Lange said, “It is a photographer’s task to portray what exists and prevails.” I came to that message through the work of Robert Adams, who has clearly been doing this beautifully and accurately for almost all of his career.
One thing that is important to know about my work is that not all of it is about me or things that I have encountered. Many of the narratives, particularly in Excerpts, come from things I have seen in others.
My latest body of work, entitled Bright Black World, is very much a reaction to the current times that we live in. I was already working on a body of work that touched upon climate change in my own way, which is an issue growing far quicker than we could have imagined. That being said, I think my work became even darker in this truly horrific and inescapable political atmosphere in America today. There is no way you can turn a blind eye or be willfully ignorant to the tide of current events.
LC: Your photographs strongly remind me of Edward Hopper’s paintings; smooth vistas, and yet charged. Can you talk about some of the visual material you find inspiring? How do you see that material influencing and impacting your work?
TH: I am a fan of Edward Hopper, and I was delighted to have my work hung next to his at a show at the Whitney Museum. Other visual inspiration for me often comes from my library of over 6,000 photography books that I am constantly adding to and referencing.
I am also inspired by things that are in my daily visual path. I love to leave books open on my dining room table and walk past them 100 times. You would be surprised how much that sinks in and becomes reflected in your work.
LC: Your series Homes at Night is one of my favorites. We never see human silhouettes or the homes’ inhabitants. Why is it important to you that the houses appear on their own?
TH: Because of the very simple fact that if it is an empty shell, the viewer can place their own memories within it or create a narrative that would otherwise be blocked by the reality of what is actually inside.
LC: When viewers “place their own memories within,” do they ever react in a way that surprises you?
TH: While I know that my work does elicit a response in people, it is often something that is personal and not really shared with me. This, of course, is totally fine.
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