Interview: Todd Hido

Todd Hido: House Hunting # 2676, 1997.

Where are your photos taken? Is there a special area, where you find your motifs - like close to where you live or where you have grown up? Or is there no connection to your own life?

Most of the photographs that I have taken are from an area which is similar to where I grew up. Basically they are all places that remind me of “home”. I live in California now but I grew up in Ohio, which is in the Midwestern part of the United States. I found a neighborhood south of San Francisco that is a 1950’s Levittown development (William Levitt is considered the father of modern suburbia - S.Q.) It is classic American suburbia but totally drenched in dense for part of the year. It has a haunted feeling to it and it has very much resonated with my past. That was a very great discovery for me. A lot of the images I have shot - the Homes at Night - have been from that neighborhood.

A lot of your pictures refers to isolated placed with an inhospitable or melancholic atmosphere. How would you describe the atmosphere of your photos yourself?

I think a part of what I am looking for is that there is a kind of atmosphere in the work, a spooky mood in some sense; my images do not portray a warm cozy home. There is often some kind of a story in there. In a way the pictures portray some kind of unraveled family life. It’s not all perfect. But does anyone in any country have a perfect life?

Todd Hido: House Hunting # 1932, 1997.

So it’s a very harsh reality in your pictures, but at the same time they are very aesthetic: on the one hand its an ugly suburb but on the other hand its beautiful set up. How do you see this contrast?

I am also interested in beauty, it’s not something that I hide or shy away from. I think beauty is something that draws people in to see the comments I am making. I think the work can function on many levels. It doesn’t have to be dispassionate. Two of my great influences in photography are Bernd and Hilla Becher. I love the way that they approach photography. I too shoot very straight but when I am in the darkroom a lot of the aesthetic comes out. I shoot like a documentarian but I print like a painter.

You are not working with digital photography?

No, I work all analogue. And I should also point out that all my photographs of places are unstaged. I think that bringing a dose of reality into the pictures is very important. And that’s something that people respond to in the work…the realness. It can be unsettling.

You just mentioned the Bechers - what kind of compositional decisions do you make? Are you focused on a typology of objects, like the similarity of buildings?

Yes, actually there is one neighborhood that I have returned to for years and years and all the houses are pretty much exactly the same, except there are a couple of little features that make them different. I have hung my work in a random grid before and here in Copenhagen it’s more linear due to the form of the slide show projections they are doing.

Todd Hido: House Hunting # 1951, 1997.

You also work with repetitions - like there is always one window which is lightened in the series houses at night?

I can show you on my iphone. Like for instance here is a type of a home and that’s exactly the same style house as the other. In some installations I like to put these things which are close to each other stylistically, but not exactly the same, in a grid in some kind of typological way.

Are you presenting your works in a grid?

Not always. I have different strategies. If I am showing my works on a huge wall I might show thirty of these pictures as 20 by 24 inch prints, but if it is a smaller wall I might choose to show one large print. So it really depends on the venue.

One subject which seems important for you is the contrast between inside and outside. Like how the window are lightened, but you can’t really see inside. Similar in your indoor pictures, the doors are always blocked. Can you say something about what interests you there?

You are exactly right when you say that there is a window and the lights are on, but you can’t see anything inside. That’s a very much deliberate thing—to not reveal too much. Basically it’s a way of hinting a story: I am giving you all the parts and pieces, but the viewer ultimately is the one who imagines what is going on inside. They have to make a connection on their own. I think that is really important. Often the meaning of the picture resides in the viewer. Something I often hear, when people are looking at my works is ”Oh that reminds me of…” I like that, because I think it is important that your work can touch people and bring them back to a place where they once were. Maybe they are thinking about their own childhood?

Todd Hido: Between the Two # 3946, 2007.

So that’s also the reason why you don’t show people in your pictures. Because the viewer has to add them?

Yes, exactly. Recently have also made works, which includes people. It’s a different kind of thing. I’ve got groupings of differendt pictures, e.g. of a person and a place, thus creating suggested narrative. I like to see what happens between the pictures. When you put together two pictures - a person and a place - they automatically activate each other. I am interested in what can happen when you do that. We automatically begin to connect them and fill in the gaps.

Your pictures can be interpreted as a comment on social problems, like the foreclosed houses referring to owners, who failed their payments, or to isolated life of suburbs. Why are you interested in these subjects?

The foreclosed home pictures are made in a very specific way. I am interested in telling stories about people by showing places.

But without judging it?

Of course it is a very sad situation, when people have to give up their homes, but I am not making any judgment. I feel there is pathos to the images that the aesthetical method suggests. In these particular cases the way, I try to photograph in a way, that is suitable for that kind of situation. These are rooms, which are charged, and something has happened there. If you just make a document of that it wouldn’t do justice to what occurred in that place. By bringing in the mood and the darkness in my pictures, I think I can bring something more to the table.

Todd Hido: House Hunting # 1922-c, 1996.

So the idea of your pictures is to bring out a certain mood?

Exactly. To me it is very important to create this atmosphere. It brings out stories just as the beauty brings people into the photographs. I’ve worked this way for 15 or 20 years and it hasn’t changed much, which I guess is good? But it is interesting that a lot of people recently are getting interested in this kind of work with unstaged analogue photography. There is an authenticity, a beauty, and an emotion in the pictures. I have concepts in my work, but its not just conceptual. My mother can look at a picture and she can get something without having been trained in art schools.

What is your background - do you come from an art school or a photo school?

I come from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. I studied with Larry Sultan. He was my mentor. And I also worked with him in the same department teaching the last ten years.

You mentioned your work in the darkroom, when you develop your pictures. What is important for you in that process?

For me it's important that there are things I can do in the darkroom, but really it is not even me - it's just light and chemicals mixing together to make an object. There is something magic about it the way that analogue photography functions. It’s not necessarily the same with digital photography. And especially for my prints, analogue works really well. Things are glowing in my photographs - there is a light glowing in the window or I am shooting into the sun and analogue photography captures that really well.

But is your intention to come as close as possible to what you see or is it more to paint with light, to create something with it?

To create something, yes. But don’t believe in any perfect truth of photography or anything. It’s all mediated in some way. I am just trying to make something which interests me and that has beauty, mood and a concept behind it.

You are working a lot with the contrast of light and darkness in your pictures. Can you tell me something about your use of light?

I work at night a lot. Night has lots of contrast. That’s also when I focus on things…

When the daily life is gone?

Exactly. When the daily life is gone - it allows me to experience more. The phone doesn’t ring, no email, my kids are asleep… And then there is a special atmosphere and mystery about the night I find very intriguing.

Now you are also showing at the Night part of the main exhibition connected to Copenhagen Photo Festival. What were your concerns about the work you choose for the show?

I picked things which have the contrast to project well and that it works on a building. I didn’t know exactly what size it’s going to be, so I picked things which wouldn’t be lost in the translation to the projection. I have never done anything like this before so I’m excited to see it. It’s a good idea to bring art outside for people to see.

Thank you.