One of my all-time favorite photographers is Todd Hido — and we’re sure many of you are also smitten with his work. His photographs balance calm, eerie, beauty, and ambiguity so incredibly well. Staring at his images involves the disbelief that what you’re looking at is a real photograph. However, they’re indeed real. Hido’s work has been done way before generative AI was around. Part of his inspiration comes from the lo-fi look. And while many of us might just throw Glimmerglass or Pro Mist filters, you’re apparently still not even going far enough.
In the book Todd Hido: on Landscapes, Interiors and the Nude, he talks about he used to shoot so much through his car window. In fact, he states that it began as an accident. ” It was raining one day when I was out taking pictures in the suburbs,” Todd relates. “When I stopped at an intersection, all the water rushed off the roof of the car and poured down the windshield, creating an expressive and painterly scene in front of me. I took the picture.” From there, he talks about how sometimes you need to just shoot blind and you’ll end up with happy accidents. Todd’s images don’t just resemble paintings, they paint a picture of things we dream of. Whether it’s certain aspects of suburban Americana life or the unknown, there’s a lot to Todd’s images that make us keep coming back.
Some photographers might stack filters if they’re walking around, but those like Todd Hido don’t need to do so. Instead, all you need to do is photograph something right in front of you. Of course, Todd also doesn’t shoot what he’s looking at. He shoots what his mind’s eye sees.
There are two sides to this way of creating images. The first one says that you should stick around in an area and work a scene until you feel something. The other states that you shouldn’t photograph something if it hasn’t roused some inspiration from you. The former leans more into the idea of post-production, while the latter is all about getting it right in-camera. Maybe it’s just me, but don’t we deserve to fall in love with what’s right in front of us while we’re out in the world photographing the world’s beauty? Isn’t it nice to know that you don’t need to do post-production to an image to make it excellent? Instead, you can think of post-production as the BBQ sauce that’s not really needed for the perfectly done piece of fatty brisket.
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This is far different from a photographer like Brian Bowen-Smith, who photographed people from his car but did it more like a drive-by-shoot style of documentary.
Granted, this is a recipie that so many photographers do these days. They’re trying not to shoot images that are super sharp and where everything is still. Instead, they’re going for a lo-fi aesthetic. Part of that comes from our affinity of things that are vintage, and that’s going to be an inherent part of American culture for a really long time. However, Todd also says that you can’t just go out and photograph what’s popular right now. And we tend to agree. Doing what’s popular means that you’re never following your style, and you’ll create a dated portfolio at the expense of never being able to express yourself fully.