Todd Hido is a contemporary American photographer whose work has often focused on the dark underside of suburbia. Born on August 25, 1968 in Kent, OH, he studied at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. Hido’s work, inspired in particular by Alfred Hitchcock and Rineke Dijkstra, is characterised by the singling out of “bright spots” amid desolated spaces.
Most of Todd Hido’s photographs of suburban landscapes are taken during solitary, long drives. The main subject of his work is the quality of natural and artificial light in the American landscape, as in reflected sunlight or the illumination from a TV from an anonymous window. Hido photographs in a “fairly undirected way”, he says, but edits his negatives together and manipulates them until he produces an image that represents his encounter with a place.
Hido says, “I shoot sort of like a documentarian, but I print like a painter.” He has also produced a number of interior shots featuring human figures, his models including his wife and former girlfriends. He also publishes almost all of his work as stand-alone books, which he considers to be part of his art.
