Original Magazine in Conversation x Todd Hido

Todd Hido is a San Francisco Bay Area-based artist whose work has been featured in Artforum, The New York Times Magazine, Eyemazing, Wired, Elephant, FOAM, and Vanity Fair. His photographs are in the permanent collections of the Getty, the Whitney Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum, New York, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the de Young, the Smithsonian, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Pier 24 Photography, as well as in many other public and private collections. Todd's work is part of the Spring Magnum print sale and exhibition. During the sale, for one week only, more than 100 museum-quality prints, signed by the photographers or estate-stamped, are available for just $110. All prints will be on view at the Magnum Gallery, London from Monday, April 17 to Saturday, April 22, and available on the Magnum website: magnumphotos.com/shop O.M: What inspired you to get into photography? How did it all come about? Todd Hido: I started doing photography to record my friends racing BMX bikes back in the 1980s—which is when I started…believe it or not I was the state champ of Ohio four times! Leading on from this, how did you first come about joining / being part of Magnum Photos? What has the experience been like? I'm actually not a part of Magnum—I’ve always been more of a "free agent” carving out my own career as for some lucky reason I've got a head for business and creativity. In this case, one of my past students, Greg Halpern who is part of Magnum Photo invited me to participate. I'm on loan from Nazraeli Press and Aperture which are the publishers who make my photobooks. Aperture published a mid-career survey of my work called Intimate Distance a few years ago and it is though Aperture x Magnum who I started first started doing annual 6 x 6 fundraising prints. How would you describe your work in three words? How about four words? My criteria for selection of what I put out in the world has always strictly been "All killer, no filler”. Who is your all time favourite artist/photographer? What is it about them that inspires you? Impossible question to adequately answer—but— one of my very favorite artists has always said he was "blissfully influenced by everything that he loves" that artist’s name is Emmet Gowin. If you could meet any artist in the world, past or present, who would it be and why? Easily it’s Nick Cave, as the breadth of his body of work and the depth and inevitable maturity and wisdom that pours out of that gentleman moves me deeply. Life is not easy. Longing & loss are not easy. He seems to experience life in the richest, and increasingly humblest way, and tells very meaningful stories about us humans through being a songwriter. That is somebody that I would really, actually, enjoy sitting down with and having a meaningful conversation. Do you prefer physical books/magazines or digital copies? Digital things are very convenient however physical books rule my library. I have over 8000 photography books that I've been collecting since 1988. Can you tell us what projects you are currently working on? My next book is a book of all landscape photographs that I've taken in the last few years. The title is called "The End Sends Advance Warning” due from Nazraeli Press this Fall. In my last book the inspirational art historian Alexander Nemerov wrote an essay about the images I was making in 2016-2018, and the very first sentence that he wrote was— "The end sends advance warning”. Turns out—he nailed it. The title’s origin is "pre-pandemic” and the images in the new book are made after that cataclysmic situation was piled on top of, or even fueled by the clear unravelling of American Democracy and it’s importance. Don’t forget all the truly fucked-up nonsense that has gone on in the last several years. Fact is the past few years rattle the notions of what the next section of my life might be like. With this new work, some made as late as last week, I can see that my pictures do not merely illustrate that title, but in fact they work to frustrate it’s assertion. I feel my latest output leans more towards hopefulness than not, as that is something that I feel we desperately need in this hard world that we're currently living in. The influence of social media in today’s society, does this make it harder for photographers. Does it add more pressure when trying to create something ‘new’? I’ve never thought of or even considered the question you asked, so the answer has to be no for me. The one thing I would say is when you start thinking too much about what other people are doing, and your goal is to be the one making something "new”and you let that burden creep into the creative process—with that approach, frankly, you might not ever get there. The process for me when making my images is to slowly iterate, and hopefully, slightly innovate and within the area that I am working in—whatever that may be. I have never said to myself "I'm going to make something totally new" because the process of making art for me is very much about the process of small changes and one comes to the understanding that the variation is change itself —which is actually “new". What has been the best exhibition you have visited and why? The most recent exhibition I saw 2 weeks ago was a Berndt & Hilla Becher exhibit at SFMOMA, traveling from the Met in New York that was curated by Jeff Rosenheim. The reasons that it's one of my favorite recent experiences is because of exactly what I was talking about before in the previous question—clearly the Bechers were not out for anything "new "in anyway whatsoever it seems, and in fact they closed down the scope of what it was they did aas they progressed nd refined it down to a level of hyper consistency that their work was based on. One could actually say that variation was in some way the most important part of their work to photograph things that were incredibly similar which in photography that is called a typology and when you put like things together (water towers, blast furnaces, worker housing, etc,) the subtle differences between all of them flourish. If you had to choose a subject matter to photograph for the rest of your life, what would it be: Landscapes or portraits? Both What is your favourite body of work that you have photographed and why? This might not be a very exciting answer for an editorial interview however over the years I've learned to not rank or compare all the different things in my life because that's simply not how life goes. What is the number one thing you do, in order to prepare for a shoot? Focus Do you think A.I technology has any benefit within the creative industry? If so, will you be using it at all in the future? I've often been an early adopter of new technology. I've personally not tried it but I would never roll anything out. If you weren't a renowned photographer, what profession would you currently be in? Graphic designer or Doctor. What is the best advice you have ever received? How has this advice changed you and your photography career, if at all? My mentor in graduate school, Larry Sultan, taught me to trust my instincts and to draw from within. I have followed that and it has served me well because when you trust instincts, the answer to what it is I'm contemplating isn't out there somewhere, it's right her And finally, what advice would you give to students and emerging creatives who are trying to break into the industry? Find your community, they are your audience. Befriend other artists and creatives. I always say "if you like what somebody does, tell them" Look at at as many visual books as possible. See as many exhibitions as possible. Make lots of art but carefully choose what you release out into the weld. toddhido.com @toddhido_