Cars, Cows and Really Awesome Houses

Todd Hido

One unconventional photographer I became interested in is Todd Hido. He came to Alfred University last semester to give a presentation on his photography. One of his main bodies of work were a series of photos taken of houses at night. Hearing him explain his process of photographing these places at night was really interesting, though I could not tell you how he does it. The images come out eerie, mysterious, beautiful. It is amazing how he is able to take something so ordinary, the view of a house from the street as well as the types of houses, and make them something extraordinary. It also adds another layer of understanding to be able to hear the artist talk about his work directly. 


Here is the link to his website :  Todd Hido's Photography

My Feelings Toward Photography

Photography for me is a way of documenting things in my surroundings. I use photography to remember certain events, moments, people, places, or just to capture something fleeting and instantaneous. Growing up with film cameras instilled the tactile, physical aspect of photography in me as something I love. Looking through old pictures bring up memories you may have forgotten. With almost everything being digital now, that feeling sometimes gets lost. But the digital medium opens up a world of new possibilities. One thing I am fascinated by when it comes to digital photography is how instant everything is, from the snapshot to the computer to facebook, hundreds of people can instantly view what you have captured (smartphones adding even more rapidity to the process). The Chinese felt that pictures were meant to show a person or place or thing at its best, i.e. posed, neat, clean, how you would want to present that thing to the world. They felt that candid photography was invasive and inappropriate. But without candid photography we would not know as many truths as we now do. We wouldn't know what slums of cities looked like, or poverty stricken areas of certain countries, or people being treated unfairly. Photography has so many practical and artistic functions in our daily lives. The two pictures are examples of how photography can be used as a means of documenting social/political activism. The Vietnam War was one of the first highly televised/documented wars. Americans and people all over the world were now seeing, for the first time ever, images of some of the horrible things going on outside of America.