View our reviews on Google and Facebook.
GOAL
* Learn how to create a new series;
* Learn how to edit a photographic series;
* Develop your own visual language and photographic identity;
* Build a creative approach and an artistic coherence in the approach of a subject;
This workshop in full immersion with Todd Hido aims at developing the aptitude of the participant to carry out a photography assignment in an institutional context. This experience will allow the participant to develop his/her capacity to produce a photographic work in a given location and in a limited time period.
BIOGRAPHY
American, b. 1968. Drawing from childhood memories as a creative wellspring, Hido wanders endlessly, taking lengthy road trips in search of imagery that connects with his own recollections. For his landscapes the artist chooses to photograph during overcast days and often frames his images through the vantage point of his car, using the windshield as an additional lens. Through this unique process and signature color palette, he alludes to the quiet and mysterious side of suburban America, where uniform communities provide for a stable façade, while concealing the instability that lies within its walls.
While Hido is notorious for photographing suburbia from the outside as his pictures of well-worn dwellings evidence, he has also entered the interiors of these houses and integrated the human form into his work. His ability to capture the inherent tensions of both the human body and landscapes marks his work as a starting point of a broader discussion. Any narrative inferred from his work is entirely a construct of the viewer’s imagination heightened by Hido’s power of sequencing photographs and his fascination with a cinematic style of image making.
Hido was born in 1968 in Kent, Ohio. He received his B.F.A. from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Tufts University. In 1996 he earned his M.F.A. from the California College of Arts and Crafts where he was mentored by Larry Sultan.
His photographs are in over 50 private and public collections around the world, including the Getty, Whitney Museum of American Art, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Pier 24 Photography holds the archive of all of his published works. Hido has published more than a dozen books, including the award-winning monographs House Hunting(2001) and Excerpts from Silver Meadows (2013). His Aperture titles includes Todd Hido on Landscapes, Interiors, and the Nude (2014) and Intimate Distance: Twenty-Five Years of Photographs (2016). A revised and expanded edition is coming in 3 languages in 2025.
He returned to the cinematic landscape photography that he first explored with Roaming (2003), as well as in Bright Black World (2018), and followed it up with The End Sends Advance Warning (2024).
Hido is also an avid photobook collector, and in the last 30 years has created a notable collection of over 8,500 titles.
His work has influenced multiple Hollywood productions, such as Spike Jones’s Her, Sam Levinson’s Euphoria, Issa López’s True Detective: Night Country, and the upcoming directorial project by Jason Momoa, Chief of War. He is also one of the subjects of Momoa’s documentary project on creative makers, On The Roam.

The artist lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Todd Hido is represented by Bruce Silverstein Gallery (NYC), Rose Gallery (Santa Monica), Casemore Gallery (SF), Alex Daniels Reflex Gallery (Amsterdam), and Les Filles du Calvaire (Paris).
«I will share the honest and intricate parts of my process of shooting and then the equally important other half of being a photographer: making choices about what images work the best and what sequence and context does for them. Where and how do you show your work? on a wall? a book? a tumblr? During the workshop I’ll break it down to the essential choices that need to be made and how one choice does not fit all. Often students end up seeing and discovering something that is easily attainable to them. I will review their work and give them feedback on current projects. As well, we will spend a few days working on shooting different genres of work; locations like my spaces, some night shots, and we’ll shoot some portraits as well.» Todd Hido
www.toddhido.com
If you want to be kept informed about Todd Hido, you can follow him on Instagram or Eyes in Progress.
Program
Eyes in Progress proposes a frame of a one week training course during which 9 participants will be placed in a situation of total immersion, in order to produce a photographic series, from inception to end, under the direction of a distinguished photographer.
Participants will be placed in a situation of « artistic residence ». Working days shall be split into various sessions: shooting, editing, masterclasses, projection of work, critique and mutual exchanges.
On the final workshop day, the participants will have the opportunity to show their series in a local public place, an opening will be organized and they will be able to show and present their works to the audience.
Moreover, other activities will be proposed, outside of the working sessions, in order to allow participants to utilize their environment and to spark creativity and inspiration.
These sessions will take place in a typical and very charming country house, a ‘mas’, located in the hamlet of Cosprons (Occitanie region), close to the border of France and Spain. Located in the bottom of a valley covered with vineyards, not far from the Bay of Paulliles, you will enjoy a quiet and beautiful environment, living among warm and authentic inhabitants.
You will be asked to adapt to a total immersion life, to take risks and to go beyond your limits, in order to progress and to get access to a higher level in your practice of photography.
No later than one month before the workshop, participants will be provided with a file. Among other information, you will find in this file a list of subjects and of contacts on site, to allow you to think about your project.
The workshop ends on July 6th which is the day right before the opening week of the internationally famous photo festival Les Rencontres d'Arles. The drive from the workshop location to the city of Arles is less than 3 hours which will allow participants to travel there (on their own initiative) and visit the festival.
DETAILED AGENDA:
Day One (starting on Sunday, 5pm):
Introduction
Welcome of participants on training site.
Preliminary presentations, each participant briefly introduces oneself to the group, introduction of the invited photographer.
Presentation by Eyes in Progress of the 7 days organization and of the pre-established projects.
Description and presentation of the local environment.
Questions/answers.
First exchanges related to the selected subjects and/or still subjects to further thinking.
Day 2 (Monday):
9:30am – 12:30pm
Each participant shows one or two completed or published series. They will present themselves orally to the group.
1:30 – 3pm
Inception and starting of a photographer’s project
By illustrating his presentation with his own projects, Todd Hido will offer advice on how best to approach one's project – paying attention to one’s experience and to previous works. He will discuss environment-related constraints and how to take them into account.
3 – 6pm
The group goes out together in a local town nearby to initiate the shooting sessions. Every participant will be free to achieve an individual reconnaissance outdoor in order to identify some points and/or meet with potential subjects (appointments may have been arranged previously). As far as possible, they will start making work. The workshop's coordinator can help in arranging contacts or in making suggestions.
Back indoors, we will then discuss the reconnaissance carried out, as well as identified constraints. Final choice of projects with Todd Hido.
Day 3 to Day 6 –(Tuesday up to Friday):
9:30 – 11pm
Every morning, Todd Hido will make a presentation of one of his projects or of some significant aspect of his professional work. The goal of these sessions is to inspire the participants in the realization of their own series.
11 – 17am
Shooting sessions
Every participant goes out to shoot their subjects. Participants come back to the house in order to get a critical review and improvement suggestions of Todd Hido. Daily meetings will be held so that each participant can spend time with Todd Hido in order to develop his/her series.
Through a selection and a discussion with Todd Hido around the best pictures of the day, participants will work at developing their series and improving their global approach of the subject.
5 – 6pm
Exchanges in group on shooting and associated challenges.
Day 7 (Saturday)
9.30 am – 2 pm
Final editing and sequence
Each participant works on the final editing and sequence of his/her series. The series and its associated text will then be sent to the selected mentor.
2 pm-5 pm
Participants deliver their series to the workshop's coordinator so she can create the sound slideshow that will be presented in the evening.
6 pm
Opening and presentation of each series to the audience through a sound slideshow. Drinks will be offered to the audience.
Day 8 (Sunday)
9:30 am – 1pm
Each participant works on the making up and the sequence of the final selection. He/She writes a text related to the series such as presented. The series and the associated wording shall be forwarded to a mentor of their choice. Final Q/A session with Todd Hido.
Working language: English.