Todd Hido - Museum of Photographic Arts

When I went to Balboa Park I went into the Museum of Photographic Arts and browsed the gallery. I came across a few interesting artists, some disturbing and some intriguing. I found the pictures of the beauty pageant children really disturbing and it actually made me mad to see really young girls done up to be showed off, it serves no purpose. I did come across a series of interesting photographs by Todd Hido. They were taken from within the inside of his car through a rainy window with gave it this smudged look and refracted the light in interesting ways. All three pictures gave the sense of gloom and put the viewer into a depression state if you will. I enjoy these types of photos and I like how photographs can evoke emotional responses. Generally, as humans we don’t like cloudy rainy days and it does put some of us into a depressed mood and I believe he achieved this effect in picture form. The landscape features a rainy muddy road with a single headlight in the distance which captures the attention of the eye, centering it in the frame. The series of photos complement each other and it gave me a creative insight of what this artist might have been thinking when taking these photos. It also told me that even when conditions are typically bad for taking pictures you can still capture a really good photo.