Hi friends. My name is Collin. I tried to think of what I’m best known for as an introduction, but to be honest my pedigree as a photographer has flown more under the radar as I’ve worked as a commercial and editorial photographer the past decade. My clients range from technology to hospitality where I’m known for my elevated, luxuriously human approach. Effectively I make the simplest of things look nice.
I have a background in architecture where I spent years honing my sensibilities on spatial relationships with light, flow, and utility under the very specific umbrella of sustainable architecture. The thought of a future of designing exit stairwells and bathrooms of glacially-paced public projects sent me headlong into my photographic “career” that I had been pursuing while in school.
Since becoming a parent of two daughters my creative process has evolved rapidly. I’ve been spending more time writing than behind a camera which resulted in this Warm Hughes Newsletter. After a couple years on another platform I’ve migrated it here to bring more of my writing and visual projects under one roof.
What is this Quarterly about?
Warm Hughes Quarterly is my take on what photography has been revealing to me over the season. I explore the concepts through edits of my own work, reading, and writing.
Ultimately, I want to explore how photography can be used as a meaningful method of mirroring our deeper truths, aligned with the shifting of seasons.
Why “Warm Hughes”?
Warm Hughes is a congenial name for my creative world which holds the sensibilities I want to convey. The duality of writing and the photograph, or rather “image-making”, has revealed to me the profoundness of relationships.
What started as a pun revealed my stylistic identity that’s been slowly emerging since I began looking at the work I was making over the years. The question of “What do you like to shoot as a photographer” was always subtly troubling, like I needed to have a grasp on a specific class or genre to be understood.
To that end I’d now reply with another question “What mood do want to create?”.
As the field of image-making gets further distorted by technology with tools and outcomes more open than ever, a new type of identity is needed. What secret are you trying to share? This timeless question is more satisfying for me to answer, and they give my efforts more meaning by doing them.
As an photographer, director, and writer I’m interested in intimacy, identity, and uncovering new ways of seeing - specifically in relationships with technology.
I gravitate towards the romantic, timeless, and remarkably unremarkable.
I want to evoke more nuance in space to find a universal freedom in deep and fleeting times.
A photograph is meant to be experienced, similar to a film or a boat ride; it takes time to observe what emerges. I hope my work is a soothing vehicle for that process, and this place a memorable landscape where anyone can come back and find material that helps them see deeper.
About my project Home For Now…
I’ll eventually be launching a new component of the newsletter for paid subscribers specific to the work I’ve created in my ongoing series “Home For Now”. I initially started sharing these pairings on my instagram which you can find for free here, here, and here.
What Is It?
Home For Now is photography and writing project that explores the theme of waiting that takes place in the famous New York City Harbor. In this place everyone is coming and going, from a point A to point B, yet they are caught perfectly between in this window of time on the ferry.
This work has been ongoing since 2016 and safe to say, there are A LOT OF PHOTOGRAPHS. I created card-sized prints of hundreds of images to get a better grasp on what the project said to me which resulted in a very fun and beautiful vehicle to connect about photography and life, and more recently as tarot cards. There’s so much subtlety that can be conveyed in one photo, seemingly endless when you factor in subjectivity.
I’m very excited to bring this work to a broader audience.
The most exciting thing about this whole Substack experiment is that it will grow and evolve, an openness I haven’t found in other platforms. I’m playing with other possibilities of what I might be able to build on Substack, and your readership is all the more motivation to use the space available.
I do not plan to ask money for my newsletter. However, I do want to keep the option open for people who want to support me in the work on a voluntary basis. Paid Subscribers are able to comment on all posts and view work that hasn’t been published yet like Home For Now, and I hope to evolve the offerings as my work expands.
If you have any other questions…
Sign up for a studio visit! Send me an email! Ask them in the Comments!
I’m happy you’re here and have read this far too.
Collin
Image courtesy of friends Home Economics
