Hugh Fox is an award-winning British photographer. He has worked commercially for over ten years,  shooting portraits and documentary projects. He is also a practicing artist and resident of The  Phoenix Studios in Brighton, UK. 

We are extremely honoured and excited to share this interview with him today as he’s just won the professional portfolio category in this year’s Sony World Photo Awards – showing at  Somerset House, London from the 13th April 2nd May. Congratulations!

In 2012 Hugh completed his MA at Brighton  University, during this time he worked with his chosen medium of photography, incorporating  sound, moving image and sculpture, all of which enriched his practice as a commercial and fine art  photographer. The main focus of Hugh’s work is spaces; physical, metaphysical and virtual, how we  react and interact within these spaces - what they mean to us, as the lines between these spaces  become more blurred. 

Pls tell us about your greatest inspirations or influences? 

I know it sounds cheesy but my kids genuinely are my biggest inspirations. I have a 7-year-old  daughter Suki and an 18-year-old son Rumi. Their relentless thirst for play, creativity and knowledge  has inspired me to keep experimenting and creating with my practice. I believe we are all creative  beings and that playfulness is the absolute essence of creativity, not just within the arts but in all  aspects of life. Without it, we wouldn’t discover new ways of being or seeing. When we create with  a playful mind, we are not fixed on the end result; we are only engaged in the process - making  mistakes and reworking things is all part of the fun. 

My influences are drawn from so many creative sources, but my most significant visual inspiration is  Edward Hopper. When I first saw his painting New York Movie (1939) I fell instantly in love, it  embodies everything that intrigues me about our multi layered relationships with spaces. In the  painting the usherette is not only physically in the space of the cinema, but has clearly ‘left the  building’ and found an internal space to reside. The same goes for the movie goers, who are  physically in the space too, but also not really there as they’ve been transported to the virtual world  created for them on screen. For a long time, I was subconsciously drawn to photographing these  themes – of alienation and loneliness in modern life and the complexity of our relationships with  transient spaces. When I did my MA I think it crystallised this interest and I’m now free to play with  the ideas in works that are both sombre and playful too. The more I understand these places and  explore how people use them, the more I can reflect on internal and external in-between worlds to  create exciting spaces of creativity and play. 

Tell us a bit about your creative process? 

“To see something spectacular and recognize it as a photographic possibility is not making a very  big leap. But to see something ordinary, something you’d see every day, and recognize it as a  photographic possibility - that is what I am interested in.” 

Stephen Shore says it better than I can – I only came across this in an interview with him recently,  but it’s something I’ve been striving to do with my work for a long time. 

My work is a mixture of staged conceptual pieces and observational moments and it’s often not  clear which is which - they work independently or together and have a poetic thread that runs from  one to the other – for me a successful picture is one where the viewer questions whether its staged  or documentary – and it could be either. I really enjoy being able to work in less constrained and  more intuitive way, seeking out the quirks and finding beauty in ordinary moments – As a  neurodivergent person (I have ADD) I think I use photography as a tool to help make sense of our  nonsensical world.

How has the pandemic effected your creativity and how do you see the world changing?

There is no doubt the world stopped, changed and adapted to the pandemic – it’s too soon for me  to guess what the lasting impact might be. For me, like a lot of people the pandemic has been a  very unsettling. I consider myself very lucky that my health, wellbeing and financial situation wasn’t  impacted too significantly. In terms of my practice, having time allowed me to make more personal  work than ever and giving it room to breathe and develop without distractions of commercial work  and the business of daily life was very profound. I leant on my photography more than ever to stay  sane. The geographical confinement also meant I had this unique focus in a very small radius and feel  like I got to know it and understand it deeply by photographing it – my home, my family, the empty  streets where we live, the minutiae of those long uneventful days. It was an interesting time in  terms of sharing images and seeing how people read different images. It definitely felt like  photography in general – especially on social platforms – had a role in capturing people’s emotions  and feelings of collectiveness during this time.  

Who do you consider to be an icon of our time? 

I’m not sure icons exist in the same way they used too, as there’s now so many more platforms,  tribes, realities for icons to exists in. There are icons for me my son knows nothing about and  probably wouldn’t cross into his cultural life. If I had to pick someone, Grayson Perry would be my  cultural icon, he has an acute understanding of how politics is meaningful for different people, our  class systems and power dynamics, he’s not afraid to ask uncomfortable questions and champion outsider arts, and makes really great pots. I would love to own a piece of his work. 

What does wellbeing mean to you, and what do you practice? 

Well-being is important to me and my practice, that’s not to say some of my more interesting work  hasn’t been made during darker times, but generally I try to retain a Childs eye view of the world,  seeing things with a sense of wonderment, excitement and connectiveness, being mindful and fluid  to change. My social feeds tell me I need to get good sleep, exercise, eat well, make time for  friends and family etc but the reality is, like everyone, I’m totally enslaved to screens, feel  overwhelmed with tasks and responsibilities and struggle to make meaningful time for myself and  loved ones. That’s one of the things I’m trying to grapple with in my pictures I suppose – the pace of  life and the importance of just being, accepting and finding joy. So at least I’m trying to work it  through –that’s probably my actual wellbeing practice! 

Anything else you would like to share? 

It’s both an exciting time and a challenging time for artists. There are so many great platforms,  collectives and different ways to get your work seen and shared but it’s also hard not to be shaped  by the bombardment of imagery and information. I would really like to encourage all artists at the  beginning of their journeys to stick with what comes naturally, not to be influenced by trends or  what you think you should be doing or what others are doing– it takes time and patience but when  you find your voice it will come through loud and clear and people will take notice (if it’s good!). I  really appreciate all the creators who keep making interesting work during hard times.

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