August is winding down, but it’s still Photography Month here on the ADC blog. We are featuring a different photographer every day of the month. Some are seasoned professionals, some are young up and comers, and some are just amateur shutterbugs taking snapshots on the side. One thing they have in common: they are all ADC Members, part of our globe-spanning creative community. We hope that you enjoy their work as much as they love creating it!

WILL HUGHES
Brooklyn, NY, USA
willhaddad.com
347.407.3186

Follow @willhhaddad

How old were you when you took an interest in photography, and when did it become more than an interest?

I remember being very young, 5 or 6 and being trusted to carry my moms Nikon back to the house while on vacation in Western Maine. I was all alone walking down the small dirt road between the lake and the house and I was totally enthralled by this magic thing. A plane flew over, and I held the camera up and snapped. I don’t even think there was film in the camera. But from that moment I was hooked.

I started studying photography seriously in middle school and high school, when I enrolled in Durham School of the Arts. At the time it was this experimental magnet school that devoted all classes outside of the basic curriculum to fine and performing arts.

What is your favorite thing to shoot?

I love shooting people. Beauty has been my focus for the last five years or so. What I really love is to shoot models without their makeup and hair done. To see them as the people they are day to day. Without a mask. Without someone else’s definition of trend or beauty.

“What I really love is to shoot models without their makeup and hair done… without a mask. Without someone else’s definition of trend or beauty.”

What is your favorite piece of equipment?

My favorite piece of equipment would still have to be my Nikon. In many ways it still holds that same power it did for me as a child. The way the camera changes the way you see the subject, is remarkable. Not only my interaction with the scene, seeing through the frame, changes your thinking about angle and composition. But, the subjects relation to you changes aswell. Suddenly the camera is on them and they are on in return. It’s a powerful object.

Which person most inspires your photographic passion? Which professional photographers do you look up to?

Inspiration can and does come from anywhere. Most litteraly, I am constantly in awe of Peter Lindberhg’s work. David Sims, Diego Uchitel, Paolo Roversi. There are loads of awesome shooters. I also find inspiration in art and literature. For instance, I’ve often said that I would love to shoot the way that Fitzgerald wrote. And the art of the Frick collection is a masterclass in subtlety and middle tones.