Hiroshi Sugimoto: ‘When photography was believable, my art was possible’

In this interview, filmed inside the Hayward Gallery, Sugimoto discusses his approach to photography, the changing landscape of the medium, and also leads us through some of his notable series of work.

Those works include the series Seascapes, which he describes as framing the beginning of his life; Theaters, in which he expanded on the idea of condensing a whole film into a single frame to produce a brilliant rectangle of illuminated light; and Opticks, his first and only series of colour photographs, which draw on and earlier idea and approach pioneered by Isaac Newton.

On his photographic method, Sugimoto explains how rather than go looking for subjects to photograph, his approach instead begins with a vision or an idea, and his photographs then serve as a means to confirm or reinforce these ideas. The artist also considers how the invention and progression of digital photography has changed the perception of photography, with particular relevance to his own work.