Hidy Hido

I found this nice little video of Todd Hido's
here His night time work ethic is very similar to my own except I don't have a vibrating timer and I am much better looking.... What did take me by surprise was that he uses 35mm. Nothing wrong with that of course, I just assumed he used a bigger format (unless it was for the camera)
I guess that explains the long vertical format. Although quite informative in parts he actually doesn't give much away, and I why should he.. I have a few pictures of houses that have been compared to Hido's which is fair enough but I am more interested in the houses location and surrounding area, rather than the actual homes. As for Hido's 'other' work, well it doesn't really do it for me and I personally don't think you can connect a portrait or nude with a photograph of a house (see video)
I did see a talk Hido did in San Francisco which was quite interesting. Someone asked if he approached the house owner for permission before he took a picture of there property. His reply was: "No. Because I mostly shoot late at night, knocking on a strangers door and asking if I could take a picture of there house would probably not go down very well" I totally understood what he meant. Photographers are misunderstood enough without asking to take pictures of peoples houses in the middle of the night.
This has got me thinking of how other photographers 'gain excess' to certain areas in order to take pictures. I myself have a simple rule. If there are No Trespass signs, a fence to climb or just generally a bad vibe to the place I simply walk away, no matter how good things look. I just don't think its worth getting into bother for the sake of a picture. I have also found that asking permission to take a picture always sends up a red flag, so I normally try to find common ground with the property owner first (thats a beautiful house, do the work yourself, my you are handsome), if there is indeed someone to ask, which for me is rare as I tend to go places where there is no one around.. This is one topic that comes up a lot on the photography forums, but I don't want to get into that too much here, its just common sense after all...
Couldn't resist the childish title today...