Through his sensual, multi-panelled panoramic photographs, David Hilliard tells stories—stories about desire, fathers and sons, masculinity unfolding, relationships that elude. This body of work, is his most autobiographical project; through a very tender, observant lens, he looks at his relationships with his parents; the anxieties of being a boy who doesn’t thrill at boyish things; the longing of a young man; and the mature awareness that we will all have to say goodbye to the people we love the most, no matter how hard we may embrace them now. With different focal points throughout and an almost tactile emotional sensibility, the photos portray a beautiful, richly nuanced world: one that Hilliard both perceives and invents through his narrative images.

Clayton Maxwell: Because your panoramic images are composed of three separate photos, they seem to embody the ever present tension between the individual and the collective, both in the actual structure of the images and in their content; the subjects often seem to be both alone and together. Can you tell me more about this?

David Hilliard: I’m really pleased that you made that observation. It’s always been important to me that my photographs, both in form and content, possess a bit of that “separation”. Each photograph represents “a moment”, yet together represent a continuum; a linear narrative of sorts. In the case of the work with my father (Rock Bottom) for example, I wanted to represent our similarities such as our shared genetic pool, our bluebird tattoos and a connection to nature…and maybe even a bit of discontentment. At the same time, we’re very different people. Which is why I chose to create that middle panel in the triptych that for me represents a kind of distance; a division of sorts. There’s a divide created by the distance in the water, the separation of the images, and the fact that the photographs are actually made at different moments. Yet there’s the mirroring of the clouds on the water, another uncontrollable parallel. I’m at once the best and the worst of him. I try to change what I can but remain helpless to control other aspects of our parallel lives. I can never fully separate or control my destiny. None of us can. It’s kind of like determination verses determinism. It’s my hope that the photo remains universal in its message.

CM: In your panoramas, you play with multiple focal points and depth of field, thereby directing the attention of the viewer much like a film director. How did this photographic device evolve for you? What do you think it communicates? What do you hope the viewer experiences?

DH: My early passion as an undergraduate was film making. I wanted to tell stories. Yet as much as I loved film and video I was continually left slightly disappointed at its inability to linger and stare in quite the same way that a photograph could. I also have to confess that I was at times a bit overwhelmed by the expectations to say something larger in a film. I was taken by a photographs ability to depict slices of topics that I was interested in talking about; each one being a sentence of sorts. Yet I wanted to challenge the static nature of the photograph by linking them together and activating them; playing them off of one another. So I then began making linear panoramas with a view camera. I began using it in much the same way I was using the video camera…moving across my subject matter, shifting the focus from image to image and displaying the photographs side by side. It was as if I found a way to take the best of film and photograph and join them together in a kind of hybrid studio practice. I was also excited that I could, within one piece comprised of various images, possess a still life, a portrait and even a landscape. It’s a bit decadent.

CM: Your images feel narrative, as if we are stepping into stories with beginnings and ends we can only guess at. Does each of these images gesture towards your own personal stories? If so, I’d love to know more. For example, Water Breaking and Hope both show fathers and sons out on an adventure; they carry the tone of father instructing son in some manly pursuit. Do these connect to a childhood memory for you?

DH: The images do have beginnings and ends of course. Some are more resolved than others; some illustrate, others joke, while another might be a lamentation of sorts. In my newest body of work, Being Like, there are quite a few father and son images. There are images of myself with my own father. In one we’re hugging. In another we’re worlds apart. Images such as Water Breaking and Hope were made while I was working on a project in Alaska and found myself continually confronted by fathers and sons together in the landscape. It may have been my state of mind at the time; I was travelling alone for quite a few days and the constant dad/boy sightings began to work on my psyche in some strange way. These men were teaching their boys to hunt, fish and do all other kinds of stuff that I never really wanted to do or was pressured to explore. I noticed that some of the boys seemed to be enjoying it more than others. Water Breaking shows a really young boy almost hiding behind his father while birds and fish go crazy in the water and starfish surround them on the beach. They both appear taken aback by all that’s happening. In Hope, this sweet boy holds a handful of halibut fish yet appeared miles away for the potential joyful experience of having caught so much. He reminded me of myself, so many years ago, just trying to get through certain expected rituals so that I could go off and to the strange and wonderful things that I truly wanted to do. Of course, this is all my own baggage that’s running through my mind as I’m looking at them through my camera. Who knows why the boy looks the way he does. That’s what I love about a photograph…it tells and it asks at the same time.

CM: What’s going on in Paul Coerced? He looks like he is walking home from some wild black tie party in the country, the title, his beauty and his state of undress suggesting that perhaps he was coerced into something sexy. What’s going on here?

DH: It’s funny, I made that photograph as part of a project for a charity fundraiser. I selected the model, Paul, from the Ford Modelling website. He not only was beautiful but also possessed a sullen quality that I was really taken with. I later found out that he was only 17 and just starting out as a model. The night before the shoot he had gone to his high school senior prom in Escanaba Michigan. The next day before his journey to the Detroit area where the photograph was made, his mother called me and asked if they (his parents) should throw his tuxedo in the car as well. I loved the idea, I loved that his mother was collaborating with me and that poor Paul had to get up the morning after his prom and model. It was all too strange. In the end I feel I made a pretty sexy image of a young man, potentially post coital and beaten (he’s got a split lip and blood drop on his torso) who was perhaps forcibly ousted from his dates home…or something like that. Again, I want it to be an open-ended narrative. It was my first time working with him. I’ve since returned to Michigan and travelled up to Escanaba to work with both Paul and his family. It’s a pretty amazing place and I’ve been lucky enough to have been embraced by his family and allowed in. Access is always a gift.

CM: Are there any other back-stories about your photos you’d like to share?

DH: I’ve probably told you too many already. I will say this. I do love that each photo I make seems to possess some kind of back-story that exists independently from what the photograph actually represents. I love “the event” of making photographs. I’m usually at my happiest when I creating something that feels smart and resolved in general. I think every artist has these experiences.

CM: So many of these images feel drenched with the desire for connection and intimacy, be it emotional or sexual, but a desire unfulfilled. That sensibility is particularly strong in images like Boys Tethered, Sought, and Rock Bottom. Why is this a prominent leitmotif?

DH: In this case maybe it’s not that complicated. I think that many of us, myself included, are continually searching for “something”, be it love, friendship, community, family, sexual fulfilment or material gain. As a gay man, much of my life, especially in my early years, was spent searching for an identity that was acceptable to both society and myself. Sex has always been complicated and often dangerous. It goes without saying that often times when we finally get what we think we need…it leaves wanting for more. It’s our nature.

CM: Hug, on the other hand, is one photo in this series that shows physical contact between the subjects—the distance between people is physically bridged for a moment. Would you consider that photo a departure from the others in this series?

DH: Maybe within this series. I’ve made plenty of photographs that depict physical connections. But you are right in the case of this newest work, in pointing out that for the most part subjects are often alone or disconnected. In Hug I made the conscious decision to create a moment where I’m actually holding on to my father. In recent years his health has been a bit shaky and it occurred to me that I never really made a photograph where I’m holding him…and I’d be remiss if I didn’t and one day he was gone. To be honest, although we’re hugging, the photo is really about my being alone. It’s a pretty sad image.

CM: Your father is the man in Rock Bottom with the bird tattoos on his chest. He has been a subject in your photographs over many years. Is it really odd to work with your dad, particularly in a state of undress? Do you think that the physical act of photographing someone can help create the intimacy that so many of the characters in your images seem to long for?

DH: It’s not odd at all to work with my father. It’s actually something that we both quite enjoy and take quite seriously. It’s intimate for sure, but we’ve never gone past our underwear…that might get awkward. Yes, in the earlier years, especially while I was a graduate student, my father didn’t quite know what to make of my desire to depict him so obsessively. But he did it. The guy loves me and bottom line is that he’s always wanted me to be happy. He doesn’t always understand who I am and my decisions in life, but he’s in the game with me and supports me for the most part. He’s still amazed that anyone would ever be interested looking at, let alone purchase, a photograph depicting his life. Ultimately I think he’s flattered. We don’t really have many deep conversations around the subject. The day we made the photograph Rock Bottom it was very cold; one of the last days before the leaves changed colour. We were in Maine and it was pretty cold. I desperately wanted to make this photo and he knew it. The man sat in the water, on a lumpy rock, for way too long while I fussed with my equipment. In fact, he kept telling me to slow down so I don’t f--- up the picture. He wanted me to get want I wanted. I made his portrait and then he had to stand in the water and make multiple portraits of me. It was a true collaboration. I’m really glad to have made this picture. Over the years making pictures with my father has been a very personal and intimate father and son activity that for sure has been meaningful. It has brought us closer together.

CM: There are several images, like Mary Remembering and Lickety Split, that seem less about longing and more about the activities and nostalgia of old age. Why have you been drawn to photographing the elderly?

DH: It’s not so much about my desire to embrace the geriatric crowd but rather a newer project where I’m photographing my mother and her community down in Florida. My parents divorced in the 1970s and have since taken very different paths in their lives. My mother is a born-again Christian and it’s taken me many years to get my mind around that and begin to make pictures. It’s obviously quite difficult due to the fact that the very nature of who I am is counter to her spiritual belief system. We love one another…yet there’s so much that’s wrong. Much of this work is Florida is about what remains unspoken. Outwardly the work is playful and colourful. But in actuality it’s heavy and dark. They’re some of the hardest pictures to make. I feel very disconnected in those moments.

CM: Do you feel like your work has a particularly gay content? There are beautiful men, and there is longing and attraction between them, is that enough to categorise the work as gay? Are such categories useful?

DH: Yes, gay content for sure. I hope you noticed that! And yes, there are beautiful men…yet there are also not so beautiful men. But I find them all beautiful. I would argue what unites them is how they’ve been photographically rendered. I am interested in beauty and where it’s found. Sometimes it exists in the world and sometimes I make it. Or both. In some of the photographs I depict men I love, have loved, could never love, never have, never be, etc. Yet I don’t know if I feel comfortable categorising the work as solely gay. Although I’m a gay man that’s not all I am. It is important for me that the viewer is aware that my imagery, all of my imagery, has been made through the lens of a gay man. This does inform the entire body of work and is ultimately my biggest political statement.

TEXT BY CLAYTON MAXWELL