#4124, from the series House Hunting

In his series House Hunting, photographer Todd Hido set out to capture suburban homes in his native Ohio and his transplanted home, the San Francisco Bay area, among other areas of the country. Homes in these locations are interchangeable, marked by a ubiquity that is a hallmark of midcentury American suburbia. In the series, he shot images of homes at night, using long exposure times to achieve the color saturation that defines his work. These aspects contribute to a sense of drama or unsettled moodiness in the photographs, in addition to their lack of figures. They are, however, ultimately about people, not place. “Most of the time,” Hido says, “I am interested in a certain light in a window—that’s what catches my attention. When you’re looking at a house at night with its lights on, you can’t help but imagine the people inside.”