Sam Hiscox is a photographer and film-maker living and working in London, UK. Starting out his career in photography taking pictures at music events, his work quickly developed into diary style documentation of his friends, travelling, partying and exploring the New York, LA and London scenes. Working across editorial commissions spanning fashion and portraits, he is now working on his first monograph, due for release in the coming year or so. 

More immediately, Sam has just released a teaser zine of sorts through New York based publishing house Spotz Club, a relatively new venture founded by photographer Pete Voelker, called, "Is My Red Your Red Or Is My Red Your Blue," available soon online in a limited edition. 

“Photography was something I was intrigued by from a very young age, so my first memories of it come from taking pictures on my family's holiday snap camera. It wouldn’t have even been something special, probably a Konica but I remembered loving using it. They saw that I loved it and decided to buy me my own, which was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles camera for my birthday one year. It took that weird film format called 110, which make these tiny negatives which are a long rectangle. It had a piece of plastic that you could flip over the lens, and then in every picture there would be a turtle putting up a peace sign in the bottom right corner. I have all these pictures of myself that I asked people to take, and of my cousins and just random shit with this turtle in the bottom of every single picture [laughs]. I should find that and put a roll through it”

Sam shot on a LEICA R7 / 50mm Summicron f/2

“I got into skateboarding and riding bikes, and naturally with that you see pictures in magazines, documenting tricks and that sort of thing. I found out my uncle was a camera enthusiast so I convinced my parents to buy a camera from him. It turned out the camera he sold us was broken; he literally ripped off my parents [laughs]. So I put a roll through it at a zoo, taking pictures of a lot of birds which became my focus initially, and the camera chewed up the entire roll; some crummy Zenith or something. My school introduced a photography class for A-Level and for the first summer project I needed a proper camera, so I finally got a Minolta SLR to start shooting with.”

“I had no idea that art photography existed. I had only been interested in shooting pictures of my friends in the woods, or skateboarding, biking, just hanging out. I shared these pictures with my first photography teacher who, as a result of the style and subject, showed me Nan Goldin, Corinne Day and Diane Arbus. I didn’t know that that kind of photography was accepted as an art-form, it was all just very instinctive. Seeing their work for the very first time blew my mind because I felt like I was already obsessed with this kind of photography. It validated my work in a way, seeing their work published in books and galleries sent me on my journey."

“Until the age of 28, I didn’t have an answer when people asked me what my photography was about. I shot a bunch of editorials after moving to London and realised I didn’t feel anything about the work, I had no connection. I decided to take a time out from editorial to work on producing a book of my personal archive. I printed hundreds of 6x4s, laid them out on the floor and it was only then that I started to understand what my work is or what purpose it serves, at least to me. I have a fascination with the world around me and I like to savour moments when I feel a particularly strong feeling about something in that instant. It’s almost a surreal experience which is totally outside of my reality, being inspired by something very abstract and fleeting, so I always take a snapshot camera with me to capture that. That single image might contain weeks-worth of moments and memories of my life.”

“I find it difficult to shoot commercial work if it’s purely aesthetic. In order for me to shoot anything I have to find a reason to do it, or an incentive which isn’t financial. There should be some deeper reason behind it for me to actually enjoy doing it because I’m not much of a fan of shooting pretty pictures for the sake of it. There has to be soul, I’m not really a fan of a pretty picture anyway. I like the idea of elevating something which is usually not interesting to another level, or giving it a soul, that’ll help me have a good day on a commercial job.” 

“I love books and I love shows, I just love printed photography which you can go and see in person. I think books give you an intimate experience, whereas I think a lot of exhibitions there’s a layer taken away. I did go to Sally Mann’s retrospective at a gallery in LA, which I really should know the name of. Wait, let me Google it [laughs]; the Getty Museum, I’m pretty sure that’s where it was. Her retrospective was incredibly emotional and she included a lot of personal notes, in particular a whole section on the nanny that she grew up with. I don’t think there’s been another exhibition that has triggered me in that way emotionally, maybe people are scared to include things which leave you vulnerable like that. Galleries can be cold environments, which a book will often not be. That said, I love seeing oversized work that you can lose yourself in; that’s something you don’t necessarily get from a book. There's a fictitious idea that a gallery should be clean and white, I much prefer when there's a personal touch.”

“I was chatting to Pete Voelker who is a photographer and publisher based in the States, under the name Spotz and he invited me to put together a little publication for the New York Art Book Fair. Having recently revisited my archive with the thought of putting together an edit to publish a big book of the past 15 years of work, it was the perfect timing for him to ask me to do that. It was also a nice kick in the ass to keep working on that bigger edit, so this is like a bit of a teaser for that. It’ll be for sale at some point soon online on my site and his.”

Images copyright Sam Hiscox / Portraits copyright Jonnie Craig

To see more of Sam's work, please visit his website by clicking here.