In 2018, Olympus will be presenting their “carte blanche” to American photographer Todd Hido. Over the course of twenty-five years Hido has gained international recognition for his photographs of places and subjects that when weaved together explore and play with innate human ideas of longing, loss, narrative, and memory. This latest series reinterprets his photographic portraits in the lighting style of European classical paintings. Exploring a range of shadow-less Northern light and a more chiseled chiaroscuro method. "Ten years ago, I visited the South of France. It was during my stay there that I realized in order to mitigate the summer heat and aid with afternoon naps, that the shutters were designed to completely black out a room. Coming from the Midwest of the United States, I had never seen this before,” recalls Hido. When first I made these pictures, I realized they were about the simplicity of light on skin and fabric and the sheer beauty of that quiet yet profound tool.”