Bio

JEFFREY HUGHES—founder of Both Sides Photography, based in Jersey City, NJ—has been on a lifelong quest for balance and harmony between two sides of his personality that ultimately led him to the pursuit of fine-art photography. Having equally strong rational and creative sides, much of his life has been about reconciling
this conflict.

This came to the forefront early in his life as he entered college. Being both an avid musician (a saxophonist) and a lover of science, he initially planned to do a double major in chemistry and music. After realizing the difficulty of this in the first year, he went forward with a chemistry focus, subsequently earning a PhD in Organic Chemistry. A post-doctoral fellowship at Columbia University brought him from the Southeast where he grew up to New York, where his story has subsequently unfolded.

Following his postdoctoral work, Jeff embarked on a research career in the pharmaceutical industry. Although he still loved the science, the lack of creative gratification ultimately led him to search for a new career that would give his creative side a voice more equal to that of his rational side. This ultimately took him into a long and successful career as a copywriter and creative director in healthcare advertising. At the same time, he remained involved with music, performing for a time in the New York-based band The Liquor Talking.

This same need to gratify both sides of his personality led Jeff to embrace photography as an artistic pursuit at the dawn of the digital photography era. Digital photography became a happy home for his artistic and intellectual halves with its blending of creative expression and technology. His initial focus was on landscape photography, which he loved both for its aesthetics and the nature of the process. But since he mostly spent his time in cities, he became frustrated with the limited opportunities he had to practice landscape photography as he knew it. He began creating more cityscapes and took pleasure from that, but still missed the things he loved about landscape photography.

As in other parts of his life, he challenged himself to bring these two genres together into a balanced and unified style. Thus was born the AmbiscapeTM, Jeff’s name for the style he has created in which landscape and cityscape live together as a seamless and harmonious whole. The name Both Sides was conceived to embody
the Ambiscape concept as well as to give a 2-word synopsis of his life journey. Under the umbrella of BothSides Photography, Jeff’s passion is to explore the possibilities of the Ambiscape in the various urban settings where his life takes him now.

Jeff’s current projects include Crossing & Passages, Ambiscapes showcasing the bridges and arches of Central Park; Juxtapositionings, Ambiscapes blending New York with Liberty State Park across the Hudson River; and Misturando, Ambiscapes from his evolving journey in Brazil, his second home now.