JEFFREY HUGHES—photographer, writer, musician, advertising man, PhD scientist, and founder of Both Sides Photography, based in Jersey City, NJ—has been on a lifelong quest for balance and harmony between his rational and creative sides, ultimately leading him to the pursuit of fine-art photography.

 This first arose in college when he had to choose between a major in music or chemistry. After choosing science and earning a PhD in Organic Chemistry, he landed in New York and started a research career in the pharmaceutical industry. Still seeking to gratify both his creative and rational sides, he moved into a career as a copywriter in healthcare advertising. Along the way, he continued performing music in the New York-based band The Liquor Talking.

 The same quest also led Jeff to embrace photography at the dawn of the digital era. Digital photography appealed to his artistic and intellectual halves with its blending of creative expression and technology. He fell in love with landscape photography for both its aesthetics and creative process but became frustrated with the limited time he had to travel to places suitable for landscape photography. Living in or near New York, he found pleasure in creating cityscapes but still missed the things he loved about landscape photography.

 As in other parts of his life, he challenged himself to bring these two sides together into a balanced and unified concept. Thus was born the Ambiscape™, Jeff’s name for his signature style in which landscape and cityscape live together as a seamless, harmonious whole that also reflects the influence of Impressionixt painters on his visual approach. The name Both Sides embodies the Ambiscape concept as well as his life journey.

 Jeff’s passion today is exploring the possibilities of the Ambiscape in the urban settings where his life takes him now. Jeff is a founding member of the Hudson River Art Collective and a member of the Covert Collection cooperative gallery. He’s also produced his first book, Crossings & Passages, based on his project of the same name that showcases the bridges and arches of Central Park.

See Jeff’s work here