Portrait photographer Pieter Hugo talks taste

My personal style signifier is an old band T-shirt. I’m still wearing cotton T-shirts from the ’90s because they’re so comfortable. They’re always black and have band logos on them, such as Swans or Mayhem. I used to cut the sleeves off but had to stop because my wife and children hate it – they say I’m too old. 

The last thing I bought and loved was my 2003 Nissan Patrol GRX, which I first drove when I was working on a portrait series of Boy Scouts in Liberia in the early 2000s. Last year I did a visual-communication job for Travis Scott’s new album and thought I’d treat myself by buying one. I didn’t know it was possible to love a car this much. I mess up cars with the type of work that I do – I respond to visual cues, turn off highways and ramp onto pavements. The GRX is old and cheap, but it makes me so happy. 

And the best souvenir I’ve brought home is a framed photograph of me, make-up artist Gabbazini Zuo and writer Adetokunbo Abiola in Nigeria. I was there shooting my series The Hyena and Other Men and Nollywood, which resulted in two collections of prints and monographs. It was such a pivotal period of my life. The photo was taken outside a bar in eastern Nigeria and we all look very dapper. 

The work of art that changed everything is In Boksburg, a photobook by David Goldblatt. I realised not all photographs have to be exclamation points. It made me open to the nuances of image-making. 

The best gift I’ve given recently is sustained philanthropy that is meaningful to people in a direct way. I’m one of the directors of contemporary art project Very Real Time, which works with a dance group in Atlantis, an industrial zone on the outskirts of Cape Town. I helped set up fundraising, as well as rehearsal spaces for kids to work in and use for music videos. Something simple like having dance classes for kids to express themselves can have a tangible, immediate effect.

And the best gift I’ve received was a hand-dyed cotton blanket that my wife Tamsyn knitted for my birthday. It’s based on an Afghan kilim pattern in shades of green, red, yellow and blue. She’s gone knitting mad – our house is filled with knitting machines.

The book I’m reading at the moment is Eichmann in Jerusalem by Hannah Arendt, which was given to me by a friend who knows my literary taste. It concerns Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi leader who was caught and brought from Argentina to stand trial in Israel after the second world war. It was an incredibly polarising book when it was brought out and feels very timely. 

The podcast I’m listening to is Jonathan Goldstein’s Heavyweight. It’s about people who have some sort of dilemma – some of them flippant and frivolous, some incredibly deep – that he helps reconcile or solve. It can take you to very unexpected places – it’s about how the mundane can become significant.

My style icon is somewhere between the laissez-faire of The Dude from The Big Lebowski and the gothic athleisure of Rick Owens. 

I have a collection of photobooks at my studio – about a couple of thousand. It’s like a library. One I’ve been going back to recently is Sister Sister by the Dutch photographer Liv Liberg. I’ve learnt to keep them at my studio as, between my dogs and kids, everything gets destroyed. 

If you open the fridge, a block of parmesan will fall on you

In my fridge you’ll always find around half a kilogram of parmesan. It’s not me, it’s Tamsyn. If you open the fridge, a block of parmesan will fall on you. We’re starved for good parmesan in South Africa, but a photographer friend from Parma regularly brings some back for us.

I’ve recently rediscovered gothy pop such as The Cure and The Yard. My daughter and I have discovered that our music tastes overlap. I spend a lot of time driving around with her and she often plays bands – Metronomy and Tame Impala – that remind me of music I used to listen to. Through her eyes I’ve rediscovered a genre that I haven’t listened to in ages. We have a combined playlist. The last song I downloaded was “Cold Blooded” by American singer Zhu, which Spotify recommended to me. 

There’s no object I couldn’t live without. In South Africa you have to have a Buddhist attitude towards objects. We live in a society where the divide between rich and poor is completely disproportionate, and this is one of the very unfortunate effects of that. I try not to get too attached to material things. Everything can be stolen, lost or destroyed, so what’s the point?

But an object I love is a dining table by furniture maker Allan Lutge, who works in a Cape Dutch aesthetic with the contemporary twist of using reclaimed pear wood from floorboards and ceilings. It’s the centre of the house. 

An indulgence I’d never forgo is being an artist. You’re continually solving problems and having conversations with yourself. Even though it has incredible importance it’s a pretty self-indulgent pursuit. I’ve tried to do other stuff, but I’m useless.

The last items I added to my wardrobe were two pairs of Dior Birkenstocks – one black, one grey felt – that were a gift from Kim Jones. When he joined Louis Vuitton, we did a project photographing kids in Johannesburg wearing one of his first collections. I’m a fiend for Birkenstocks because I love being comfortable. They are elegant and versatile, and I like that I can wear them casually or with a suit. 

The one artist whose work I would collect if I could is South African potter Hylton Nel, who should be a national treasure. There’s humour and vulnerability to his pieces. They amuse me and bring me great joy. I own a couple already – I gave him a portrait of a man with a pet baboon in return for a bowl, and was given one of his pieces for my 30th birthday. I would love to own more, but I got onto him too late; it’s impossible to find them. 

The grooming staple I’m never without is Terre d’Hermès, which I was first gifted by South African art dealer Michael Stevenson in my late 20s. I’ve tried other perfumes, but I always go back to this one. It’s inoffensive and unpretentious. 

My favourite place in my house is my garden. We bought a Victorian house in Cape Town’s centre a couple of years ago. Lots of neighbours look onto the property, so I started planting indigenous plants such as yellowwoods to create privacy by layering them. It snowballed from there, and now I find myself going back to gardening and landscaping instead of work. 

My grooming guru is an Algerian barber in the city centre. I usually go when someone in my family nags me to get my beard trimmed. He does it quickly and efficiently.

My favourite apps are Windguru, Surfline and Fishbox. Every day I look at wind, swell and tidal forecasts to determine how my weeks are going to play out. I’ll decide what days I’m going to go shooting and when I’ll be able to sneak off to go surfing, spear fishing or for a hike on the mountain. 

In another life, I probably would have been homeless. Even though I come from a very fortunate background, I often think about how easy it would have been to fall between the cracks. I’m really lucky, and I think about that a lot. 

The place that means a lot to me is my holiday house on South Africa’s east coast. It’s in a reserve that adjoins the Tsitsikamma Nature Reserve, where it’s completely wild. I go there to spend quality time with my family. It’s the best investment I ever made. 

I could not live without being in nature. Living on the tip of Africa in Cape Town, Table Mountain is literally on my doorstep. If I’m pushed for time, I go cycling on the mountain. There are lots of little ravines and routes that people don’t know about. If I have a bit more time, I’ll go to Cape Point Nature Reserve. Being able to access that on a daily basis is why I decided to drop an anchor here. 

The best bit of advice I’ve received is “nobody else is going to do it for you”, which Michael Stevenson told me when I had my first solo show with his gallery in 2004. Just go and do it.