His use of larger format cameras requires patience and trust between photographer and subject, which is visible in the forthright expressions and candid interactions of his subjects with the camera. There is often a sense of calm in his images that transcends the clamour of the circumstances in which the images where taken. 

Hugo’s way of seeing is often akin to familiar painting genres such as landscape, portraiture, group portraiture and still life, and the subjects of his photographs – the elderly, the poor, the blind, street artists, soap actors and his close family and friends — form a social tableau which offers an intense and challenging view of Africa at the beginning of the twenty-first century.