Clayton Hauck & Gracie Hagen

Clayton Hauck talks a lot about loving what he does on his website and you can tell. There is a lot of fun and humour in his photography. He has a lot of strings to his bow and portrait, concert and street photography are just part of his repertoire. He has a background in film production and editing and has always been driven to create interesting and compelling stories with the help of his camera. His partner in The Swap is Gracie Hagen. Gracie’s site takes you to her commercial work and her art photography. She has a distinctive style. In her series ‘Secretomotor Phenomenon’ for example she photographs people crying in a particular light and with varying floral backgrounds. The portraits they have taken of each other are really, really good with great colours. The cat’s expression in Clayton’s portrait is classic http://theswap.info/chgh.html.

Gracie answered some of my questions about taking part below:

How did you feel being the subject of a photograph as opposed to the photographer?

I didn’t mind at all, I try to frequently be in front of the camera as it’s educational for me. To see how my subjects feel & figure out new ways of getting what I want out of the subject.

Did you discuss the shoot prior to taking the images?

I did yes, I have different methods of creating a photograph. I asked what types of things Clayton liked & met with him beforehand so I could gauge his personality. (we hadn’t met before, I contacted him for this project specifically)

Did you experiment with a new style of photography or did you reflect your normal approach?

It’s more catered towards my commercial studio style photography than my artistic one, not that they’re mutually exclusive. With my commercial studio, Gracie Hagen Photography http://www.graciehagenphotography.com, I try to bring some artistic life into the tired old bones of commercial portraiture.

Gracie has a Tumblr account at http://graciehagen.tumblr.com