His love affair with photography began with a 'supasnaps' camera

Hayden Beaumont’s love affair with photography began at an early age, when his mother bought him a small “Supasnaps” film camera. It was a little yellow plastic disposable thing, but Hayden still remembers having a lot of fun taking photos with it.

His next experience with a camera was with his father’s camera. Hayden cannot remember the brand, but it was an SLR, and he wasn’t allowed to touch it without parental supervision! So he felt lucky, when he was allowed to use it.

Hayden bought a small Nikon ‘point and click’ compact 35mm as a teen and bumbled through various similar cameras over the next several years until he married and finally managed to buy his first DSLR camera, the Canon 1000D (Rebel Xs).

He shot his early work with that camera and continues to use it as his backup to this day. It served him well, as Hayden taught himself photography through a combination of study, emulating the work of others, and through trial and error.

His main interests in the beginning were experimentation with lights and night photography, landscapes and ‘skyscapes’, generally because he lacked the confidence to shoot people and portraits.

Hayden’s first real portrait shoot came in 2011, when he asked his sister in law, who was visiting his family from Hawaii, to model for her, so that he could try out his camera technique. That same year he travelled to Utah to visit his wife’s family and that is, when he really began to enjoy trying to capture images of people.

Over the years he has tried to evolve his interests and come up with new creative ideas. It’s difficult to be original in a saturated market, but he’s always trying to improve on existing trends and ideas. Who knows, one day he might come up with something truly great, that’s the dream, but until then he enjoys what he does.

The  main  inspiration  came  from  a  combination  of a few things.  The  Flickr  community,  who  have

been very helpful over the years. Hayden has drawn inspiration from a lot of people, too numerous to mention as can be seen from the sheer number of people, he follows on Flickr!

Dennis Calvert, Unexpected Tales, Elizabeth Gadd, National Geographic Magazine and Spencer Taylor Studios are probably Hayden’s main sources of inspiration. Whether it be their commitment to their work, technical expertise or great image ideas, he loves their work and often unique styles, some of which he hopes has carried over into his own projects!
 

Currently his camera of choice is the Canon 6D. It shoots great in low light, and is sharp as a knife. Hayden also wouldn’t say no to a Canon 5D mk iii though, should someone have one spare!

Most of the work, he does, is TFP (time for prints), and so he has gathered his kit over the years. His favourite lens is the lowly Canon EF 50mm f/1.4, followed closely by the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L series .

In terms of the future Hayden wants to continue to learn more techniques and improve his photography perhaps with the aim of launching a proper part time business. He’s planning on some more water work, so any models working with him, may be getting a little wet this summer! Plus he’s hoping to shoot some more portrait shoots with themes relating personally to the model. He would also like to experiment with a project idea, he has based around a large selection of headshots in and around North Yorkshire. It will take a little bit of planning, but he’s hoping, it will be successful!