High School Senior Portraits

This spring I went to California just to take a day to sit on the beach and breath in some ocean air. It’s handy that my brother’s house is right on the beach in San Diego, so I stayed with him, and just walked out the back door and sat down for the whole day. (As I’m typing this up right now, I’m realizing it’s probably time I do that again.)

While I was there, I was able to shoot a couple jobs—this senior portrait session and my former wedding photography assistant’s engagement portraits.

Here’s high school senior cool cat, Aly.

My assistant for weddings went ahead and had herself a wedding

In 2013 Tia Horito started accompanying me to weddings as my assistant. She made things better, easier, funner. The out of state weddings I’d do on my own, and on those occassions, I sure missed her assistance. It just wasn’t the same without her. The day I hoped would never come, finally came. Tia got engaged herself, got married, and moved to San Diego and her days at Justin Hackworth Photography came to a close. I’m so happy for her and she and Holden are the perfect match. Nothing stays the same, I guess.

Here are a handful of engagement pictures I took of her and Holden out in San Diego this spring.

Brad Herbert Portrait

I’d been contracted with Utah Business Magazine to photograph their 40 Under 40 award winners. Brad Herbert was part of that group, but wasn’t able to make it on the days we shot that feature. His wife knew it meant a lot to him, so lined up a portrait session for him on his own. What a cool move. Here’s the very bright Brad Herbert.

Portrait of a redhead

At one point during the summer of 2020, I was going through a few things in our basement and came across a few rolls of film that had long since expired. Yep, film, just like fruit or a passport, has an expiration date. And just like fruit, if you eat film past it’s expiration date, it probably won’t end well.

So I found some film that had expired and thought I’d give it a whirl, anyway, just to see what it turned out like. Even though I’m pretty adept at knowing what the results will be for film that I’m shooting, there’s always an element of uncertainty, which is part of what’s great about shooting film. That mystery. And the uncertainty is compounded with really old film. The film I found in the basement had expired 20 years ago, which means it was probably manufactured 25 years ago. In fact, that particular film stock has been discontinued for many years.

I called up Olivia and asked her to come in for a portrait. I love her red hair and freckles and wanted to make a portrait of her that highlighted those things. I took quite a few with a digital camera, then got out my twin lens Rollei, and shot one of the rolls of expired film. I love how it turned out.

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Lauren Daigle for BYU TV

It was 95 degrees outside on the day Lauren Daigle came to town to film Christmas Under the Stars, for BYU TV. This was back in August.

Lauren is an impressive singer (Grammy Awards, Billboard Music Awards…) and an equally impressive person to be around. I photographed the show, and in between the rehearsal and the Christmas concert I was given a few minutes for a more formal portrait to be used for BYU TV’s promo material. Thanks to BYU TV for hiring me to photograph this.

Birthday self portraits

A few years ago, I started taking self portraits on my birthday—as many self portraits as my age that day. (It was my friend Brett Howell’s idea.) I think I started this tradition when I turned 44. 

Yesterday I took 53 self portraits on the occasion of my 53rd birthday and I think this is my favorite one yet. It takes all day to do this, but as soon as I started, I told Amy, “I’d forgotten how fun this is!”

In an effort to mix it up a bit, this year I decided to hit the road, so my son and I drove up in the mountains to a tiny town called Duchesne. (It was about 20 degrees while we were there, walking around.) Not much to see in Duchesne, but I really dig small towns.

Enjoy!

(Click on any image to view it larger)

My favorite pictures from 2019

If I photographed you this year, there’s a good chance you’re in this video. And if I didn’t photograph you in 2019, maybe 2020 is the year to do so.

The pictures in that slideshow are my favorite of the year. But here are the ones that didn’t quite make it. Here are the outtakes of 2019.


Birthday self portraits

A few years ago, I started taking self portraits on my birthday—as many self portraits as my age that day. This Thursday I took 52 self portraits on the occasion of my birthday.

A couple notes : That morning I was scheduled to be in Salt Lake for a shoot with Utah Business Magazine. So the first pictures are me packing up, making my way to the shoot, and some of the people I photographed for that shoot show up in these pictures. Later in the afternoon my family met me in Salt Lake and we spent the night in a hotel. You’ll also see I am holding my cell phone in a lot of them because I’m addicted to my phone. Just kidding, it’s because I’m using an app on the phone to trip the shutter on my camera. Just kidding about the just kidding. I am addicted to my phone, but that’s not why it’s in these pictures.

As always, who knows what next year brings and if I’ll do it again, but I’m glad I had the chance to do it this time around.

Click any image to view it larger.

Enjoy!

Working

Here’s a couple pictures of me, working, photographing weddings. Both were taken by my assistant, Tia Horito, who has been at Justin Hackworth Photography for six years. Both were taken the same week.

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Joanna Gaines

Joanna finished her keynote speech and Gabby, the conference organizer had mentioned earlier that she wanted to get a picture of her with Joanna and then I could do a portrait of Joanna, but that there wouldn’t be much time.

I arrived at the location where Joanna was speaking and the green room was…..let’s say, pretty gross, and the hallways leading to it were bleak. Well now what? I knew I wouldn’t be able to take her anywhere and needed to stay close to the venue.

Across the parking lot was a pretty tall hedge and luckily, one side was in shade. After the speech, I was able to get Gabby and Joanna to walk to the back side of the hedge, in the shade, and even more importantly, out of site of all the conference attendees who would surely want to get a picture with Joanna.

I had less than two minutes to do a picture of Joanna with Gabby and Joanna on her own, but I was able to get something I liked.

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Yes, to answer your question, yes, she was awesome.

Hand painted backdrops

Yesterday I took a workshop from Mathew Peterson on how to make your own hand-painted backdrop and learned very quickly, it’s a lot harder than it looks. It’s the reason why the undisputed master of hand-painted backdrops, Sarah Oliphant, charges $1,000 just to RENT one.

Mine turned out ok. It’s got flaws for sure, but I can’t wait to shoot with it, and I also can’t wait to try painting one again and yet again and see what else I can come up with.

I’m always looking for ways to improve my photography, whether that’s getting better at responding to people’s gestures and expressions, or adding things such as hand-painted background to my arsenal.

Once painted, it takes 24 hours to dry, so Mathew and Ashley delivered the backdrop to me today at my house and I thought the very first time I used it should be a picture of Mathew, since he’s the one that showed me how to do it.


Alt Summit portraits, 2019

This year was the 10th anniversary of Alt Summit. I’ve been all ten years. It’s how I met and became best friends with Martha. (You may know her as Martha Stewart).

Martha Stewart at Alt Summit
Martha Stewart

Ok, fine. We’re not best friends, but Alt is how I met her and others. Like Joanna Gaines, this year, and last year that lady that played Lyla Garrity on Friday Night Lights —Minka Kelly— and Sarah Michelle Gellar and Christy Turlington and I think you get the idea.

This year I was hired to photograph Alt attendees. Here’s a tiny sample.

If you have an interest in seeing more, here’s one of each person: http://www.justinhackworth.com/alt-summit-2019 Thanks for looking!

Don't wait until it's too late. Let's schedule your family portraits today!

Every year around the holidays, a number of people contact me about getting family pictures in time to send something out with holiday cards. I always do what I can to work that out, but some people wait until it’s too late. I don’t want that to happen to you! (One time I pulled a drawer out too far and it landed on my foot. I don’t want that to happen to you, either, but that one is pretty much out of my hands).

The next couple months are the perfect time to book a family portrait session so give me a call or email me and let’s set something up!

Family pictures can be done at your home, some outside location, or at my studio in Provo. 

If I’ve photographed your family before, you know how easy it can be. If I’ve never photographed your family before, it’s possible you have some apprehension about the process, perhaps feeling like it’s too big of a hassle. Well, you’ve got nothing to worry about.  One of the comments I hear over and over from families that come to be photographed, is just how easy and fun it is. In fact, just last week, I received this text from a mother who brought her five kids and husband to the studio. “Thanks again for your work with us yesterday. That was a really great experience on our side and far less painful than everyone was dreading. You’re awesome.” See, nothing to worry about!

To make an appointment, there's contact information here.

I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

New York City

A walk around town.

Headshots

Comedy writer Dave Vance came to the studio for some non-stuffy portraits of himself that he could use for all his promotional material. Here's a handful that I favored.