Portrait of a Photographer: Christian Hayden
The camera's flash is sudden —and bright! Or maybe the shutter clicking is so subtle that you don’t even notice. The photos taken witness joy, performers swept up in the moment, or audiences suspended in reflection. Portraits depict figures quietly regarding the lens, and you may begin to wonder about the story starting to unfold.
Christian Hayden photographed by Steve Weinik
This season, we pull the focus to an often overlooked figure: the person behind the lens.
Read on for a conversation between Journey Arts Social Media and Marketing Coordinator Sweet Corey-Bey and Christian Hayden, the photographer behind many of the iconic images from 2025-26 season. Let the conversation stir you to write yourself into our season and secure your seat for an upcoming show.
Sweet Corey-Bey :
So to start, can you introduce yourself?
Christian Hayden:
My name is Christian Hayden. I am from Brooklyn, New York, and I reside in Philadelphia. I am a photographer, documentarian, and facilitator.
SCB:
How did you get started being a photographer?
CH:
I first became aware of photography when a friend asked me if I could find a camera for him to record his kids graduation. I tried accessing my network, reaching out to folks and my friend Annie replied! Annie is a photographer who went to stay in Ghana and document a program that I was a part of out there, and so we had built our relationship through mutual friends, and experiences. She said: “ I have a camera, but your friend would have to learn how to use it.” And that confused me, because I always thought of photography as a you click the button and you get an image. I had only seen disposable, or digital cameras where people weren't usually using any manual controls.It immediately intrigued me– though it definitely wasn’t what my other friend had in mind!. So I got my own film camera and I was like ‘ let me see what this is all about’.
“There's this way that I look forward to the play of searching, feeling, and responding in the process of taking a photograph.”
- Christian Hayden
This all was around 2017 – I was also in the process of a very long, extended breakup, just before I was going to return to Ghana for a second trip. The breakup had drained a lot of energy for me and I thought ‘I don't want to go anymore’ I was feeling pretty bad. I thought to myself “how can I make this trip meaningful again?” I also was accepting that I simply have a bad memory! So I decided that I could try photography– I could document my trip and that would make it exciting for me.
SCB:
That is such a circuitous route to the practice itself–what was taking those first photos like?
CH:
I actually had another friend, Adachi–a somewhat retired photographer–teach me how to use the film camera. She taught me, we went on a photo walk, I took some pictures, I got them developed. It was in black and white. And I was like, ‘This is so cool!”. ‘This is really beautiful’. I really want to keep trying this.
I took about 10 rolls on my return to Ghana, and I shot them. Some of my favorite photos that I've ever taken to this day, I took on that trip. That's how I caught the bug, and just would do photo shoots for friends and photograph people's events.
Later on, a different breakup happened where I was saving money to go on a trip with this individual–then our relationship ended, and I decided I should put that money into a digital camera. That was about nine years ago!
SCB:
It sounds like there's this web of community, relationships, and friends guiding your path! At this point, you're pushing up on a decade of being a photographer– a whole decade in the game!
CH:
Yes, I'm very much in the game! My inception moments came from the search for ways to stay connected to people. That’s the throughline photography has given me. There are times I would not have left the house except for saying “okay, at least I'm gonna go shoot”. At the very least, let me try to get some photos out of this, or document this moment for a friend. And that has helped me through some difficult times.
“There are times at an event when a person may know I'm taking a photo of them, and we have not had a conversation yet, but there's a kind of conversation that's happening as I'm working the images.”
-Christian Hayden
SCB:
I've seen a lot of your images out in the world, and I see you take really beautiful pictures of people in moments I recognize later as historical because photography approaches them in that historicizing way. When I see photos of yours, I also feel what I think of as your signature touch. I know that they're your photos. So I wonder if you were to give three key words to your style or your approach, what would those words be?
CH:
One word I would use is ‘collaborative’. When I make images that I really like, it's usually when I'm working with someone, and we are figuring it out together. That process, for me, makes photographing feel less like an extractive exercise. It becomes more than what I think I'm doing myself and that's reflected in my photography even in moments when it's unspoken.
There are times at an event for example when a person may know I'm taking a photo of them, and we have maybe not had a conversation yet, but there's a kind of conversation that's happening as I'm working the images.
A second world would be ‘emergent’. I'm not a person that goes in with an image that I want to get in mind. There's a feeling I want to get to, but I think the actual image that comes up is, rarely ever something I imagined before– or at least images that I tend to really love the most!
There's this way that I look forward to the play of searching, feeling, and responding in the process of taking a photograph.
“The thing that draws me to particular images I end up taking is asking ‘how does it make me feel’?”
-Christian Hayden
And then I think the last word is ‘affecting’ . Right now I'm trying to get better at following light and sometimes manipulating light– But I think the thing that draws me to particular images I end up taking is asking ‘how does it make me feel? How's that? How would this make other people feel? How does this photo start to tell the story of who this individual is in this moment? That becomes my North Star. And I have my things that some others critique– specifically being very tight to the subjects of the images I’m taking. But I think part of that inclination is to get deeper, closer into the world of a moment.
SCB:
Some collaborations come so easy and so natural! I’m reflecting on the different capacities of your work with Journey Arts and particularly I love the series that you grabbed for the last Table Sessions–I think it was so well served by your style so well to just let people reveal themselves and emerge! Then there’s the photoshoot process of taking highly stylized portraits that become the basis of our season design. I do wonder what has been your favorite Journey Arts event that you've attended, or that you've shot so far?
CH:
You know, it's funny, because it might have been the first thing I've done with Journey Arts: Talie's birthday Table Sessions! But I really just appreciate the diversity of things I've been able to capture. There's been a range of these different ways that I have been able to work on my craft at the same time of helping to tell the story of what Journey Arts does. So that's something I really appreciate.
SCB:
I wonder if there are any shots of yours that come to mind of photos you have taken over the span of your work here that really stand out to you
CH:
There was a series of images of the lead artist of the last Table Sessions–the makeup, the intimacy with their instrument, there was a kind of fluidity of gender going on. And I was trying to capture that in a way that if you weren't there, you could still feel it
SCB:
Yes, Daniel de Jesús! and I know exactly the series of images you’re speaking of.
CH:
And another from Table Sessions of the catering team, the woman smiling and taking out a fried empanada. It's funny because Journey Arts has a lot of music events, but also the food is a really important part of how you all create a full experience.
There's also an image of Magda's partner in crime, Lynda, at Daniel’s Table Session. Lynda has this very regal sense about her when she’s engaged in an experience. So there's a shot of Lynda in the moment that I love.
SCB:
All these images come with such vivid and joyous memories for me!
CH:
There’s a shot of Lunise when she was in the performance at MIWA. And her shilloutte is just amongst the images she has been working through for all this time.
Then there was a series of photos in the party room– the Rah-Rah room! I tried different versions. I tried it well lit, and I tried how it felt and looked with multiple people–it was dark, but I tried to bring out the overlay of the projector image, and the silhouette of these figures.
Sometimes I really get overwhelmed, and I try to do two things at once. But I'm already seeing two different things that I have to go after.
____________________________
Check out more of Christians work on his Instagram at @Striving2See
