About Hayward Photography

Short Biography

Dan is a third-generation Coloradoan, born and raised in Denver. He’s lived in the Colorado Front Range and in Laramie Wyoming his whole life. The inner mountain west is in his blood, and in his art.

An interest in the natural world provides a foundation for Dan’s life and his art. His connection to the west, its native peoples & places, along with a passion for the wild elements of the region can be seen throughout his work. Recent awards celebrate the mutual appreciation Dan and his audiences feel for the mix of light, color and figure in wild landscapes -- Purchase Awards at the 2008, 2009 and 2010 Wyoming Governor’s Capitol Art Exhibitions and the People’s Choice-Best in Show Award at the 2009 exhibition recognize Dan’s fine art photography.

Dan earned a BS in Technical Journalism in 1977 and Masters in Communications and Mass Media in 2002. Dan’s Master’s work grew from his long-term interest in Native Peoples and examines Richard Throssel’s early 20th Century photography of the Crow and Northern Cheyenne People. Dan is creating his own archive of Crow and Northern Cheyenne images as a compliment to Throssel’s work 100 years ago, providing a contemporary record for new insights into the lives of Indian People in America’s west.

In 1978, Dan founded Hayward Photography, initially photographing fashion models and Olympic Ice Skating Medalists. Soon, he was shooting fine art images emphasizing still life, cityscapes and natural landscapes, and expended his commercial business to include product, industrial and corporate photography. Today, he continues to shoot a stimulating array of both commercial and fine art themes.

In 2008, Dan began to transform his business, increasing the importance of his fine art work and presentations of multi-media photo seminars and workshops, while introducing environmental documentation, aerial photography and multi-media/video work to his repertoire of commercial specialties. In addition to the Throssel Project, a second project that is particularly exciting is the Wyoming Project; a project to photographically document protected and endangered pristine landscapes/viewsheds in each of Wyoming’s 23 counties, as well as landscapes/viewsheds that have already been altered by human development.

Dan learned the photographic medium in the days of darkroom genius, and he has now embraced the expansive potential of the digital world. As a photographer, Dan’s fine art and commercial photographs capture the compelling simplicity of the early photographic masters, drawing the viewer deep within the image. His artistic eye naturally leads him to include an attention for detail and for the wide array of qualities of light, bringing his images to life, and his trademark panorama views of intermountain landscapes reveal the west’s expansive, open skies, the brilliant colors of flower blossoms and the subtle shades of sandstone layers.

Dan loves the natural world, but he also loves working with people. Consequently, Dan brings an air of excitement and fun to standard commercial jobs and a comfortable, intimate air to his fine art photographs.

Enjoy exploring Dan’s photographs while getting to know him a bit better through your connection to his images.

Long Biography

Artistic interest stirred in Dan at an early age, yet serious consideration of living life as a professional artist lay dormant for many years. Harsh criticism for a drawing in 6th grade derailed his enjoyment of creating art for a while, but by late high school he accepted that he had an artistic talent and began to explore it once again, drawing and painting and taking basic painting and metal-smith classes in college.

Interest in the natural world is a second foundational interest that has shaped Dan’s artistic and personal life. His connection to the west, its native peoples & places, along with a passion for the wild elements of the region can be seen throughout his work. Because of this second interest, Dan began his college career pursuing a degree in Wildlife Biology. However, in his junior year, he realized his powerful love for photography and graduated with a BS in Technical Journalism in 1977, intent on becoming a National Geographic photographer. Photography had finally become his vocation.

Early Years

Dan’s career as a fine art and commercial photographer has spanned more than 30 years, beginning in 1978 when he founded Hayward Photography in Denver. Shortly after graduating from college, he began photographing promotional images for dancers and local and world class ice skaters. In 1979, Dan shot a portfolio for 1980 Olympic and World Men’s Figure Skating Gold Medalist Robin Cousins. Among other uses, two book came from the shoot, one for Cousins and one for his infamous coach, Carlo Fassi. (Fassi’s students also included World and Olympic Champions Peggy Fleming, Dorothy Hamill and several other, and he coached Scott Hamilton and Paul Wylie in their early careers).

The ice skating/dance work led naturally to photographing models and for five years, beginning in 1980, Dan taught "Modeling for the Still Camera" at Denver’s leading modeling agency. In 1982 he expanded into product, industrial and corporate photography. Dan’s fine art photographs has always been a passion and an important component of his business. He combined the two photo disciplines by shooting fine art photographs for his product and modeling portfolios. He began exhibiting his framed art in the late 70’s.

A Move to Wyoming

A move to Laramie Wyoming in 1995 brought Dan the opportunity to work more closely with a local community and the chance to expand his formal education. He received a Master’s Degree in Communications and Mass Media in 2002 from the University of Wyoming. Dan taught Introduction to Photography as an adjunct for 3 semesters and Public Speaking for 5 semesters at UW. He was a founding member of Gargoyles Artist Co-op in Laramie and operated Hayward Photography as an art gallery for a short time in Laramie while working on his Masters.

In 2008, Dan began to transform Hayward Photography, working to increase the importance of selling his fine art work as well as presenting photo seminars and workshops. While the initial market for his presentations and exhibitions is across Wyoming and neighboring states, he is already exploring the feasibility of offering his speaking and exhibition engagements to audiences in the Midwest and Eastern US.

The transformation of Hayward Photography also includes the introduction of Environmental Documentation, Aerial Photography and Video work to his commercial repertoire. Gaining local, statewide and regional recognition as a fine art and landscape photographer has also been integral to the transition, and, although Dan hasn’t entered many juried exhibitions or contests in his artistic career, he recently received several important accolades for his fine art work, including purchase awards at the 2008, 2009 and 2010 Wyoming Governor’s Capitol Art Exhibitions and the People’s Choice-Best in Show Award at the 2009 exhibition. 2010 saw Dan resume presenting his public seminars and workshops, and saw a solid increase in his art sales. Re-launching Dan’s web site in early February 2011 was one of the final stages of the Dan’s business shift.

Photo Projects

The Throssel Project

Dan’s life in America’s inner mountain west has enhanced a third foundational interest that has helped shape his life and his photography of the natural world; his instinctive connection with and interest in Native Peoples. He has learned from and worked, played and prayed with Lakota (Sioux) people since 1992. As a result, he combined his native connection with his life in photography and wrote his Master’s Thesis as a qualitative analysis of Richard Throssel’s early 20th Century photography of the Crow and Northern Cheyenne People of southern Montana. The thesis examines how Throssel’s photography reflects his distinction as the first Indian person to photograph other Indian people in North America, and as a person who knew his native subjects personally and culturally because he actually lived among them.

Today, Dan is pursuing a project to create a body of contemporary photographs of Crow and Northern Cheyenne people as a compliment to Throssel’s archive of nearly 1000 personal images. (Some of Dan’s subjects are descendants of Throssel’s subjects). Dan already offers multi-media presentations juxtaposing the two bodies of work while seeking funding for the project. He continues to photograph his subjects and will update the presentations, and create now ones, as the Throssel Project moves forward.

The Wyoming Project;

Dan’s passion for the natural environment, for pristine viewsheds in the environment and for the flora and fauna living in natural spaces is reflected in a second photo project he is working on; to document pristine landscapes/viewsheds in each of Wyoming’s 23 counties that are threatened with immanent or near-future development, especially wind farms construction. In May 2009, he was hired to create his first environmental documentation. He produced a 10-minute movie using only still images, objectively documenting natural landscapes and ones that included human-made elements, in northern Carbon County, Wyoming. The movie was then used to open the Wind Energy and Visual Considerations in Wyoming Workshop at the University of Wyoming in June 2009. It was again presented at the Governor’s Wind Symposium in August 2009. The Wind Farm Project movie can be seen here. (Will add a link to the movie here in February or March, 2011).

In August 2009, Dan photographed his second environmental job. He was hired by six environmental organizations to shoot aerial stills of the North Platte River Valley between the Colorado/Wyoming border and Saratoga Wyoming, and between the Red Desert/Sierra Madre Mountains and the Snowy Mountains.

Dan is excited by the changes he’s made in his business and by the prospect for success that are a result of that transition.