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While on vacation with his wife and dog, Milwaukee-based photographer Darren Hauck got a call from Jeanne Graves, the Director of Photography at Men’s Health. Jeanne informed Darren that based on his style and previous work, that her team at Men’s Health thought Darren would be the perfect photographer to cover the Warrior Games. As Jeanne told Darren more about the goal for this project and what her team was envisioning, the more Darren’s excitement grew.
The Warrior Games is a sporting event for wounded and injured veterans, organized by the United States Department of Defense. Men’s Health wanted to cover these events to show the remarkable athletes that participate as well as the positive attitudes and strength these men and women have. Darren’s responsibility was to shoot images that were strong and powerful, showing the competition between the ex-soldiers.
Darren worked closely on this project with a PR firm located in Chicago called Edelman. The firm was Darren’s point of contact throughout the entire project. Being that two employees from Edelman are former marines, it became quite easy for the vets to introduce Darren to connections and people at the event. On top of covering the sporting events and documenting the before-and-after moments, Darren wanted to capture portraits of the athletes. The people at Edelman helped coordinate the portrait shot-list of the soldiers who were interested in being photographed. This was helpful because it gave the soldiers a chance to decide on being a part of this project piece, and having this connection through Edelman made a big difference. By the end of the day, veterans were lined up waiting to have their portraits taken!
The shoot took place over the course of three days. While photographing the portraits, Darren was faced with a challenge. Since this piece was being completed as the sporting events were taking place, it was important that Darren found a space that was “mobile” for him, just in case he had to quickly pick up and move to a different area. Luckily, he spotted a good space to capture the portraits he needed, and everything went smoothly.
I had a wonderful time and met such wonderful people! Even though they have gone through some dark days, they all had such great spirits and it shows how the Warrior Games helps these soldiers with moving forward after their event in a positive way. I must tell you, I ride my bike a lot but after seeing them compete, I will never have an excuse to not work out again! They were all an inspiration to keep moving forward.
The reactions to the photos have been terrific. The client was thrilled with how Darren executed the images, and the subjects have also given a lot of great feedback.
It feels good always to know that your subjects appreciate the work you did on a story like this. I was excited to see how Men’s Health did that online and print section for this. They did a really awesome job!
Darren hopes to return to the Warrior Games next year to cover the event. His goal is to figure out a way to use the images to raise awareness and money for soldier support groups.
See more of Darren at dhauckphoto.com!