Austin Way Magazine - GreenGale Publishing - There is a place beyond the crowds, beyond the ropes, where dreams are realized and success is celebrated. You are invited.
Issue link: http://digital.greengale.com/i/753315
CHARLES REAGAN HACKLEMAN | MUSIC @charles.reagan Charles Reagan Hackleman has always enjoyed looking at life through the viewfinder. As an Austin TV reporter for almost a decade, the UT grad never had trouble getting a photo pass, which he'd use to indulge his hobby. After shooting the Fun Fun Fun Festival in 2012, he decided to take the leap into full- time photography. "Becoming a full-time freelancer is hard, and will always be hard. You have to find a way to stand out from a very large crowd," he says. Instagram, which featured him early on, has done much for Hackleman, who remembers his first Insta image as a photo of a "I voted for Obama" pint of beer. "Instagram became my go-to promotional tool," he recalls. "I was traveling a ton and loved having a virtual gallery to show people." Now a staff photographer for Lollapalooza and the ACL music festivals, he saw his followers swell after a musician with 2 million followers posted a photo of Hackleman's with proper credit, which doesn't always happen. Favorite photogenic place: Zilker Park during ACL, in a bucket 80 feet in the air, with 30,000 people below you while the sun is setting and the skyline is sparkling. Prime people watching is at: ACL, hands down. I get paid to literally watch people until that perfect moment, which hopefully I captured. On the weekends you'll find me: on the Greenbelt, or outside of Austin in the Big Bend area. The holidays in Austin aren't complete without: a fancy hotel bar hop. For more on Hackleman's best of Austin, go to austinway.com clockwise from top left: Musician J. Roddy Walston of J. Roddy Walston and The Business performs at the Historic Scoot Inn in April (Hackleman shot this purely as a music fan); Austin band Black Pistol Fire is a favorite of Hackleman's because of moments like this stage trust fall; Hackleman managed to get just a few frames of this rainbow over the ACL Music Festival before it faded away.