PHOTOGRAPHER DARYL HAWK loves traveling the world alone for one-of-a-kind-shots and then coming home to enjoy family life in Wilton.
AS BEFITS A PHOTOGRAPHER, Hawk is a study in contrasts. Relaxing in his 1930 farmhouse-style home in a woodsy section of south Wilton, he looks every bit the Fairfield County soccer dad. His winter-print sweater, turtleneck, jeans, socks, even his soft suede shoes coordinate perfectly. The home studio is filled with antiques and mementoes of four-and-a-half decades of hardy New England living. With his wife, Heidi, and their two school-age boys out for the day, it’s Chloe, the family golden retriever, who bounds to the front door to greet him.
Yet there are hints that speak of Hawk’s other life: foreign license plates pegged along the entire length of a ceiling beam; framed prints of larger-than-life nature scenes from Patagonia, Zion National Park and Machu Picchu; exotic flags displayed on a wall; a globe in the centerof the room. Welcome to the two sides of Daryl Hawk, child of southern Connecticut, and adventurer and photographer of the world’s most remote locales.
Even as a photographer, Daryl has fiercly distinct personas. On any given day, he’s as likely to be found shooting a portait of a corporate executive in his full-service studio as he is traipsing around Manhattan shooting black-and-white slides, or in Antarctica, or perhaps Bhutan, going where few have gone before and bringing back his own unique trophies: rare scenes of stunning nature and native people.