#PeopleFirst Friday: Hampton Clark
With an entrepreneurial spirit and background in visual communications, Senior Manager of Experiential Operations Hampton Clark always wanted to “work for himself,” and found a unique way to do just that: by becoming a wedding videographer.
“I enjoy recording love,” Clark said. “People love to get photos taken, and the photos are there, you have that memory, but with videos, they move, and are more interactive. I feel like you need to be able to see the best day of your life for the rest of your life. That’s kind of my motto.”
Shooting his first wedding in 2021, Clark has continued to hone his craft, taking inspiration from not only other wedding videographers, but from each of the couples who have entrusted him to capture their special day.
“It’s maybe a bad trait, but I like to compare myself to people who are good in the industry. I’ll look at their YouTube channel, or look at their website, and I’m driven to match that level of quality,” he said. “Once you get the quality of the image where you want it, you can make anything look good with video editing.
“I also take a lot of inspiration from each of my couples, because not every couple is the same,” Clark continued. “Sometimes they’re cookie-cutter and want to do more of the lovey-dovey stuff, and sometimes they’ll want to jump in the water or do something extra. Just learning and their energy. Feeding off that energy is really something that’s cool.”
When asked about something he wasn’t necessarily prepared for prior to entering the wedding industry, Clark noted that just like every couple was different, so was every wedding ceremony.
I try to prepare myself as best I can, but every wedding is truly different,” he said. “Yes, you get there, you film everyone getting ready. You have the ceremony. You have the reception. That’s all going to change from wedding to wedding, but the details within that is something that I love.”
“The last wedding I shot, the ceremony wasn’t in English,” he laughed. “They were a Romanian couple, and let me know beforehand that ‘Hey, we don’t do the typical wedding stuff.’ There was no ‘I do.’ There was no ‘You may kiss the bride.’ I asked them if they wanted to be mic’d up, and they told me ‘Nothing serious is going to happen where you need to’.”
Having recently moved to the Charlotte area from Atlanta, Clark’s marketing efforts have slowed as he gets acclimated to his new home. However, couples are still finding him, and he has a few weddings already on the books for 2023.
“The transition from Atlanta to North Carolina, I took a break, as anyone should,” he said. “If people contacted me while I was moving and I had a free day, of course I would do it. I’m still taking bookings in Atlanta but starting to grow my network here in North Carolina as well.”