We were lucky to catch up with Greg Hatton recently and have shared our conversation below.

Greg, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

Perhaps the most meaningful project I’ve worked on came by way of an exhibit called “Electric Revolutionaries” put on by the Motor/Cycle Arts Foundation (MAF) and was showcased at the Petersen Automotive Museum, in Los Angeles, California.

Having a background in international motorsport and my being a cinematographer; a friend of mine, Dan Green (ex-motorcycle racer) contacted me about the possibility of working with the MAF to travel to Accra, Ghana and retrieve a pair of solar-powered electric scooters built by a 17yr old boy there.
The “Electric Revolutionaries” exhibit had been on display for a few months at this point, but due to shipping cost it was a bit outrageous to have the vehicles shipped to the US. It ended up to be cheaper for the MAF to fly a couple of people to Ghana, disassemble the vehicles and bring them back. And while there, document the story of the young inventor, Samuel Aboagye.

I was all for it.
The adventure in this assignment spoke for itself, I had never been to Ghana. I had never been to Africa for that matter and as an African-American man, this is something that I’ve wanted to do as long as I’ve been alive.

We did the work and connected with Samuel, his family and his community for the sake of the job.
But what was most meaningful about this project was that through the fact that we were so far away from home and working so closely and effectively with people that have so much less; I, as an individual and we (the MAF) as an organization, were made aware by our efforts of how much the actions we take can positively affect people, the world around us and how much it equally affects us.

As a cameraman, as a photographer exposing an image is everything that we do. That’s literally how we spent most of our time. We have to change the settings of the camera in order to accurately capture what’s right in front of us.
But a parallel can be drawn to each of us on this planet when we expose ourselves to really seeing the world around us. The people around us. The situations around us.
Sometimes we’re on autopilot and we don’t think to look too far into what’s surrounding us. But the world is right there and different fro what you think you know.

This assignment was meaningful because by connecting with Samuel we were able to obtain his vehicles for the exhibition. Pay him for them. Share stories and understand better what life is like for this young man. Everything in this story surrounded education and that quickly became the focus for us to look deeper and understand how we can utilize our own position to assist him along his path. We currently working with partners like ArtCenter and Aliph Digital to look further into helping Sam and for me the opportunity to connect and assist the positive growth of an individual has revealed a better sense of what doing work means.
Looking away from the money that we generate, the work we all do is supposed to assist the life of the people around us. Which in turn helps us to live a better life while we’re here. It also shows those that come after us how to engage with their surroundings better. A mutually beneficial model that starts with the very basic concept of sharing. Sharing knowledge, sharing time, sharing respect.
It’s a circular economy.

Greg, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Greg Hatton. I’m a documentary photographer a cinematographer and I’m the Director of Educational Media at the Motor/Cycle Arts Foundation.

There’s a lot that goes into that, but my interests lie in communication and education through the means of visual media.
I’ve spent years in the motorsport world as a member of race teams all the way to managing international motorsport athletes. But that was only one of my passions. Cameras and the storytelling that exists in images was something that I was captivated by from a very young age. Movies and stories carried me through my childhood and brought me to the point that creating and sharing stories is something that I’ve been close all of my professionally life.

As a filmmaker and photographer the work I present is very authentic. It’s very intimate to the subject matter with a tangible texture to reality that brings the viewer into a moment or a storyline that helps them engage and empathize with what they are taking in. There’s a very human element in all the work that is put forth and this is true from the pre-production, team building, production, post production and all the way to the deliverable. The atmosphere of what we do together is that we are doing this together.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I’m self taught in pretty much everything that I’ve done in life. Being an African-American man, born in Los Angeles, raised in the 80s; I feel like I didn’t have a lot of exposure to things that would have pushed me towards the education that may have helped me get to where I want to go. That feels like low hanging fruit actually; maybe I did and didn’t hear enough of a push in those directions.

Jim Henson said it best when he stated that, “Children don’t learn what you try to teach them. The learn what you are.”
In the environment that I was grew up in (in the house and in the world around my home), I didn’t see a lot of what I wanted to be. I saw it in pictures or stories from National Geographic and on movies. But I didn’t see it in my life. And so I spent a very long time trying to find those things. And searching out environments in which could learn more about my interests and what it looked like to be responsible for the things that I was interested in.

With that I think the resources that I wish I had earlier was just more variety educationally and societally for young people to develop through mentorship, apprenticeship and events that attracts all the socioeconomic communities across the country.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

The goal of my creative journey is to continuously grow and share what can be achieved by working together to better the world we live in. I want to consistently provide a visible example of what is possible professionally, technologically and individually in this world. We create so much and influence each other so much. It’s a joy to share and learn. So that’s where the focus lies.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.impaci.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/renaissanceman
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/greg-hatton-966ab224
• Youtube: @impaci
• Other: www.instagram.com/impaci