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Digital & Film Photographer

Meet Claire

Growing up in a small Missouri town where cows outnumbered people, I turned to creativity to fill my days. This took shape through hand-making picture books, filming American Girl doll stop motion videos, and later shooting for my high school yearbook. When I moved to Virginia for college, the world opened up for me. I studied abroad in Rome, built this business while working multiple jobs, and traveled across the world to tell love stories. I eventually made it to Hawai’i for a marketing internship with Make-A-Wish and decided to plant roots here. I went full-time with By Claire Hadler in 2023 and truly couldn’t imagine my life any differently.

It’s in these experiences that I discovered what photography truly means to me, as it’s not just a job in my eyes. Every inquiry, every couple, and every celebration is a blessing I don’t take for granted. At the heart of it all is Jesus Christ. He is my joy, my purpose, and the reason I have created since childhood. I can love others because He loved me first, and I can create because He was creative first.

Photography is the deepest way I can love others, by documenting their love in its most authentic form

My grandparents smiling after their wedding rehearsal. My Mawmaw getting ready in her childhood bedroom before heading to the chapel. My newlywed parents dancing for the first time. I’d sit at the kitchen table and ask for the story behind every photo, every smile. And the magic is, nothing really has changed. Every time I visit home, we pull out the same albums. My once-small hands, now grown, still turning the same pages with the same wide eyes. The photographs haven’t aged the way we do. They hold steady.

This is exactly why I love what I do.

The photographs that I document on your day aren’t just for you. They’re for your children and your children’s children. A way for them to know you as you truly were on the day it all began. So that one day, they too can sift through old photo albums and find the story of your day told honestly.

Some of my finest memories began at the edge of a photo album. My small hands turned the pages while my wide eyes studied moments I only knew through stories.

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