2024 06 09

Photographer Mariah Karson posing in her home just before departing for Portugal. Chicago, Illinois. March, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

One of the dozens of silly ideas I’ve had lately is to open a photobook shop out of my studio. While this idea is one that still gets me excited and, I think, might be successful, it’s also one that I have yet to fully commit to. That said, I do have a few titles in my shop library currently available for purchase. Maybe sometime soon I will have more books available. Maybe not. Anyway, I’m exhausted from shooting day one of a future doc project today, and it’s Sunday and nobody comes here much on Sundays, so I will leave it at that. Perhaps we’ll get back into the writing of things next week.

-Clayton

2024 06 08

Another busted car. Chicago, Illinois. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Lately, I’ve been making a lot of images of janky and busted cars. Basically, anytime I encounter one, I snap a photo or two. Why, exactly, I’m not sure, but I like them because they tell a little bit of a story. They make you think a little bit. They are not the same as every other vehicle. They are a sign of the times.

When I was in college I wanted to make a documentary about how terrible cars are. My hatred has cooled a bit, however, I do strongly believe we have shaped our landscape far too much in favor of the automobile. It’s nice that this trend seems to be waning these days, and streetscapes are being remade on a more human level. Let’s hope the trend continues.

-Clayton

2024 06 07

Bare tree in spring. Vincennes, Indiana. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

I have a ton of photos of bare trees still in the queue, but now that it’s summer and the trees are full, it feels weird to post them. Perhaps I will hold on to them for next year and keep things more seasonally-appropriate. What this blog even is is still being considered. Is it a photo blog? Is it a words blog that is photo-centric? I’ve been thinking more about how words pair with images since the Alec Soth video I talked about a few days back. Generally speaking, I am enjoying this blog simply for the fact that it is allowing me to consider these things at all. These days, I don’t have time for watching baseball because my daily blog is keeping me in line. Also, the Chicago baseball teams aren’t helping their cause — I tuned into the Cubs vs Sox game a few nights back and it was borderline unwatchable.

Anyhoo.

-Clayton

2024 06 06

Regular collaborators Txa Txa Club (Liz and Daniel) in their home workspace. Chicago, Illinois. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

One of these days, I’ll tell you the story about how I photographed an entire cookbook and didn’t even get the cover image. I bring this up only because I wanted to post this image, which was made on that shoot. Still, I’m glad I took the assignment because it sort of shifted my perspective a bit for the better and made me want to further engage with the world of photography and cookbooks. If any of you famous chefs out there reading this are looking for a motivated photographer, hit a guy up (me)!

Last week I stopped by Huge Galdones’ studio as he was photographing a new book for chef Joe Sasto. His space is great! In our brief conversation we had as they were broke for lunch, my perspective on things was again shifted as I realized I need to up my game and become more of a legit food shooter. Compared to their setup, my cookbook shoot was a rinky-dink DIY operation with a budget to match! At least we had a cat assisting us, which made post production even more enjoyable (cat hair and food = bad combination — again, hire me for all your cookbook photography needs!)

-Clayton

2024 06 05

Jack-o’-lantern’s final resting place. Chicago, Illinois. March, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

How many spins around the Earth does it take to flatten a pumpkin so its festive Halloween features are no longer visible?

The joy of carving it, while tossing seeds and slimy innards at each other; The laughter of children and polite gratitude of parents as their kids collect a few bars of chocolate; The flickering flame from a candle set careful inside the proud and hallowed interior.

Once the days get shorter and colder and snow starts to fall, you toss the pumpkin into the yard, set between the cherry tree and some shrubs, thinking it might be nice to give them a slow-paced meal of nutrients. Carefully, over the course of some months, you document the process with an occasional photograph, which may eventually make an interesting series but will more likely be immediately forgotten.

Do your neighbors think you are a lazy bum for leaving Mr. Pumpkin out to rot? Perhaps so, but their short-sided thinking can’t even imagine all the fun this pumpkin is having on its final many trips around the gravitational core of our planet as it slowly deteriorates and becomes, once again, one with the Earth, ready to transform into something new and refreshed.

-Clayton

2024 06 04

Bare trees at Starved Rock, Illinois — Massively compressed jpg for the sake of your bandwidth. March, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

This video below entered my life over the weekend and I’m really glad it did, though my bank account took a hit as a result.

Alec Soth discusses two photobooks and how words relate to their pictures within. Tim Davis’ I’m Looking Through You and Gilles Peress’ Whatever You Say, Say Nothing.

Tim’s book is incredible and has been in heavy rotation lately at the studio, however, Alec’s video sort of rudely reminded me that my habit of fully avoiding words in photobooks is something I need to address. Even as someone who fancies myself a wanna-be writer and values good writing above maybe even photography itself, my instinct is to completely cut out the words. Perhaps it’s because my brain goes first to the words and then to the images, which minimizes the visual impact. Or perhaps it’s because they typically don’t serve a valid purpose in most photobooks and I’m forcing my brain to connect solely with the images without changing their meaning. But that’s not really my choice to make! Books are put together with much work and consideration, and if the artist put the words in the book, I shouldn’t ignore them. Now, I’m excited to get my ass back to the studio and head straight for Tim’s book to take in the words he put into it to compliment the images I have already consumed.

Gilles’ book is set to arrive today. This is an insanely deep photobook project spanning 1,000 pages of images and an accompanying book with another nearly 1,000 pages of words and images. Plus it comes with a tote bag to contain everything! Normally, hearing about a project like this, I’d get super curious and then see the $456 price tag (marked down from $750 on amazon), then immediately move along to other distractions in order to turn my mind to different things; But this time Alec did such a great job talking about this book and how good it is, I mustered the courage to plop down the money and have it delivered.

Lately, I’ve been “listening to the universe when it tells me something.” This is a bit of a new approach to how I might normally operate and I’m not yet quite sure how it will play out. It’s a long-term process, afterall, but I do strongly think these small everyday decisions I am making now will compound into something bigger and more meaningful a decade from now. I bring this up because this video was the second time in a week I’d encountered a photographer whose opinion I trust mentioning this expensive book. Typically, I’d tune it out, as I’m quite stressed about money these days, however, I’m listening to the universe and the universe wants me to spend $500 purchasing this photo book.

I’ll let you know in a decade whether or not it paid off.

-Clayton

2024 06 03

Gull sizes me up, overlooking Lake Michigan. Chicago, Illinois. April, 2024.

Another Monday, another Life Update:

• I can’t believe I am saying this but I think I might be starting a podcast. Yes, I’m ten years late. No, I’m not doing it for the fame or to make money or to grow a following. Much like this blog, if it does happen it will be for personal growth and as a creative outlet. Hell, I may not even tell anyone it exists.

• Planning a wedding continues to be time consuming as all hell. It is starting to feel like this entire year will be spent on this wedding. I don’t quite understand how this is possible.

• I’m falling behind on my ambitions to be photographing an art photobook. Finding the time to get out and shoot and explore is proving to be more of a challenge than I expected, largely becuase

• Running a studio is also time consuming. The good news is there have been more bookings lately so the space has been more of a net positive, financially speaking, which is good because

• Commercial photo projects have been significantly slower this year. It’s beginning to weigh on me as it’s now June and things don’t feel like they are picking up much. I’m hearing a similar opinion from basically every other photographer I ask about it. Maybe I should open a bar? The good news is

• Smaller shoots are still happening. I did a fun cocktail photo job last week along with a motion piece on Meadowlark which is now going thru the post-production process. Video is a ton of work and requires collaboration with others. On that note

• I’m shooting two more video projects this week (one test, one exploratory documentary project) as I continue to pivot more into doing motion work. This has me pretty excited and I’ve been watching a silly amount of camera and gear videos on youtube to get myself up to speed on what technology is available these days.

-Clayton

2024 06 02

Chef Matteo Lo Bianco of Maman Zari. Chicago, Illinois. February, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Hello. I made this image while on assignment for a Chicago Magazine Best New Restaurants feature. They didn’t end up running any of the images I made at this restaurant, which is always a bit of a bummer, but I was quite happy with a few of them, esp the candid kitchen shots like this one. It wasn’t quite what the magazine wanted and I really only spent the time doing it while we waited for the dining room to fill up some more.

I need to get back out here and try their food. The bites the owner forced me to try were very delicious!

-Clayton

2024 06 01

This van really knows how to live. Nashville, Tennessee. © Clayton Hauck

No Complaints, Just Pure Satisfaction.

Enjoy your Saturday, y’all.

-Clayton

2024 05 31

On the move, somewhere in rural Illinois or Indiana. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Recently, I was in Atlanta working on a big, challenging commercial photography project. The shoot was only one day, however, there was quite a lot of prep work involved, as we only had a limited amount of time to execute the creative ask and it was in the complicated environment of shooting on an actual airplane, on the tarmac of one of the world’s busiest airports, for a beverage company that demands its beverages look beautiful. Run-on-sentences aside, the challenge of photographing talent in the tight environment of an actual airplane, then lighting it to make it look both authentic and beautiful, is a real one!

In the nights leading up to the production, I would venture up to the rooftop bar and restaurant of my hotel, which had an amazing vantage point of the airport below, and I would watch a steady stream of planes for hours without getting bored. You check an app on your phone to see a line of planes and where they are arriving from; then, sure enough, they appear in front of you in real life and casually touch down and taxi to their gate. It’s a never ending flow of people, coming and going, on complicated machines our airline producer told us cost $800 million each.

In this moment it hit me: photographers are going the way of the airline pilot. My mind juxtaposed that scene in Catch Me If You Can, where DiCaprio is posing as a pilot during the glory days of commercial air travel with the image of a massively successful commercial photographer in the not-too-long-ago days when they owned buildings, had staffs, and pulled in millions of dollars a year in commissions. These days, both professions are vastly different, however, I fear the commercial photographer is still on a steady and unavoidable decent path towards total commodification. It’s business, afterall.

The camera we used on this project (Fuji GFX100ii) is a marvel of technology, and I can’t help but to compare it to the tool of the modern commercial airline pilot. Sure, some skill is involved in its usage, but really this $10,000 camera is doing heavy lifting in this work relationship.

I think this is partly why I’m finding myself turning more towards the artistic side of photography these days. I don’t want to find myself in a uniform, holding a McDonalds sack and a rolling camera bag, waiting at the gate for the studio doors to open and let out the previous commercial photography shoot so that I can enter the building and calmly and mechanically execute my task of pushing the button and ensuring the files are flowing to the computer. I’m an artsit, dammit! I have opinions! I have ideas! I have vision!

I refuse be commoditized.

-Clayton

2024 05 30

Cars on highway driving into the sunset. Chicago, Illinois. March, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

While on a long jog this morning (brag) I was reminded of something that reeeeally annoyed me before I started driving an electric car (brag).

Running past the abandoned former emissions testing facility in Bucktown where I used to take my Ford Focus, the frustration came back to me and reminded me about why sometimes government logic can be super annoying. Not wanting this to be a political rant, I’ll keep it brief, as I’m likely getting some details wrong anyway since I’m going off years-old memories at this point.

During the previous Illinois (Republican) governor’s term, the state outsourced the operation of all its car emissions testing facilities, likely arguing small-government efficiencies or whatever. Surely, some loyal big shot operator who just so happens to spend big come political donation season got awarded the contract to take over operations of the entire state’s facilities.

One day, I opened my mail to discover it was time to take my trusty Focus in for its test. Unbeknownst to me, the conveniently located facility that was roughly one mile from my house and central to the homes of some 3 million other fellow Chicagoans was no longer an option. Instead, the closest facility to me was now inconveniently located over 10 miles away in suburban Skokie. Confused as to why Chicago (far and away the largest city in the state) no longer had a single facility available to its residents, I did some digging to figure out what was going on. Sure enough, the state outsourced the service, as mentioned, and the new operator was following the state-mandated requirements as efficiently as they could to maximize their profits.

Facilities need to be within x miles of x people, yada yada, plug all the data into the computer and Skokie is now where every Chicagoan needs to drive their car to get an efficiency test to, you know, make sure they aren’t polluting the environment. When you consider the added miles 3 million Chicagoans now need to drive, whatever benefits we are getting from taking a few dirty cars off the road are now likely a net negative because of all the extra driving. Then, when you consider how much money the state is “saving” by outsourcing this service, you need to consider all this extra wear and tear on the roads, additional accidents, wasted hours, etc, from people driving more trips and all those savings likely go out the window as well. Sure, my math is full of guesstimating here, but maybe you see my point.

It’s like government whack-a-mole: solve one problem and create a new, different problem. As long as your doner pals are getting a piece of the public pie, nobody is none the wiser!

-Clayton

2024 05 29

Street cat in Vincennes, Indiana. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

I’m a huge van of Vuhlandes. He’s a filmmaker whose youtube channel has been influential in convincing me to get back to my roots and shoot video again. Seemingly every video he drops has some nugget of influential coolness that just looks like a ton of fun and makes me want to emulate his style. His recent video release is as powerful as ever, while also being sad as can be. I hope Vuhlandes makes a full recovery as soon as possible and this is just a small roadblock in his journey to bigger and better things ahead.

If you’re not familiar with his work, go give it a watch; and if you’re able, consider donating to his gofundme.

-Clayton

2024 05 28

Space for rent. Chicago, Illinois. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

“Nobody’s looking for a photographer in today’s wintry economic climate.” — I’m not sure why I find solace in dark humor, but this (modified from puppeteer) line from Being John Malkovich has me wanting to print it on tshirts I think it’s so funny. Clearly, I write for an audience of one.

This morning, I woke up to an email notifying us that we didn’t win a job we were bidding on. Kind of normal, these days, I hate to say (at least we’re bidding!). While the commercial projects which have historically kept me very busy have slowed down in frequency, I’m finding myself busier than ever with new and different projects. The list includes: running a photo studio; restaurant and bar photo shoots; portrait shoots; various video projects; learning to print; selling prints; art photography projects; producing and promoting events; exploring selling merchandise directly along with attempting ecommerce.

Essentially, I’m diversifying. While it’s providing me with an endless list of things to do, many of which have me very excited and motvated, the challenge is finding a balance between things that take your time and things that also make you a bit of money to pay the rent.

The commercial photography landscape has changed and will continued to change into something nobody can quite predict just yet. Will AI replace most commercial photographers? I’d bet not, but likely it will replace a large percentage of the smaller and easier projects, thus overall reducing the amount of work available to us photographers. Will even more photographers continue to flood the market in search of a career? I’d also bet yes, which will increasingly put pressure on rates and overall reduce the earning capacity of us photographers. I see things heading largely where music and fine art has gone, with many photographers pursuing it as much as a hobby as it is a job (a paid assignment being the exception not the rule). The access to affordable equipment and knowledge is so great, the barrier to entry is very low and only continuing to fall. Everyone is a photographer! Will companies continue to pursue creative new ways to get content made, opposed to hiring a top notch commercial photographer at an expensive rate? Of course! Last week I heard of a brand that brought in a dozen social media influencers for a weekend of curated fun. The amount of brand content they made over a few days with a dozen content creators is something that a traditional commercial photographer simply can’t compete with; even someone like myself who shoots fast and really goes all out to maximize the clients’ time and capture a huge quantity of images.

These are strange times for the commercial photographer, and while I have no idea what the marketplace will look like in five years, I’m weirdly optimistic that people with strong visual and storytelling skills will continue to have no shortage of opportunities as long as they are open-minded and creative in their approach to finding them.

“Nobody’s looking for a photographer in today’s wintry economic climate.” — if I print up some shirts, would you buy one from me; or should I stick to my day job?

-Clayton

2024 05 27

Middle America vibes in Vincennes, Indiana. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

I love simple photos like this. I could’ve spent all day photographing this little neighborhood which was full of detail — and full of stray cats!

This year, I’m going to push myself to get out into the world simply with the task of making photographs. While this image is outside of my scope, the boundaries I’ve given myself is Illinois and all of its towns, cities, farmland, countryside, and anywhere in between, but excluding Cook County (Chicago), as I’ve spent my entire life living in this county and want to explore new landscapes less familiar to me. I likely won’t be sharing images from this project here on the blog as I’m aiming to make them come together as something that exists on its own. But we’ll see. Things change and I’m already finding myself stressed about missing out on capturing early summer, as I’ve been busy working back home in Cook County. Likely, this project will span multiple years as I grow and shape a larger body of work.

Happy Memorial Day, America.

-Clayton

2024 05 26

Pedestrian overpass through the trees. East Nashville, Tennessee. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Happy Sunday. Happy holiday weekend.

Are you someone, like me, who watches people play video games? It’s quite strange to think that millions of people watch other people play video games instead of doing so themselves. Why is this the case? Entertainment, obviously, but I do it largely for time reasons. I’ve gotten into playing a few games in my adult life, but because my work schedule is inconsistent and because now my downtime is also spent working, I just don’t have much time for games.

One of the games I did get quite into actually playing myself was Cities: Skylines. The sequel came out recently and I found myself really wanting to buy and play it. Perhaps luckily for me, the release was a disaster and the game was rushed out before it was completed in hopes of a big payday for the company. Fans of the game were quite upset about how everything went down and much of the community which grew up around the first game and posted a crazy amount of content covering it has not moved over to C:S2, which is probably also good for my productivity.

That said, the core of the game does have some rather cool features and you can see the potential for perhaps a future popular and amazing game. Whether or not the developer sticks with it and continues to spend money on further developing and whether the fans stick with it and wait for improvements to be made is all to be seen. This morning, I found myself watching a forty minute video covering these developments and the conversations between fans and the company making the game and found it interesting that this is, first of all, content that even exists and, secondly, content I find myself actively interested in when you consider I’ll likely never even play this game myself.

Thinking on it so more, as a kid I recall subscribing to magazines which covered the development of video games. I was excited to read about what games were coming out and what games were popular or highly rated, so it’s not like this is something that hasn’t been done before. All that said, it’s another example of how all media is slowly transforming away from the structured, official, companies releasing products covering things to people on youtube with a following self-producing content which covers these things.

Anyway, I still have a free hour to kill so back to youtube I go to see what adventures await me.

-Clayton

2024 05 25

Balloon man selling the goods. Nashville, Tennessee. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Oh boy. It was nearly my first missed day this year, but here we are, with a daily blog.

Yesterday I was busy directing and shooting a motion piece at the local bar Meadowlark for 50 Best. Today, I was busy photographing that same bar’s new cocktail menu (all 16 drinks) in my studio. I’m exhausted, but it was a productive few days and I’m excited about the new work. I gotta say, however, shooting video is such a different beast. It wasn’t my first time directing a piece, however, it was my first with both directing and camera operating; today I woke up noticeably sore.

Shout out to my buddy Dave Rentauskas for lending me his Canon R5 C rig.

Video is still wild to me. I’ve spent a lot of time shooting and editing video but am still amazed by the sheer amount of variety in decision making options available to you, and how it’s basically impossible to do all of the required jobs yourself (recording sound, lighting, editing, shooting, acting, etc). Over the course of a seven hour shoot, the possibilities are basically endless. Over the course of a two month feature film production, it’s a dauntingly massive feat involving so much brain power and things that can go wrong, it’s no wonder so many movies turn out to be crap even when so much money and talent goes into producing them.

Anyway.

Until next time.

-Clayton

2024 05 24

Blurry cocktail at Attaboy in Nashville, Tennessee. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Sometimes accidents make for more interesting results. Not realizing I had my ISO set to 400, this was the resulting image made while attempting to photography my delicious cocktail in Nashville’s super dark and very great cocktail spot, Attaboy.

I’m posting this because today I’m off directing a video piece at local cocktail spot Meadowlark… and what is video but a bunch of blurry photos strung together one after another, right? My pivot to video begins now! But also, I’m photographing cocktails Saturday as well in my usual still fashion, so really it’s just yet another job to add to my list of jobs.

Photographer, director, videographer, studio manager, blogger.

-Clayton

2024 05 23

Chicken post photo shoot at Lardon. Chicago, Illinois. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

I’m a bit of a loner by nature; but you can’t do everything alone. Even the Unibomber had the help of the uniformed United States Postal Service on his side. You wanna get married, start a business, have a party, do a thing, make love, dance… you need other people.

This was my profound takeaway yesterday after spending seven hours of my day in various meetings. This is my takeaway after watching Succession (yes, a fictional television show but largely based on the real world) in which the characters with influence don’t seem to actually do anything beyond looking presentable and talking to other influential people.

You better start having the right fucking meetings. Alright, alright, alright.

-Clayton

2024 05 22

Chicago Tribune printing press technician works in the now-defunct Chicago plant. April, 2016. © Clayton Hauck

I don’t want this space to turn into a place where I’m regularly pulling from the archives, however, when I heard on NPR this morning that today marks the first ever day in which the Chicago Tribune was not printed in the city of Chicago (the plant was sold to make way for a casino…maybe!), it reminded me of a Chicago Magazine assignment from nearly a decade ago now (yikes) in which I got an amazing behind-the-scenes tour of the printing press facilities.

It’s forever my favorite thing about being a photographer: the peek into a world I’d otherwise never get to experience, even if only for an hour. You could feel the years of history coating the surfaces in this place; ink and gunk collecting over decades. You could also sense the end of an era; empty spaces once full of people and materials now a victim of dwindling news print capacity. Soon the wrecking ball will come and a bland mid-tear casino will rise in its place. Maybe.

-Clayton

2024 05 21

The scene out back in rural Haubstadt, Indiana. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

While navigating rural Indiana/Illinois on my way to catch the solar eclipse the following day, I stopped to charge my fancy electric vehicle. As I navigated into the parking lot, I needed to dodge random debris on the road, along with what appeared to be a downed power line. After pulling into the charging spot to juice my ride, I got out in search of a bathroom, having held my bladder the last fifty miles. Ominously, the building appeared simultaneously new, abandoned, and very much closed. A generator sat outside with cords and cables running in through an open window. A half dozen other fancy EVs from parts unknown sat next to mine, their drivers milling around the immediate area and keeping to themselves.

Needing to urinate quite badly, I ventured out to check the building and sure enough, it was closed. Grump and annoyed, I continued scouring the area thinking maybe there was some private spot out here in the middle of nowhere to relieve myself. After rounding the corner, in back of the building, I came upon this scene pictured above. A brilliant sun shining through the clouds onto farmland and junk and trash and an unattended fire pit.

“Fucking Indiana,” I thought to myself judgingly while trekking back to my car, still holding my bladder and without Slim Jims.

Once the charge was complete, I headed down road to the nearby McDonalds to examine their facilities. Upon pulling into that parking lot, I began to notice more debris along with downed trees and power lines, which made me think back to a conversation I’d had with a local a few days prior in which he told me about the tornadoes that hit this general area.

Ahh yes. What I’d been witnessing was not just busted infrastructure blocking my need to urinate and buy beef jerky to subdue my raging hanger, but the remnants of a fucking tornado which had rolled through the area just a few days prior.

“Y’all from here?” I asked a family heading into the McDonalds, hoping to get confirmation.

“Yessum.” they responded, in my head.

“Did a tornado hit here a few days back?” I asked.

They confirmed it and my judgmental city slicker perspective was shattered and I was just thankful nobody was hurt and the Tesla charging station was still working, because if it hadn’t been, I’d be living in Haubstadt now!

-Clayon