2024 06 29

Busted car for the busted car photo collection. Atlanta, Georgia. May, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Another quick entry today as I have a day filled with social activity (and some work, of course).

More words another time. Enjoy the weekend!

-Clayton

2024 06 28

Grounds of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library. Atlanta, Georgia. May, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Tonight we witnessed The Death of a Living American President. Quite a sight, really.

It’s hard to comprehend how the Democratic party could get so far down the road to re-election while firmly believing the idea that Biden is fit for office today, let alone for another four years. But really, what choice did they have? It’s his call.

The debate was a reckoning. Now we all know it’s over. The only thing left to find out is if the people in control of the government agree with the rest of us.

This is by no means an endorsement of the man attempting to become president again, after throwing the country under the bus in favor of himself. Neither dudes should even be up on the debate stage. The entire CNN telecast felt like a subtle hit job orchestrated by shadowy figures on the sidelines without the power — currently — to make the changes themselves. I’d be shocked if both Biden and Trump are the final two candidates come election day. Something is cooking. My money is on a Harris-Newsom stew.

When I was down in Atlanta recently, I noticed that I was near the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library. The man was a bit before my time but I’ve always appreciated his level of authenticity, esp for someone who ended up in charge of the nation. Figuring I owed him an hour of my time, I ventured over to the museum only to realize they were scheduled to close thirty minutes after my arrival. Upon entering the well-manicured facilities, the room was empty and I set on a path towards the museum entrance, thinking I’d walk in and do a quick lap. Just as I neared, a uniformed-employee appeared out of nowhere and asked if I was looking to purchase a ticket.

“Is it worth it, for thirty minutes?” I asked, not wanting to spend the money.

“Not in my opinion!” she snapped back.

Well, alright then! Off I went. Laughing with myself about how all the history, time, money, and effort that went into all of this could be so easily disregarded by someone actively being paid money to support it.

That response felt like the debate tonight. What’s the point of any of this? What are we doing here?

The measure of a person is not made by what they can accomplish alone, it’s the effect they have on everyone. Eventually, even the best of us become dead and gone. Clinging to power because we think we deserve it or think we can provide investors the best return are neither valid reasons when the stakes are as high as they are — for duty of country. It’s not crazy to think Biden believes he’s still the best person for the fight, but had he made the choice to step aside, his affect would’ve been far more positive than what is unraveling now. Clearly, Joe is someone who cares about lists made by experts as he brought it up multiple times last time. His place on these lists will be lower the longer he remains in this race.

Unfortunately, the system we have puts us in the predicament we are in, with two candidates who should not be running at the top of each of their parties’ ticket. The next three months will not be fun but the result, whatever it is, will have massive consequences for the entire world.

Buckle up, Chicago.

-Clayton

2024 06 27

Nashville soccer fans as seen from above on The John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge, which is one of the coolest things in Nashville, Tennessee. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

We’re a few days shy of the halfway point in my goal of doing a blog post every day for a year and I’m falling behind! Way too much going on these days and not nearly enough hours in the day to get to it all. Let’s get over the hump and finish the year strong… more tomorrow… hopefully.

-Clayton

2024 06 26

One dead tree in the bunch. Atlanta, Georgia. May, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

It’s been too long since I’ve posted a quote. This one popped up while stuffing wedding invitations:

“We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.”

— E.O. Wilson, Biologist/Naturalist

-Clayton

2024 06 25

Downtown Nashville, as seen from the car passing through on the highway. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

I do miss the days when I had a week’s worth of blog posts in the can and didn’t need to think of posting something every single day. Today, I’m busy catching up on a never-ending list of things to do. I’ll never catch up, of course. Triage is always necessary. Admittedly, I spend too much time dreaming and not enough time doing. But that’s just how I operate and I don’t think it can be compromised. World building in my brain is what keeps me sane and happy.

To keep things on topic: I will say that Nashville is a wildly overrated city. It competes for the top spot in this category. In my opinion, of course. That said, there’s also a lot of great stuff in Nashville. It’s not a bad place, but I don’t fully understand the hype. But there a lot of things I don’t understand.

-Clayton

2024 06 24

Houses in my hood at dusk, along with our fresh new “green” alley. Chicago, Illinois. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how these days, so much shit happens with zero notice… unless it goes viral on social media. Previously, this was also the case but instead of social media being the purveyor of information, it was good old fashioned news television and newspapers. Because everyone was, more or less, consuming the same sources of information, we all felt like we were, more or less, in on the same conversations. Water cooler talk, as they used to call it back when people had regular jobs and watched Must See TV. These days, everyone is curating their information feeds to their own personal interests, be it tv channels or social media accounts. As a result, there’s no overall sense of unity, which exaggerates the feeling that everything is spiraling out of control — which it also very well might be!

The other day, on twitter (otherwise known as the bird app I mean x), the only thing being discussed was the “hawk tuah” girl. While funny, it’s just a silly reference to oral sex and hardly qualifies as The Headline News Story. But that’s what it was! Surely, Hawk Tuah Girl will soon get her own show and become our next celebrity personality, as she (inadvertently or maybe very advertently) managed to gain the most amount of attention, which is our most valuable currency these days, resulting from some drunken talk outside of a bar.

Anyway.

Speaking of stories going completely unnoticed, this great video below popped into my social feed and spurred this post’s thought process, which further led to the feeling that I really have no idea what’s going on anymore! A movie, by one of my favorite directors, and based on a photobook (update: which is also from Chicago!), is now in theaters and I simply had no idea it even existed. Sure, I don’t keep up on the pictures like I used to, but I am pretty tapped into the world of photography and photobooks. Alas, this movie essentially didn’t exist to me.

(Update: I’ve been hearing a lot more about this film since posting about how I’d heard nothing about this film)

On the subject of not existing, it’s also crazy how so many people put so many hours into doing something — be it a youtube channel or photography or blogging — only to be almost universally ignored. The guy who made this has 145 videos and only 1,500 subscribers (along with one new one in me). That’s roughly a gain of only ten new subscribers every time you spend an entire day or more making and posting a new video, assuming he also hasn’t deleted a bunch of past videos. You have to put in the hours, be patient, and be persistent. Luck doesn’t hurt, either. That’s what it takes to be the next Jeff Nichols. And even then, the chances that your huge film project goes completely ignored by the world is remarkably high! It’s brutal what we subject ourselves to in the course of pursuing art.

Now I need to get my ass to the theater.

-Clayton

2024 06 23

Busted flat in Atlanta, Georgia. May, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

It’s summer raining out, which is lovely. We just got back from food at cocktails at the bar. I’m figuring out the next few months. Many things to do. A wedding, for example. Documenting life. Opening a bar, perhaps? Running a studio in a constant state of disrepair. Yes, my brain is everywhere these days.

My parents, lovely as they are, are also older folks who don’t fully understand the value of money these days. Things are expensive. I tell my mom Biden may not be president soon because things are expensive. She doesn’t understand how it’s possible that a hotel room costs as much as it does; how a wedding photographer costs as much as it does. Her son is a photographer, yet the numbers don’t make sense from her perspective. If only she knew what I pay in rent each month.

These things weigh on me, too. Why I’m busting my butt so hard just to make it to another day. As you get older, the pulling yourself up by the bootstraps gets harder. The straps are frayed and your arms are sweaty and weak and you’re a bit drunk to numb the pain, so you forget to tug one day, then another.

The car sits outside, collecting dust. The tire goes flat. The oil dries out. Problems compound and transform into an insurmountable task. Better to forget it exists and put it out of your head. In a few more days time, you’ll have the capacity to deal with it, you tell yourself. The days come and go. More excuses pile up and it becomes easier to bury them deeper than to confront them.

Upstairs, your partner yells to make sure you didn’t doze off on the couch as you typically might. The rain tapping rhythmically doesn’t help. The buzzing alerts on your phone and computer and watch take your focus away.

I think the biggest trick in life is maintaining focus, despite the constant distractions. Finding the flow state and living in it as long as you can. Obviously, this will create other problems for you, such as automobile maintenance and relationship stability. Off to bed, I go.

-Clayton

2024 06 22

Dinah, photographed in my “Keep It 100” setup at my See You Soon studio. Chicago, Illinois. December, 2023. © Clayton Hauck

Hello loyal daily photo blog readers (mom & dad)! This coming week, and the week thereafter, I will be offering my insanely-priced $100 portrait sessions at the studio. If you’re in need of one-hundred unique new images of yourself, book a session and come shoot with me! It’s a ton of fun and I’ll soon be raising the price because this deal is going to lead me to financial ruin if I keep it up much longer.

Anyway, hope to see you soon!

-Clayton

2024 06 21

Cat (I think his name is Mr Peepers) in old house window. Chicago, Illinois. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

I need to find the time to make a photo zine called Mr Peepers with my photos of pets gazing out windows.

I need to find the time to make a photo zine called Fine, Art with my pocket cam Ricoh photos.

I need to find the time to find the time.

-Clayton

2024 06 20

Downtown Atlanta, Georgia. May, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Soon, the tallest building in the United States will be in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (pop. 700,000).

Soon, the tallest building in the world will be in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (pop. 4,000,000), surpassing the current tallest building in the world located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (pop. 3,400,000).

I’m not sure what, exactly, the meaning is, but there has to be a correlation between late-stage-capitalism and the rise of inequality to the locations of the world’s tallest buildings. It would be interesting to see a graph of the tallest buildings in the world per capita.

List of skyscrapers per capita, as found on a random page on reddit:

1. UAE - 36.09

2. Monaco - 25.61

3. Qatar - 19.58

4. Singapore - 16.39

5. Panama - 15.45

6. Bahrain - 12.05

7. Malaysia - 8.72

8. Australia - 5.82

9. South Korea - 5.37

10. Kuwait - 3.64

One thing I learned about the UAE by going there is that nobody wants to be outside, so it kind of makes sense to build upwards. That said, I’ll bet that within one hundred years, many of these buildings which have popped up like weeks in Dubai will need to be demolished as it will be cheaper than maintaining them.

-Clayton

2024 06 19

Blurry Allison enjoys a martini at Best Intentions. Chicago, Illinois. May, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

We just wrapped a video project for 50 Best Bars featuring the cocktail menu book at The Meadowlark here in Chicago, which is a great spot I regularly do photography for. Check it out below!

-Clayton

2024 06 18

Chicago peeking out from behind the clouds. May, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

I just got back from an assignment at Wrigley making portraits of one of their players, which was a lot of fun (and also hard ass work — it’s damn hot out there today!). As always, gaining a sliver of amazing access tops the list of why I (usually) love my job. We had a portrait setup in some VIP underground lounge I’d never been in and likely will never be in again. It had windows looking into one of the batting cages so you can watch the players warm up as if they are monkeys in the zoo (or perhaps you, sipping beers in the underground bar, are the monkey). Thru a few doors, we immediately ended up in the visitor’s dugout and then a few more steps up onto the field, where we did a second setup in the outfield among the ivy, with the iconic scoreboard in the backdrop.

Wrigley really is a special place, even after the neighborhood has been fully renovated. Today got me thinking back to 2016, which was amazing, but also had me pondering a regret. That summer, things just felt right, and I set out to both attend as many games as I could and document the entire season from a fan’s perspective. Sadly, my ambitions waned and I didn’t make good with myself on the photo project end of the deal, which remains a big bummer to me because, as we know now, they did end up winning the Series that year and I likely would’ve had a really special photobook project as a result. Even then, the rules weren’t as harsh as they are now and you could bring in nicer cameras and wander the stadium a bit just making images. Now, you need a special pass to do or go anywhere and games cost so much money, we hardly ever go.

Ho hum. Let’s play two! (I’m off to go shoot more, today)

-Clayton

2024 06 17

This boot is made for kickin’. Nashville, Tennessee. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Life Update: it’s finally happened. I’ve become the bitter old-guy photographer I always used to cringe at.

I had an idea while running downtown the other day: become wildly rich and get a condo in the newly renovated Tribune Tower. Not needing to worry about money any longer, I could continue posting to this blog daily while spending my nights downstairs at Billy Goat Tavern cosplaying as a poor person with influence. Like an old newspaperman. Someone people pay attention to. Maybe I’ll even pick up a cigar habbit.

Major corporations are now ashamed of appearing rich, so attempt to hide it to not to infuriate the unequal masses (us). The flagship Apple Store on Michigan Avenue is both wildly expensive, constructed of load-bearing glass walls, yet nearly invisible to any passerby not looking for it. Part of their aesthetic is to be so minimal you forget they have access to quite literally everything you do or think.

Perhaps they are learning from history. Sears built the world’s largest skyscraper on the other side of town, dominant and imposing, at the height of their success, and then immediately began to fail, in small part because it changed people’s perspective of the store. Customers previously thought Sears was local and based somewhere near them, not off in some fancy Chicago tower. Apple’s headquarters, meanwhile, is a lowrise fortified structure hiding out in one of California’s wealthiest suburbs — out of sight.

I’ve always been ashamed of having money and owning a house largely because I know most of my fellow photographer colleagues don’t. It’s a struggle out here and I’ve been fortunate (while also busting by ass and neglecting most normal-people life decisions in the process to get where I am). These days, I too am reverting to the mean. Bigger jobs are happening far less frequently and smaller jobs are paying increasingly less money. My editorial portrait cover shoot this week will pay me roughly what my monthly health insurance premium payment equals.

Recently, I learned that one established photographer I know, who shoots top tier commercial ad campaigns, also works twenty hours a week at Starbucks simply so he can get health insurance, thus saving him thousands of dollars, but of course taking away much of his time and making him exhausted in the process. At least he has ample access to coffee? These tradeoffs are becoming increasingly necessary and I’m finding myself seeing the logic in landing a similar job for similar reasons, just because it makes sense compared to what I’m doing now.

The really young photographers have no idea photography used to be a career! One that they could’ve made a livable wage doing. Now it’s more of a hobby that might occasionally pay a couple hundred bucks. Still, I consider myself fortunate for making a go of it during a window of time where it was possible to do so. Hopefully, things pick back up again and I look back at this post next year and laugh. You gotta stay positive.

Nearly every time I tell a stranger I’m a photographer, they say: oh like events and weddings? I always used to be offended by this but I probably should’ve taken it more as a warning sign. The idea that people could be paid well to make photos of anything beyond documenting a live event now seems increasingly crazy. Even Adobe is trying to cut us out (“skip the photo shoot!”), likely as payback for every photographer stealing their software for years.

Lately, photography feels like that sport where two people slap each other as hard as they can. People love that sport! You gotta stay positive.

Over the weekend, we were enjoying brunch at the bar and I was hypothetically discussing what job I could get with no college degree or experience in any line of work. Suddenly — out of nowhere — another local photographer popped into frame from behind the bar to say hello! “Bartending is steady work, consistent money, and it doesn’t pay net thirty, net sixty, net six months,” he joked in that dead-inside way all of us professional photographers understand at a gut level.

Anyway, back to thinking about how I can become wildly wealthy and move into my fancy Tribune Towner condo, looking down on the world. You gotta stay positive!

-Clayton

2024 06 16

Warlord. Chicago, Illinois. March, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

My Illinois tour yesterday was interesting, although admittedly I’m not sure I made many outstanding images. More noteworthy for me was visiting many small towns I’d never previously been to. Lockport, Elwood, Wilmington, Gardner, Dwight, Odell, Pontiac, Forrest, Chatsworth. One after another, these towns are remarkable in the sense of their history. Built long ago in a different time, during a rush of growth and immigration, these places are largely abandoned and forgotten these days. I can only hope these towns will again fill up with people to be reborn and revitalized; their beautiful old architecture preserved and restored to its original glory.

To do this, of course, you need people. Still, these days more people are leaving Illinois than they are coming to it, so this dream of a rebirth will have to wait.

One major problem in attracting new people is there’s nothing to do in most of these towns, aside from maybe a bar or two where the record player scratches as you enter the door. Being in the big city, we’re spoiled with options and choices. We can eat food from any country in the world or visit a bar with any vibe we’re in the mood for.

-Clayton

2024 06 15

A fork in the road. Atlanta, Georgia. May, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Gone Shootin’

I’m out today exploring Illinois and making photos for a personal project I haven’t said much about on here yet. None of the images I’ve made thus far have been posted here, or anywhere, and likely won’t be until I figure out whatever this project is going to become. It’s just a vague idea at this point and I’m seeing where it takes me. Really, the only guiding restriction is that images must be made within the state of Illinois and outside of Cook County (Chicago).

As I make images, I have been printing all my selects as 4x6” working prints to get a better feel for how they work, or don’t work. This has been a really enjoyable process, as the images hit so much harder (and different) when you can hold them in your hands. Also, I don’t need to apply a 10% Gaussian blur just to get the file size small enough, like here on this blog!

I’m so far getting quite a lot of wide landscape images, which are nice, but am lacking more impactful human moments. Certain photobooks are becoming a clear inspiration as to how this project takes shape. I will write more about those specific books to better understand what I like, or don’t like, about them. Realistically, this project will drag on for years, which I think I’m fine with. It’s also a nice excuse to explore areas I haven’t previously explored.

More on all this in the coming months (or years).

-Clayton

2024 06 14

Bare trees prior to the additional of leaves for added visual pleasure. Starved Rock State Park, Illinois. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

While browsing Hulu’s user interface to put on some background news television, it hit me that today’s news channels are essentially reality filters. Users are given a choice which filter they want to use in order to view the world in their ideal vision. This is something I already knew, but hadn’t previously thought of it like Instagram filters. Increasingly, we are using technology to warp the reality around us.

I’m someone who enjoys all four seasons, but I also understand why so many people move south to avoid them. Seasons come with drawbacks. It’s cold. It’s hot. It’s muggy. It’s buggy. It’s snowy. It’s wet. Why put up with all the inconvenience when you can simply relocate to San Diego and enjoy three-hundred-plus days of 70-degrees and sunny? They’ve even shipped in a bunch of palm trees from elsewhere to add visual appeal.

It doesn’t seem like this trend of re-shaping our personal world to better suit our desires is going to slow down anytime soon, whatever the unknown costs may be.

-Clayton

2024 06 13

Spring tree. Chicago, Illinois. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

I don’t have time for this shit!

The crazy thing about doing a post every single day is making the days like today happen, when you really don’t have the time for it. But you do, of course. You just choose to prioritize other things. It’s so easy to tell yourself you’ll get back to it tomorrow. You’ll do it another day. Days turn to weeks turn to months. That’s the gist of why I decided to force myself to stick to the daily post schedule. Even when I don’t have time for it.

Sure, not every day will be pretty or filled with wisdoms or amazing writing, but it’s a rewiring of the brain I’m after. Focus. Keep after it. Now that my posts are slipping, in some ways, perhaps I’ll find the motivation to prioritize more time to this process, instead of frantically scrambling to get something up just for the sake of it.

Damn, another vertical image today.

-Clayton

2024 06 12

Dirty sensor view from high in the sky. En route to Atlanta, Georgia. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

The amount of vertical images I’ve been posting lately has been bugging me. I’ve long preferred horizontal crops, however, am finding myself shooting vertical much more these days, surely because of The Phone. New technology comes along and we’re all forced to change our behaviors and adapt to it or likely be left behind, stuck in the past.

Lately I’ve been dreaming of opening a bar, thinking it would be a neat idea to shun all types of technology. No website. No social media. Actively tank the google reviews. You get the idea. How clever! Then, I mentioned this amazing idea to a younger person. Not so clever, she thought. You know what? She’s probably right, too.

I think in life we should embrace the things we’re good at and enjoy doing. Sure, I don’t love social media and the feeling of being forced to use these social platforms, but I do love making photos and videos and even building websites. It only makes sense that, instead of completely avoiding all these things, I would incorporate them into my fictional bar… any my life, generally. The harder part will be figuring out how to become fifteen years younger in order to convince anyone to come drink at my new establishment.

I’m thinking of calling it Grumpy’s.

-Clayton

2024 06 11

Spring blossoms. Chicago, Illinois. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Here’s a silly little memory that popped into my head:

One day a number of years ago, I was working on a project for a nonprofit which I was really excited about. The client had asked me, in addition to a half dozen other Chicago photographers, all of which I respected, to capture the city over the course of a summer. Each of us was assigned a few neighborhoods which we could document more or less as we pleased. It was a self assignment which I turned into a competition. I was motivated to make the best work I could to stand out among a distinguished crowd.

The silly moment was this: having been assigned Humboldt Park, my own neighborhood, I made a weekend out of the annual Puerto Rican pride celebrations which were happening all around my house. Setting out to document the parade one day, I stopped off at a recently-opened park along The 606 trail to photograph it. Hunting for some unique angle among the large kid’s netting, I was focused on my compositions when an angry mom snapped at me for taking photos of her children innocently playing on the play set.

“Oh no, ma’am, I’m an important documentary photographer capturing Chicago’s neighborhoods for a big important project.” I said to myself, while mustering up something hopefully less self-important to her. In an effort to assure her I was, indeed, on the up and up, I offered to show her the images on the back of my camera, to give her a sense of what I was out documenting. Luckily for me, she took my word for it, because when I myself glanced down at the screen, the image staring up at me was of small children on the little roller coaster ride which was set up in the park at the carnival, which I had just made at the end of the previous day on my walk home. Had she seen this image, which seemed impossible to explain away, there’s no telling what might’ve happened.

As is often the case in any photographer’s career-path-to-cynic, this project largely stalled and never became the big and important work I had imagined it was going to become the day I photographed children playing in the park. At least I had a nice laugh to myself about how absurd that entire situation was, which likely only a weirdo photographer like myself can fully appreciate.

-Clayton

2024 06 10

Mr Peepers. Nashville, Tennessee. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

It’s another Monday Life Update. Not too much to report on this week, which is fine. It’s a bit more healthy compared to my more frantic update last week, which even had my mom worried about my mental health. Sure, I still to have quite a lot on my mind, but perhaps it’s a bit more focused, namely:

• We began production on a documentary film project. It’s still very early days and this project may or may not go anywhere (managing expectations), but we do have quite a lot of ideas on where to take it and we do now have one day of filming in the can, as they (used) to say. I still need to watch the footage and grade myself. Still learning new gear and how to record sound, etc.

• Still planning this wedding. Eleven tables are scheduled to be delivered any minute now. We spent the weekend figuring out our registry list. It won’t end until September.

• I picked up a Murakami book (After Dark) at a used sale while out getting coffee because a) I’ve been meaning to read more of him and b) I’m legitimately considering the idea of opening a bar, which he is (perhaps weirdly) someone I reference in my brain whenever this idea pops up. The writing is good and reminds me that I need to read more print, as I’ve been doing Audiobooks almost exclusively lately, often while running. Plus I’d love to go to Japan but don’t see that happening in real life soon, so at least I can take a trip in my head.

• Speaking of running: I had a crazy idea that I wanted to hit a marathon-length run before my September wedding date. Considering I am not in fantastic physical shape currently, this idea is quite unrealistic. I’ve scaled back my ambition to a half marathon.

• I’m being reminded how time consuming and involved video post production is. This was literally my job after college and I strayed from it for this exact reason. I need to discover a healthy and balanced relationship between shooting, which I love, and editing, which I feel like I can only either obsessively dive into or completely shun. It’s a work-in-progress.

• Lastly, this bar situation I’ve been subtly mentioning. Opening a bar has long been an idea which I’ve thought about. In my older years, the idea has faded as the realization of how much damn hard work it would be has taken hold. When you’re younger, you think of the upsides more than the darker realities. When you’re older, the time consumed doing the bullshit required tends to make you have second thoughts about everything.

  What’s crazy, though, is that my industry is in a bit of turmoil lately and most people I talk to have been siding with the idea of opening a bar over the idea of being a photographer. I’d been thinking I was greedy to even have these thoughts, but the amount of people who share my views, and have encouraged them, has been quite eye opening. I feel like a longer post about the state of commercial photography is in order. It’s complicated and complex, but the overall vibe on the streets these days is not a healthy one and something needs to change.

-Clayton