2025 06 15
Sun sets on the flatland. Thawville, Illinois. June, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
Now that I’ve been at my Illinois Project for over a year (granted, actual shooting time has been quite minimal as I’m mostly busy fighting the fight in the big city), I’m starting to get a better sense of what it is I’m looking to do. Early images, such as this one made a year ago, while nice, are too pulled back. I’m not a landscape photographer, but I was finding myself making lots of landscape photos. I need to get in the action and find the vibes!
Yesterday, at our third Realm photobook shop popup, while surrounded by some of the best art photobooks on the market, I met a local photographer. He showed me some of what he’s been working on and I immediately found myself lost in the feelings of inadequacy. This guy’s work is very good and surely he’s well on his way to publishing a meaningful book. While that in itself is great, immediately comparing myself to him and focusing on my shortcomings is not a productive reaction. Part of what makes art great is that we all have different perspectives on the world. It’s what makes us stand out. Trying to make my images look more like his, or someone else’s, is not the right approach, in my humble opinion.
That said, there are definitely productive takeaways that can be had from these tough interactions! Two quick ones:
1) Shoot less like an editorial photogrpaher and more like an artist. I’ve been a working photographer for nearly two decades and my brain has been trained to give the client what they want. Whether it’s a large commercial project or small editorial assignment, I’m a people pleaser at the end of the day. The trouble with this is when I’m out making work for myself, I’m finding myself shooting as if I’m on assignment. I am, in a sense, on a self-assignment but I default to shooting around a scene to get all of the angles and then spending a ton of time pouring over the selects, toning & adjusting, which is very time consuming.
2) Stop comparing myself to others. I’m not the next Ansel Adams and never will be, nor do I want to be! Many people will have better work than me. It is what it is and, instead of getting jealous, I should focus on the things I can control myself. Perhaps this is an obvious one but I think it’s important to remind myself of this regularly!
I’m considering a new section on this here blog with all of my Ill Wandering posts. If it does ever turn into something (a book, likely), it would be nice to have all of these thoughts nearly organized to look back on (and probably laugh at). If that’s something you would be interested in, let me know below!
-Clayton
2025 04 21
Greenview, Illinois. March, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
I stumbled upon this building while out Illinois Wandering last month and I loved the juxtaposition. Lately, this project is feeling increasingly close to home. It might be a stretch, but my brain is connecting these towns to the difficult times my commercial photo industry is now going through. After the industries and jobs left these places, they sit there today a reminder of what happens when society goes through big shifts. What this next shift will leave us with, I do not know, but I’m finding myself increasingly interested in exploring the last shift in hopes to better understand our likely future.
-Clayton
2025 03 16
Farm outside Ashkum, Illinois. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
When I began my Illinois Project (photographing the state outside of Chicago), I was smitten by scenes like this. I still find this image beautiful, but a year later, I now realize a big part of what drew me towards these images was my lack of prior experience with them. Now that I have folders full of them, the charm sort of wears off a bit and you start to understand nobody has the patience to look at more than one of these photos, if even that. Maybe I’m wrong?
I’ve continued making these photos and will revisit them in time. Peeking back at this image now, made roughly a year ago, gives me the thought that maybe there is more charm in the simplicity than I’d previously thought.
One other result from my recent foray into capturing rural Illinois is that I now completely love bare trees, where previously my brain would almost totally ignore them. Nature’s fireworks, I like to think. Only they happen at such a slow pace that most humans will never comprehend their beauty.
-Clayton
2025 03 13
North of Champaign, Illinois. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
The big takeaway I had last year after my various Illinois Wandering sessions (which were admittedly not very focused and more of an afterthought) was that, while I was making some okay photos of cool scenes, none of the images really stood out as being strong enough to stand on their own. Sure, this image is beautiful (imo) and might work well in a series with other images providing meaning and backstory, but I’d been hoping to make work that would really stand out and be something I would be proud to show others. In reality, I was getting images that felt too pulled back and observational, like a tourist making snaps on the family vacation. I needed to be a part of the action. The images need to feel purposeful, powerful, and spark emotion. This shot is on the right track; it was made as a storm rolled over the plains, powerful to experience firsthand while being there in person, but a subject (a person, ideally) could’ve made it really stand on its own two feet as a strong image.
That’s the trouble with wandering around a rural state alone in your car — the amount of humans you encounter is remarkably small. I continually think of two possible solutions as I’m out on my own: The Crewdson Approach or the Soth Approach.
The obvious solution for a commercial photographer like myself, if wanting to make the strongest images possible, is to produce them like Crewdson does! Put a bunch of money into solving the problem. Get a van, fill it with people and props and a pre-planned road map and go make it happen. The challenge with this approach is that it’s not what drove me to explore my state in the first place. The resulting images may be “better” but any of the meaning I hope to create will be lost.
While it’s ultimately a far more challenging and time consuming approach, the honest, photojournalistic mentality is what’s been driving me to do this. I continually get the feeling while out exploring that I am in a place forgotten by the rest of the world, its time long passed. It’s wanting to document that feeling and emotion for a future audience that drives me to push through and continue exploring this approach to the work, while knowing full-well the strength of the images might suffer and the fine art galleries of New York City may never call.
My cast of characters should be the people who live and work in these places that I encounter, who understand and are at home in them. Pushing myself to get out of my comfort zone in order to access these photographic opportunities is the part that will be most challenging, but I am taking steps in that direction and so far it feels good.
-Clayton
2025 03 12
Somewhere in northern Illinois. March, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
Everyone likes looking at photos of rural farmland, right??? Right?!
-Clayton
2025 03 10
Somewhere in northern Illinois. March, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
This week I’ll be doing some Ill Wandering while traveling to and from an assignment down in St Louis. I don’t have much planned out, but am excited to explore and document regions further south in the state. In additional to making photos, the goal is to also do some video and short interviews with strangers as well. This is part of yet another project I am working on, which I will talk more about soon.
-Clayton