2025 04 13

Classic car in Thawville, Illinois. June, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

If you’re in the neighborhood, check out Artesia Brewery.

-Clayton

2025 04 12

Main Street on Chatsworth, Illinois. June, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Another town without people, full of beauty.

-Clayton

2025 04 08

Time is running out. We’re entering a new world. Time Theater. Mattoon, Illinois. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

It’s interesting, when you take a mental step back, far back, and consider how we got to where we are today.

Movie studios are being replaced by individual youtubers; magazines are being replaced by individual Substacks; comics are being animated through automation. There is no shortage of examples to indicate how vastly different the landscape of necessary support structures are today, but the one constant is communication. People are seeking authenticity and placing it above all other factors largely because it’s now possible, for the first time ever, to communicate grand ideas — through video, photography, animation, words, all forms — without the need of vast and complicated structures which previously served as a means of control. If the system did not like what you were saying or doing, you had almost no recourse in our previous era. You had to play ball; say the right thing; bribe the right guy; put up with the unsuitable boss.

The downside to the removal of the guardrails, of course, is that we have to deal with chaos. Everyone is right about everything all of the time, which of course means half the population is always wrong. An enemy of the state! What we’ve gained in truth, we’ve given up in caution and stability.

I’m spending far too much time wondering how to make money in today’s wintry economic climate. While the creative community is shrinking in capacity, the supply of creatives is at an all-time high and will continue to grow thanks to the ease and speed of creation now possible. I refuse to become another loud mouth in a sea of attention seekers, which seems to be the obvious path to financial success in these current times.

Trump is now guiding our country because he was accessible, entertaining, and real. Tariffs are now our reality because some guy wrote a book which said all the things he wanted to hear, while using made up information to back it up. The truth doesn’t matter, it’s the message that matters. Communication. Not only what you say but how and where you say it.

The government is not going to save us now, just as the system we’ve burned down to get to where we are, previously, was at its core interested in protecting itself.

If we want a future world that values facts, reason, stability, opportunity, openness, we’re going to have to build it ourselves. I know that there are a lot of us out there, living quietly and patiently, hoping our time will again come, but without effort, our new reality will be one ruled by few and governed through ruthless efficiency — the same tools which have rendered vast industries, and now entire government agencies, no longer relevant — in order to accomplish the desires of few.

Zuckerberg and Altman are building their underground bunkers for a reason, and they’re not going to invite us over for tea.

What I’m seeing now is people choosing sides. It’s human nature to want to win. None of us liberals thought Trump, the guy who tried to burn down the Capital when he didn’t get his way, had a real shot at winning back the White House, but we failed to understand human nature. Facts, niceties, vibes don’t matter when the wolf is at your door and he’s hungry. In a world where it’s every man for themselves, your only real shot is having an army, figuratively or literally, on your side.

This is why I’m writing every day. This is why I’m pushing through the hard times using the best skills I have. The only way out is through.

-Clayton

PS- this entire post came out of me because I was going to share an example of Ai being used to create a comic, which I thought was nice. 😅

2025 04 07

Haley, somewhere in northern Illinois. December, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

I started an account on the new Foto app. While I’m not super optimistic it will become the next big thing in photography sharing, I do like what they seem to be trying to do. Social media has transformed drastically since the innocent early days of Instagram, and I’m finding myself less interested in again reshaping instant-gratification-based phone apps and more interested in slow & steady approaches, such as this here blog and my new site, everyoneisfamous.

All that said, there is no doubt in the potential power social apps hold, and I’m simultaneously finding myself considering a much-reluctant sign up to Tik Tok, as my career pivot will be far more reliant on consistent eye balls than it had been previously. And TikTok is where the eye balls are.

Anyway, if you do happen to be on the Foto app, give me a follow @claytonhauck (be my tenth friend)! The devs will apparently be rolling out a web-based presence later this year, which might be a nice compliment to the mobile app, which has been enjoyable in my experience thus far.

-Clayton

2024 04 01

Birds on the line, tweeting or something. Somewhere in northern Illinois. June, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

After watching a few more episodes of the video I mentioned yesterday, it’s remarkable how efficiently word travels these days through social media. Ed was lining up free places to stay, free pints of beer, clothing, meals, while his poor old kayak buddy was left to fend for himself, without social media on his side. There’s some sort of lesson in there but I’m not exactly sure what it is.

-Clayton

2025 03 31

Illinois and Michigan Canal. Lockport, Illinois. June, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

It’s the final day of March, so we’re roughly a quarter of the way through the year already, which is quite wild. That news has me in rather poor spirits as, while I’ve been keeping myself very busy with my own endless list of projects, the meat and potatoes work that pays the bills has been slow and I’ve yet to win a proper large commercial production. This in itself is not out of the ordinary, however, I’m extra sensitive these days with the studio overhead piling every higher and the growing sense of an economic slowdown on the horizon.

The industry talk I lead last week was both remarkably reassuring to hear such kind words and compliments towards my photography, and terrifying in that most everyone else is dealing with today’s challenging economic realities. Ho hum.

On a brighter note, I stumbled upon the video below and it gave me a much-needed spark of joy. I love the weird journeys us humans become obsessed with and this is both entertaining and educational. My brain always wonders about and imagines what grand rivers are like at their place of origin and this video thoroughly explores the River Thames in all of its glory, which is cool.

As I find myself pivoting back towards becoming an artist and personality that relies on my own vision and content to survive, starting that long-pondered youtube channel really seems like it will be in my near future.

-Clayton

2025 03 27

Old Main Street is New Main Street. Canton, Illinois. March, 2025. © Clayton Hauck

I did a presentation today for APA Chicago with the theme being personal work. One of the things I discussed was my Ill Wandering work. It’s not work that I’ve spent much time assessing myself yet, as I’ve been more focused on allowing things to play out a bit more organically without forcing anything and focusing too much on any specific theme. That said, it was very much worthwhile to take a step back and further assess the photos I do have.

I’ll share more in the coming months and hope to get back out a bit more regularly this year to expand the body into something more substantial.

-Clayton

2025 03 17

Somewhere in northern Illinois. March, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Back from a gig down in St Louis and a few days of Ill Wandering (lots of time on the road — need to prioritize less driving next time) and I’m catching up on life, getting back into the routine of things. This week, I aim to make my new website go live. More on that soon. I’m also preparing for a talk going down in two weeks time in which myself and fellow photographer/friend Jason Little will discuss how we use personal work in our practice. I feel like lately all I do is personal work, so I should have much to discuss. I’ll aim to make it worthwhile for both those in attendance and myself.

-Clayton

PS - on the topic of photography, this video by Noah Kalina hit my feed today and I really enjoyed it. Give it a watch, if interested.

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 15

Freight train rolls through Ashkum, Illinois. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

One thing that draws me to rural Illinois is the trains. I dream of living the life of a hobo and creating a large body of work from that perspective, but know I don’t have it in me to do so. The idea of living a far less comfortable lifestyle in pursuit of art is one that fascinates me, but I’ve grown too reliant on air conditioning and Amazon next day delivery.

Also, I need to photograph things out of focus more often…

-Clayton

2025 03 14

Pizza Palace. Ashkum, Illinois. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

This photo is a visual representation of the Midwesterner’s saying “I’m living the dream.”

-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 11

Somewhere in Northern Illinois. March, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Catching up on posts as I’ve been on the road and didn’t have time to make them as I was busy shooting and wandering. It’s interesting looking back at these images from last March as I’ve made quite a lot of progress and changes to how I want to approach this project moving forward. More on that later!

-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

2025 02 24

Streator, Illinois. November, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Lately, I’ve been pondering excessively about what to focus my energies towards. Fortunately, I think my self-imposed marching orders have more or less been made and I am now on a path, for the remainder of the year at least, to see where it takes me.

One deterrent to creating new work is the internal struggle towards judging the work you haven’t yet created! Will it be unique enough? Will it be original? Will it stand out in a world so saturated with content it’s quite impossible to even comprehend!? The quote below, while clearly written in a time prior to social media, Ai, and content factories, helped bring some sanity to my overworked brain:

"Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it."

-C.S. Lewis

-Clayton

2025 02 19

Off-season tune-up. Somewhere in Northern Illinois. March, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

This video by Bryan Birks is nice and is inspiring me to get back on the road asap. So many ideas I hope to explore in the not-too-distant future…

Also, I’m realizing I need to do a far better job of documenting where I make images as I make them.

-Clayton

2025 02 13

Moving things; ill wandering; somewhere outside Streator, Illinois. November, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

I’m going to sound like a boomer for a moment but I must say, I will never take for granted the sheer amount of things that happen, out of sight, in order to enable our lives to be smooth and easy. Easy is a very relative term, but that’s not my point. While it may feel like the world is rapidly spinning out of control at the moment, it is perhaps helpful to consider things could be far, far worse. It helps me, at least. A chicken in every pot.

-Clayton

2025 01 29

Man walks through park with dog. Champagne, Illinois. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Here’s an example of an image which I like, but in reality is probably not a great image. It’s missing something that makes is special, yet has elements which make it special to me, as I lived the moment and it triggers things inside my head that an uninvolved onlooker (you) won’t have access to. I’d built up an elaborate narrative in my head about this man and what he was up to, which gave this image a story. The dreary setting only adds to the mystique for me, however, you likely look at it and see a boring parkscape, devoid of excitment. Could this image work in a series, with other images, giving it more meaning? Maybe. Does it hold up on it’s own as a single? No.

What do you think?

It does serve as a reminder for me that I need to get my ass back out on the road and make new work. I’ve been spending far too much time in my head, dreaming up new ideas that may never lead anywhere.

-Clayton

2025 01 21

Keeping up appearances. Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery, Elwood, Illinois. June, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

This is not a political blog. Stocks are up. Get back to work!

Yesterday was tough. It wasn’t just the immediate pivot through a pen that put our country on an aggressive path (I don’t mind some well-meaning aggression); it wasn’t just the the billionaire tech oligarchy showing up at morning mass, followed by selfies in front of the Capitol, followed by the best seats in the house (as governors waited outside), to watch their guy get sworn in without bothering to touch a bible in the process; it wasn’t the crypto tokens issued solely at the benefit of putting billions of dollars into the hands of Trump and his family — peanut farms be dammed (“raise those flags, we’re celebrating”)!; it wasn’t just the ease at which Trump crammed in a full day of getting shit done, while his predecessor returned from another vacation, pardoned his entire family, and then flew off into the sunset never to be seen again; it wasn’t just the clear dog whistles, tone adjustment, and rewarding of behavior once seen as unlawful and unwanted — whatever it takes to make his vision a reality is now fully endorsed and embraced by the Supreme Court through whatever means deemed necessary — we’re living at the whims of one man, a man who has proven over and over to have a fragile ego and questionable character. He’s our man. Our dear leader, just as he wants it. 

Stocks are up. Nothing to see here. Get back to work! 

We finally have a real dude (not some Elite) in charge of things and he alone can fix it, as surely he will. All he needs is four more years of madness and everything will be great again.

Most people I know are choosing to ignore the news and actively avoid learning about what is now happening. I get it, it’s the clear best choice for maintaining your own sanity and keeping your house in order. Touching this madness in any way only leads to trouble. I made the decision to take it all in yesterday, to give myself a sense of what’s to come, and it left my brain hurt and heart confused. I get the outrage that led to this. I get the frustrations that led to this. I get the contempt for the Democratic Party that led to this. What I don’t understand, and what terrifies me, is how quickly we are ditching norms, scrapping laws, and enabling Trump’s darkest impulses — we’re no longer hiding the executive orders from him, we’re stacking them up high and signing them in front of a live studio audience! Rile up the base and blame anything that goes wrong (as it will) on the opposition, the immigrants, them. 

The Democratic Party is almost silent in response. The big guy who wears shorts to work is apparently switching sides this week. He likes to win, too, and there’s a feeling like the level-headed centrists and liberals will never win again. We have rolled over and are playing dead as the system now allows us almost no safeguards in opposition. Even a simple old blog post like this one feels kind of dangerous, like I’m about to be put on some list. Maybe I should’ve voted Trump to at least have that on my file.

How far into the darkest we go before voters take notice, if voting is still a thing after the dust settles, I do not know. But I fear we can only fight crazy with even-more-crazy and we’re now on a long and steady path towards madness.

This is not a political blog. Stocks are up. Get back to work!

-Clayton