2024 02 09
Troy Hill neighborhood. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. November, 2023. © Clayton Hauck
Seeking Spaces Corners.
Before departing Pittsburgh on my way out to New Jersey, I stopped by the Spaces Corners space, however, they were closed, and I didn’t have an appointment, and don’t know them personally, so I just wandered the cute lil neighborhood for a bit (have I mentioned how much I love Pittsburgh?) and snapped a few photos before hitting the road.
I’d been planning to use this entry to pen some thoughts on a new photo book by Ed Panar, one of the Spaces Corners owners, which I’ve been really excited to receive, however, the book hasn’t been delivered yet (I think my order is being help up by the Sofia Coppola book not being in stock so Baltimore Photo Space is waiting for that before shipping). Ed is a favorite photographer of mine and, considering the book features one of my favorite cities, I’ve been super excited to check it out.
I might just be romanticizing it but Pittsburgh seems like a cheat code for making great images. The angles, the textures, the people, the grit, the seasons, the topography. I continue to tell anyone who will listen it’s one of the most underrated cities in the country. Another underrated city in my opinion is Baltimore, which is home to the aforementioned bookstore I ordered Ed’s book from. Since the book hasn’t arrived yet and I can’t talk about it, I’ll instead talk about photo book stores.
Weird transition aside, I’ve been a bit obsessed with the idea of opening up some kind of photo book store for like a year now. The idea, generally, would be to use my existing See You Soon studio location as a home base and open the place up to customers, similar to what BPS does, either by appointment or on limited weekend hours. To make the whole endevour make financial sense, I’d need to do a solid amount of web sales, which is mostly what’s holding me back (packing, shipping, order fulfillment, emails, more shipping, more emails, are not exactly my favorite things to spend my time on). But I love the idea of setting up the space as a bit of a hub for photography, with photo books being a main aspect, in addition to hosting shows, talks, meetups, etc. Chicago is a bit lacking in options for where to buy and browse new photo books (otherwise known as a business opportunity?).
Perhaps writing about the idea and putting it out into the world will somehow help me decide if this idea is worth pursuing or not. If you have thoughts, leave a comment! — side note: Upon writing this I realized the comment box was not visible on the blog. I’d been getting bummed about nobody leaving comments over a month into this daily posting (each blog ending with a large “Comments (0)” but hadn’t ever noticed there was no way to comment, as the form had been hidden until I switched a setting to enable it. There has to be some kind of extrapolation in this? Focusing on the negatives without assessing the issue. Sure a photo book store will create a lot of unwanted busy work, but perhaps the upside will be a worth the effort: a plethora of new comments, friends, and opportunity!
-Clayton
