2025 07 30
Am I a dog person? Buddy the dog. Chicago, Illinois. June, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
It was while listening to a Photo Banter podcast with guest Mark Mahaney (spurred by watching a youtube video from Bryan Birks) that it hit me: Am I not taking my photos seriously enough? Am I making too much work and focusing on the wrong things? Should I be shooting as much as I am or perhaps slow down and get more focused on what I am shooting? Should I then put far more time into sculpting the best images and thinking much deeper about how and where I am showing them? These are all great in practice, but my approach to making work has always been sort of the antithesis of this. This doesn’t mean I am doing things the wrong way, but this Winogrand-like approach has been weighing on me lately as I fill up hard drive after hard drive with images that, after being made, will usually never again see the light of day.
My goal here is not to turn this blog post into a decisive moment of reshaping my entire approach to photography, however, I'd like to encourage you first to check out the work of Mark Mahaney if you’re not already familiar, and then go into a bit more depth on a few of the notes I frantically made while listening to the podcast in the middle of editing a batch of thousands of photos.
NOTES FROM A PODCAST: these are some things Mark mentioned as being important to him, followed by some thoughts from me.
1) Give smaller edits to clients. There is not strength in merely showing you make more images.
This one hits me hard because I struggle with it and know it’s something I need to work harder on. Part of why I started this here blog was to improve my photo editing skills. I’m all-too-often guilty of falling in love with my babies and find it challenging to move things to the scrap pile. It’s the editorial mindset. The photojournalist’s approach. Maybe these other images, while weaker on their own, can be used to help sculpt the overall narrative, I tell myself, while spending tons of additional time adjusting and toning images that will never be seen again. “You’re only as strong as your weakest image,” they say. While I largely disagree with this sentiment, I am fully aware that giving a client a set of 20 selects rather than 120 selects will both help them in the process and make me look like I have stronger convictions in what it is I am aiming to achieve through my images.
2) Make myself happy, not them.
Here’s another one I am in strong agreement with. We’re not out here telling you to disregard your clients’ needs and desires. But only once you are fully engaged with what you — the artist being hired for your photography skills — are drawn towards will your images achieve a level of quality and uniqueness that you are capable of achieving. Clients and assistants often have great ideas on set (and terrible ones!). This is not to say you shouldn’t listen to anyone, but I know myself and I know that one of my weaknesses as a photographer is that I am a people pleaser who still has a production-assistant mentality much of the time. Only once I learn to fully engage with my photographic instincts will the images I am making be the strongest they can be. Oftentimes, I’m drawn to the work I made early in my career I think in large part because I was out there working for myself and only myself.
3) Only show the work you want to make it out into the world.
Does the world need to see the dog photo I used atop the page? No (Buddy may disagree). I give it a pass here because this blog is not strictly my platform for showing my strongest work, but a place to get out my thoughts and feelings about photography. That said, I know I could be a lot better about sharing far less weaker images online. It’s a similar point to number one, but me spraying my photos into the wild might do more disservice than good when it comes to wanting people to take me seriously as an artist.
4) Create my own voice in this cluttered industry — set myself apart.
This one ain’t easy. It’s what sets people apart from the pack. While I think I’ve done a relatively good job of this throughout my career, I do also think that as the quantity of great photographers increases dramatically (as is the case!), I’m sinking back down into the pack. Making consistent, strong work is the best way to achieve this, but it can help to be known for something. Like rappers shouting taglines through all of their songs, photographs will embrace one lil thing and claim it for themselves. Mark’s use of inverse vignettes is what originally made me take notice of his work, and it’s a style that I find myself using more (this is where things get tricky. It’s not like Mark owns this approach to editing images, but you can look like a copycat if you’re not careful). I aim to further explore some low-key signatures of my own which I am carefully guarding behind lock and key. Seriously, though, I think my bigger takeaway is that I need to invest far more time into the editing of my images if I want to stand out.
5) His two biggest pieces of advice to younger photographers: Learn Quickbooks and assist other photographers.
I’ll strongly agree with both here. Personal finances were something that I largely neglected through my younger successful years (luckily I’m not a big spender, but did a pretty bad job of tracking money generally). The second piece, assisting, is one regret that I have in my own career. I did a lot of it but mostly in the motion world, which has some carryover but is surprisingly different in many aspects. The thing I mentioned earlier about having a production assistant mentality was a learned skill from assisting on motion sets. I find myself being unable to tune out the production chatter, as my brain wants to immediately try to help solve problems I’m not even involved in, rather than lock in and focus on the art. Much of art is theft, and learning tricks from other photographers by watching what they do on set is something I didn’t get much access to. Maybe this is a good thing, actually?? Probably not.
While not quite on topic but an adjacent thought: I need to get much better about gaining and maintaining relationships with other photographers and photo editors, in an effort to help improve my own work. I’ve always been a bit of a loner and this mentality will usually only get you so far. Additionally, Mark talked a lot about his preparedness on set, which was rather impressive. It seems clear Mark has a personality type that helps him execute complicated shoots. While I don’t think I’m bad in this regard, I do think my personality is much different from his and I could benefit from additional focus on both pre-production and post-production. Clearly, the takeaway for me is that I really enjoy the act of shooting more than the other aspects of the job, which are also needed to round out and produce successful images.
Anyway. Those are some quick thoughts about my own career as it relates to a fellow Chicagoland native making amazing photos. I strongly encourage you to both check out that episode, linked below, and listen to Alex Gange’s other episodes as it’s one of the best out there for photo nerds like myself.
-Clayton
The imbed isn’t working for whatever reason so here is a direct Spotify link and here is a link to the Apple podcasts
