2025 12 03

Attempting to hold back nature. Chicago, Illinois. December, 2022. © Clayton Hauck

Here’s a blurb I wrote for Cengiz Yar’s newsletter about my favorite photobook of the year:

While perhaps not as easily digestible as Daniel Arnold’s You Are What You Do (Loose Joints), my close runner-up for photobook of the year, Zed Nelson’s The Anthropocene Illusion (Guest Editions) is one of those projects that comes along and transcends the genre of mere photobook to become something far more significant. In our modern world of *gestures broadly*, this book does more to communicate where we’re at as a species than perhaps any work of art I’ve yet encountered. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, yet photography continues to be such an underrated form of art. This title shows what’s possible when you harness those unsaid words within its pages, filling it with such rich and complex meaning and narrative, while simultaneously being beautiful to look at. Because of this I can’t help but consider it my favorite of the year for what it’s able to communicate. Of course, not everyone will see it this way. That, too, explains how we’ve ended up where we are. *gestures broadly*

Favorite: Zed Nelson’s The Anthropocene Illusion (Guest Editions)

Runners-Up: Daniel Arnold’s You Are What You Do (Loose Joints), Jake Knapp’s Trump, Colorado (Constituent)

-Clayton