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Navigating the path. Chicago, Illinois. January, 2023. © Clayton Hauck

The king of stylish youtube videos is back with a video about… making a photobook! Really, this video hit my feed and had me all mixed up thinking thoughts and feeling feelings. To put it simply, his work is incredible and inspiring, yet I can’t stand how everything these days needs to be a disguised advertisement. To make it as a visual artist, selling things is a must, be it your own art or products from major corporations.

Beyond the artistic merit of this specific video, it got me thinking about still photos vs video. The two mediums are vastly different from each other despite the urge by many to consider them interchangable. Approaching a project from a motion-perspective is one thing, you have considerations like editing, sound, and graphics that will drastically change the meaning of any shot. Will stills, each image stands on it’s own. My theory is that oftentimes motion shooters will fall for images that work well within one of their videos, yet from an outsider’s perspective, aren’t as powerful. I’m not here judging Gawx, he’s a wildly-talented visual artist, but more so making a vague and undefined observation about how the two mediums differ and that the differences aren’t always respected as much as they perhaps should be.

Keep shooting, be the images moving or still.

-Clayton