2025 12 29

Mc Lovin’ it! Chicago, Illinois. August, 2025. © Clayton Hauck

(Not) Becoming a Top Commercial Food & Beverage Photographer 2026
For last year’s post about becoming a busy food & beverage photographer this year, please see: 2024 12 29

This resolution was a complete and utter failure in every way imaginable. While my commercial photography career was slow this year generally, the food and beverage projects were non-existent. There was one week that sort of broke me where I lost four commercial bids and two studio bookings in five days, half of which were for beverage projects. On top of this bummer news, my normal hospitality projects have slowed to a trickle in 2025. The restaurant groups that previously kept me busy in my downtime can no longer afford to hire me at all, and none of the new spots opening are hitting me up either. Of course, I’m not helping my case by seeking new clients — mostly because I’m convinced none of them have the money to make it work. Perhaps I’m being too pessimistic, or perhaps I see the writing on the wall, but I’ve consistently made the decision to pivot away from this line of work towards other things.

All this is a bummer, because I really do love photographing food and drinks and had dreams & visions of making cookbooks a primary focus of mine in the studio that I built out to support such projects. One bright spot is that there’s another photographer (Dave Rentauskas, previously a people photographer) who is using the space regularly to photograph food (while I myself, the food photographer, goes out and looks to photograph people). Sometimes things happen in ways you can’t expect. I’m not fully giving up on getting back into this line of work, but I’m also not actively seeking it, either. Once the dust settles on where ai is heading as it relates to commercial photography, perhaps I will re-assess. Until then, I’m enjoying restaurants from a customer’s perspective.

-Clayton

This is one entry in a multi-part series of self-exploration and contemplation-out-loud in advance of the new calendar year. Some of this may happen; none of this may happen.
For the complete list of Year-End Contemplation posts from 2025, please see: 2025 12 25.
For the complete list of Year-End Contemplation posts from 2024, please see: 2024 12 25.