2025 12 26

Shadow selfie. Atlanta, Illinois. November, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Becoming a Fine Art Photographer in 2025 2026

For last year’s post on becoming an artist, please see: 2024 12 26

Well, well. Would you look at that. Time is a flat circle, after all.

One year ago today, I wrote about a “re-focusing” of my photography career away from commercial work and more towards “art.” While I don’t have many failures or successes to report today, I will say, this has been one of my most practiced year-end resolutions. Big changes happen slowly, especially as a 40-something year old. The good news and the bad news of it is: while I don’t expect to make a bunch of money from this career re-focus, I do feel confident that it will give me sustained motivation and joy through the remainder of my career.

This year, I’ve caught myself thinking quite often about how I’ve never been as excited about photography as I currently am. Likely, this is because I’m now putting a majority of my time into things of my choosing, like photographing rural towns and Chicago alleys. This is a joke, of sorts, but the point is that making money through doing what you want to do is almost never easy. Previously, my compromise was that I would make photos of whatever the corporations wanted me to make photos of! These days, I’m still searching for the compromise that enables actual profits (there’s always a compromise). Instead, I find myself back in a school-like setting, learning and growing while sucking up as much information and inspiration as I can get my hands on. It’s enjoyable! I’m reading books on photography and looking at (and selling — more on this in a few days) a never-ending flow of photobooks.

Last time, I specifically spoke about The Illinois Project, my ambiguous plan to do some kind of Important Work focused on the state of Illinois (outside Cook County). Progress has been slow on this for a number of reasons, but I now have a dozen other projects in mind, which you can interpret at a good thing (lots of inspiration!) or a bad thing (lack of focus and accomplishment!). I’m choosing to see it as a positive, as I acknowledge my current status is more that of a student than a practitioner. Considering yourself a student as a 42-year old professional might strike many people as odd, but I think my lack of concern towards any judgments is one of my strong suits. It allows me flexibility in how I choose to focus my talents, and as a shield against the inevitable never-ending Judgment I can expect to see once I proclaim myself Artist.

In sum: I would consider this resolution a successful one, albeit on a modest and developing scale. The biggest gain has been a shift in my own mentality towards photography and my own artistic abilities. One real-world example was the release of my first printed photozine Pointing at Stuff 001: Indecisive Moments, which was published by my own brand new photobook shop Realm Books. In the coming year, I plan to produce two more zines of my own work, which are relatively modest physical endeavors yet allow me huge advances in other areas of skill, while also laying the groundwork for some bigger and more focused photography projects which are yet to be defined.

It’s the intangibles! Living the lifestyle of an artist has been a welcomed shift and one I aim to make the default for the remainder of my days.

-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 Resolution posts from this year, please see: tbd
For the complete list of Year-End Resolution posts from last year, please see: 2024 12 25.