2025 04 29
Bare trees at sunset. Chicago, Illinois. February, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
One issue with being a commercial photographer for well over a decade is that you are distinctly aware that most people don’t want to look at pictures of bare trees and old houses. “Post more bangers!” my brain tells me, relentlessly.
“But I’m doing this here blog for myself,” I constantly remind myself. And I like these pictures. If I like them, surely a few other people might also enjoy them, right?
Summer is almost here. Soon it will be hot girls in bikins filling these pages, with subliminal ads for liquor & cigarettes. I’m working on securing a few sponsorship deals.
“But I haven’t had a blog comment in almost a year! What am I even doing here?” my brain wonders. The sponsors have also been concerned about my engagement.
On another note, I use this space to experiment and explore. I’ve been editing images in new and different ways and I quite enjoy how this one in particular came out. I’d post a before and after but that would ruin the magic, so I’ll let you use your imagination.
It’s the small things. Do them every day and they will add up, after a while. Maybe.
I hope you enjoy bare trees as much as I’ve learned to enjoy them. Nature’s fireworks.
-Clayton
2024 04 27
Somewhere near Thawville, Illinois. June, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
Overheard today outside of a bookshop in Spring Green, Wisconsin: “If we’re lucky, they’ll put us in the same concentration camp!”
Dark humor to get through dark times.
-Clayton
2024 04 26
Abandoned house. Chicago, Illinois. February, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how time slowly eats away at things. This tree on our block has been slowly losing limbs. This house, behind the tree, has been sitting abandoned for years now, exposed to the elements, the wood surely rotting away and losing its strength. It’s a decision we can make, to hold on and keep gripping. But after enough storms, even the strongest among us eventually choose to allow nature to take its course.
Without death, life is not possible.
Eventually, the for sale sign goes up, and if luck plays any part, new life is breathed in and a new start can begin. The train depot becomes a hotel. The hotel becomes apartments. The cobbler becomes a scarf shop, then a music studio. Time is a flat circle, you hear on television show, a line the writers lifted from a book, which was stolen from a spoken tale. With luck, your circle will be one filled with joy and adventure.
-Clayton
2025 04 24
Bare trees. Chicago, Illinois. March, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
The weather is turning and it’s beautiful outside. I love living in a location with defined seasons, and it is peak spring right now, so I am scrambling to post all my pretty pictures of bare trees before they are filled with leaves and it feels wrong.
Back outside I go to listen to the birds.
-Clayton
2025 04 23
Another Day, Another Busted Car. Chicago, Illinois. January, 2025 © Clayton Hauck
I’ll get to that zine printing one of these days…
-Clayton
2025 04 21
Greenview, Illinois. March, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
I stumbled upon this building while out Illinois Wandering last month and I loved the juxtaposition. Lately, this project is feeling increasingly close to home. It might be a stretch, but my brain is connecting these towns to the difficult times my commercial photo industry is now going through. After the industries and jobs left these places, they sit there today a reminder of what happens when society goes through big shifts. What this next shift will leave us with, I do not know, but I’m finding myself increasingly interested in exploring the last shift in hopes to better understand our likely future.
-Clayton
2025 04 20
“The best view in town.” Peoria, Illinois. March, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
-Clayton
2025 04 19
Joseph during a Keep it 100 session. See You Soon, Chicago, Illinois. October, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
Another run of Keep it 100 in the books. This month I did 16 sessions, down from 19 sessions last run. Anecdotal evidence for sure, but it seems like thoughts of recession are starting to resonate with people. I figured having my new everyoneisfamous.com website up would help drive bookings to my affordable portraits, but it had no noticeable effect. Maybe it’s still too early? I’m not sure. But what I am sure about is photography is fucking hard lately. I think there will be a lot of used camera gear on eBay soon. Good luck out there, everyone.
-Clayton
2025 04 18
Note from a vaguely anonymous artist. Dont Fret. Home Away From Home, Chicago, Illinois. February, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
We lost a real one today. More thoughts another day, as I have yet to fully process the stark reality.
Today, we fret.
-Clayton
2025 04 17
A mysteriously artificial man in Alton, Illinois. March, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
In search of Robert Wadlow in Alton, Illinois. He still exists within the photons of light residing in the cells of our brains.
-Clayton
2025 04 15
A house in winter. Chicago, Illinois. March, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
Sometimes my inner voice just tells me I need to make a photo of something. This house was one of those instances.
As I was making this photo, a man walked out of the front door to grab the mail.
“I like your house.” I told him, to take an edge off of the awkward moment.
“Really?” he asked, calling my bluff. “It’s probably going to be for sale soon.”
I told him I already had a house as I walked off, regretting not asking him a dozen other questions (why are you selling? where are you going? how did we get here?).
Curiosity is how I got here. I know that much.
-Clayton
2024 04 14
Sheena. Keep it 100 at See You Soon, Chicago, Illinois. November, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
I’ve got my “Keep it 100” portrait setup going all week long. You should book a session if you want some new photos of yourself!
As long as I’ve been doing this setup, I’ve been drawn to darker, more abstract styles. Lately, however, perhaps as a response to everything going on around me, I’m craving brighter, more colorful images. I will spend this week tweaking and adjusting the vibes and then, next time the setup is being offered, perhaps we will go for something quite different.
-Clayton
2025 04 13
Classic car in Thawville, Illinois. June, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
If you’re in the neighborhood, check out Artesia Brewery.
-Clayton
2025 04 12
Main Street on Chatsworth, Illinois. June, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
Another town without people, full of beauty.
-Clayton
2025 04 11
Another Busted Car. Chicago, Illinois. January, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
Some days you find the Busted Car, and some days the Busted Car finds you.
-Clayton
2025 04 10
Winter tree. Chicago, Illinois. February, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
This is a photo of a helicopter. I promise.
-Clayton
2025 04 09
Car. Chicago, Illinois. January, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
Spent too much time writing the studio newsletter. I’m still getting over the mental hurdle that despite the time it takes and the relatively low number of people who will see it, much like this here blog, the benefit is more so to myself than in some quantifiable metric. Perhaps if I was trying to make money off of the newsletter, things would be different. I’m not not trying to do that, but it’s not the motivation.
-Clayton
2025 04 08
Time is running out. We’re entering a new world. Time Theater. Mattoon, Illinois. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
It’s interesting, when you take a mental step back, far back, and consider how we got to where we are today.
Movie studios are being replaced by individual youtubers; magazines are being replaced by individual Substacks; comics are being animated through automation. There is no shortage of examples to indicate how vastly different the landscape of necessary support structures are today, but the one constant is communication. People are seeking authenticity and placing it above all other factors largely because it’s now possible, for the first time ever, to communicate grand ideas — through video, photography, animation, words, all forms — without the need of vast and complicated structures which previously served as a means of control. If the system did not like what you were saying or doing, you had almost no recourse in our previous era. You had to play ball; say the right thing; bribe the right guy; put up with the unsuitable boss.
The downside to the removal of the guardrails, of course, is that we have to deal with chaos. Everyone is right about everything all of the time, which of course means half the population is always wrong. An enemy of the state! What we’ve gained in truth, we’ve given up in caution and stability.
I’m spending far too much time wondering how to make money in today’s wintry economic climate. While the creative community is shrinking in capacity, the supply of creatives is at an all-time high and will continue to grow thanks to the ease and speed of creation now possible. I refuse to become another loud mouth in a sea of attention seekers, which seems to be the obvious path to financial success in these current times.
Trump is now guiding our country because he was accessible, entertaining, and real. Tariffs are now our reality because some guy wrote a book which said all the things he wanted to hear, while using made up information to back it up. The truth doesn’t matter, it’s the message that matters. Communication. Not only what you say but how and where you say it.
The government is not going to save us now, just as the system we’ve burned down to get to where we are, previously, was at its core interested in protecting itself.
If we want a future world that values facts, reason, stability, opportunity, openness, we’re going to have to build it ourselves. I know that there are a lot of us out there, living quietly and patiently, hoping our time will again come, but without effort, our new reality will be one ruled by few and governed through ruthless efficiency — the same tools which have rendered vast industries, and now entire government agencies, no longer relevant — in order to accomplish the desires of few.
Zuckerberg and Altman are building their underground bunkers for a reason, and they’re not going to invite us over for tea.
What I’m seeing now is people choosing sides. It’s human nature to want to win. None of us liberals thought Trump, the guy who tried to burn down the Capital when he didn’t get his way, had a real shot at winning back the White House, but we failed to understand human nature. Facts, niceties, vibes don’t matter when the wolf is at your door and he’s hungry. In a world where it’s every man for themselves, your only real shot is having an army, figuratively or literally, on your side.
This is why I’m writing every day. This is why I’m pushing through the hard times using the best skills I have. The only way out is through.
-Clayton
PS- this entire post came out of me because I was going to share an example of Ai being used to create a comic, which I thought was nice. 😅
2025 04 07
Haley, somewhere in northern Illinois. December, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
I started an account on the new Foto app. While I’m not super optimistic it will become the next big thing in photography sharing, I do like what they seem to be trying to do. Social media has transformed drastically since the innocent early days of Instagram, and I’m finding myself less interested in again reshaping instant-gratification-based phone apps and more interested in slow & steady approaches, such as this here blog and my new site, everyoneisfamous.
All that said, there is no doubt in the potential power social apps hold, and I’m simultaneously finding myself considering a much-reluctant sign up to Tik Tok, as my career pivot will be far more reliant on consistent eye balls than it had been previously. And TikTok is where the eye balls are.
Anyway, if you do happen to be on the Foto app, give me a follow @claytonhauck (be my tenth friend)! The devs will apparently be rolling out a web-based presence later this year, which might be a nice compliment to the mobile app, which has been enjoyable in my experience thus far.
-Clayton
2025 04 06
A downtown dog walk. Chicago, Illinois. January, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
I’m very much slacking on my weekly exploration goal. While I haven’t been hitting the streets nearly as much as I’d planned, I have been putting a lot of time towards personal work and development, so I’m not considering it a loss… it just hasn’t played out as I’d hoped. That said, I’m excited to get back out on the street and make some new work. I think the nicer weather will very much be a catalyst to make this happen.
-Clayton