2025 11 17
Photographing “The Pope.” See You Soon, Chicago, Illinois. October, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
Here’s a lil behind-the-scenes peek during a recent Chicago Magazine cover shoot at the studio.
-Clayton
2025 11 10
Haley, dreaming of being a hobo. Chana, Illinois. October, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
There’s so much beauty in these small Illinois towns we’ve been exploring. I’m still not certain if it’s mostly due to my lack of exposure to these sort of places, thus making them (ironically) new and exciting. I don’t think that’s it, though. The textures, the visible history, the grit and lack of attention. These are the things that keep me coming back.
-Clayton
2025 11 08
On the road. Chicago, Illinois. October, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
One thing I hate about driving is all of the moments I see and miss while manning the vehicle. This lil moment was cute and I was able to somewhat capture it, however, a tighter and higher angle on this scene would’ve made for a more impactful image, I think, with the hard light from the sun lighting up his tattooed-arm and glistening off the action figure. If only there was a girl (possibly named Jessica) hanging out in the bed of the truck, we’d have ourselves a Certified Banger image.
-Clayton
2025 11 07
Where will you go today? Tangible Books. Chicago, Illinois. October, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
Recently, while not updating this here blog because I’ve been too busy, I had a modest uptick in traffic (instead of almost nobody visiting, a few people visited). While trying to figure out what all the traffic fuss was about, I noticed that in the last month, the blog has been visited by more visitors from China than here in the US. While I have no idea why this is the case, or if these are even actual humans coming to digitally visit, the fact was interesting to me for another reason altogether.
My takeaway was that, as a well-traveled but still life-long citizen of the USA, I don’t think I fully comprehend the shadow we cast on the rest of the world. I can imagine how differently I would feel about the world if I was the same person I currently am but was born in, say, Montevideo instead of Chicago. Being a very prideful person about the place I call home (I also love Montevideo and assume this would be the case if I was from there), I can imagine my pride would be met with much more frustration upon learning the harsh realities of economics, pop culture, and math if I was a Montevideoan (no idea what term they use but likely not this). With so much money, influence, and people coming from counties other than my own (hypothetical) home, I’d feel the need to accommodate other markets and cultures in order to get noticed, which would likely bum me out.
What is my point? I’m not sure, really, but I like the mental exercise resulting from looking at my traffic from China. The sort of obvious conclusion is that the United States is in decline access to markets is the most important element of gaining success through art — be it sales to people or views on Tik Tok, you need other people.
To all this, I say: 很高兴认识你！
-Clayton
2025 10 23
Sidewalk closed, be back soon? Chicago, Illinois. October, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
As always seems to be the case, This Here Blog has (for some reason — not being self-deprecating, just honestly don’t know any details) gained some attention recently. I’m not sure where the eyes are coming from, but they’re coming much more that usual. Of course, I’m absolutely buried in work, without a moment to spare to post new images and catch up on days (it’s October 28th as I write this, not October 23rd). Ho hum; so it goes. While in the midst of un-burying my studio both physically and metaphorically, I’ve also been editing personal images I made back in July (on top of the client edits, calls, treatment writing, etc). So yeah, I’m roughly four months behind on life. Be back soon.
-Clayton
2025 10 21
Cool tree, bro. Chicago, Illinois. August, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
Oftentimes, I’ll make friends with a tree and visit and photograph it regularly. This is my new bud, which I esp love because of its wily bark trunk.
-Clayton
2025 10 10
The Next Picture Show. Dixon, Illinois. August, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
This year, I had an idea for a photo project I really wanted to attempt. Sadly, if never came together mostly due to me not having any time to dedicate to it.
There’s always next year, so they say.
-Clayton
2025 10 07
House. Dead End. Lake. Ashland, Wisconsin. July, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
The north is calling me. Next year, I may explore beginning a new photography project up in northern Wisconsin and Michigan. After some brief shooting this year and a previous trip a few years prior, I was reminded by how much I’m drawn to this area. It’s perhaps me getting old. After spending my 20s and 30s mostly heading south to exotic foreign lands, a bit of domestic oddity sounds quite appealing.
-Clayton
2025 10 06
No outlet. Chicago, Illinois. August, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
This new Casey Neistat video is more or less what’s been playing in my head for the last year or so. Still worth a watch as it’s quite funny.
Last week I unfollowed a photographer artificial intelligence influencer on LinkedIn because all she posts about is leveraging ai for commercial use. I’m just so over it. You can find me at the book shop.
-Clayton
2025 10 05
Heading south? Chicago, Illinois. August, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
It’s finally time for fall, maybe?
-Clayton
2025 10 03
Art For Sale! Chicago, Illinois. August, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
As someone who has avoiding marketing at all costs for the entirety of his commercial photography career, I can tell you with ease that I hate it. The only way I’ve done it in the past is by somehow tricking myself into enjoying it (doing blogs, doing affordable headshots, opening a studio, yada yada). These are not really solutions but, in practice, new jobs that don’t efficiently help with marketing my core offerings. I know all this, yet persist. I still have a long way to go, but at least I’m finally acknowledging the problem and starting to make an effort.
This year, my two biggest areas of focus, broadly speaking, have been:
1) Changing my tendency to want to do everything alone. I need people if I’m ever going to succeed at scale (scale being relative here; I’m not looking to sell a startup or IPO).
2) Communication. Nobody will ever know the cool things I’m doing if I don’t tell or show them (duh!?)
This video below popped into my feed and was a really thoughtful and clear summary of what’s been on my mind a lot lately (also, his vibe is like the opposite of most influencer types, which is incredibly refreshing in itself). If you’re like me and loathe selling yourself as an artist, as a business, as a human, I’d give it a watch and maybe you can find some worthwhile tidbits as I did myself.
-Clayton
2025 10 02
Haley & Buddy. Dixon, Illinois. August, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
Here’s a recent favorite snap. Definitely need to get back into the habit of sharing images of people and a bit less images of trash on the sidewalk and busted cars. We’ll get there. I can never fully quit the busted cars, though. Excited to get back out to the farm maybe this weekend! I’ve got tons more images from there, as well…
-Clayton
2025 09 26
Solo cloud. Somewhere west of Chicago, Illinois. August, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
In designing my new zine project, I wanted the size to be Goldilocks; not too large but also not too small. I like the idea of letting the images shine on their own, and printing too small can remove some of the magic, in my opinion. That said, going bigger gets expensive and becomes a hassle to ship and handle. I settled on 8” x 10” vertical layout, despite the fact that I would’ve preferred a less wide (ie: an even smaller) form. The two factors that led me to compromise, in a sense, were: a) I much prefer horizontal images and get triggered by how much I’m almost forced to shoot vertical these days because of the cell phone. The winder aspect ratio allows for more room for horizontal images; and b) the added room on the page allows for some creativity in layout design. While the aim is to keep things relatively simple, I love the fact that zines are lower stakes productions and you can have a bit more fun with them. My goal is to partner with designers on future issues and explore more possibilities.
This image will likely get printed in a future zine. Be on the lookout for it in the year 2027. Seriously though, the “visual journal” zines I will be producing will be running a few years behind when I actually made the images. They gotta cook, slow!
You can pre-order my first zine drop and snag a free (8x10) print in the precess here.
-Clayton
2025 09 24
Another day, another Happy Barn. Kingdom, Illinois. July, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
Prevously, see: 2025 06 16
-Clayton
