2025 06 06
Beer and a shot. Sportsman’s, Chicago, Illinois. February, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
Friday is for beers (even though I’m posting this on Monday, because I was busy working over the weekend, so treating today as a “working weekend day” to allow myself some mental and physical recovery — that all makes sense, right?).
This photo is special because they handed me this High Life and the label was applied upside-down, which made me feel like I won some kind of Golden Ticket For Alcoholics to tour the Wonka brewery factory.
-Clayton
2025 06 04
I am fashion! Chicago, Illinois. April, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
It’s cute to make this declaration in a nondescript storefront off Western Avenue across from the Shell station. But people gotta dream, and I commend them for it! I’ve got a dozen or so dreams cooking up right now myself and surely a few of them feel as silly to others as this one does to me.
Keep dreamin’
-Clayton
2025 06 02
Boys, on the move. Bucktown, Chicago, Illinois. June, 2025 © Clayton Hauck
Another image that has been nearly deleted a dozen times, but stuck around because it has a lil something I like. The something, I think, is a distinct feeling of early summer in Chicago. The weather has turned and things are happening; people are on the move. Plus, I just love the older buildings in the older neighborhoods of the city, like this one.
-Clayton
2025 06 01
Don’t Fret art. Chicago, Illinois. February, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
While Don’t Fret is no longer with us, he will live on, through his art and through his spirit, for some time.
We were in early production on a documentary about his life. While this project has been derailed, it will eventually be turned into something worthwhile. More on this another day. More on all of this, in fact, another day, as I surely have quite a lot more thoughts to share once I both find the time to share them and fully process the realities.
Until then, don’t fret.
-Clayton
PS- thank you to all who attended and helped plan the lovely memorial service
2025 05 30
A spring scene. Chicago, Illinois. April, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
Something about this snap speaks to me… I love the transitional times of year, when time shows its hand and nature leaves its mark. Soon the yard will get tidied up, fresh mulch will be laid and flowers will come and go, just in time time for earth’s rotation to once again shift and coldness to take hold again.
-Clayton
2025 05 29
Another Busted Car. Chicago, Illinois. March, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
It feels like an appropriate day for another Busted Car. While making this image on my walk home from work, a woman came out of her house and asked, clearly suspicious of my actions, “Why are you taking a photo of the car?”
“Art.” I replied, as I walked off into the sunset.
-Clayton
2025 05 27
Checking in on myself. Self portrait, Chicago, Illinois. January, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
If you’re like me (a US-based commercial photographer with decades of experience in the industry), chances are you’re experiencing the same issues I’m struggling to navigate: less projects to bid on; unrealistic-to-impossible expectations for many of the bids that do come in; projects mysteriously fading away. To be blunt, things are kind of shit these days. What keeps me going, in part, is that these challenges are not new and downturns are standard in this business. What worries me beyond the norm, however, is that this time things feel different — like the downturn may never pick back up again.
The headwinds aren’t going away. At best, they will get less forceful.
When considering the state of the industry, I imagine myself navigating an epic journey — camera backpack on with overly-heavy bag of lights and grip on my shoulder, while facing sustained headwinds whipping in my face as I try to advance. These headwinds are the many challenges facing the industry, and the thing that worries me is that I can’t imagine them going away anytime soon.
What Are The Big Challenges?
Supply & Demand: increasingly more photographers, influencers, content creators, work-for-themselves types & increasingly less projects at increasingly lower rates
Social Media: the way ads are now served has completely changed and everything is moving to video-first, lower quality is fine if not preferred
Barriers to Entry: it’s increasingly cheap and easy to get a camera, lighting, etc and learn how to use it
Ai: this one, I think, had previously been over-hyped but will soon be under-hyped as it cuts out upwards of half of all paid photography needs
Commoditization: a new entry! See below
My mental list, already difficult to navigate, has gained a new bullet point after a conversation with my agent. While I’d already felt myself becoming a literal cog in the machine, as the industry becomes commoditized and we go the way of commercial airline pilots (let’s talk about that Rehearsal finale over beers, huh?!), I’d failed to visualize the global scale of this shift. When Hollywood unions went on strike a few years back, the New Economy content streamers didn’t sit on the sidelines and wait things out, they went global. Production was shifted outside of the US and kept right on going. This motivated companies to shoot jobs in foreign countries with lower costs — essentially, globalization of the creative industry.
I live in the Rust Belt, so it was perhaps silly of me to not see this one coming. But as I’ve written about previously and touched on here, there are so many talented photographers all over the world. It makes business-sense to hire the kid in Mexico (see: 2025 02 18) if he’s going to deliver you a project better than you can get locally and at a third of the price.
Photography isn’t going away, but my baseline thinking is that we’re already living in a New Reality, which makes making a living through photography all the more challenging. As a hobby, photography is more popular than ever. More people are making photos than at any point in history, and this trend will probably only continue, even after Ai takes over the world. I think it’s important for us to shift our thinking in terms of how we can make money through photography, if you’re like me and that’s all you really want to do.
Admittedly, my perspective on all of this is likely far more skewed and niche than most, as I’ve been fortunate enough to have made a good living doing higher-end commercial projects for large brands. Many younger photographers, or photographers focused on small to mid-sized business, may completely disagree with everything I am saying, understandably. It’s true, there still are vast opportunities out there for photographers, however, the amount of hustle required to find them is likely forever on the rise.
For me, there are a number of pivots I am currently navigating and exploring:
I’m doing more “content” photography through my various blogs (this one, everyoneisfamous.com), which could lead to payment in other ways (sponsorships, collabs, events, direct payments, yada yada). It’s a hustle.
I’m also pivoting quite hard towards motion, as I’m finding most of the projects that do come our way are video-first. I just landed one assignment that a video production company won, and was bidding on and lost another project that a video production company won (and then reached out to see if I could do photography for).
I’m exploring a more artistic approach (Doing personal work; selling prints, zines, eventually a photobook, etc, etc). That’s also a hustle and an entirely new role, as the worlds are like oil and water in many ways.
Previously, I’d given myself a new job as a photo studio (See You Soon) manager and owner. This has worked well in some ways (networking, exploring things, having fun) and poorly in others (not making money and taking away most of my free time). While it’s been a huge challenge, I haven’t given up on it yet. Tweaking the model and bringing in new and motivated partners, while using the space to re-focus my own career in a number of ways, is where my head is at currently…
Studio portraits is something I have never chosen to focus on until recently, but am now finding myself both enjoying it and considering it as a path towards more consistent income though photography.
I’m exploring more of a focus towards small-to-mid-sized clients. The thing is, I just love to make images — if I could fill my calendar with interesting lower-rate jobs in exchange for never shooting another big-budget production again in my lifetime, it would be a deal I would take. The catch is, this also requires a time-consuming new approach towards finding clients and comes with a ding to your reputation; big-shot commercial photographers aren’t working for the local plumber and neither are top-tier art photographers.
I’ve also recently given myself a new job running a photobook popup with my friend Jack called Realm (IG: @realm.chicago, website coming later!). We’re both excited about this, however, understand that any success will realistically be modest and also require a lot of hard work.
So that’s where my head is at right now. It has been a mental grind these last few years, and I’m hopeful that finding a more sustainable approach towards making a living through photography can be found. As I get older, the bang and bust lifestyle gets tiring, and I’m finding myself seeking consistency. Do what you love, they say. While this is loaded advice — oftentimes the things you love, when they become a job, lose their luster. All that said, I’m more in love with photography now than I have been in my two decades of working with it, so I think it’s a clear sign that dedicating the remainder of my life to it might not be a bad idea.
-Clayton
A previous version of this post had misspelled “niche” as nitche, likely because the author was thinking all big and philosophically. It’s cool that we’ve built Ai into every app and website, but haven’t mastered the spell check.
2025 05 26
Show me your point and shoot. Chicago, Illinois. March, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
One major reason I started this here blog was that I was finding myself spending far too much time consuming and not nearly enough time creating.
This video is filled with great little reminders about the importance of being creative and making things.
-Clayton
2025 05 25
Road consruction. Galesburg, Illinois. March, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
Today was our second Realm photobook popup. The response thus far has been very good and has us excited about the future potential for our ideas.
Loosely speaking, for a few years now myself and Jack Garland have been obsessing over the idea that Chicago needs a shop dedicated to photography — specifically photobooks. The aim is to open up a physical space, once we can prove there is a demand for this through popping up (what the kids do, these days), that will sell photobooks, zines, and other photography merch, while also hosting openings, gatherings and workshops. The exact concept is still being formulated and will depend on the realities of things, namely: rent, labor costs, government bureaucracy, and assessed demand. That said, considering how the first two popups have gone (we have three more now scheduled), I think it’s safe to say you will be hearing a lot more from me about all of this on this here blog in the coming months.
Enjoy the holiday, y’all.
-Clayton
2025 05 24
North & Kedzie. Chicago, Illinois. March, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
Right angles and straight lines are easier.
Here’s a nice video that popped into my feed.
-Clayton
2025 05 22
Warlord, Chicago, Illinois. January, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
My sister still swears the fries at Warlord are shipped in from McDonald’s, which I think is funny.
I wonder if there’s an actual business model there? You open up a cool dining room right next to an existing restaurant — your entire menu is outsourced to the actual restaurant, but you charge a significant mark up for the elevated dining experience. Honestly, I think it would work. It’s sort of what the actual economy is becoming anyway. We interact with slick “skin” layer without much thought about all of the layers below. Maybe we’d call the place WinAmp and swap out the theme every few months to keep up with what’s in style.
Now Hiring: Image Consultant, Marketing Manager, and Social Media Liaison
-Clayton
2025 05 12
The vices! Chicago, Illinois. April, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
Looking at this image, I had all these thoughts rolling around in my brain: the aesthetic of old things being used to design new things; working in an adult video store; the juxtaposition of old Chicago vs new Chicago; shops being open 24 hours; street photography from a car window while out shooting assignment work. But then I went to write something down and nothing specific came to mind. Really, though, I just have far too much on my mind right now. It’s days like today I’m glad to be a fake writer and not have to do this daily to make a living.
-Clayton
2025 05 11
Roadside tree. Outside DeKalb, Illinois. April, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
I’ve been kind of obsessed with photographing roadside trees out in rural farmland lately. Maybe this could be a zine project…
-Clayton
2025 05 08
Slappy Curb. Chicago, Illinois. May, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
When I signed a five-year least to put my studio inside the Kimball Arts Center, I thought I’d be shooting photos of skateboarders all the time. I thought we’d be wrapping commercial shoots upsatirs, then heading down to the brewery also located inside the building for wrap drinks with the client. Wining & dining. I had it all planned out and it was going to be great!
Three and a half years later: the bar is closed (lack of customers), I’ve only photographed Slappy Curb a few times, in passing, and the only shoots even happening up here aren’t mine (lack of clients). Life doesn’t always play out as you’d imagined, but the imagining I did, which led me down this path, isn’t something I regret doing.
I’ve always felt a bit uncomfortable having money. I think I get it from my dad, but the fact that I was able to buy a house at age thirty and pay more for a car than I ever imagined possible has always left me feeling a bit uneasy. There was a day recently, amidst my commercial photography career slump — no money coming in but steady bills to be paid — walking back from the hot dog stand down the street with a sack of cheap food and less weight on my shoulders. I felt free. “Less money, less problems,” I thought. This is, perhaps, self-soothing spin, but it was a distinct feeling of belonging that made everything alright. I no longer felt out of place in my neighborhood, a relentless aura of shame hanging over my head that I somehow had more digits in my bank account than rightly belonged to me.
One thing I’ve gained since that lease signing is a firm appreciation for earning a buck. This is not to say I wasn’t a hard worker previously, but I think I was riding on Easy St. a bit too long while the gettin’ was good.
You may think I sound like a crazy person, but I’m still dreaming of growing and expanding this space. Like a simple Iowa farmer building a baseball field amongst the corn. (Another lesson I’ve learned: building it does not guarantee they will come.) Why I have these urges as I sit in an empty room, struggling to cover the rent, I do not know. But it’s how my brain works. Try for something. Go for it. Dream big. Make it happen. Once your back is up against the wall, you’ll figure out the right response. But what’s the fun in not trying?
-Clayton
2025 05 06
People on the move in May. Chicago, Illinois. May, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
I love the feeling of springtime, aside from the allergy flare ups. Yesterday, I got hit with a paralyzing bout of allergies. I’m not sure what it is, but I know it’s the worst.
-Clayton
2025 05 05
Another Busted Car. Chicago, Illinois. March, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
I’m falling behind on posts lately! Perhaps I should pivot the blog towards Busted Car content. I have plenty of it…
-Clayton
2025 05 04
Dont Slam Doors, a reminder. Chicago, Illinois. April, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
May the forth be with you.
-Clayton