2026 03 10: Finding My Focus(es)

Allison, in b/w. Chicago, Illinois. February, 2026. © Clayton Hauck

I’m still loving black & white these days. The issue I’m having is that I need to sort of reinvent the way I edit and process my images. My entire workflow is a learned behavior and it’s time consuming, slow, and rigid. Lately, I’m finding myself mostly sharing phone images because they are right there in front of me and immediately processed as I shoot them in vsco’s app. While this is clearly a lazy approach, the reality is I hardly have the time to look at my images these days, so anything I shoot with my “real” cameras end up sitting on a hard drive being ignored. When I switched to the Ricoh a few years back, I really enjoyed the newfound control and resolution the raw files gave me when compared to the iphone snaps, however, to get the look and feel of the images to where I want them to be, a not insignificant amount of time is needed.

All that said, I’m finding myself rethinking my entire approach to photography. Instead of constantly snapping images, as is my default method, I’m trying to shoot less — and more specifically, more thoughtfully. This blog will remain my place to play and explore, however, the posts will probably be a bit less constant as they were in the past. I’m finding myself less excited about the endless flow of snapshots that previously I would not hesitate to throw up on the blog. Partly, if I’m being honest, this is a fear of judgement in my abilities, however, I think the bigger reason is far more healthy: I’m figuring out what it is I want to show. The stories I want to tell. And everything else, well, I just ain’t got the time for it!

-Clayton