2026 05 09

A new path to explore. Kingdom, Illinois. February, 2026. © Clayton Hauck

Today, I’m hosting a photo zine show at See You Soon that I’m really excited about. I met Nathan Pearce a few years back at a different show I also hosted at my space, and since then, he’s been a big inspiration for me when it comes to the need to print my images and get them out into the world in physical form. He’ll be bringing 50 of his zines, which is what I find so impressive. The fact that he’s been able to so consistently put out projects as a photographer, while also working a job outside of photography, has me feeling like I need to play catch up in this area of my practice that I’ve so thoroughly neglected.

Obviously, success is relative. The simple fact that you have released a bunch of zines doesn’t automatically make you great at what you do. But what I’m finding (all too late in my career) is that the two small book projects I have so far released, while not perfect, are more fulfilling to me than most anything else I’ve done to this point in my photo career. In large part, I think, it’s the process you need to go through to get to the end product. Round after round of further distilling your output and ideas until it reaches a point that it becomes essentially frozen — printed — for other people to digest and interpret. It’s all very cool, and likely what I’m going to spend much of the next decade focused on myself, despite the difficulty associated with such work (honestly, the challenge is in part what attracts me to book making).

Anyway, off the the studio to get set up. If you happen to be reading this today, come join us! We’ll be looking at and discussing photozines (and snacking and drinking, of course) from 4pm-10pm at my space in the Kimball Arts Center.

-Clayton