2025 03 22

Armitage Avenue, in need of some new shops. Chicago, Illinois. February, 2025 © Clayton Hauck

Why I’m such a sucker for tiny shops like this one, I don’t fully understand. But this lil spot is so cute that I’ve been dreaming of putting a business inside of it for more years than I can remember. One day, perhaps.

-Clayton

2025 03 21

Good Boy wants to go outside. EZ Inn, Chicago, Illinois. February, 2025. © Clayton Hauck

Open yourself up to chance.

Today I walked to work, as I usually do, and I took a different path than usual, as I always try but usually fail to do. As a reward, I ran into a friend and got to hear about her trip to Europe. I then encountered some animals and made a few photos of scenes I encountered.

Then, as I ate my lunch at the studio, this Alec Soth video (below) played.

Open yourself up to chance as often as you can and rewards will follow.

-Clayton

2025 03 20

Cone in snow. Chicago, Illinois. February, 2025. © Clayton Hauck

Please pardon the dust as I spend my time building yet another new website and prep for a photo talk going down next Thursday, in which I will debut said website.

-Clayton

2025 03 19

Beer. Chicago, Illinois. June, 2023. © Clayton Hauck

Got some shit news today. Imagine taking a test that your life literally depended on. I realize I’m being vague but can’t really get into it more than that (I’m fine).

I’m reminded of that famous joke from The Simpsons. "Beer: the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.”

Stay safe and stay healthy, y’all.

-Clayton

2025 03 18

Doggie Day Care. Baltimore, Maryland. September, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Apologies for the lack of content lately, I’ve been busy starting a new business.

-Clayton

2025 03 17

Somewhere in northern Illinois. March, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Back from a gig down in St Louis and a few days of Ill Wandering (lots of time on the road — need to prioritize less driving next time) and I’m catching up on life, getting back into the routine of things. This week, I aim to make my new website go live. More on that soon. I’m also preparing for a talk going down in two weeks time in which myself and fellow photographer/friend Jason Little will discuss how we use personal work in our practice. I feel like lately all I do is personal work, so I should have much to discuss. I’ll aim to make it worthwhile for both those in attendance and myself.

-Clayton

PS - on the topic of photography, this video by Noah Kalina hit my feed today and I really enjoyed it. Give it a watch, if interested.

2025 03 16

Farm outside Ashkum, Illinois. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

When I began my Illinois Project (photographing the state outside of Chicago), I was smitten by scenes like this. I still find this image beautiful, but a year later, I now realize a big part of what drew me towards these images was my lack of prior experience with them. Now that I have folders full of them, the charm sort of wears off a bit and you start to understand nobody has the patience to look at more than one of these photos, if even that. Maybe I’m wrong?

I’ve continued making these photos and will revisit them in time. Peeking back at this image now, made roughly a year ago, gives me the thought that maybe there is more charm in the simplicity than I’d previously thought.

One other result from my recent foray into capturing rural Illinois is that I now completely love bare trees, where previously my brain would almost totally ignore them. Nature’s fireworks, I like to think. Only they happen at such a slow pace that most humans will never comprehend their beauty.

-Clayton

2025 03 15

Freight train rolls through Ashkum, Illinois. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

One thing that draws me to rural Illinois is the trains. I dream of living the life of a hobo and creating a large body of work from that perspective, but know I don’t have it in me to do so. The idea of living a far less comfortable lifestyle in pursuit of art is one that fascinates me, but I’ve grown too reliant on air conditioning and Amazon next day delivery.

Also, I need to photograph things out of focus more often…

-Clayton

2025 03 14

Pizza Palace. Ashkum, Illinois. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

This photo is a visual representation of the Midwesterner’s saying “I’m living the dream.”

-Clayton

2025 03 13

North of Champaign, Illinois. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

The big takeaway I had last year after my various Illinois Wandering sessions (which were admittedly not very focused and more of an afterthought) was that, while I was making some okay photos of cool scenes, none of the images really stood out as being strong enough to stand on their own. Sure, this image is beautiful (imo) and might work well in a series with other images providing meaning and backstory, but I’d been hoping to make work that would really stand out and be something I would be proud to show others. In reality, I was getting images that felt too pulled back and observational, like a tourist making snaps on the family vacation. I needed to be a part of the action. The images need to feel purposeful, powerful, and spark emotion. This shot is on the right track; it was made as a storm rolled over the plains, powerful to experience firsthand while being there in person, but a subject (a person, ideally) could’ve made it really stand on its own two feet as a strong image.

That’s the trouble with wandering around a rural state alone in your car — the amount of humans you encounter is remarkably small. I continually think of two possible solutions as I’m out on my own: The Crewdson Approach or the Soth Approach.

The obvious solution for a commercial photographer like myself, if wanting to make the strongest images possible, is to produce them like Crewdson does! Put a bunch of money into solving the problem. Get a van, fill it with people and props and a pre-planned road map and go make it happen. The challenge with this approach is that it’s not what drove me to explore my state in the first place. The resulting images may be “better” but any of the meaning I hope to create will be lost.

While it’s ultimately a far more challenging and time consuming approach, the honest, photojournalistic mentality is what’s been driving me to do this. I continually get the feeling while out exploring that I am in a place forgotten by the rest of the world, its time long passed. It’s wanting to document that feeling and emotion for a future audience that drives me to push through and continue exploring this approach to the work, while knowing full-well the strength of the images might suffer and the fine art galleries of New York City may never call.

My cast of characters should be the people who live and work in these places that I encounter, who understand and are at home in them. Pushing myself to get out of my comfort zone in order to access these photographic opportunities is the part that will be most challenging, but I am taking steps in that direction and so far it feels good.

-Clayton

2025 03 12

Somewhere in northern Illinois. March, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Everyone likes looking at photos of rural farmland, right??? Right?!

-Clayton

2025 03 11

Somewhere in Northern Illinois. March, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Catching up on posts as I’ve been on the road and didn’t have time to make them as I was busy shooting and wandering. It’s interesting looking back at these images from last March as I’ve made quite a lot of progress and changes to how I want to approach this project moving forward. More on that later!

-Clayton

2025 03 10

Somewhere in northern Illinois. March, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

This week I’ll be doing some Ill Wandering while traveling to and from an assignment down in St Louis. I don’t have much planned out, but am excited to explore and document regions further south in the state. In additional to making photos, the goal is to also do some video and short interviews with strangers as well. This is part of yet another project I am working on, which I will talk more about soon.

-Clayton

2025 03 09

Sunset on Bloomington. Chicago, Illinois. October, 2025. © Clayton Hauck

Chicago’s weather today was glorious. The first nice weekend day where everyone leaves the house and it makes the city feel alive with energy and humanity. It’s days like these that make me glad to live where I do.

-Clayton

2025 03 08

(Hidden) Busted Car. Chicago, Illinois. October, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

While out celebrating my birthday yesterday, I realized that my driver’s license had expired that day. Needing to drive to St Louis for a photo assignment in a few days, I was worried that getting this renewed in time would not be possible (also considering the state had determined I needed to pass a written test to do so). Fortunately, I spent Saturday afternoon at the DMV and made it happen after an hour or so of sitting in the waiting room listening to numbers being called.

Afterwards, we celebrated with pizza at Barnaby’s up in Northbrook, which has been on our list of spots to check out. The pizza was great and the place was wildly crowded with families enjoying an early Saturday night pizza dinner. As we ate, numbers were called out continuously as orders were ready, which made the whole experience feel appropriate post DMV.

-Clayton

2025 03 07

Me, ill wandering. Somewhere in Illinois. December, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

It is my birthday.

-Clayton

2025 03 06

John aka Crust Fund making another pizza during a fundraiser event at my See You Soon space. Chicago, Illinois. November, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

I’m wildly proud of the things I’ve been able to do at my studio space. That said, I often forget all of the things that have happened here. It’s easy to look at an empty calendar and get sad about how slow or hard things are. Two thoughts on this:

1. Having just completed my taxes (I secretly like doing them because it’s a nice reminder of all the things you did the previous year), I was left impressed by how busy the studio kept me in a year that I’d kind of summed up as being a bad year (business-wise).

2. I’m (forcing myself to) finally get a regular newsletter going. We’ll start with the studio, which should go out every month, and eventually (soon) I’ll get one going for my own “personal brand” which will be focused solely on my photography work. I’ve long shunned this habit because: it’s boring and I don’t want to do it; they just get trashed and hardly anyone sees them; I dislike talking about myself (contrary to what this blog may lead you to believe!). That said, it finally hit me that there’s just as much benefit to my own personal mental health in the practice as there is potential benefits from a marketing perspective, and that’s huge!

Set aside some time to look back and reflect on all the amazing things you’ve accomplished and it will likely help bring a smile to your face.

Then, if you don’t tell anyone about all the cool things you’ve done, did they actually happen?

-Clayton

PS- sign up for the newsletter why don’t you?!

2025 03 05

Sunset in Humboldt Park, Chicago, Illinois. December, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

2025 03 04

What’s going on out there? Chicago, Illinois. December, 2025. © Clayton Hauck

We live in wild times. It’s depressing and I’ve made the calculated decision to mostly ignore it, to the best of my abilities, and focus on myself and my work. I’m not certain it will be possible to ignore it much longer at the pace we are moving, but in my experience, engaging does more harm to my mental health than good. Lots of people I know agree with this approach and are attempting to practice it themselves. This also scares me.

Staring at the television this morning in an effort to pay some attention and it leaves me thinking we are swiftly heading for a recession. This thought is a difficult one in that I will likely need to completely rework my own professional career: lose the studio to cut overhead, get a side job, lower my rates, etc, etc. Everything is on the table. It almost feels like the powers that be know this reality and it’s precisely why they are taking the actions they are taking. The bums lost, Lebowski.

Until that day comes we will keep calm and carry on. Good luck, everyone. I’m turning the tv off.

-Clayton

2025 03 03

Night house. Chicago, Illinois. January, 2025. © Clayton Hauck

In the dead of the night, I was awoken and caught a glimpse of what my brain was working on while sleeping. It’s always remarkable to me how busy our brains seem to be while sound asleep. Maybe this isn’t always the case, but it seemed as though mine was working in overdrive. It felt like my brain was rewiring itself, shifting its focus entirely towards video production. I had all sorts of videos playing out, filled with specific concepts, shot ideas, lighting schemes, transitions, edits, experimental techniques, graphics, etc. It was both exciting and daunting, waking up to realize the ideas exist in there but to actualize them will require focus, dedication, and time. That’s the main hurdle that has kept me away from video for a decade now.

I think watching the Oscars and seeing best director Sean Baker’s enthusiastic acceptance speech shamed my subconscious into attempting to make up for a decade of neglecting the artistic passion (filmmaking) that got me started on this journey I am currently on. The challenge will be avoiding decision fatigue and over-analysis, resulting in nothing being accomplished at all. There are a hundred ideas floating around in my brain, which is exciting, but spending each day thinking about them all — dreaming of them — while not doing anything about it will only give me a blog full of mediocre posts that few people see and not much else to show for it.

Enough dreaming. Time to create.

-Clayton