2024 06 12

Dirty sensor view from high in the sky. En route to Atlanta, Georgia. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

The amount of vertical images I’ve been posting lately has been bugging me. I’ve long preferred horizontal crops, however, am finding myself shooting vertical much more these days, surely because of The Phone. New technology comes along and we’re all forced to change our behaviors and adapt to it or likely be left behind, stuck in the past.

Lately I’ve been dreaming of opening a bar, thinking it would be a neat idea to shun all types of technology. No website. No social media. Actively tank the google reviews. You get the idea. How clever! Then, I mentioned this amazing idea to a younger person. Not so clever, she thought. You know what? She’s probably right, too.

I think in life we should embrace the things we’re good at and enjoy doing. Sure, I don’t love social media and the feeling of being forced to use these social platforms, but I do love making photos and videos and even building websites. It only makes sense that, instead of completely avoiding all these things, I would incorporate them into my fictional bar… any my life, generally. The harder part will be figuring out how to become fifteen years younger in order to convince anyone to come drink at my new establishment.

I’m thinking of calling it Grumpy’s.

-Clayton