2024 05 27

Middle America vibes in Vincennes, Indiana. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

I love simple photos like this. I could’ve spent all day photographing this little neighborhood which was full of detail — and full of stray cats!

This year, I’m going to push myself to get out into the world simply with the task of making photographs. While this image is outside of my scope, the boundaries I’ve given myself is Illinois and all of its towns, cities, farmland, countryside, and anywhere in between, but excluding Cook County (Chicago), as I’ve spent my entire life living in this county and want to explore new landscapes less familiar to me. I likely won’t be sharing images from this project here on the blog as I’m aiming to make them come together as something that exists on its own. But we’ll see. Things change and I’m already finding myself stressed about missing out on capturing early summer, as I’ve been busy working back home in Cook County. Likely, this project will span multiple years as I grow and shape a larger body of work.

Happy Memorial Day, America.

-Clayton

2024 02 05

Street scene I stumbled upon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. November, 2023. © Clayton Hauck

One consistent thing in life is, any opportunity I’m given to do so, bragging that I’ve read Robert Caro’s The Power Broker (have I mentioned I’ve read Robert Caro’s The Power Broker? Every last word of it!). It is a large, imposing book. It is also an amazingly detailed, informative (esp for urbanist nerds but also full of great general human stories), and well written.

I recently stumbled upon this video (below) while browsing youtube and pondering if I will finally start up my own channel after years of contemplating it. The video both got me excited to finally crack Caro’s four book LBJ series (I just have to do this — book review to follow in approx. twelve years) and start my own youtube channel… not for social media fame but simply for the motivation to make new stuff and put it out there. There are so many channels that just exist; they are filled with great content but not many views. While I imagine this is turnoff for most content creators, I love the idea of consistently making work, largely for myself, grinding away in true Robert Caro fashion, day in, day out — shoot, edit, post, repeat — and putting it out there for people to discover; or more likely completely ignore. Sometimes it’s the process that has the most value.

-Clayton

2024 01 20

Woodman’s parking lot. North Aurora, Illinois. November, 2023. © Clayton Hauck

In America, and therefore the world, we now live in the Copy/Paste Economy. The land has been fully scanned, analysed, and assessed to deterime its exact valuation.

Mr. Walton used to plan his next store locations by flying over the landscape in an airplane. Now, all of this data is accessible via any number of services. Hey ChatGPT: calculate for me the best location to open a car wash based on existing vehicle purchase data, average household income, historical insurance data, weather, distance to existing competitor locations, google reviews, etc, etc, etc. There’s no longer a human element to any of these Copy/Paste Places. Each decision is made in a computer and the plans are duplicated from the previous project, while the factory in China pumps out another BAKERY LIQUOR sign and plops it on a boat for delivery in three weeks time.

The only benefit is I always know precisely where the bathroom is at every stop on a road trip without needing to talk to anyone.

-Clayton