2024 10 12

It's all business. Chicago, Illinois. August, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

What does the porn industry tell us about the current state of commercial photography? Well, quite a lot it turns out! Oftentimes while editing photos, I’ll play youtube videos in the background to keep me entertained. Former commercial photogrpaher turned youtuber Mark Laita (trend alert!) runs a channel called Soft White Underbelly where he interviews a steady stream of interesting and flawed people on the fringes of American society. This particular episode was a good one, in which a male porn actor talked with Mark about his career in adult film.

The part that got me thinking was how, when he talked about the industry currently being in a state of change and decline, it was remarkably relatable to the industry I participate in. Sure, we may have somewhat less sexually transmitted diseases in commercial photography, but the general sense that everything has changed rapidly and definitively is there. In Alex Jett’s career, the rise of OnlyFans has allowed porn to go from the actor straight to consumer, thus cutting out all of the middle men. There’s no longer a need for production companies and distribution companies, which has made porn cheaper and more plentiful as anyone brave enough to bare it all on the internet can now do so from the comfort of their own home and without the need of anyone else even being involved.

production company > actor > distribution company > store > viewer

actor > tech company > viewer

This is when I started to think about commercial photography. Massive systems and businesses have been in place for decades to help companies manage their marketing and advertising. If a company wanted content of any form made, sure, they could do it themselves but usually it’s far easier and far more effective to outsource the process and let professionals execute it for them. This is where I come in! Clayton Hauck, at your service, ready and able to drop everything and help you produce high quality photos and videos to help you move your companies image forward! You want me to cancel my vacation to shoot an ad campaign for you? No problem! You need me to travel across the country to photograph farms in Wisconsin or furniture stores in Utah? Sounds great! I’ll do it all. For money, of course. That is the catch. The money part. (seriously, though, hire me!)

As content creation (whether it’s porn or not) has become remarkably easy for anyone to do (do well, is another debate), the entire industry which has grown up in support of it is now struggling to stay afloat. A business needs some photos made so they hire an ad agency, who then goes out and hires a production company, who then goes out and finds a photographer, through their agent, to make the work. There are a lot of layers and steps, some of which are good and some of which wasteful and unnecessary, but they are all there for a reason. The problem is nobody wants to pay for any of the middlemen any more when it’s so easy to make images, good ones even, yourself or through your cousin who works at a law firm but likes to make photos and will happily do it for free because it takes her mind away from looking at legal documents all day long.

company needing content > ad agency > production company > photo agent > photographer

company needing content > content creator or hobbyist

Everyone is a photographer now (thanks, iPhone). Those of us who try to use photography as a way to make a living will continue to have a much harder time doing so. Companies want quick, easy, and cheap. It’s hard to blame them, it’s literally the point of a corporation to maximize profits. I lost two projects this month because we are more expensive than whoever else was hired to do the jobs. I’m up for another project but they are asking me to cut my rate by half of what I’d normally charge. On the flip side, I also was hired for a job recently because the client was burned from this approach and the images they tried to get made cheap turned out to be garbage. This is why I still have a job, however, it’s only going to continue to become harder to make a good living through taking photos, as companies continue to try to figure out ways to remove the layers of support which they no longer deem necessary.

It’s probably time I finally start that youtube channel I’ve been meaning to start!

I’m not giving up that easy, though. We’re planning on producing a bunch of high end spec projects this winter, while things are slow. I’m still oddly confident that the best of the best image creators will forever be in high demand and companies will continue to advertise as long as we have a functioning economy. The ability to make a living through making images, while increasingly difficult, is still an honor and joy and worth fighting for. Plus, I don’t have what it takes to make it on OnlyFans so I’m kind of stuck.

-Clayton

2024 06 17

This boot is made for kickin’. Nashville, Tennessee. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Life Update: it’s finally happened. I’ve become the bitter old-guy photographer I always used to cringe at.

I had an idea while running downtown the other day: become wildly rich and get a condo in the newly renovated Tribune Tower. Not needing to worry about money any longer, I could continue posting to this blog daily while spending my nights downstairs at Billy Goat Tavern cosplaying as a poor person with influence. Like an old newspaperman. Someone people pay attention to. Maybe I’ll even pick up a cigar habbit.

Major corporations are now ashamed of appearing rich, so attempt to hide it to not to infuriate the unequal masses (us). The flagship Apple Store on Michigan Avenue is both wildly expensive, constructed of load-bearing glass walls, yet nearly invisible to any passerby not looking for it. Part of their aesthetic is to be so minimal you forget they have access to quite literally everything you do or think.

Perhaps they are learning from history. Sears built the world’s largest skyscraper on the other side of town, dominant and imposing, at the height of their success, and then immediately began to fail, in small part because it changed people’s perspective of the store. Customers previously thought Sears was local and based somewhere near them, not off in some fancy Chicago tower. Apple’s headquarters, meanwhile, is a lowrise fortified structure hiding out in one of California’s wealthiest suburbs — out of sight.

I’ve always been ashamed of having money and owning a house largely because I know most of my fellow photographer colleagues don’t. It’s a struggle out here and I’ve been fortunate (while also busting by ass and neglecting most normal-people life decisions in the process to get where I am). These days, I too am reverting to the mean. Bigger jobs are happening far less frequently and smaller jobs are paying increasingly less money. My editorial portrait cover shoot this week will pay me roughly what my monthly health insurance premium payment equals.

Recently, I learned that one established photographer I know, who shoots top tier commercial ad campaigns, also works twenty hours a week at Starbucks simply so he can get health insurance, thus saving him thousands of dollars, but of course taking away much of his time and making him exhausted in the process. At least he has ample access to coffee? These tradeoffs are becoming increasingly necessary and I’m finding myself seeing the logic in landing a similar job for similar reasons, just because it makes sense compared to what I’m doing now.

The really young photographers have no idea photography used to be a career! One that they could’ve made a livable wage doing. Now it’s more of a hobby that might occasionally pay a couple hundred bucks. Still, I consider myself fortunate for making a go of it during a window of time where it was possible to do so. Hopefully, things pick back up again and I look back at this post next year and laugh. You gotta stay positive.

Nearly every time I tell a stranger I’m a photographer, they say: oh like events and weddings? I always used to be offended by this but I probably should’ve taken it more as a warning sign. The idea that people could be paid well to make photos of anything beyond documenting a live event now seems increasingly crazy. Even Adobe is trying to cut us out (“skip the photo shoot!”), likely as payback for every photographer stealing their software for years.

Lately, photography feels like that sport where two people slap each other as hard as they can. People love that sport! You gotta stay positive.

Over the weekend, we were enjoying brunch at the bar and I was hypothetically discussing what job I could get with no college degree or experience in any line of work. Suddenly — out of nowhere — another local photographer popped into frame from behind the bar to say hello! “Bartending is steady work, consistent money, and it doesn’t pay net thirty, net sixty, net six months,” he joked in that dead-inside way all of us professional photographers understand at a gut level.

Anyway, back to thinking about how I can become wildly wealthy and move into my fancy Tribune Towner condo, looking down on the world. You gotta stay positive!

-Clayton

2024 05 28

Space for rent. Chicago, Illinois. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

“Nobody’s looking for a photographer in today’s wintry economic climate.” — I’m not sure why I find solace in dark humor, but this (modified from puppeteer) line from Being John Malkovich has me wanting to print it on tshirts I think it’s so funny. Clearly, I write for an audience of one.

This morning, I woke up to an email notifying us that we didn’t win a job we were bidding on. Kind of normal, these days, I hate to say (at least we’re bidding!). While the commercial projects which have historically kept me very busy have slowed down in frequency, I’m finding myself busier than ever with new and different projects. The list includes: running a photo studio; restaurant and bar photo shoots; portrait shoots; various video projects; learning to print; selling prints; art photography projects; producing and promoting events; exploring selling merchandise directly along with attempting ecommerce.

Essentially, I’m diversifying. While it’s providing me with an endless list of things to do, many of which have me very excited and motvated, the challenge is finding a balance between things that take your time and things that also make you a bit of money to pay the rent.

The commercial photography landscape has changed and will continued to change into something nobody can quite predict just yet. Will AI replace most commercial photographers? I’d bet not, but likely it will replace a large percentage of the smaller and easier projects, thus overall reducing the amount of work available to us photographers. Will even more photographers continue to flood the market in search of a career? I’d also bet yes, which will increasingly put pressure on rates and overall reduce the earning capacity of us photographers. I see things heading largely where music and fine art has gone, with many photographers pursuing it as much as a hobby as it is a job (a paid assignment being the exception not the rule). The access to affordable equipment and knowledge is so great, the barrier to entry is very low and only continuing to fall. Everyone is a photographer! Will companies continue to pursue creative new ways to get content made, opposed to hiring a top notch commercial photographer at an expensive rate? Of course! Last week I heard of a brand that brought in a dozen social media influencers for a weekend of curated fun. The amount of brand content they made over a few days with a dozen content creators is something that a traditional commercial photographer simply can’t compete with; even someone like myself who shoots fast and really goes all out to maximize the clients’ time and capture a huge quantity of images.

These are strange times for the commercial photographer, and while I have no idea what the marketplace will look like in five years, I’m weirdly optimistic that people with strong visual and storytelling skills will continue to have no shortage of opportunities as long as they are open-minded and creative in their approach to finding them.

“Nobody’s looking for a photographer in today’s wintry economic climate.” — if I print up some shirts, would you buy one from me; or should I stick to my day job?

-Clayton