2024 11 01
Another one of Paulie B’s great Walkie Talkie videos dropped and it’s Chicago street photographer Amando de Leon so I have to shout it out! Peep the video below… a few fun standout moments for me were:
Amando says: 35mm in Chicago, 28mm in NYC are the perfect focal lengths and that feels so right. I love the sentiment.
“I love flash. You look like you’re just having a party!" Being out here [photographing on the street] is like being at a party”
He wants to publish more DIY zines and get a website up to sell them to fund his photo projects … I’m aiming to create a lil web shop on my see you soon site for this exact kind of thing. Hopefully early next year it’ll be a reality. It’s been stewing in my brain for a long time now, it’s just finding the time to make it a reality that has been the challenge. Ideally, I would love to help in my own tiny way to support these photographers who are out there putting in the time making their art. I’d also love to be out there myself more but know that realistically it will probably never happen, at least as much as I’d like it to.
Amando likes to photograph in bars. This was my life for a while! I think Amado and I need to meet and I need to buy the guy a couple beers! Hit me up, Amado!
Gary Stochl and Vivian Maier doing it themselves without a community or social media to keep pushing them.
Why do you take photos? “because it makes me feel like I’m here, I’m present.”
-Clayton
Hyde Park and downtown through the trees of South Shore, Chicago. September, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
Another one of Paulie B’s great Walkie Talkie videos dropped and it’s Chicago street photographer Amando de Leon so I have to shout it out! Peep the video below… a few fun standout moments for me were:
Amando says: 35mm in Chicago, 28mm in NYC are the perfect focal lengths and that feels so right. I love the sentiment.
“I love flash. You look like you’re just having a party!" Being out here [photographing on the street] is like being at a party”
He wants to publish more DIY zines and get a website up to sell them to fund his photo projects … I’m aiming to create a lil web shop on my see you soon site for this exact kind of thing. Hopefully early next year it’ll be a reality. It’s been stewing in my brain for a long time now, it’s just finding the time to make it a reality that has been the challenge. Ideally, I would love to help in my own tiny way to support these photographers who are out there putting in the time making their art. I’d also love to be out there myself more but know that realistically it will probably never happen, at least as much as I’d like it to.
Amando likes to photograph in bars. This was my life for a while! I think Amado and I need to meet and I need to buy the guy a couple beers! Hit me up, Amado!
Gary Stochl and Vivian Maier doing it themselves without a community or social media to keep pushing them.
Why do you take photos? “because it makes me feel like I’m here, I’m present.”
-Clayton
2024 08 10
It is the weekend and I woke up today thinking about side projects and side hustles. I’ve always had a bunch of things I’m interested in pursuing beyond my main job of photographer. I guess as a freelancer this is probably more appropriate. But lately I’ve been getting the sense that second jobs and side hustles are becoming more of the norm than an exception. This is merely an anecdotal observation and I don’t have fancy facts or graphs to back this up, but I’d bet many of the few people reading this would agree with me. Is this caused by people all-of-a-sudden being more well-rounded and curious or is this out of necessity as we find ourselves struggling to make a living through traditional career paths? Probably, it’s a bit of both, with social media opening up previously difficult channels of selling and marketing, thus enabling anyone to more or less do any business out of their own home.
What worries me is the idea that we’re all more or less passing around the same $100 to each other and nobody is actually building much wealth in exchange for all of the time, effort and energy they sink into their side hustles. I try to only pursue ones that will help me grow and develop as a person, not simply make a quick buck. But that, too, might be a bad strategy in the sense that not going all in on an idea will surely lead to failed execution. Filling up an Instagram shop full of stuff and then not even looking at it for six months; opening a photo studio without focusing on telling people you have a photo studio available to rent; offering fine art prints for sale without bringing them to art fairs and street fests so people actually see them and have a chance to buy them. I think maybe it’s time to go all in on one of these.
-Clayton
Haley forages in Humboldt Park. Chicago, Illinois. July, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
It is the weekend and I woke up today thinking about side projects and side hustles. I’ve always had a bunch of things I’m interested in pursuing beyond my main job of photographer. I guess as a freelancer this is probably more appropriate. But lately I’ve been getting the sense that second jobs and side hustles are becoming more of the norm than an exception. This is merely an anecdotal observation and I don’t have fancy facts or graphs to back this up, but I’d bet many of the few people reading this would agree with me. Is this caused by people all-of-a-sudden being more well-rounded and curious or is this out of necessity as we find ourselves struggling to make a living through traditional career paths? Probably, it’s a bit of both, with social media opening up previously difficult channels of selling and marketing, thus enabling anyone to more or less do any business out of their own home.
What worries me is the idea that we’re all more or less passing around the same $100 to each other and nobody is actually building much wealth in exchange for all of the time, effort and energy they sink into their side hustles. I try to only pursue ones that will help me grow and develop as a person, not simply make a quick buck. But that, too, might be a bad strategy in the sense that not going all in on an idea will surely lead to failed execution. Filling up an Instagram shop full of stuff and then not even looking at it for six months; opening a photo studio without focusing on telling people you have a photo studio available to rent; offering fine art prints for sale without bringing them to art fairs and street fests so people actually see them and have a chance to buy them. I think maybe it’s time to go all in on one of these.
-Clayton