2024 08 08

Watching the cool kids from my office. Slappy Curb. Chicago, Illinois. June, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Lollapalooza just wrapped up. I haven’t stepped foot in a music festival in many years. Today is my ten year anniversary with Allison (!!), who I met while we were both photographing a music festival (Pitchfork). I used to be young and somewhat cool but these days I’m more concerned about the weather and crime. The news anchor made a comment that my old brain found amusing: during the weather report, they were discussing Lollapalooza and she mentioned that if you knew any of the names of the bands, you were cool. Chappell Roan performed to what has been reported to be the largest-ever crowd at Lollapalooza. I have no idea who Chappell Roan is. My first though was to wonder if she is somehow related to my friend Matt Roan (or local sports anchor Dan Roan). I am old, and not cool.

This whole getting old thing isn’t so bad, though. Sure I miss out an making photos of all the cool, young people. But I also have time to sit in my office and write blogs and watch the skateboarders down below me doing cool things without breaking a wrist or getting beer spilled on me. Yes I miss getting a front row view of the best bands in the world, but I recall ten years back writing a scathing blog about how I was DONE with music photography because it had become so over-saturated and demoralizing. I went looking for that text, which I’m sure is massively embarrassing, entitled and self-important, and thankfully couldn’t find it. I did, however, find a gallery of images from my final fest assignment, the one I met my future wife at, and many of the images hold up! And yes, it does make me miss the days of concert photography, but I’m also sitting on my couch chilling while watching another buddy do what I did fifteen years ago and I see how damn time consuming it is! The endless grind for little to no money. Late nights and early mornings. Getting paid in social media mentions, if at all. It’s definitely a job of passion and I used it as a spring board to get myself to another place. There are days I regret this decision and wish I’d stuck it out and continued focusing on the young, the cool, and the culture instead of chasing the financially-stable path.

While I may no longer be cool, I now have a ten-year relationship with a girl I love dearly and am about to tie the knot with. So I think it was a fair trade.

-Clayton

2024 07 09

Kimball Arts Center. Chicago, Illinois. March, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Too busy to blog. Relearning how to be a photographer. Busy drinking all the world’s best coffees, scheming and dreaming. Busy planning a wedding; doing my morning pages; relearning how to make film photos; learning how to make all of the cocktails; thinking of opening a bar. Busy coming up with new ways of making money. Too busy to blog.

-Clayton

2024 05 06

Bart Simpson caught in the act at Slappy Curb. Chicago, Illinois. March, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Caught this video over the weekend and had so many wonderful thoughts about it. Per the rules, we must discuss and share the link here. I’ll preface by saying this channel, by Paulie B, is fantastic and highly worth digging into for anyone even remotely interested in photography and definitely for anyone interested in street photography. The "walkie talkie” series has him tagging along with various street photographers and getting a peek into their process while an interview plays out alongside.

This specific episode featured a photographer I was not previously familiar with named Trevor Wisecup. His enthusiasm for the craft, perspective on life, and positive energy were all refreshing, inspiring, and had me wanting to pick up my camera and hit the streets. In general, the video reminded me of my younger self while also serving to push my current self a bit harder in the sense that, as you get older, sometimes you start to overthink things or self-doubt a bit more, or generally just lose the insane drive your younger self might’ve had.

As a lifelong Chicagoan, whenever I see videos like this I immediately regret not living in NYC. While making work of this nature is definitely possible here in Chicago (shoutout Vivian Maier) you’re going to need to put in twice as much time to get half the results as you will in a place like NYC which simply has the density of humanity needed to provide consistantly amazing street moments. Paulie B himself previously lived in Chicago and has since relocated to NYC. All this to say: I shouldn’t allow this one challenge to stop me from producing any work! Perhaps it could even allow me to think outside the box and make something more unique to me. I have ideas, they just need to be manifested, which can only happen once you leave the house. Thanks to Paulie for the endless inspiration to do just that (once I finish watching his channel, of course).

-Clayton

2024 05 03

Slappy Curb in late afternoon sunlight. Chicago, Illinois. March, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

I’ve returned from my big job in Atlanta and am catching up on things. Maybe I’ll write more about photographing big production assignments sometime. It’s a fairly fascinating job. We took over an $800,000,000 airplane for the day, brought 40 people and a dozen trucks filled with endless stuff onto the busy airport tarmac, placed our “sun” lights onto a giant lift platform to get them high into the sky, and then ran through seven scenarios as if we were enjoying a flight 30,000 ft in the sky when in fact we were safely down on earth. While everything is being faked, I pride myself on making everything feel as real and authentic (creative director buzz word alert!) as we possibly can.

Speaking of creative directors on big production assignments: this is Zach skateboarding at Slappy Curb outside my See You Soon studio. We met last year on a big production assignment and one fun fact about Zach is he does not have any social media accounts. How amazing is that?!?

Image made from my first roll off teh Contax T2. I tried pre-focusing on the pavement, anticipating where he’d end up, which worked a bit but didn’t quite nail it. The fun thing about shooting film is these imperfections often only enhance the image, anyway.

-Clayton

2024 04 05

Sunset scene with a skateboarder making use of the popular Slappy Curbs spot outside the Kimball Arts Center. Chicago, Illinois. February, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Sunsets are like a photographer cheat code. It’s easy to make a nice photo with a brilliant sunset. Because of this, sunset photos are cliche and not really something professional photographers like to make photos of, unless they are mentally-healthy mainstream photographers.

One of my best ideas was an app that has one and only one task (aside from gathering emails to monetize): send you a push notification when a pretty sunset is happening near you. I’ll never act on this idea so I will give it to you, dear reader, to act on and become an overnight millionaire.

Yesterday I briefly partook in a “photo walk” now that I am a film photographer and people take me seriously (before sneaking off early and going back to my studio to edit my client’s digital photos which are due before I can leave town and make more digital photos for another project). I spotted a fun scene in an alley and raised my Contax to make a serious film photo. It was subtle, just the way a car’s headlights were bounding off a puddle halfway between us, but just after snapping a frame, I heard an audible sigh from a photo walk participant as he mockingly-proclaimed, “an alley photo!” Just as instant shame set in, but before I even had a chance to turn around and awkwardly defend myself, but annoyingly just after I made the image, a massive airliner dramatically emerged from the overcast skies perfectly placed in my composition like a phantom sign that I indeed was on to something.

Follow your instincts. Don’t let the haters bring you down. Shoot the pretty sunset if it makes you happy. Shoot more film (and digital to pay for the film).

-Clayton