2024 12 26
Becoming a Fine Art Photographer in 2025
This past year has really been a re-focusing of my photography career in many ways. Headwinds working against the commercial photography business have pushed me in many new directions, including more towards the art photography world. To be candid, I’m grateful for it. I’ve spent years neglecting my core passions of photography largely because the money was good. It’s been, and will continue to be, a process getting over the feeling of “selling out.” This process will continue and hopefully only thrive in the new year, as I make a prioritized effort towards making my own personal work from a more artistic perspective (in addition to the commercial work that pays the bills — the worry is that by trying to do both, I could dilute them both and fail spectacularly, forcing myself to become a bartender). Making money through photography is not a bad thing, don’t get me wrong. I’m just working to find a better balance and not shun the type of work that brings me joy.
At the core of this new artistic endeavor, at least as of right now, is a loosely defined Illinois Project aka Ill Wandering. The general idea behind this project is to explore the state I’ve resided in my entire life, while excluding the one county (Cook) that I spend 99% of my time in. Chicago gets all the attention (like my commercial photo career has been) but the state is so much bigger and more interesting than this one city, as great as it is. I aim to explore and document the history, people, textures, decay, nature, landscapes, and mystery contained in all one-hundred and one counties of the state that don’t include the city of Chicago.
The end goal is to turn this project into a photobook, although what exactly that book is is very much a mystery to even me at this point. I’m also considering the idea of making the project more web-based, like this here blog, with the aim of gaining exposure to the project as I collect images and stories over the coming months and, likely, years. One big challenge I’ve had so far is that I haven’t shared much, if any, of the work I’ve made so far publicly. That has been hard! I tend to be an over-sharer, so my thinking has been that this new approach (to me) in making more artistic and thoughtful work should be handled differently than my previous work, which would be blasted out onto the internet as it was made. Art is made in the decisions and juxtaposition of images, which create meaning and narrative.
My current struggle is the feeling that I’m only sharing my second tier work with the world. All of the best stuff, be it work made for commission or work made for myself, is hiding away on hard drives, not being shared. There are many justifications for this (including: fear the good work isn’t actually all that good and I will be discovered; fear of sharing all the work up front will take away from the moment when it is finally reveled; fear that sharing more of my commercial work will muddle my vision for pivoting more towards artistic photography), but the biggest reason is simply that in holding back the new work I am now creating, I can sculp and shape it into whatever becomes of it down the road. Meaning, connection, and narrative should form organically as the project is carried out.
In the end, my newfound push towards getting my ass out of the house to make work that speaks directly to me has been driven and motivated by countless other photographers, through their books, websites, YouTube videos, and instagram accounts. I’ve been diving deep into the world of photography that I’ve regrettably neglected while the gettin’ was good. Getting back to my roots and putting in the effort to schooling myself on these things has been wildly inspiring, and in the end, the sole purpose of this effort is not in seeking fame or fortune (chances at either of those through this project are slim). This is about self-growth and personal discovery both in my photography and in myself. If I’m able to take a few people along for the ride and give them some new perspective as well, that would be super exciting.
Likelihood it will happen: HIGH!
-Clayton
Quiet street at sundown. Grayville, Illinois. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
Becoming a Fine Art Photographer in 2025
This past year has really been a re-focusing of my photography career in many ways. Headwinds working against the commercial photography business have pushed me in many new directions, including more towards the art photography world. To be candid, I’m grateful for it. I’ve spent years neglecting my core passions of photography largely because the money was good. It’s been, and will continue to be, a process getting over the feeling of “selling out.” This process will continue and hopefully only thrive in the new year, as I make a prioritized effort towards making my own personal work from a more artistic perspective (in addition to the commercial work that pays the bills — the worry is that by trying to do both, I could dilute them both and fail spectacularly, forcing myself to become a bartender). Making money through photography is not a bad thing, don’t get me wrong. I’m just working to find a better balance and not shun the type of work that brings me joy.
At the core of this new artistic endeavor, at least as of right now, is a loosely defined Illinois Project aka Ill Wandering. The general idea behind this project is to explore the state I’ve resided in my entire life, while excluding the one county (Cook) that I spend 99% of my time in. Chicago gets all the attention (like my commercial photo career has been) but the state is so much bigger and more interesting than this one city, as great as it is. I aim to explore and document the history, people, textures, decay, nature, landscapes, and mystery contained in all one-hundred and one counties of the state that don’t include the city of Chicago.
The end goal is to turn this project into a photobook, although what exactly that book is is very much a mystery to even me at this point. I’m also considering the idea of making the project more web-based, like this here blog, with the aim of gaining exposure to the project as I collect images and stories over the coming months and, likely, years. One big challenge I’ve had so far is that I haven’t shared much, if any, of the work I’ve made so far publicly. That has been hard! I tend to be an over-sharer, so my thinking has been that this new approach (to me) in making more artistic and thoughtful work should be handled differently than my previous work, which would be blasted out onto the internet as it was made. Art is made in the decisions and juxtaposition of images, which create meaning and narrative.
My current struggle is the feeling that I’m only sharing my second tier work with the world. All of the best stuff, be it work made for commission or work made for myself, is hiding away on hard drives, not being shared. There are many justifications for this (including: fear the good work isn’t actually all that good and I will be discovered; fear of sharing all the work up front will take away from the moment when it is finally reveled; fear that sharing more of my commercial work will muddle my vision for pivoting more towards artistic photography), but the biggest reason is simply that in holding back the new work I am now creating, I can sculpt and shape it into whatever becomes of it down the road. Meaning, connection, and narrative should form organically as the project is carried out.
In the end, my newfound push towards getting my ass out of the house to make work that speaks directly to me has been driven and motivated by countless other photographers, through their books, websites, YouTube videos, and instagram accounts. I’ve been diving deep into the world of photography that I’ve regrettably neglected while the gettin’ was good. Getting back to my roots and putting in the effort to schooling myself on these things has been wildly inspiring, and in the end, the sole purpose of this effort is not in seeking fame or fortune (chances at either of those through this project are slim). This is about self-growth and personal discovery both in my photography and in myself. If I’m able to take a few people along for the ride and give them some new perspective as well, that would be super exciting.
-Clayton
This is one entry in a multi-part series of self-exploration and contemplation-out-loud in advance of the new calendar year. Some of this may happen; none of this may happen.
For the complete list of posts, please see 2024 12 25.
2024 12 23
While at a holiday party a few nights back, the subject of Ai came up and sent me off into a dark headspace. My animator/editor friend had just seen some new examples of Google’s Ai video capabilities and it sent her spiraling into doom, declaring her job was now dead and gone. Sadly, I largely agree with her, tho of course it’s more complicated and won’t happen overnight. I’ve been largely ignoring (avoiding) checking in on Ai advancements over the last six months because I know it will only bum me out, and I’ve been too busy anyway, thus had been feeling more optimistic about the state of our creative industry. That moment at the party was like pouring cold water over my head.
This morning, I awoke to a post showcasing a fully-Ai-generated short film (see below). All of the sound, music and editing was done by a human but the visuals are fairly impressive, considering they were made by typing commands into a computer (I’d love to know how much time he spent repeating commands over and over before throwing his computer out the window). Surely, this will only get much better in the coming months. That said, I’m still not fully convinced Ai will ever become so good that it replaces all human-made visuals. Art is in the choices, and outsourcing a majority of your decisions to a computer will dilute your art and/or take lots of time to perfect, thus minimizing the advantage it provides in the first place. Also, while impressive for what it is, the film is kind of shit.
The sun setting on my photographic career. St Germain, Wisconsin. July, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
While at a holiday party a few nights back, the subject of Ai came up and sent me off into a dark headspace. My animator/editor friend had just seen some new examples of Google’s Ai video capabilities and it sent her spiraling into doom, declaring her job was now dead and gone. Sadly, I largely agree with her, tho of course it’s more complicated and won’t happen overnight. I’ve been largely ignoring (avoiding) checking in on Ai advancements over the last six months because I know it will only bum me out, and I’ve been too busy anyway, thus had been feeling more optimistic about the state of our creative industry. That moment at the party was like pouring cold water over my head.
This morning, I awoke to a post showcasing a fully-Ai-generated short film (see below). All of the sound, music and editing was done by a human but the visuals are fairly impressive, considering they were made by typing commands into a computer (I’d love to know how much time he spent repeating commands over and over before throwing his computer out the window). Surely, this will only get much better in the coming months. That said, I’m still not fully convinced Ai will ever become so good that it replaces all human-made visuals. Art is in the choices, and outsourcing a majority of your decisions to a computer will dilute your art and/or take lots of time to perfect, thus minimizing the advantage it provides in the first place. Also, while impressive for what it is, the film is kind of shit.
Last week, I hosted a Filmmaker Fridays event at my studio and the topic was film festivals. Two panelists were invited to talk about their roles in choosing which films are accepted to the festivals they work for. My broad takeaway from the event was that there is such a robust and enthusiastic demand for filmmaking generally, that I can’t even imagine a world in which the art form is completely outsourced to automation, regardless of how profitable it may become to do so (I’m not convinced this will be the case, either!). That said, Ai will surely transform the industry in ways comparable or even greater than the recent mega-change from film to digital. That change ushered in an explosion of new participants (myself included) and content is now so plentiful it’s impossible to watch even a small percentage of what is made annually. Sundance supposedly sees fourteen-thousand submissions each year, of which they likely don’t even view many of the entrants’ films because there’s just not enough time to do so.
At the event, I ran into the younger brother of a friend who I hadn’t seen in over a decade. He mentioned that he wrapped a feature horror film which he made for $3,000 and premiered to a sold-out audience at The Music Box. Check out the trailer below. It’s laughable how much better it is when compared to the Ai-made video above.
None of us have any clue what’s next. Nuclear war or impending alien invasion may soon make all of this a moot subject. While I will surely still go through periods of depression about how my job is about to be replaced by robots, I’m choosing to largely disregard these dark proclamations and barrel ahead with a positive mental attitude and the understanding that things will change, perhaps quite dramatically, but the world has a need to remain more or less in balance in order for anything to get accomplished.
-Clayton
2024 09 07
Art is making choices, argues Ted Chiang in his recent piece on Ai for The New Yorker, which I’ve seen making the rounds on social media. I always find that, after a shoot day in which I’m typically producing thousands of images, I am both mentally and physically exhausted. The thing that doesn’t get as much attention when creating art is the sheer brain power required while doing it. It’s a never-ending flow of small and large decisions which compound and add up, eventually becoming the final product.
The original quote in Ted’s piece which caught my attention was this:
“The task that generative A.I. has been most successful at is lowering our expectations, both of the things we read and of ourselves when we write anything for others to read. It is a fundamentally dehumanizing technology because it treats us as less than what we are: creators and apprehenders of meaning. It reduces the amount of intention in the world.”
Reading this makes so much sense and helps to explain why I’m quite negative on all things artificial intelligence. This also reminded me that I pay for a New Yorker subscription and should give the full text a read, which you should also do if you have access to it! Upon doing so, a few more quotes which I enjoyed are as follows:
“art requires making choices at every scale; the countless small-scale choices made during implementation are just as important to the final product as the few large-scale choices made during the conception. It is a mistake to equate “large-scale” with “important” when it comes to the choices made when creating art; the interrelationship between the large scale and the small scale is where the artistry lies.”
“Generative A.I. appeals to people who think they can express themselves in a medium without actually working in that medium. But the creators of traditional novels, paintings, and films are drawn to those art forms because they see the unique expressive potential that each medium affords. It is their eagerness to take full advantage of those potentialities that makes their work satisfying, whether as entertainment or as art.”
…as Charlie Parker said: if you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.
-Clayton
With just a bit more data collection, we can make the world a better place! Chicago, Illinois. July, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
Art is making choices, argues Ted Chiang in his recent piece on Ai for The New Yorker, which I’ve seen making the rounds on social media. I always find that, after a shoot day in which I’m typically producing thousands of images, I am both physically and mentally exhausted. The thing that doesn’t get as much attention when creating art is the sheer brain power required while doing it. It’s a never-ending flow of small and large decisions which compound and add up, eventually becoming the final product.
The original quote in Ted’s piece which caught my attention was this:
“The task that generative A.I. has been most successful at is lowering our expectations, both of the things we read and of ourselves when we write anything for others to read. It is a fundamentally dehumanizing technology because it treats us as less than what we are: creators and apprehenders of meaning. It reduces the amount of intention in the world.”
Reading this makes so much sense and helps to explain why I’m quite negative on all things artificial intelligence. This also reminded me that I pay for a New Yorker subscription and should give the full text a read, which you should also do if you have access to it! Upon doing so, a few more quotes which I enjoyed are as follows:
“art requires making choices at every scale; the countless small-scale choices made during implementation are just as important to the final product as the few large-scale choices made during the conception. It is a mistake to equate “large-scale” with “important” when it comes to the choices made when creating art; the interrelationship between the large scale and the small scale is where the artistry lies.”
“Generative A.I. appeals to people who think they can express themselves in a medium without actually working in that medium. But the creators of traditional novels, paintings, and films are drawn to those art forms because they see the unique expressive potential that each medium affords. It is their eagerness to take full advantage of those potentialities that makes their work satisfying, whether as entertainment or as art.”
…as Charlie Parker said: if you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.
-Clayton
2024 08 12
Here’s a lil sneak peek post. I had grand ambitions this year to work on a personal photo project, with the aim of turning the work into a photobook, covering… Illinois. There was no specific vision or goal but more of a visual exploration of the state outside of Chicago (getting to every county outside of Cook was the rough idea). This year has been way busier than anticipated so the amount of time I’ve been able to invest in this project has been far less than I’d wanted. That said, I’m fine with this becoming more of a longer-term ongoing project, which surely will evolve along with myself as the days and years pass.
I’ll write more about this in the future but perhaps the biggest internal struggle I’ve been having has been regarding what the vibe of the project should be. Do I want it to be more artistic, ambiguous, aesthetic or do I want it to be more photojournalistic, authentic, approachable? My worry is that turning this project into a “tour of Illinois” farmland won’t be all that exciting and I’m getting the sense I need to tap into the human element as much as, if not more than, the natural landscapes. This photo is beautiful and the tree is incredible, but is a book full of this kind of stuff really worth all the effort? I think it needs to evolve into something capturing a more deeper meaning.
-Clayton
The sun sets over farmland outside Onarga, Illinois. June, 2024.
Here’s a lil sneak peek post. I had grand ambitions this year to work on a personal photo project, with the aim of turning the work into a photobook, covering… Illinois. There was no specific vision or goal but more of a visual exploration of the state outside of Chicago (getting to every county outside of Cook was the rough idea). This year has been way busier than anticipated so the amount of time I’ve been able to invest in this project has been far less than I’d wanted. That said, I’m fine with this becoming more of a longer-term ongoing project, which surely will evolve along with myself as the days and years pass.
I’ll write more about this in the future but perhaps the biggest internal struggle I’ve been having has been regarding what the vibe of the project should be. Do I want it to be more artistic, ambiguous, aesthetic or do I want it to be more photojournalistic, authentic, approachable? My worry is that turning this project into a “tour of Illinois” farmland won’t be all that exciting and I’m getting the sense I need to tap into the human element as much as, if not more than, the natural landscapes. This photo is beautiful and the tree is incredible, but is a book full of this kind of stuff really worth all the effort? I think it needs to evolve into something capturing a more deeper meaning.
I’d love to open up more of a dialogue on this here blog so if you’re seeing this and have some thoughts, whatever they may be, I encourage you to jot them down into the comment section below!
-Clayton
2024 07 24
Speaking of learning new things out of necessity, I’ve been doing a decent amount of photo stitching with my Ricoh GRiiix, which is the camera I use to make a vast majority of the images I’ve been posting to this blog. This image here was made from 3-4 different images taken with the intention of merging them into one final shot. Why do this, you ask? Well, my version of the Ricoh is the longer lens 40mm-equivalent, which makes capturing wider scenes, such as this massive tree, not possible from up close. In general, I prefer the slightly longer focal length, so when I really want a nicer image but the camera is not wide enough to get it, I’ll often capture the scene in multiple frames and stitch them together using Photoshop’s automate feature, which does a really nice job of it. In addition to creating the wider visual, it also creates an image with much higher resolution that a single image using a wider lens would make.
Not that I need more res for blogging but it’s a cool way of doing low-budget pseudo-medium format.
-Clayton
Catalpa on the corner. Chicago, Illinois. May, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
Speaking of learning new things out of necessity, I’ve been doing a decent amount of photo stitching with my Ricoh GRiiix, which is the camera I use to make a vast majority of the images I’ve been posting to this blog. This image here was made from 3-4 different images taken with the intention of merging them into one final shot. Why do this, you ask? Well, my version of the Ricoh is the longer lens 40mm-equivalent, which makes capturing wider scenes, such as this massive tree, not possible from up close. In general, I prefer the slightly longer focal length, so when I really want a nicer image but the camera is not wide enough to get it, I’ll often capture the scene in multiple frames and stitch them together using Photoshop’s automate feature, which does a really nice job of it. In addition to creating the wider visual, it also creates an image with much higher resolution that a single image using a wider lens would make.
Not that I need more res for blogging but it’s a cool way of doing low-budget pseudo-medium format.
-Clayton
2024 05 30
While on a long jog this morning (brag) I was reminded of something that reeeeally annoyed me before I started driving an electric car (brag) and no longer had to think about it.
Running past the abandoned former emissions testing facility in Bucktown where I used to take my Ford Focus, the frustration came back to me and reminded me about why sometimes government logic can be super annoying. Not wanting this to be a political rant, I’ll keep it brief, as I’m likely getting some details wrong anyway since I’m going off years-old memories at this point.
During the previous Illinois (Republican) governor’s term, the state outsourced the operation of all its car emissions testing facilities, likely arguing small government efficiencies or whatever. Surely, some loyal big shot operator who just so happens to spend big come political donation season got awarded the contract to take over operations of the entire state’s facilities.
One day, I opened my mail to discover it was time to take my trusty Focus in for its test. Unbeknownst to me, the conveniently located facility located roughly one mile from my house and central to the homes of some 3 million other fellow Chicagoans was no longer an option. Instead, the closest facility to me was now inconveniently located over 10 miles away in suburban Skokie. Confused as to why Chicago (far and away the largest city in the state) no longer had a single facility, I did some digging to figure out what was going on. Sure enough, the state outsourced the service, as mentioned, and the new operator was following the state-mandated requirements as efficiently as they could to maximize their profits.
Facilities need to be within x miles of x people, yada yada, plug all the data into the computer and Skokie is now where every Chicagoan needs to drive their car to get an efficiency test to, you know, make sure they aren’t polluting the environment. When you consider the added miles 3 million Chicagoans now need to drive, whatever benefits you are getting from taking a few dirty cars off the road are now likely a net negative anyway. Then, when you consider how much money the state is “saving” by outsourcing this service, you need to consider all this extra wear and tear on the roads, additional accidents, wasted hours, etc, from people driving more trips and all those savings likely go out the window as well. Sure, my math is full of guesstimating here, but maybe you see my point.
It’s like government whack-a-mole: solve one problem and create a new, different problem. As long as your doner pals are getting a piece of the public pie, nobody is none the wiser!
-Clayton
Cars on highway driving into the sunset. Chicago, Illinois. March, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
While on a long jog this morning (brag) I was reminded of something that reeeeally annoyed me before I started driving an electric car (brag).
Running past the abandoned former emissions testing facility in Bucktown where I used to take my Ford Focus, the frustration came back to me and reminded me about why sometimes government logic can be super annoying. Not wanting this to be a political rant, I’ll keep it brief, as I’m likely getting some details wrong anyway since I’m going off years-old memories at this point.
During the previous Illinois (Republican) governor’s term, the state outsourced the operation of all its car emissions testing facilities, likely arguing small-government efficiencies or whatever. Surely, some loyal big shot operator who just so happens to spend big come political donation season got awarded the contract to take over operations of the entire state’s facilities.
One day, I opened my mail to discover it was time to take my trusty Focus in for its test. Unbeknownst to me, the conveniently located facility that was roughly one mile from my house and central to the homes of some 3 million other fellow Chicagoans was no longer an option. Instead, the closest facility to me was now inconveniently located over 10 miles away in suburban Skokie. Confused as to why Chicago (far and away the largest city in the state) no longer had a single facility available to its residents, I did some digging to figure out what was going on. Sure enough, the state outsourced the service, as mentioned, and the new operator was following the state-mandated requirements as efficiently as they could to maximize their profits.
Facilities need to be within x miles of x people, yada yada, plug all the data into the computer and Skokie is now where every Chicagoan needs to drive their car to get an efficiency test to, you know, make sure they aren’t polluting the environment. When you consider the added miles 3 million Chicagoans now need to drive, whatever benefits we are getting from taking a few dirty cars off the road are now likely a net negative because of all the extra driving. Then, when you consider how much money the state is “saving” by outsourcing this service, you need to consider all this extra wear and tear on the roads, additional accidents, wasted hours, etc, from people driving more trips and all those savings likely go out the window as well. Sure, my math is full of guesstimating here, but maybe you see my point.
It’s like government whack-a-mole: solve one problem and create a new, different problem. As long as your doner pals are getting a piece of the public pie, nobody is none the wiser!
-Clayton
2024 04 30
Today I’m in Atlanta making photographs in an airplane at the airport for a major commercial client. While I have no idea how the shoot is going since I am writing this a few days before it happens, I have no doubt it’s going smooth and the images we are making are incredible. The big challenge on this specific project will be to light the airplane as if it’s 30,000ft in the sky with sun streaming into the windows, when in reality we will be parked on the ground in a likely dark hangar with a bunch of mechanics driving around and grumpy about all of the people who don’t belong in their workspace.
Sorry, mechanics.
-Clayton
Sunset on Milwaukee Ave. Chicago, Illinois. February, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
Today I’m in Atlanta making photographs in an airplane at the airport for a major commercial client. While I have no idea how the shoot is going since I am writing this a few days before it happens, I have no doubt it’s going smooth and the images we are making are incredible. The big challenge on this specific project will be to light the airplane as if it’s 30,000ft in the sky with sun streaming into the windows, when in reality we will be parked on the ground in a likely dark hangar with a bunch of mechanics driving around and grumpy about all of the people who don’t belong in their workspace.
Sorry, mechanics.
-Clayton
2024 04 05
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.
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
2024 03 28
I’m a writer now! In learning how to make a living at my new profession, I stumbled across this bit of wisdom from Jason Zweig of the WSJ who says there are three (3) ways to be a professional writer:
Lie to people who want to be lied to and you’ll get rich.
Tell the truth to those who want the truth, and you’ll make a living.
Tell the truth who those who want to be lied to, and you’ll go broke.
Please come back tomorrow to read my breakdown on 50 ways to get insanely rich without doing a lick of work. I swear this list is vetted and is a favorite of Warren Buffet and Sir Edmund Blackadder. Blackadder did a ten-part Masterclass breaking down how he’s made over $20 billion and only let in 24 students who each had to pay $1 million, which he donated to charity because he’s a Sir. I was fortunate enough to be one of the class members and will release my gained wisdoms in tomorrow’s blog to you, dear reader who wants to be lied to, in exchange for one page view to help inflate my depressed ego — see you tomorrow!
-Clayton
PS- this Zweig nugget is brilliant and applies to life in general, not just writing. It was mentioned in Morgan Housel’s book Same as Ever, which I will hopefully go into more in a future blog entry. It’s full of amazing wisdom, most of which can be found on his blog. His previous book The Psychology of Money is fantastic and highly recommended as well.
Bare apple tree in winter with a pretty sunset above. Chicago, Illinois. February, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
I’m a writer now! In learning how to make a living at my new profession, I stumbled across this bit of wisdom from Jason Zweig of the WSJ who says there are three (3) ways to be a professional writer:
Lie to people who want to be lied to and you’ll get rich.
Tell the truth to those who want the truth, and you’ll make a living.
Tell the truth who those who want to be lied to, and you’ll go broke.
Please come back tomorrow to read my breakdown on 50 ways to get insanely rich without doing a lick of work. I swear this list is vetted and is a favorite of Warren Buffet and Sir Edmund Blackadder. Blackadder did a ten-part Masterclass breaking down how he’s made over $20 billion and only let in 24 students who each had to pay $1 million, which he donated to charity because he’s a Sir. I was fortunate enough to be one of the class members and will release my gained wisdoms in tomorrow’s blog to you, dear reader who wants to be lied to, in exchange for one page view to help inflate my depressed ego — see you tomorrow!
-Clayton
PS- this Zweig nugget is brilliant and applies to life in general, not just writing. It was mentioned in Morgan Housel’s book Same as Ever, which I will hopefully go into more in a future blog entry. It’s full of amazing wisdom, most of which can be found on his company blog. His previous book The Psychology of Money is fantastic and highly recommended as well.
2024 03 22
Having spent a good deal of time in small rural Illinois towns recently, in towns that feel largely forgotten to time, hollowed out and missing a majority of their people, towns with cemetery populations larger than that of their living, it was quite eye opening when I stumbled across a statistic recently. Of America’s wealthiest large cities by median household income, in the year 1949, you would never guess which names topped the list when driving their streets today. Sure, if you’re a student of US history, you can probably guess some of the names, but even still they were quite shocking to me. Before the Rust Belt was a place, the Steel Belt was a place and it was home to prosperous and growing cities which built much of the world’s most valuable products. Before these factories were outsourced and moved overseas, Detroit was the wealthiest city in America, in the top spot on this list. Subsequently, Detroit’s population (once 1.8 million) declined by well more than half (to a just over 600,000 today) leaving much of the city empty and abandoned. My parents both grew up in Milwaukee, which was at the time the third wealthiest city in the country by these metrics, and out of ten combined siblings only one remains there today.
Everything dies, even cities. But unexpected upsides occur as a result of hard times. There’s such a large supply of cheap houses in many of these towns, it’s not hard to imagine an influx of young people from across the country desperate to get a taste of the Remains of the American Dream. We’ve already seen Detroit rebound rather remarkably from its recent rock bottom. Last weekend I had fancy cocktails in both Ottawa and Rochelle, Illinois, both in beautifully-restored buildings on their charming old Main Streets.
These trends played out over decades and were caused by a wide range of reasons, however, when viewed in such stark contrast of then vs. now, it seems hard to believe Cleveland was once the second wealthiest city in America in my dad’s lifetime! While this is super fascinating in it’s own right and a subject that can be examined with endless depth, what gets me even more interested is exploring how these trends might play out in the future. Demography is destiny, they say, and a large number of developed countries around the world are now losing population. If we correlate what happened to America’s Midwest to the rest of the world, will Japan become the next Ohio? Will Seoul soon look Pittsburgh-esque? Or will the Rust Belt rise again and overtake China as the next global mega power?
I’m off to buy some property in Peoria…
-Clayton
The 606 Trail during sunset. It was formerly an industrial freight line and today largely serves a purpose of leisure. Chicago, Illinois. February, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
Having spent a good deal of time in small rural Illinois towns recently, in towns that feel largely forgotten to time, hollowed out and missing a majority of their people, towns with cemetery populations larger than that of their living, it was quite eye opening when I stumbled across a statistic recently. Of America’s wealthiest large cities by median household income, in the year 1949, you would never guess which names topped the list when driving their streets today. Sure, if you’re a student of US history, you can probably guess some of the names, but even still they were quite shocking to me. Before the Rust Belt was a place, the Steel Belt was a place and it was home to prosperous and growing cities which built much of the world’s most valuable products. Before these factories were outsourced and moved overseas, Detroit was the wealthiest city in America, in the top spot on this list. Subsequently, Detroit’s population (once 1.8 million) declined by about two-thirds (to a just over 600,000 today) leaving much of the city empty and abandoned. My parents both grew up in Milwaukee, which was at the time they kids the third wealthiest city in the country by these metrics, but out of ten combined siblings only one remains there today.
Everything dies, even cities. But unexpected upsides occur as a result of hard times and cities are capable of surviving far longer than individual humans. There’s such a large supply of cheap houses in many of these towns, it’s not hard to imagine an influx of young people from across the country desperate to get a taste of the Remains of the American Dream. We’ve already seen Detroit rebound rather remarkably from its recent rock bottom. Last weekend I had fancy cocktails in both Ottawa and Rochelle, Illinois, both in beautifully-restored buildings on their charming old Main Streets.
These trends played out over decades and were caused by a wide variety of reasons, however, when viewed in such stark contrast of then vs. now, it seems hard to believe Cleveland was once the second wealthiest city in America in my parents’ lifetime! While this is super fascinating in it’s own right and a subject that can be examined with endless depth, what gets me even more interested is exploring how these trends might play out in the future. Demography is destiny, they say, and a large number of developed countries around the world are now losing population, just as America’s Rust Belt has in recent history. If we correlate what happened to the Rust Belt to the rest of the world, will Japan become the next Ohio? Will Seoul soon look Pittsburgh-esque? Or will the Rust Belt rise again and overtake China as the next global mega power?
I’m off to buy some property in Peoria…
-Clayton