2025 04 04
Car. Chicago, Illinois. January, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
There’s this car on my block that I have obsessively been making photos of. I don’t know enough about cars to know why I like it, but I think it’s a Japanese import, and I love the old-school lines. This is one of the pictures I made, edited in a style that I don’t normally do. The digital grain melting into the fine snow particles is nice, I thought.
-Clayton
2025 03 26
The city at night. Chicago, Illinois. February, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
Recently I was downtown for an event and afterward, I made an effort to wander a bit. The streets were eerily silent. I dipped into Billy Goat for a burger and a beer along with the three or four other humans (more staff than guests) who seemed to be out, for whatever reason, either running away or towards something.
A great idea then struck my brain: I would get a scooter and ride home like the wind. This led me astray in search of one when the big lights in the distance caught my eyes. “Hooter’s,” it said. Not yet having my fill of adventure, and recalling the news of the likely demise of yet another fine American establishment, I stepped in.
“Seat at the bar okay?” I asked the greeter (again, more staff than guests), and she motioned me inward. The wings came soon after and boy did I wonder why the joint wasn’t full of customers enjoying them. These things are delicious! I kicked myself for being too timid to frequent Hooter’s all my life for the wings alone.
I left as they were locking up. The man alone at the bar turned out to be an undercover security guard or manager, as I suspected (more staff than guests). I guess everyone gets their wings delivered to them from some other chain these days?
Across the street sat a fully charged scooter glowing in the darkness with my name on it. I rode like the wind just as I’d imagined I would, turning here and there into which ever dark street didn’t look familiar. This was an adventure and I had the city to myself. All the way home I rode and contemplated how cool it would be to start a scooter gang. Surely, this must be how the first gang was formed way back before the police cornered the market on gangs.
-Clayton
2025 03 18
Doggie Day Care. Baltimore, Maryland. September, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
Apologies for the lack of content lately, I’ve been busy starting a new business.
-Clayton
2025 03 17
Somewhere in northern Illinois. March, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
Back from a gig down in St Louis and a few days of Ill Wandering (lots of time on the road — need to prioritize less driving next time) and I’m catching up on life, getting back into the routine of things. This week, I aim to make my new website go live. More on that soon. I’m also preparing for a talk going down in two weeks time in which myself and fellow photographer/friend Jason Little will discuss how we use personal work in our practice. I feel like lately all I do is personal work, so I should have much to discuss. I’ll aim to make it worthwhile for both those in attendance and myself.
-Clayton
PS - on the topic of photography, this video by Noah Kalina hit my feed today and I really enjoyed it. Give it a watch, if interested.
2025 03 03
Night house. Chicago, Illinois. January, 2025. © Clayton Hauck
In the dead of the night, I was awoken and caught a glimpse of what my brain was working on while sleeping. It’s always remarkable to me how busy our brains seem to be while sound asleep. Maybe this isn’t always the case, but it seemed as though mine was working in overdrive. It felt like my brain was rewiring itself, shifting its focus entirely towards video production. I had all sorts of videos playing out, filled with specific concepts, shot ideas, lighting schemes, transitions, edits, experimental techniques, graphics, etc. It was both exciting and daunting, waking up to realize the ideas exist in there but to actualize them will require focus, dedication, and time. That’s the main hurdle that has kept me away from video for a decade now.
I think watching the Oscars and seeing best director Sean Baker’s enthusiastic acceptance speech shamed my subconscious into attempting to make up for a decade of neglecting the artistic passion (filmmaking) that got me started on this journey I am currently on. The challenge will be avoiding decision fatigue and over-analysis, resulting in nothing being accomplished at all. There are a hundred ideas floating around in my brain, which is exciting, but spending each day thinking about them all — dreaming of them — while not doing anything about it will only give me a blog full of mediocre posts that few people see and not much else to show for it.
Enough dreaming. Time to create.
-Clayton
2025 02 14
Allison in moonlight. Douglas, Michigan. October, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
Happy Valentines to my forever valentine, Allison. xoxo
-Clayton
2025 01 24
I’ve always loved images made at night that feel like daytime. Day for night. This was a wild moon scene we encountered while out comet hunting and it almost looks like a stopped down photo of the sun mid-day.
-Clayton
Moon or sun? Benton Harbor, Michigan. October, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
I’ve always loved images made at night that feel like daytime. Day for night. This was a wild moon scene we encountered while out comet hunting and, upon reflection, it looks like a stopped down photo of the sun mid-day.
-Clayton
2025 01 22
Train over Red Hot Ranch. Chicago, Illinois. December, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
I haven’t had a glizzy in too long. I dislike that term, but I learned it by eating a dog at the Ranch. I haven’t had a dog in far too long. Maybe tonight is the night.
-Clayton
2025 01 06
My Creative Resolution for 2025
After what I consider a very successful Creative Resolution in 2024 (this here blog!), I plan to continue this approach of pursuing a personal creative endeavor and introduce a new routine into my life. The blogging will continue (hopefully), albeit at a less-robust pace, but my big aim for the new year is to dedicate more time to making photos and videos, in addition to writing. In order to motivate myself to do this, I came up with a structure that I think will be fun, allow me to further explore my own city, and give me something bigger to work towards in order to keep the whole thing going for an entire year, and hopefully longer.
The system is derived largely from my own personal interests (projects and ideas I’ve wanted to explore) and inspired from the “artist date” approach as outlined in The Artist’s Way. Once per week, I will take some time to myself and venture out on Chicago’s CTA train system to explore a part of town that inspires me to create…something. Maybe this will be a gallery of images, maybe a short video, maybe just words. I aim not to put a bunch of pressure on myself, but hope that in getting myself out of the house in a more regular fashion, it will spur new thoughts and ideas that otherwise would not occur while sitting on my couch reading twitter. By year’s end, the goal is to have the whole train system covered.
Initially, this Creative Resolution began as an effort to get myself back into street photography. While I do still aim to explore this, I was worried that restricting this year-long exercise to making candid images on the streets would be too limiting and ultimately may not be what I want to focus my efforts on. I still have a love for street images, but it’s far more complicated than it was when I was a young photographer wandering the streets two+ decades ago.
That said, I’ve been getting quite inspired by seeing the work of many young street photographers (largely via Paulie B’s great youtube channel) and this has been pushing me to get back out to re-explore those same urges I had back then. I had a longer post in the works that attempted to define my thoughts on what street photography has become, revolving around the complications with today’s society and the need for consent, but ultimately that proved impossible to cohesively summarize with the perspective I currently have, largely as an outsider looking in.
Finding myself on the streets. Chicago, Illinois. November, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
My Creative Resolution for 2025
After what I consider a very successful Creative Resolution in 2024 (this here blog!), I plan to continue this approach of pursuing a personal creative endeavor and introduce a new routine into my life. The blogging will continue (hopefully), albeit at a less-robust pace, but my big aim for the new year is to dedicate more time to making photos and videos, in addition to writing. In order to motivate myself to do this, I came up with a structure that I think will be fun, allow me to further explore my own city, and give me something bigger to work towards in order to keep the whole thing going for an entire year, and hopefully longer.
The system is derived largely from my own personal interests (projects and ideas I’ve wanted to explore) and inspired from the “artist date” approach as outlined in The Artist’s Way. Once per week, I will take some time to myself and venture out on Chicago’s CTA train system to explore a part of town that inspires me to create…something. Maybe this will be a gallery of images, maybe a short video, maybe just words. I aim not to put a bunch of pressure on myself, but hope that in getting myself out of the house in a more regular fashion, it will spur new thoughts and ideas that otherwise would not occur while sitting on my couch reading twitter. By year’s end, the goal is to have the whole train system covered.
Initially, this Creative Resolution began as an effort to get myself back into street photography. While I do still aim to explore this, I was worried that restricting this year-long exercise to making candid images on the streets would be too limiting and ultimately may not be what I want to focus my efforts on. I still have a love for street images, but it’s far more complicated than it was when I was a young photographer wandering the streets two+ decades ago.
That said, I’ve been getting quite inspired by seeing the work of many young street photographers (largely via Paulie B’s great youtube channel) and this has been pushing me to get back out to re-explore those same urges I had back then. I had a longer post in the works that attempted to define my thoughts on what street photography has become, revolving around the complications with today’s society and the need for consent, but ultimately that proved impossible to cohesively summarize with the perspective I currently have, largely as an outsider looking in.
The street is where my love affair with photography began. Today, the street is sort of the antithesis of how I make a living through photography. This analogy is not lost on me and is one I struggle with often. My photography style largely relies on authenticity (agency buzz word alert!), yet my commercial work is fully contrived. This might sound harsh, but we make commercial images in a controlled setting, with the help of a team full of stylists, assistants, and art directors. There is nothing natural about this!
Lately, I’ve been very inspired by the various younger street photographers. People are shooting film again and there’s an unmistakable feel of nostalgia in the air. At the same time, however, cameras are a constant way of life for everyone and no moment is innocent anymore. The vision of street photography that I yearn for is physically impossible in this day and time, replaced with a fear of exploitation and social media instant gratification.
There are two videos that help summarize my thoughts on this matter. The first, an interview with photographer Daniel Arnold, helps clarify my own personal internal struggle in the sense than I see many similarities between him and myself. The defining difference being his amazing body of work was made mostly for himself, while my body of work has been made mostly for paid clients. He also moved to NYC, where artists tend to get noticed, while I stayed in the Midwest. I sense that he’s in a place now where he is navigating the landscape of doing more paid work and sharing less personal work, while I’m attempting to do the opposite after years of focusing a bit too much on the paid assignments. Whether it’s possible to successfully do both remains to be seen but is what I plan to explore.
You can watch the Daniel Arnold interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7Zywq5me3k
Secondly, this video perfect encapsulated my complicated and complex thoughts towards street photography today. It’s an inherently awkward and exploitive art form, but when mastered it’s perhaps the most human art form we have.
You can watch that video featuring photographer Matt Weber here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OXfztsnt7M&t=323s
See ya on the streets in 2025.
-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, see 2024 12 25.