2025 01 14

David Dondero was playing at my house, my house. Chicago, Illinois. September, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Becoming an Event Space Owner in 2025

If you’ve been to my studio space, dubbed See You Soon, you’ve seen the stylish kitchen, bar, fancy office partitions, and disco bathroom. It’s a dream urban loft space, and I often tell people I live there… I just don’t sleep there. I’m there a lot. The decision to open a studio space in the waning days of Covid lockdowns is one that was life changing for myself in many ways. Looking back, it was a time of excitement and optimism! The world was reopening; my commercial photography business was thriving; and I was betting on myself in a big way. It just made a lot of sense.

The room felt so good to me that I also decided to invest a huge amount of my own money into shaping the space into something I would be proud of, in the hopes of turning it into a more public-facing business not only open to photo and video production but also dinners, events, and gatherings of all shapes and forms.

Soon after opening, we had the exciting new mayoral candidate host a campaign event in our space and it was jam packed full of people, including multiple Congresswomen and a half dozen Alderpersons. Things were looking up! Things were exciting!

Then reality struck.

It’s been about three years now since we’ve been paying rent on the studio space, and I can easily say it’s been the most challenging endeavor of my life. Almost immediately after opening, work slowed to a halt and our industry hit a downturn which still hasn’t quite managed to correct itself (and feels like it may never do so for a number of reasons we won’t get into now). On top of that, our newly-renovated building was reassessed by the city and our tax payments more than doubled, increasing our rent by far more than we had anticipated. Then, the few studio bookings we did manage to get each seemed to have disaster strike (broken elevator, mouse infestation, parking lot problems, etc), likely turning people off from renting our space again in the future. More problems occurred, such as a deteriorating wall that needed extensive repairs, and now there’s a growing homeless encampment directly out the windows with an otherwise beautiful view of The 606.

It quickly became clear to me that making the space work as a photo studio alone would be impossible and I needed to focus quite a lot more on opening up the space for other uses. 

Since opening, we’ve done a huge amount of events that I’ve been proud of. Last week, we hosted the Chicago Bulls. Last year, I got married in the space! We’ve done multiple holiday markets featuring dozens of super talented artists and makers, art shows and artist talks, dozens of dinner events full of amazingly talented people, and even some live music including an all-time favorite artist of mine, David Dondero. I have no shortage of ideas on things we can host and organize, and it’s been that spark of reconnecting with something I previously loved to do which has been super fulfilling. The creative juices are flowing. Bringing people together in real life has been a breath of fresh air for me. I’ve found that even while going through the most challenging phase of my career — I’ve been the most happy. Less social media and more in-person socializing. Do I need an expensive studio space in order to make that happen? No, but it’s been very motivating for me in many ways and the new connections I’ve made as a result are worth so much to me.

In December, the studio had an ambitious schedule that was tough for me to navigate. In part, it’s a sign that I’m on the right track and it has me hopeful to be in a more sustainable place financially this year. But also, it made me realize that I either need to scale back my personal ambitious for the space or find a more sustainable path forward, specifically, involving other people. This is perhaps my strongest conviction this year — in order to make my dreams become a reality, I will need to partner with, trust, and lean on others.

During an event one night last month while the studio was packed full of people, I had a wave of happiness wash over me, thinking that I was helping provide culture to the city. I put myself in the shoes of my own self twenty years ago and imagined how cool it would’ve been to go to the place I now call my own. I want to build on this feeling and continue to shape the place into something that gives back in whatever small ways it is able to and provides a space for people to explore their own curiosities. Of course, all these dreams and ideas require time, which takes away from other creative projects I hope to focus on. As always, t’s a tradeoff, but one I think is worth serious consideration. I imagine a life in which my sole job is to plan and host various events and it sounds quite fulfilling and exciting, even when factoring in the constant floor mopping required.

All that said, if you’ve got a fun idea but need a space to make it happen, don’t hesitate to reach out. Let’s talk. Let’s make some magic happen this year! The world is crazy enough and the distraction is good.

-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.

2025 01 13

Another busted car. Chicago, Illinois. December 2025. © Clayton Hauck

I’m going to print some zines this year. I’d been planning to do a zine of my Busted Car photos, but since Nathan Pearce just put one out, I’ll probably skip that idea.

Creativity is hard!

-Clayton

2025 01 12

Observing the light. Kimball Arts Center. Chicago, Illinois. October, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

2025 01 11

Costumers Parking. Chicago, Illinois. December, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

This year, I’m going to make a bumper sticker of this sign. Maybe I’ll make a whole damn bumper sticker shop if I can find the time…

-Clayton

2025 01 10

For the love of the game. Slappy Curb. Chicago, Illinois. November, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

“Photography is about light, but photography without love is nothing.” - Photographer John White (via Chicago Magazine)

-Clayton

2025 01 09

Golden hour. Chicago, Illinois. December, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

2025 01 08

Not dead! Chicago, Illinois. November, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

I’ve had local news coverage from LA on in the background all day today. It’s such a devastating, surreal, grim situation out there. Not sure what else to say about it aside from wish the best of luck for the safety of everyone out there. Fire is terrifying itself but fire mixed with intense wind is something else completely. Nothing you can do but pray. I can’t stop wondering how this started and thinking that it could’ve been one person that sparked the madness, whether maliciously or accidentally, which led to so much loss.

-Clayton

2025 01 07

A town without people. Old Shawneetown, Illinois. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

This morning, I woke up to the news that Getty Images was merging with Shutterstock. I then logged onto Threads and saw outrage from a photographer about how the companies now have a monopoly and that we photographers should not allow this to happen!

Fast forward to the end of the day. Out of curiosity, I checked the stock prices to see what the market thinks of this soon-to-be photography monopoly. Well, at first they loved it! Prices of both companies soared. Then, the market took a moment to think about why these two companies that dominate the photography world decided to merge into one mega company, and the frantic buying turned into frantic selling.

Getty was up an impressive 89% (!) in early trading today before ending the day up a more modest 17%.

Shutterstock was up 48% in early trading today before ending the day up a more modest 14%.

My immediate takeaway this morning was not that this newly-created mega company was going to kill the photography industry but that it was a necessary hail mary by two companies that see the writing on the wall. If they don’t do something, they will die. If they do do something, they will still probably die. Ai is inevitable and it’s depressing, to say the least, as someone who makes a living from making photos.

All this said, I don’t think photography is done. Hell, there will still even be quite a few people making a dang good living from photography for years to come. But the industry as a whole is in for a rough time and companies with market caps in the billions will no soon longer exist if their entire business depends on selling photography.

Good night, and good luck.

Now… back to the webinar I’m currently taking (along with three dozen other people!) on how to print photo zines. Yes, there is likely more demand than ever for making photos, which is cool! It’s the getting paid for making photos that will continue to get more challenging.

-Clayton

2025 01 06

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.

2025 01 05

Sunset over Lake Michigan. Benton Harbor, Michigan. October, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Another day not posting my 2025 Creative Resolution. I’ll get to that tomorrow, maybe. I’ve been distracted with another one of my year-end resolutions.

This sunset image reminded me of a sunrise photographer video I was sent this morning by my buddy and fellow photographer Dave. It’s fitting, in the sense that his project began from a creative resolution as well, and he’s been photographing the sunrise every day now for years. It became his job, his calling, his identity.

-Clayton

2025 01 04

Skate or die. Slappy Curb. Chicago, Illinois. November, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

2025 01 03

The dust adds visual interest. Somewhere between Streator and Pontiac, Illinois. November, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

This camera is so far gone but I continue to use it nonetheless. I tell myself I like the look the layer of dust is giving me. Honestly, I kind of do. Each time I go to buy a new one, they are not available. Everyone loves the Ricoh, apparently. Plus, spending a thousand bucks doesn’t sound very appealing right now. It’s probably time to attempt a surgery and see if I can’t remove some of this madness. If I fuck it up in the process, maybe it’ll get me to shoot more film again!

While researching the photographer Weegee (for no reason whatsoever!), I learned that he did a bunch of work with prisms later in his career. Interestingly, he did a series of images of Marilyn Monroe where her face is all distorted but you can still tell it’s her. It’s the kind of thing you might find profound in high school art class.

This is why I think I’m making groundbreaking work here with my Dirty-Sensor Ricoh. It’s profound and amazing. Maybe I will start to sell cameras that have dirty sensors to high school photography students!

Oh yeah, the creative resolution post is still in the works. Will get to it, eventually. Probably.

-Clayton

2025 01 02

Sunset on Wooded Island. Chicago, Illinois. September, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

It was my intention to post about my new creative resolution for 2025, however, today being the first day back at work, I got sidetracked with bureaucracy and didn’t get around to finishing the text. That said, I wasn’t loving the text and decided to change it all anyway. We’ll see if I can make it happen tomorrow. The suspense will kill you, I’m sure.

-Clayton

2025 01 01

Coming or going? Somewhere south of Rockford, Illinois. February, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Becoming a Daily Blogger in 2025

Today marks the successful completion of a full year of daily blogging!

Five days. Five, damn, days. At the time, I didn’t care that I missed posting to this here blog for five days because I was busy getting married. That clearly takes priority to casual blog posting, which goes almost completely unnoticed. Now, looking back from the comfort of a new calendar year, I see it as a failure of my objective! Perhaps because I live in the United States and we tend to see things as all or nothing. Perhaps because I don’t have my priorities in order. Perhaps because my standards are so high I consider it a complete failure to only get 98.6% of the way towards reaching my goal. Whatever the reason, when I noticed this five day gap (I’d completely forgotten about it because, you know, it doesn’t really matter) I was furious with myself. Why hadn’t I anticipated and pre-loaded blog posts? Should I now “punish” myself, start the timer over, and do it all over again this year?

Let’s be honest, I probably don’t need to be sharing any old thought I have on the internet anymore. That said, I’ve made it clear from day one that the entire point of this here blog is for me, myself, and I. I’m doing this to improve my own writing skills, photo editing skills, and to think through various subjects. The fact that I am doing it publicly is a byproduct and not the main motivator, but it’s also a way to keep me honest and put pressure on myself to continue to show up. It’s how my brain works. 

As an example, I was doing my “morning pages” quite regularly for months after reading The Artist’s Way. This was super helpful, however, as soon as I got busy with other shit (like getting married) I completely cut out this habit without even realizing I had done so. In a way, this here blog is my own version of the morning pages. It’s my version of therapy and it gives me a chance to think. Hopefully it does more good than harm when it comes to my reputation and people reading my business! 

One quick story about a proud moment that justified the time I’ve dedicated to this here blog: I lost a big job we bid on this fall. We lost it, but we almost won it! This may sound insane but I was almost as happy by how close we came to being awarded the project as I would’ve been had we actually been awarded the project. If you’re in the biz, you know about these calls you have with the client and/or agency leading up to bidding on a big project. On this specific call, it became very apparent to me that we had no realistic shot at winning this bid (for a number of reasons, but an obvious one was that all the examples they showed us were images they glowingly described as exactly what they wanted to capture — they were all made by another photographer, whom they’d just worked with, who was also bidding on the project!). My takeaway from the call was that if we had any shot at getting the job, I needed to write a really good treatment.

Either the treatment worked or things changed beyond our control because we got the call that we were favorites for the job. It was all but guaranteed! Then, as happens, things changed again and we didn’t get the job. But I took it as a nice consolation prize and largely credited my habit of writing regularly with being the thing that put us over the top. 

Most likely, in the new year I will tweak my approach a bit. My main priority is to continue the writing. Whatever approach best enables me to do this is how I will go about it. Again, there are days when I simply don’t have the time to jot down something worth reading, and those days probably don’t need a post. Maybe I’ll make it a “photo a day” situation so I can more easily fulfill my lifelong dream of posting to a blog every day for a year (sarcasm?), while keeping the words to days when I do have something more meaningful to share. We’ll see.

Thinking bigger, I often say you need to go to where the people are if you want to see noticeable success, and the people are not hanging out on blogs. If I really wanted to take this project to the next level, a YouTube channel would be the obvious next step. Learning to communicate in video form, versus textually, is a skill that will take you places in this day and age. The reality, however, is that I likely only have the time for a more casual blog, like this here one, that exists mostly as a space for personal growth and exploration. Regardless, I appreciate you being here!

Happy New Year!

-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.