So much for blogging…

Yeah, it’s official. My blog has turned into a place for newspaper clippings. Ha.. well, this obviously needs to change. I’ve been busy with stuff/lazy and neglecting to post actual content that people would care to see. With that, the promise that the next post will be different, but until then, another newspaper clipping

There was a pretty good article in the Columbia Chronicle (the school I went to) about nightlife photo bloggers. It was mostly about myself and arch-rival Kyle LaValley. Haha, she’s not actually an arch-rival but I don’t think she likes me very much… the article can be scene here or below:

The life of the party

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By Jessica Galliart
A&E Editor

In one snapshot, two beautiful, stylish young women playfully kissed each other with their arms wrapped around one other amidst a dark, crowded bar.

Next.

Five or so hands prepared to roll the dice onto a wooden table covered in paper cups filled to the brim with beer and topped off with some crinkled one-dollar bills.

Next.

Dozens of colorfully-dressed scenesters, packed in front of a sweaty DJ and his turntable, shout, raise their arms and sing along to the music.

In these scenarios that are captured in somewhat of a slideshow of events, everyone is beautiful, most are gripping alcoholic beverages and all are having a blast. Or that’s what it looks like in these snapshots and stills from various clubs and parties in Chicago’s social community, which now runs rampant with party photographers seeking to document what really happens at some of Chicago’s favorite nighttime hotspots.

In the past few years, party photographers have flooded clubs and parties, providing snapshots of partygoers while immersing themselves in Chicago’s social scene. What started as an outlet for friends to share photos and memories of wild nights out has evolved into a love-it or hate-it medium that turns ordinary club-hoppers into local Internet and real-life celebrities. And although the novelty doesn’t seem to be going anywhere any time soon, some are voicing their frustrations with how party photography has changed Chicago’s party atmosphere.

Though party photography in Chicago didn’t catch on until around 2006, Mark Hunter, aka The Cobra Snake, of Los Angeles, and Merlin Bronques of New York City, began posting photos of hipsters and glamorous partygoers on their photoblogs, TheCobraSnake.com and LastNightsParty.com,

in 2004. The websites rapidly caught on with locals and fans across the country, inspiring other wannabe photographers and partiers to pick up cameras and tap into the market of party voyeurism in the social scenes in their own communities.

Hunter and Bronques are widely credited with kickstarting the phenomenon of party photography, and Hunter is somewhat considered the “godfather of party photography,” said Kyle LaValley, a junior photography major at Columbia.

“He’s the guy that kind of made it into this commodity that it is, for better or worse,” LaValley said. “He’s kind of like the Warhol of photography. He just knows how to make people want his work. He and Bronques, they’re both really good at that—being the guy everyone in the room is like, ‘Oh my God, I don’t even know who he is, but I want him to take my picture.’ They’re really good at embodying this celebrity kind of feeling, which is so bizarre.”

LaValley, who runs her own photoblog in Chicago, has carried her camera with her everywhere since she moved to the city in 2005, taking photos wherever she went as somewhat of a social mechanism to meet new people, she said. She didn’t discover photographers like Hunter and Bronques until a few months into posting her photos online for her and her friends, she said.

“I think I’ve always made my pictures to be a reflection of what’s going on in my life,” LaValley said. “I hope that my pictures are something 20 years from now that people look back on and think about. For me, it’s more like I’m afraid I’ll forget.”

The phenomenon of party photography eventually gravitated to Chicago in 2006, when Clayton Hauck, a former Columbia film major, launched his website, EveryoneIsFamous.com. Hauck’s website saw more hits in the following year, and soon thereafter the name of the website became synonymous with Hauck, the “guy with the long hair, hat and camera” in hand wandering around Chicago’s clubs and bars.

“When I thought of that name I thought it was great because it’s just kind of a joking name,” Hauck said. “Of course, it’s not true. Everyone isn’t famous.”

Many photographers in Chicago have followed in Hauck’s footsteps, as he did with Hunter and Bronques. After discovering TheCobraSnake.com, Hauck said he realized how successful party photography in other cities was and how much of a demand there was for it in Chicago. Other websites from photographers like LaValley, with her photoblog 476ad.com/ChiKyle, and Matthias St. John, of CelebrateNothing.com, then began to gain more notoriety.

“I didn’t start the website with the goal of it getting big,” Hauck said. “It was more for just fun and a good way to gain experience and get better. And slowly, I realized that it was also a good way to drink for cheap.”

Along with thrusting Chicago’s party scenes into the spotlight, many party photographers also find themselves gaining a bit of celebrity status. Hauck has segued from being just a photographer to immersing himself in Chicago’s social scene by occasionally performing as a DJ and hosting parties of his own, like Claycella on March 8. LaValley said photographers have never been in the same category of celebrity “rock stars” before, as they are now.

“They’ve always just been like that weird guy with the camera,” LaValley said. “But these guys are like larger than life to these kids.”

Perhaps because of this and the relatively small social scene in Chicago compared to Los Angeles or New York City, Hauck also said most of his current friends are people he’s met while he’s photographing for his website.

“Now I recognize most people,” Hauck said. “I get out so much [that] there’s tons of familiar faces. I don’t like to get the same people on there all the time, but I know it happens. The ‘scene’ in Chicago isn’t really that big. So you kind of do see the same faces all the time. In a way it’s just kind of accurate.”

Accurate or not, some regulars in the social club scene have become jaded and a bit frustrated by the constant presence of party photographers.

Before Carmen Myers, who moved to Chicago from Washington, D.C., in 2006, even started to frequent Chicago clubs and parties, she said she would notice the same faces on sites like EveryoneIsFamous.com. But it wasn’t until she became a part of the social scene in Chicago that she realized how small it was and how much party photography was affecting the way partygoers reacted in front of a camera.

“I guess when I first saw [party photographers] it didn’t seem like such a big deal, but [party photography has] gotten annoying because it became totally oversaturated,” Myers said. “It’s definitely changed the crowd; the types of people who are going out now are almost too polished.”

Because Hauck and LaValley shoot at clubs and parties, many partygoers often become inebriated, resulting in pictures of people who become a bit more “adventurous” when they’re “too drunk to care” about what they look like. But some have voiced concerns about what photos of drunk clubgoers say about youth culture.

While at a show last spring at Smartbar, 3730 N. Clark St., Myers said she “drunkenly” asked Hauck to take her picture. When a photo of her with a caption about her begging Hauck to take her photo was posted, Myers said she asked Hauck not to take her photo anymore.

“I was like, ‘Oh my God, I sound like such a vapid b—-. I don’t want to be photographed anymore,’” Myers said. “At that point I asked Clayton not to take my picture anymore. You don’t have to be photographed; you can definitely avoid it.”

Since beginning her website and gaining more notoriety from her photos at house parties and “ragers,” LaValley said she can understand the backlash surrounding party photography. At some parties, people have been so aggressive about getting their photos posted on her blog that they will offer her anything from money to drugs to take their pictures.

“I definitely think there are people that perform when the camera’s around,” LaValley said. “I feel a lot of times that if you’ve been doing it as long as people like Clayton or I have you can kind of pick up on that, and it’s fun to exploit it. I don’t take myself seriously like I’m God’s gift to photography for taking pictures of drunk hipsters. But at the same time that’s kind of the beauty of it, because there’s nothing hipsters love more than to be glorified.”

For Myers, the people who drunkenly strike poses for photographers have somewhat deterred her from going out to parties as much.

“I have kind of stopped going out as much partially because of the way the crowd has changed,” Myers said. “Whether they actually look like they’re posing, those are the people who put themselves in the eye line of the photographer. You started seeing more pretty people that were constantly going out.”

Because atmospheres like clubs and bars offer the same types of crowds and people, LaValley said she tends to photograph “hangout situations” instead, where a different subset of the Chicago social circle usually goes. Instead of taking photos of partiers posing for the camera in a “statuesque” way, LaValley said she’s able to capture more candid shots of today’s youth.

“I just feel like at clubs and bars it’s already all there and set up for you,” LaValley said. “And there’s so many more elements at a house party where the cops are going to come, there aren’t security or bouncers, people are going to get in a fight. Twenty years from now it’s not going to be like, ‘Here’s you and I looking statuesque for a picture.’ It’s going to be more, ‘Here’s me dancing my a– off and looking like a maniac. I remember exactly how I felt when that was happening.’”

Both Hauck and LaValley said they’ve come across people who are adamant about not having their picture taken while at a party, and LaValley said some have even tried spilling drinks on her camera or pushed her.

“I feel like a lot of people get this impression that to be a party photographer is something really glamorous and great, and most of the time it’s really not,” LaValley said. “It’s really stressful, awkward and difficult. You have to deal with a lot of s—.”

Chicago Sun-Times write-up

So I know I have been severely neglecting this blog the past month. I’ve been crazy busy and in Austin and Miami for half the month. I’ll get back into the swing of things, though.

Today in the Sun-Times you might’ve seen this article about me (link):

BY MAYA HENDERSON

If you live in Chicago and have a MySpace or Facebook account, you’ve probably seen the work of Clayton Hauck. The 25-year-old immortalizes the city’s youthful nightlife scene, capturing candid moments of DJ bliss, drunken posing, superstar DJs and wannabe celebrities for his photo blog, everyoneisfamous.com.

Working as a video editor at a production company a few years ago, Hauck was surfing the ‘Net and discovered the Cobra Snake (thecobrasnake.com), which is considered the original nightlife photo blog. He wondered why there wasn’t anything like it in Chicago and began shooting around the city.

“I always had a camera on me, so I just decided to start shooting,” says Hauck, whose interest in photography began during his freshman year at Columbia College. “Now there are dozens of [photo blogs], but I was the first to have an actual Web site that was updated regularly.”

His first-ever posting involved images from the opening-night party at Continental’s, 2801 W. Chicago; today, Everyone Is Famous has nearly 30,000 photos. The blog has led to paying gigs, too. He now works full-time as a freelance photographer, shooting for various publications and Web sites.

He also dabbles in throwing parties; his most recent, Claychella, was a free, 15-hour DJ blowout at Tuman’s, 2159 W. Chicago.

“My Web site is a good promotional tool and a lot of people know about it, so it’s a natural transition to go from the Web site to doing parties,” he says. “My motivation is to do things for the city to make it a little better.”

Hauck has become quite the local celebrity himself, but he’s not content with just being the cool guy with a camera at the party. “Everyone Is Famous has always been my portal for getting better and pushing myself to become a better photographer,” he says. “I guess on the larger scale, I’d like to go on to bigger and better things — more exposure for my photography and doing interesting and creative work that people recognize and respect.”

Q. What’s your favorite hidden gem?

A. I’m always interested in discovering them, especially little dive bars that no one knows about. I’ve been really into this place Rose’s (2656 N. Lincoln). It has so much history.

Q. Best Chicago-related advice you’ve ever received?

A. Go to Hot Doug’s [3324 N. California].

Q. Favorite party or nightclub to shoot?

A. I don’t have a specific place; it all depends on the vibe of the night.

Q. Where do you hang when not shooting for the blog?

A. One of the 100 dive bars in this town with cheap drinks. Happy Village [1059 N. Wolcott] is one of my favorites.

Q. What’s something about you that we don’t know that we should?

A. I used to be a huge roller coaster nerd.

LA Times blurb

My nightlife photo site (everyoneisfamous) was mentioned today in an article about LA’s nightlife photographer Ellie J (shadowscene.com).  I was noted among 2 other sites.. here is an exert:

The proliferation of nightlife photographers, fueled by the growing popularity of dance clubs and the user-friendliness of digital cameras and basic web design, means everyone’s a photographer these days. A Google search reveals hundreds of sites dedicated to underground parties, most predictably amateurish. Still, there is talent out there.

Some of the most interesting late-night shooters include Rony Alwin (Ronysphotobooth.com) in L.A., Merlin Bronques in New York (Lastnightsparty.com and the book “Last Night’s Party”) and Clayton Hauck (Everyoneisfamous.com) in Chicago.

“Nowadays, anyone can take pictures and put them up,” said Hauck, who started his site — an ode to fabulous nobodies — last year. “You don’t have to be good. I don’t mind that there’s a million websites. In a way, it’s a motivating force to make sure my site is better than everyone else’s.” Johndro agrees. “It’s so accepted now for kids to have cameras in clubs,” she said. “And we can all be shooting the same thing, and it’s all going to be different. It’s art.”

You can view the article in its entirety here (you probably need to be registered though)

Enjoy,
Clayton

NewCity Chciago write-up!

If you didn’t catch it in the paper, here it is on the blog…

Poparazzi
How nightlife photography is making everyone famous

Maude Standish

“Claaaayton, will you take a good picture of me for once?” asks a pouty-lipped girl in a sparkly vest as we walk down the stairs into Smart Bar. Three other girls join her, alternatively winking, licking their lips and blowing posed kisses. Clayton Hauck hasn’t even taken his camera out of the bag.

Hauck has a nightlife photo gallery, www.everyoneisfamous.com, and tonight he has come to get pictures of Justice, a pair of Parisian DJs, and the debauched dancers who swarm the floor. In this swamp of tight dark jeans, eyeliner and thick-framed plastic glasses, he looks a little bit like a South Beach private eye with his beige fedora resting over his shoulder-length hair, tanned arms and a curled blond mustache outlining his pink lips. Hauck has been out of clean clothes for the last week. The only way he has been surviving is by wearing the sample clothing that his friend in L.A. shipped to him. Oh, and the last time he took a shower–in classically time-starved fashion–he washed his underwear along with his blondish hair. But who’s to blame him? In order to keep up with the burgeoning demands (nightly shooting and daily updating and editing, plus all that drinking) of his Web site, Hauck has been sleeping an average four hours a night and devouring Red Bulls.

Hauck conceived his Web site one day when sitting at his underpaid-and-overworked job as a film editor. He, like many cubicle residents, was surfing the web. “I was on gawker.com and there was a link to a Cobra Snake, which is basically very similar to my Web site. It’s just like nightlife photos, documenting things. And I saw his Web site and I thought it was brilliant. I mean why didn’t I think of this?” A week later Hauck found himself drunk with a camera in his hands at the opening of Humboldt Park’s 4am bar, The Continental. He just started snapping away, and now Hauck’s his work can be found not only on his site but also printed on Metromix and in URB magazine–plus one particularly cute image of a dog is on a bootleg stainless steel lighter being sold out of Asia.

Smart Bar is packed tonight and the dismal gray walls are enlivened by the numerous shades of neon t-shirts and high-tops. The music booms at just the right level where you can both have a conversation and abandon yourself to reckless booty-shaking. Across the room the flash of digital cameras continually illuminates moments being preserved. For a bunch of drunk people the crowd sure is consciously documenting themselves. Next to me a girl wearing pearls poses and then ironically squeals, “That is sooo going to be my new MySpace photo.” And despite her attempt at distance from this image-consumptive culture, ten bucks says come Monday it will.

Since the advent of digital cameras there has been a flattening of celebrity. Aware of this, people emerge into the night prepared with a pose, an outfit and an attitude. In the age of the auto-icon the new goal is multiplicity–how many hits does my Web site get? How many sites come up when I Google my name? Of course, craving for celebrity status is nothing new. People have always clamored for attention. But what is new is individuals’ obsessive awareness that they are things to be documented. Hauck taps into this desire to exist in multiples, further bolstering their belief that they are special because they will be seen. In a sense he is making his subjects superstars.

“There is this elevating of local celebrity,” says Liz Armstrong, former Reader columnist. “I mean that’s what I tried to do in my column. I mean just writing about regular local people–they belong in a tabloid you know? I don’t give a shit about Paris Hilton going to jail. I mean, I don’t care and I write for Star magazine. But anything that makes us more interested in our own local culture, like what surrounds us, is good.”

She continues, “You know I enjoy Clayton and I think he is a really nice person and I think its good to have a nice person behind the camera, and that is definitely to his benefit. However I think that anyone with a really nice camera can do that shit. There is nothing else but an image, and in the end I guess it feels a little cheap.”

The interesting thing is that Hauck enters the scene, with his strong flash, conscious of the democratic possibilities of the camera and in turn has an egalitarian method of shooting photos so that every one has the chance to be famous. But, of course, if everyone is famous, then no one really is.

Hauck himself often refers to his nightlife project as “my retarded Web site,” qualifying his reasons behind perpetuating a site dedicated to taking party photos. But his everyoneisfamous.com had over 230,000 page views in the month of February alone, suggesting that many out there take it a bit more seriously. “Before I started doing the nightlife stuff I had a photography Web site,” he says, “but it’s like, who’s gonna notice it? You could email everyone in the world and it’s still really hard to get people to go to your Web site. I try and make my nightlife photos more interesting and artistic than the other nightlife photos.”

Unlike many other nightlife photographers, Hauck’s photos are not just images of buxom beauties writhing in anticipation. Although he admits, “Everyone wants to see hot naked girls.” Matt Roan, a local DJ who has hosted parties with Hauck in the past and is featured in many of his photos, is dressed tonight in a Bulls jersey, layered over a gray t-shirt, and has a glowstick wrapped around his neck. “Honestly, I think nightlife photography is silly, but I love Clayton and I am glad that he is there to document it,” he says. “You know what I mean? I feel like he actually–less than just snapping random pictures–he gets a good feel for what the night is actually about. It’s not just pretty faces. There is actually more story behind it.” Roan believes that Hauck’s Web site is not only documenting but elevating the quality of Chicago’s nightlife. “It is certainly putting Chicago nightlife more on the map. I know that he has a lot of people from all over the country visiting the site and it makes me happy to know that Chicago is being represented as a really great place to be, which I believe it is.”

Jillian Valentino, DJ and hostess of “Outdanced,” where Hauck is regularly featured as the night’s photographer, adds, “Clayton is also a friend of mine. Whether he has his camera or not I enjoy his company. I’m friends with Brad who does lastnightsparty.com and I know Mark The Cobra Snake, and he’s got such a different personality than Brad, who is more focused on sex and nudity, [while] Cobra Snake is more focused on fashion. Clayton is just about understanding the people and having a good time. Like sometimes if he is shooting my parties I’ll be like, `Clayton you need to shoot the DJs more,’ and usually he doesn’t. He isn’t focused on one specific group of individuals. Clayton is just down to earth. He is himself. I don’t think he is really trying to impress anybody–he just enjoys taking photos.”

Hauck’s interest in photography, oddly enough, stems from an early obsession with rollercoasters. “In middle school and high school I was a huge rollercoaster nerd. I got a job at Six Flags, where I worked for five summers operating the rides. And me and my rollercoaster-enthusiast friends would just take road trips all over the country just riding rollercoasters. I have been on over 250 different rollercoasters.” It was the early documentation of these rollercoaster ventures that got him interested in film and eventually photography.

His nightlife photos, at their best, encapsulate the feeling of participating in an event–focusing on PBR labels rubbed into the floor, framing gestures that would have otherwise been forgotten (a girl cowering from a dancing bunny suit) and exchanges that at times people wish they could forget. “A lot of times there will be people who will say, `No don’t take my picture. I’m not supposed to be here.’ Or `I don’t want to be on the Internet or such and such shouldn’t know that I am here,’” Hauck says. “I have gotten yelled at plenty of times and usually in the more upscale clubs, and it’s usually because I have taken a photo of someone with someone other than his wife. Most photographers in those clubs, ninety-nine percent of the time, will ask before they take the picture. But I like to take more spontaneous stuff. And if I see an old goofy-looking dude with a fake-looking girl, I think it’s hilarious and I try and take the picture. And that’s when I get in trouble.”

Of course, Hauck also gets in trouble without the aid of his camera. Having finished off a fifth of vodka earlier in the evening, Hauck is in good spirits and interweaving through the crowd at a pace that I can’t keep up with. I leave him for a moment to take a breath. A stylish girl in a mustard dress is seated in a corner with a 60-year-old Iranian mathematician. (“I just like him because he is the oldest, most-mature person here and he keeps lying to me that he is waiting for someone. You have been here for three hours! Who could you possibly be waiting for?”) The mathematician informs me that earlier my companion took his photo.

I return to the dance floor just in time to see Hauck being escorted out by security in a headlock. He miraculously breaks free of the bouncer’s clenching grip and half-heartedly attempts to make a run for it when another bald security guard grabs him. “Get my camera,” he shouts above the music. Instructed to do the slightly impossible, as the camera is behind the DJ’s booth, I enlist the aid of a mohawked-bouncer and bring the camera outside where Hauck stands hatless and pissed.

“I crowd-surfed,” Hauck scornfully says. “I rarely go to Smart Bar. And I hate that Justice is playing there and I got booted so quick, so quick. I talked to Justice’s manager and I was like, `Does anyone ever crowd surf at your shows?’ And he was like, `Yeah.’ So I had to do it.”

“Come on, let me buy you a hotdog,” I say and we walk across the street to the flashing lights of Wrigleyville Dog.

“Some guy bought a glow stick off me for twenty bucks,” Hauck says in between massive bites. “I didn’t start drinking until I was 21, or actually, like, 20. My college girlfriend was a drinker and introduced me to it. And then for a couple of years I went through my binge-drinking stage which most people go through when they are 13 or 14. See if I was a bad kid than I would have been over my drinking phase by the time I was 21. What would I being doing now? Maybe I would have been an astronaut?”

He takes another bite. “Chicago is my city. I love it to death. The problem is, the nightlife sucks here. I am just trying to make the nightlife better here. Hopefully after we left everyone started crowd surfing.” A boy in a black leather jacket enters the restaurant and informs Hauck that Justice has just finished its set, and he decides to meander back to Smart Bar to capture people exiting.

He ventures across Clark to find two guys pouring water on their intoxicated friend who is crouched into a ball. Hauck snaps a photo and one of the guys stops pouring water to shout, “No. No photos.” Hauck asks in an unassuming voice, “But you drenched him. Why?” Hauck’s question actually contains within in it two predicaments: First, why would you treat your friend like that? And second (and more pertinent), why would you publicly act in a way that you would not want to be photographed?

The answer is never apparent. The guy checks out Hauck’s camera and sort of mumbles, “Cuz he’s our guy. He came from Iraq. You know. The least we can do.” Hauck doesn’t hear these explanations because he is distracted by two guys wearing gold chains and silk-screened shirts with their petite dates waving photo-booth pictures, beckoning him to snap a photo of them for his site.

Why do people find it necessary to be reflected in a photograph displayed online? Perhaps it is simply because “People are just narcissistic,” as Roan believes.

Or maybe it is the outcome of a life of sitting at a desk? “The jobs that are available now and the schooling–the way education works, your life is boiled down to a desk. Anything that you can do to make your self stand out is probably good,” Armstrong believes. “That’s the goal. Everyone wants to feel special, individualized.”

The next day I see that Hauck has uploaded the shots from the night before. There is one of me substituting a hotdog with everything on it for my face and, like the girl with the pearls, I promptly change my MySpace photo.

(2007-05-08)