Pointing at Stuff 001

Indecisive Moments

This is an abridged web adaptation of my printed zine originally released November 2025. If physical copies are still available, you can purchase one here.

The name hit me as being quite a brilliant way of looking at my preferred style of photography. “Photography is like pointing at things you see in life,” observed Richard Avedon, as noted while reading What Becomes a Legend Most, a biography of Avedon by Philip Gefter.

Sadly, the domain wasn’t available, so I went with stuff instead.

I’m not repped in the art world. I’ve never done a solo show or wanted to play the game, instead finding comfort in using my artistic talents in a more transactional way through commercial photography. It is what it is, but as I get older, regrets start to sink in about how I’ve chosen to spend my time all these years.

I had an artist friend pass away far too young recently. We were similar in many ways, us two, yet he chose to focus on art, while I picked commerce. He died poor while I live rich by comparison. He, too, refused to play the game; to make the relationships and please the powers that run the show. It’s a tough go, to make it on morals and wit. Impossible, maybe.

These pages are a dip-of-my-toes into a life neglected — a life filled with making things for the sake of making things; listening to my inner-voice and not an overworked art director who doesn’t really even want to be there. The photos are messy and not well focused. But I’m fine with it. Excited by it, really.

When Covid locked down the world, I found myself becoming increasingly annoyed with the amount of time I spent consuming — YouTube videos, computer games, podcasts, alcohol, those addictive chocolate pretzels from Trader Joe’s. In a way, the pandemic allowed me to step back and reconsider my life and my choices. It became clear that the best years of my life were not the ones spent restfully at home, but the ones out in the world creating and doing stuff.

I started carrying a camera — not an iPhone — with me again at all times. After a decade of almost exclusively making photos in exchange for money, I became quite rusty at making interesting images of my own invention. This realization led me back to an idea I had years prior but put off consistently: a daily photo blog of strictly personal work. I knew the images would be largely dull at first, and I was fine with it. The goal was not to produce a series of highly impactful “bangers” (as the kids call ‘em), or pull from my existing library of images, but instead to rewire my brain and retrain my instincts for what images I could or should be making.

Here we’ll explore some of the early work that started this process. The Indecisive Moments as I like to call them. Perhaps we’ll make it a regular thing.

Can a photo change your life? For me, a working photographer some two decades into my journey, the answer is a clear yes. Images have been shaping my path more than I’ve known for as long as I can remember. I found my wife through making photos. I made Best Man through making photos. I’ve bought a house and a few cars through making photos. But do the individual images actually have such an impact on things?

This image (above) got me out of my house one night and into the world, where I met my now-friend Jack Garland. Since the meeting, we’re running a photobook shop called Realm and I’m dedicating much more of my life to photography than ever before. I’m now sensing the possibility of this new path, formed at the head by a single image, becoming even wider, guiding me through the middle years of my life.

The work is not strong enough to warrant a printed booklet.

The work is fine, but really it’s the effort that matters most. The fact that this exists at all is more valuable than most images existing as digital files resting on dusty hard drives.

If I just keep making work for another month, another year, I’ll then have something worth printing and sharing.

I’d rather be a guy who put out a few bad zines than a dead guy who spent all of his time thinking about what might be worthy to print.

If this is the first impression you give to the Fine Art World, they will never give you another chance.

New year, new me.

I have an artist inside of me but I’ve always been afraid of him. He operates on impulses which aren’t always healthy.

If I went to the state college I’d enrolled in after a forgettable stint in high school, I’d probably be a banker now living in a bland condo downtown, wearing button-down collared shirts. I’m smart; I’m responsible; I’m a people-pleaser, a team player. Fortunately, my dad convinced me to go to art school instead, and I was exposed to enough of the underbelly of society to put me on a more fulfilling life path. But in our capitalist society, money has a way of feeding on the gullible. Like a log placed in a damp forest, the green moss infiltrated and overcame my dense exterior and I found a comfortable resting place for a good amount of time.

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“The only advice I have is that you do something connected to photography every day of your life and you’ll be surprised what happens.”

— Richard Avedon

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Images made the last few months of 2022, mostly in Chicago, mostly with my new pocket Ricoh GRiii X.

This [post] is for Allison. And Cooper. And Mom & Dad.

For images made in 2023 and beyond, be on the lookout for our next thrilling edition!

-Clayton