But your missing the point. You can store parts of queries and reuse them, recombine them however you see fit:

  (def users (cql/table db :users))
  (def photos (cql/table db :photos))

  (def users-and-photos
     (cql/join users photos
               (cql/where (= :users.id :photos.user_id))))
  
  (def photo-titles
     (-> users-and-photos
         (cql/project #{:photos.title})))

Note that my queries just keep getting smaller and smaller ;) By writing the mundane portions of your SQL queries again and again by hand you will have more duplication.