Memento Mori ARTWEAR by HAPTICLABS

You Are Not Your Pictures; Your Pictures Are Not You.

Memento Mori ARTWEAR by HAPTICLABS
Memento Mori ARTWEAR by HAPTICLABS

Dear friend,

Remember, “You are not your pictures; your pictures are not you.”

1. Disconnect your ego from your photos

Scary ERIC KIM. Shot by a 3 year old kid named Danny. Saigon, 2017
Scary ERIC KIM. Shot by a 3 year old kid named Danny. Saigon, 2017

What this means is this:

You are not your pictures.

If someone doesn’t like your pictures, it doesn’t mean they don’t like you.

Also, if someone doesn’t like your pictures, it doesn’t mean that you are a bar person.

You can be a “bad photographer” but a really good person.

2. Pictures of you are merely a visual representation of you

Danny and teeth. Saigon, 2017
Danny and teeth. Saigon, 2017

Your pictures are not you.

This means, you can look differently “in real life”, when compared to pictures of you.

For example, if someone shot a fisheye, super wide-angle lens photo of you, that obviously won’t look like you in real life. Or if someone shot a super low angle photo of you, with a wide-angle lens, it would distort your face.

You can have “unflattering” pictures of you. But you obviously look better in real life, than the picture of you.

Selfie kiss. Saigon, 2017
Selfie kiss. Saigon, 2017

Conversely, anyone with a Tinder account knows that we use MORE FLATTERING pictures of us, when trying to secure a date. Sociologists call this “impression management”— we try to control the impressions others will have of us, one superficial one being: trying to control the pictures of us which exist online, and in our profiles.

Practical takeaways:

  1. Don’t care if people take “unflattering” photos of you. Obviously you look better in real life. Don’t out-source your self ego to your selfie pictures, and don’t care whether you look “good” in pictures or not.
  2. In real life, wear clothes and style yourself according to your own taste. Disregard trends. Make your own style trend.
  3. Don’t crowdsource your self-esteem on Instagram or Facebook or any social network. The number of likes you get on a picture (either shot by you, or a picture of you) doesn’t value its worth. Rather, the social media algorithms determine how many of your friends and followers will see your post, so the “like” number is quite arbitrary and random.
  4. Don’t take your photography personally: Someone can say your photos suck, or not like your photos… yet still like you as a human being. My tip:Disconnect your ego from your pictures by calling them “the” pictures rather than “my” pictures.

Ultimately, you are your own judge and arbiter of your self-image, and of your artistic pictures.

Cindy.

Now ignore the haters, wave goodbye to them and say, “See you later!”

Hands. New Orleans. I wish I were confident like him.
Hands. New Orleans.

Smile and make more pictures! And always HONOR THY SELFIE.

Share your best pictures on ERIC KIM FORUM.

MEMENTO MORI by HAPTICLABS
ERIC KIM w/ MEMENTO MORI ARTWEAR by HAPTICLABS

BE STRONG,
ERIC

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