Archives for September 2010

How to Quit Making Excuses and Travel (before you die)

sacred light — "Sacred Light" - St. Peter's Basilica, The Vatican.

Whenever I ask people want to do before they die, it always seems that traveling is on top of their list. Yet, so few people travel—why? Sure there are the default answers, “It is too expensive”, “I have no time”, “Isn’t it dangerous?”, “I have ‘responsibilities’ that I have to take care of” and the list goes on. However when it comes down to it, all of these statements are truly nothing but excuses.

For the longest time I have always wanted to go backpacking in Europe. However I faced the problem that many other people faced, regarding money, time, confusion, etc. All I knew was that it was a burning passion and aspiration of mine, and that no matter what—I wanted to go.

I can fortunately say that the last summer I was finally able to make that dream come true and I backpacked through Europe for 30 days. I started off in Paris, flew to Rome, took a train to Florence, took another train to Cinque Terre, continued to Venice, and then Prague, and finally flew out to London where I spent the rest of my time. How was my trip you ask? It was the trip of a lifetime. Words cannot express the breath-taking sights I had, the cordial people I met, the aroma of the wine I had, the taste of the local cuisine, the awe-inspiring architecture, and oh yeah—the copious amount of photo-opportunities.

Now let’s get back to the issue of “practicality.” I’m sure all of you are thinking, “I would love to go travel to _______” but I don’t have the money for it. Honestly, I believe that to be nothing more than an excuse for most people.

Are you a student in college?—you truly have no excuse. You have the best time of your life to travel, when you have nothing truly “tying you down.” There are tons of study-abroad opportunities, and you still have summer breaks! Can’t afford it? Take out a loan—(that’s what I did). Sure you probably have no to little money right now, but what you don’t have in money—you have time.

Do you have a full-time job? Take a vacation and even travel for a week. Most jobs in the United States give you at least two weeks of vacation time a year. Don’t get any vacation time? Well you should probably quit the job you have right now and get a new one. Don’t have any money and a load of debt to pay off? Stop spending your money on things that you don’t need (cars, clothes, eating out, etc) and invest that money into saving for a trip. You probably have a half-million things lying around that you could probably sell on eBay or Craigslist as well.

Are you married and have kids? Take them with you! The last thing that you want to do is use your kids as an excuse. They will have the time of their life as well.

If you died tomorrow, would you have any regrets on not traveling? Where have you always wanted to go, but always made excuses why NOT to go instead of making excuses WHY to go. Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Korea, Tokyo, Hong-Kong, Africa, the Middle-East, Paris, or India? Or can you see yourself on your death bed, regretting not going because of

Considering that people always make reasons why NOT to go traveling, I will make some reasons WHY you should go traveling:

What Goes on in My Mind When I Shoot in the Streets

What should I take a Photo of Penguin 5D — What goes on in my head when I am doing street photography. (Yes, that is a penguin version of me with a Canon 5D)

Stumped for ideas, I recently I asked to the members of my Facebook Fan page what I should blog about next. These are the responses that I received that inspired me to write this post:

- Eric Houng: “What prompts you to snap a picture of someone? is it cuz you see a story about that person? stuff like that :] (inspiration… that’s the word i was looking for hahah)”
- Mithun Kumar: “Do we apply brains or just go with the instincts when photographing on Streets?”
- Yvette Murphy: “Related to above requests– how much of it is planned, i.e. you see the possibility of a shot ahead of time and wait for it to happen and, simply, spontaneous, i.e. the right place at the right time. For example, I had seen the possibility of a great shot, I waited for the right time…and perhaps I lost patience, but it never happened.”
- Rick Heath: “What does one need to do in terms of mindset on the street….I would love to do this but do not want to be threatening. How do you be forward in a nice way. Does this make sense? In other words, what does your mindset need to be…..frame of mind, etc.”

Therefore I will try my best to explain my “workflow” of my thoughts when shooting in the streets. The scenario I will explain my thought process when I went to shoot on the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica (during my lunch break yesterday). I tried my best to record and write out my thoughts as candid as possible.

(UPDATE: I’m going!) Help Me Achieve My Dream of Leading a Street Photography Workshop in Beirut, Lebanon!

UPDATE 9/30/10! Thanks to your kindness and generosity, I have raised enough money to finance my plane trip to Beirut, Lebanon! Huge thanks to everybody who contributed, especially to Thomas Leuthard who paid for a large percentage and will be presenting at my street photography workshop as well! I will keep you guys informed with more updates soon :)

Peace and love,

Eric

—

Hey friends and photo buddies,

After my “101 Things I Have Learned About Street Photography” post went viral, a project coordinator of this art group named Spearminds in Beirut, Lebanon contacted me, asking if I was interested in leading a street photography workshop there. More info here.

The email I received from the Project Coordinator:

Of course you guys could all image how excited and giddy I was hearing this news. For the last few months, I have been dedicating so much of my time and energy in spreading the love of street photography for the rest of the world. I cannot say how grateful I am for YOUR support (and the rest of the community) in contributing your thoughts, spurring interaction with other individuals, as well as spreading the word. This blog and my photography has grown faster (and bigger) than I could have ever imagined possible in my life.

Excited about this opportunity, I went to Kayak and I discovered that a round-trip ticket to Beirut is ~$800. As a recent college student heavily in debt, this trip is not exactly within my budget. This is where I ask for help of you, my friends and the photography community to help achieve my dream of traveling to Beirut, Lebanon. Not only could I lead a street photography workshop that can inform and inspire the lives of others living somewhere halfway across the world, but I can also capture some amazing photographs there as well.

Cheapest flight on Priceline:

Round-Trip Ticket to Beirut, Lebanon (via Priceline)

Not many of you know, but in my free time I have also been teaching a photography class at a continuation school in Los Angeles named Phoenix High School. The 25 students in my class are mostly from low socio-economic backgrounds, and have never had the opportunity to take any photography workshop. You should see their faces when I teach them the fundamentals of photography, and even take them on “photo outings” where they go out and take photos for themselves! You can see more information on a site I set up for them here. You can see how serious I am about teaching photography, and the true love of it I have.

So please help support my dream and make a donation today via Paypal! You are free to donate however much you want (Suggested Donation of $5 or more). Also, I have also recently opened a store for prints, and you can support me by purchasing some of my prints as well.

Thank you for the love and support! Please spread the word via Facebook, Twitter, and your blog! I will be forever grateful — and I will bring back some amazing photos too! :) If you do not have any money to contribute, please join my Facebook Group and invite your friends to join and help out!

<3 Eric

(Suggested Donation: $5 or more)

Eric Kim’s FREE Street Photography Lightroom 3 Presets

In holding to my mantra of open source photography, I have decided to give away all of my presets that I use in my street photography for Lightroom 3 for FREE. Feel free to share these presets with anybody/everybody you know.

>>Download (zip)

The Ultimate Aspiring Street Photographer Resource Post

This post was originally posted here by Neal Bingham, but I thought I’d repost it here to share it with the rest of you guys. A great resource for any aspiring street photographer. Please pass it on! Also follow Neal on Twitter!

—

I thought it would be useful to create a topic where people can share links to resources – whether that’s tips for beginners on how to get started, interesting articles found elsewhere on the web, or just amazing examples of street photography to give us all a bit of inspiration.

For starters:

Websites:

In-Public – collective of modern street photographers:
www.in-public.com/

Photographer Not a Terrorist – a movement dedicated to defending the right to photograph in public – find out more about your rights here (UK only)
photographernotaterrorist.org/

Magnum Photos – legendary photo agency founded in 1947 by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa and others:
www.magnumphotos.com/

Articles:

Michael David Murphy’s invaluable ‘Ways of working’ guide:
2point8.whileseated.org/wow-footer/

A view from photographer Nick Turpin on the relationships between street photography, fine art photography and photojournalism:
www.sevensevennine.com/?p=429

Opinion and discussion: 99% of street photography is crap:
blakeandrews.blogspot.com/2009/09/streetwise.html

Street photography for the purist – free ebook by photographer Chris Weeks:
www.e-booksdirectory.com/details.php?ebook=270

Videos:

NYC street shooter Joe Wigfall in action, demonstrating how he ‘sees with his hands’ to capture candid moments without interfering with the scene:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-IOEAlBpSo

Documenting the Human Condition – documentary discussing street photography and the rangefinder camera:
Part 1: vimeo.com/6497905
Part 2: vimeo.com/6502390
Part 3: vimeo.com/6504591

Please feel free to share any other relevant or useful links below!

How to Shoot from the Hip

hipshooter_mock_screen — Via http://www.fortysixtyphoto.com/shop/

In street photography, one of the popular techniques that photographers employ is “shooting from the hip.” To sum it up, “shooting from the hip” it is holding your camera at wait-level, and shooting upwards without looking through the viewfinder. One of the reasons why this technique is widely popular is because it allows you to take much more candid images of people, as they do not see you shooting them with your eye through your viewfinder, and assume you aren’t taking images. Another thing is that when shooting from the hip, you often get a much more interesting perspective as you shoot from a much lower perspective.

Although there are some individuals who are opposed to shooting from the hip and consider it as the “easy way out,” simply disregard their words. As you will soon find out, framing while shooting from the hip is very difficult when starting off. For every 100 shots you take shooting from the hip, you will probably only get 5-10 or so “decently” framed images.

Although I do not use shooting from the hip as my primary type of street photography, I will try my best to walk you through how you can effectively shoot from the hip and get amazing candid images of people.

The Death of Street Photography (and what you can do to stop it)

Lately on the web, there has been a ton of buzz about the phobia that people are having about street photographers. We have been called creepers, pedophiles, and even in some cases, terrorists (as the TSA would like the public to think). Is all this anti-photographer sentiment leading to the death of street photography as we know it?

TSA Poster Street Photographer Illegal — I don't wear hoodies when doing photography in public.

Join “Aspiring Street Photographers” on Flickr!

Hey fotog friends,

I recently created a Flickr page dedicated to all of your awesome street photography titled: “Aspiring Street Photographers.” Feel free to join and contribute your images (as well as inviting your friends to join as well!) I hope to build a well-knit community of street photographers of all skill-levels to share their photographic insight with one another, while giving constructive criticism and feedback on images. Please join and hope to see you there soon :)

101 Things I Have Learned about Street Photography

In lieu of the popularity of my last post about the “100 Things I Have Learned about Photography,” I decided to make a new list that pertains to street photography specifically. Also if you don’t know, I am currently writing a book titled: “Street Photography 101,” and the excerpts are being posted here. This new list is a homage to the Street Photography 101 book that I am writing.

Note that there is some overlap of some of these points with the previous list that I wrote, but I thought it may be essential for new-readers to note. Also, feel free to critique, comment, and share this list with anybody you want. I would love to hear your feedback.

KOREA GOT SEOUL – Black and White Street Photography from Korea

Hey fotog friends,

Hope you guys all had a wonderful Labor-Day weekend! I just got back from the Bay Area (my hometown) after hanging out and visiting friends and family I haven’t seen for quite a while. Was planning on doing some street photography in San Francisco, but catching a cold over the weekend prevented me from doing so.

Anyways, before I left on Saturday to the Bay, I had enough time between Thursday and Friday to work on this slideshow of my street photography from Korea last summer. What the hell was I doing in Korea you ask? Well, I decided to visit Seoul, Korea for about two months in order to meet up with some long-lost family and friends, tutor English to some kids (while making some $$$ along the way), and of course, photography.