ERIC KIM

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Archives for December 2011

My Thoughts On Objectivity vs Subjectivity: What Makes a Great Street Photograph by Trevor Marczylo

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(Above image by Trevor Marczylo)

Eric’s Note: I am pleased to announce Trevor Marczylo, a street photographer eating, living, and surviving in Winnipeg, Manitoba as a new weekly contributor to the blog! He is a full-time photographer, making a living selling prints that he takes on a daily basis. Make sure to check out his last feature on my blog with his photos here. Also keep posted for his Friday features! 

I think a “subjective street photograph” contains the attitude of photographer.

The pure photographic image without thinking of any composition but only capturing the moment of a situation with limited time to only think or react and relay on his/her trained eye and how they view/see through their own camera in a moment.

That being said… It all comes down to the street photograph and how that photograph was taken. I’ll try my best to explain myself and using a few of my photos in this article.

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Enroll in “All the World’s a Stage: Introduction to Street Photography” an Online Street Photography Course via UC Riverside Extension!

I am excited to announce I will be teaching my first university-level course on street photography at the UC Riverside Extension program! The course will be an online/offline hybrid class- with the majority of the coursework being online, with street photography outings, exhibition outings, as well as a final student exhibition in-person.

The course is open to 20 students, and you can find out more information about the course (or register) here.

Course #: 113−CPE−E17  (Starting Jan 16th, 2012)

Instructor: Eric Kim
Schedule: Jan. 16 – Mar. 23 (Two field trips to be arranged.)
Preregistration: Requested by January 13th
Location: Online
Textbook: “Looking at Photographs: 100 Pictures from the Collection of The Museum of Modern Art,” John Szarkowski ISBN: 0870705156 Buy Online
Credit: 3 units
Fees: $375

Course Description

Have you ever seen somebody on the streets and had the irresistible urge to take a photo of them? Whether it was their face, the shadow they cast, or the background they were standing in front of. In this introductory course, you learn how to: capture the beauty in the mundane of everyday life and “decisive moments,” shoot candid photos of strangers up-close and personal, study street photography in a sociological context, use the camera to explore society.

Develop your eye for street photography by studying the masters such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, Garry Winogrand, and others. The class is a hybrid of an online and offline course. Utilize online tools to study the work of the masters and create an online community where you critique & comment on one another’s images.

The offline aspect will go on field trips to photography museums/galleries, to go out and shoot with one another, and have a final exhibition of all the student work.

Sign up before it’s too late–and let me know if you have any questions by leaving a comment below!  

Medium Format Environmental Street Portraits by Ade Ogunsanya (Street Portraitist) from Tokyo

Ade Ogunsanya
Eric’s Note: When I visited Tokyo recently to teach my street photography workshop, I had the great pleasure of meeting Ade Ogunsanya aka 

Street Portraitist through my good friends Charlie Kirk and Bellamy Hunt. Check out his project — shooting portraits of strangers on the streets of Tokyo, focusing both on the people and juxtaposing them against their environments. Definitely a great project to check out! 
The aim of this project is to connect with new people, find out a bit about them and try to take a nice picture of them in the short time I spend with them. Quite a few of the people I take photos of end up contacting me after and we end up becoming friends on social media and I have given prints to a few others. All of these images are taken using a Pentax67 medium format camera with 105mm or 165mm lenses. The main motivation for shooting MF is the extra care you have to take knowing you need to nail every shot.

Smaller Is Better: Why You Should Use a Compact Camera for Street Photography

Ricoh-GR1s

Eric’s Note: This is article is part of an on-going weekly column by Japancamerahunter (Bellamy Hunt) where he talks about vintage cameras, film, and street photography. You can check out his part articles here or if you need to get hooked up with a lens or camera, contact him here! 

Well well, good old Uncle Eric has asked me to write another article for you. This time on the joys of shooting street with a compact camera. Eric and many of us spend a lot of time shooting with rangefinders and DSLR’s, but I think it important for people to realize that there are other ways to shoot street. The compact camera is one of these ways (medium format is another, but that is a whole different barrel of fish and something I may talk about another time).
So, why shoot a compact camera for street? Well, there are several reasons, but let me start with the most obvious…

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10 Things Not To Do As a Street Photographer

(Above image “Untitled” by Christos Kapatos)

I just finished reading “The Black Swan” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, where he discusses many misconceptions and fallacies that we face as humans. He talks from a scientific-philosophical viewpoint, and has many fascinating insights.

One of them was about knowledge—and that it isn’t necessarily additive—rather something subtractive. For example, a good stock-broker won’t tell you what to do, but rather what not to do.

Therefore for this blog post I will share some of my insights and experiences in street photography in terms of what not to do. Hopefully this will help you get more compelling images when out on the streets!

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Singapore Street Photography Workshop Snapshots

 

(Group photo at the Leica Singapore Store)

Never have been to Singapore, but had a great time! Not only was I able to teach a street photography workshop with the famous Danny Santos as my guest speaker, but was also able to check out the IPA gallery and meet Kevin WY Lee, and a bunch of other guys there! Huge thanks to Leica in Singapore for sponsoring the event and giving everyone a fantastic time on the last night!

Planning on going back to Singapore Jan 14th-15th for an Advanced workshop. Hope to see all of you guys there soon! :)

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Kota Kinabalu Street Photography Workshop Snapshots

Kota Kinabalu Street Photography Workshop

 (My students absolutely adore me!)

Most of you guys have no idea where Kota Kinabalu is, but it is an absolutely charming city on the coast of Malaysia. I had a ton of fun with the guys here, and it was somewhere very unique and interesting to shoot street photography. One of the highlights was shooting near the pier, where the fisherman let us jump onto their boats (not for the faint of heart!). Hope to see all my buddies in KK soon :)

Huge thanks again to Ryan Ong, my good friend and host during the workshop. We did the workshop in his studio, so if you are in KK and need anything shot, hit him up!

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Have An Escape, Not An Exit From Street Photography

Joel Meyerowitz

(Above image copyrighted by Joel Meyerowitz)

Eric’s Note: This article is by Ollie Gapper, a street photographer based in the UK- and now a weekly contributor to the blog. Stay tuned for more of his “Ollie Gapper Thursday” posts!  

With any genre of photography its easy to become saturated in your work and the work of others around you. In street photography, regardless of the numerous variations in individual photographers approaches and the wealth of locations and types of people we are granted visual access to, we still, slowly, become numb to the photographic impacts that once enthralled us. This is why I, for one, enjoy periodically dabbling in different genres of photography, whether it is shooting or viewing, to allow my mind to refresh and recharge from the relentless practice that is street photography.

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10 Traits of Steve Jobs That Can Make You a Better Photographer

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(Above image copyrighted by Albert Watson)

I just finished the behemoth of a biography on Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson and I gotta say—I am deeply moved. The biography was not only brutally honest, but gave inspirational insights into the thoughts and motivations behind Steve Jobs and Apple.

Although controversial, he made some of the most revolutionary products this generation (the Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, etc) and had the vigor, discipline, and drive to do it.

Whenever I read books, it always helps me inspire in both my personal life and even more—my own photography. Although Steve Jobs was not a photographer (he actually dabbled in the idea of getting Apple more into photography) his vision, drive, and passion are all things we can learn from. For this article I will outline 10 traits of Steve Jobs which I feel could make you a better street photographer.

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Why You Should Print Your Photos

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RA-4 processed prints from 4x5 Portra negatives.

Eric’s Note: This article is by Ollie Gapper, a street photographer based in the UK- and now a weekly contributor to the blog. Stay tuned for more of his “Ollie Gapper Thursday” posts!  

Over the past few months it’s fair to say I’ve spent a lot of time and money on printing. Though it wasn’t entirely through choice, it’s an element of my university course I absolutely would not change. It’s enlightened me, allowed me to look at my work in a totally different way. Being able to hold an image, move it around in the light, hold it close to my face and scrutinise every inch of it, it feels like its making me a better photographer. Seriously.

I’ve learnt a lot in terms of traditional, darkroom printing, both colour and black and white, and in doing so, I’ve learnt a lot about my film and my photographs.

Ive also been reading through the Ansel Adams technical guide books (The Camera, The Negative and The Print) which has taught me to reverse this method of only ever printing for your negative, it instead teaches you to expose your negative for your print. I shant go into the specifics of the Zone System or anything, as thats not what I want to say in this article.

What I want to say is simple: Print your images.

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Buy Books, Not Gear

Buy books not gear

You can check out a list of street photography books I recommend here: Inspirational Street Photography Books You Gotta Own

Introduction:

I was at Charlie Kirk’s apartment in Tokyo, when he turned me onto a book he recently bought and was moved by, which was a book by Alec Soth—a Magnum photographer. It a lovely book, with a yellow cover and several of his photo projects inside, including excerpts from his blog which discussed the role of gear.

He said he constantly got questions about his gear for his projects, and then made the remark that he didn’t mind the question that much—considering that most photographers are nerds/geeks anyways. Therefore he listed a long list of his equipment (mostly large-format stuff) and how he processed his film—specifically for each project he did. He then ended the post mentioning that he wrote the post specifically with an Apple iBook. Funny and snarky way to end the post.

In this blog post my thesis is that we should quit wasting money on gear (lenses, bodies, etc) and more money on photo-books. I feel that the best way to improve your vision as a street photographer is to look at great photography (which is nearly impossible online) and readily found in photo-books. If you are curious about why, please continue reading! (as this post is damn long).

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Introducing Ollie Gapper as a Weekly Contributor to the Blog!

My casual self in NYC

After seeing Eric becoming ever more inundated with his workshop work, videos, Leica work and all the associated travel I decided to get in touch and say “Hey, how about I help out on a more regular basis?”. The result of the following email conversation? OG Thursdays. (My middle name is Mathew (with one ‘T’) but I thought “OMG Thursdays” may have been easily confused with one of the millions of Perez Hilton-style gossip blogs).

What is this all about?

Ill be submitting guest posts every Thursday on a plethora of subjects relating to lifestyle, documentary and of course street photography that I think you guys will enjoy reading. Photographers I have met, people I think you should know, projects I’m working on, experiences I’ve had, equipment I’ve used, you name it and I’ll endeavour to cover it one way or another.

I’m studying a BA (Bachelors) in Contemporary Photographic Practice at the University for the Creative Arts in South East Kent, UK, which – along with supplying me with vast spectrums of  information, inspiration and experience – also gives me access to lots and lots of rather lovely gear! A vague list for your delectation:

  • Mamiya RZ67 Pro ii (Just about every lens for it too)
  • Mamiya 7 ii + 80mm
  • Fuji GW690
  • Fuji GSW690
  • Bronica SQ-B (Again, just about every lens)
  • Canon 5D MKii (24 1.4, 35 1.4, 24-105, 50 1.4, 100 2.8, 70-200 2.8)
  • Nikon FM2
  • Wista 5×4 (and an incomprehensible number of lenses)
  • Horseman 5×4 (same as above)
  • Bron Color light packs, Pocket Wizards, etc

The idea is that you guys put in a request for the gear you want to see reviewed (Ill let Eric handle the Leica stuff..for now) and I’ll get the gear, buy some film and I’ll write up as comprehensive a review as I can.

Im happy to answer any questions regarding my past work or current projects, take a look at www.olliegapperphotography.com www.flickr.com/photos/olliegapper and olliegapper.tumblr.com.

Comment below for what gear you’d like to see reviewed or any topics you’d like to see me review/cover.

Contact Me (please!)

Email me: olliegapper@me.com

Tweet me: @olliegapper

My work

Check out my work on a feature on Eric’s Blog here: “My Life and Story about Street Photography” by Ollie Gapper

Shooting a Film Leica M6 vs Digital Leica M9 in Tokyo

My good friend Todd Hatakeyama (and sponsor over at SimpleStudioLighting.com) and owner of the Hatakeyama Gallery (grand opening in Downtown LA this Saturday from 5pm-10pm) recently gave me a his old Leica M6 to shoot with and have. It has been great shooting with it–as it helps me slow down and be more critical when shooting (compared to my Leica M9). I can’t quite describe it, but I feel much more zen when shooting analog vs digital–as I don’t worry so much about the final image but focus on the process of shooting.

Also if you want to pick up a film case from Bellamy Hunt or find a sweet analog camera from Japan, check him out at JapanCameraHunter.com.

Emerging Street Photographer: Mattias Hyde from Madrid

Mattias Hyde

Eric’s Note: Mattias Hyde is an emerging street photographer from Madrid who has only been shooting street photography for 6 months, and has shown a great deal of physical and emotional closeness in his images. Read more of his words below!

I started street photography a few months ago, when I returned to Madrid after a year of cycling and backpacking in several countries.

Since the beginning, I’ve been obsessed with the actual process of photographing, rather than with results. I know that I won’t do anything really interesting until I’ve been on the trade for a couple of years at least, so I’m not focusing on the final image, or expecting to get any great shots either. I’m strictly working on feeling comfortable taking the camera with me on my daily walks around the city centre and neighbourhood.

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