Month: July 2017

NEW YORK STATE OF MIND,
hustle hard, and stay on your grind.

Dear friend,

What are your bottlenecks in your photography — meaning, what prevents you from becoming the best photographer you can?

Practical ideas how to advance your photography:

1. Don’t be satisfied: when you think you got a good body of work, sit back, and appreciate it for a minute. Then, think to yourself, “How can I do better?”
2. Cross-pollination: Find inspiration for your photography outside of photography. Study dance, theater, classic films, cubism, bauhaus, and all fields of art. No limits.
3. Don’t blame your gear: Your camera isn’t holding you back. Rather having too many options is preventing you from innovating. True innovation in photography and art come from “creative constraints“, or having *fewer* options in terms of tools.
4. Study the masters of photography, then seek to kill them.

START HERE BOOKS / EXPERIENCE

INDIVISIBLE: The bonds that hold us together are invisible.

We are all one humankind,
So why don’t we treat others like ourselves, and be kind?

If you want to make a living (or a killing) from photography, download the new book PHOTOGRAPHY ENTREPRENEURSHIP MANUAL:

• Download PDF >
• Download .ePub >

I photograph to see what the world looks like photographed. – Garry Winogrand

For me, I often make photos, because I’m curious to see what the ‘real life’ scene will look like as a photo.

Buy WEARETHESTREET VOLUME I, fresh photos from Josh White, Sean Lotman, Chulsu Kim, Nicholas Dominic Talvola, Aik Beng Chia, and Junku Nishimura.

Learn more >

I don’t know about you, but my only fear in life is becoming immortal, but being bored to death.

I miss the old EK
when he used to only blog about street photography

Dear friend,

Never forget your life is limited. And there is no charger for life.

We know the feeling of being stuck in a rut. It fucking sucks.

BAUHAUS: Clean, minimalist design that inspired many modernists, including STEVE JOBS and ERIC KIM:

Dear friend,

What do you want out of life?

This is the trend I see: photographers want to differentiate themselves from the competition, by getting bigger cameras, bigger lenses, with more megapixels.

PHOTOGRAPHY ENTREPRENEURSHIP 101

Let me cut to the chase. If you want to start your own photography business, here are some ideas for you, based on what worked for me. Of course, this won’t work for you:

To continue PHOTOGRAPHY ENTREPRENEURSHIP 101, let’s talk about EXTREME ABUNDANCE in photography, and modern economics.

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EGO PHOTOGRAPHY: shoot freely, however you want it to be.

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A poem inspired by my upcoming KYOTO ZEN PHOTOGRAPHY EXPERIENCE

YOU ARE A STREET SAMURAI, and your camera is your sword.

HAPTIC INDUSTRIES: a win for you and me.

Dear friend,

Recently I’ve been thinking about personal growth, and studying a bit of ecology as a metaphor.

It seems today our most valuable asset is our thumbs. We use our things to swipe, pinch, and touch phone screens all day. What if we could use our thumbs for social good?

Men are over-represented in photography. Here are some great female photographers to know:

Some ideas for you to make more dynamic compositions:

A photo in Saigon, deconstructed, part of PHOTOGRAPHY COMPOSITION 101:

Ideas for you to have more fun in Street Photography, brought to you by STREET NOTES MOBILE EDITION by HAPTIC INDUSTRIES.

Dear friend,

To continue PHOTOGRAPHY ENTREPRENEURSHIP 101, here is some more photography and life advice that you should probably ignore from me: Go against the grain.

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I think one of the best technological innovations has been the “mute” button — the technology to disable sound and distractions.

Part of PHOTOGRAPHY ENTREPRENEURSHIP 101

Dear friend,

If you don’t want to make money with your photography, please don’t read this.

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Part of PHOTOGRAPHY ENTREPRENEURSHIP 101

I’m not 100% sure about the secret to success in photography, business, entrepreneurship, and life, but I know the secret to failure is timidness.

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Dear friend,

To continue PHOTOGRAPHY ENTREPRENEURSHIP 101, realize: there is no “blueprint” for success in photography.

However, I want to share some things that has helped me become “successful”. Of course this advice won’t help you, not apply to you.

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Dear friend,

To continue PHOTOGRAPHY ENTREPRENEURSHIP 101, let’s talk how you can build a following.

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Dear friend,

I was walking the streets of Hanoi today, with the question: “What is success? How would I define success? How do we know when we are ‘successful’? And is “success” a modern concept— and should we even have the word “success” in our vocabulary?

Okay friend,

To continue PHOTOGRAPHY ENTREPRENEURSHIP 101, realize that nowadays, everyone is a photographer. How do you stand out from the masses, and differentiate yourself in a meaningful way?

Dear friend,

To kick off STREET CLUB and STREET NOTES MOBILE EDITION, and VITRUVIAN CAMERA ARTWEAR, here is my gift to you: a new book on street photography. This time, more theoretical, yet practical. Less filler, more killer. And of course, the book is open-source.

Download PDF >

Dear friend,

In this chapter of STREET PHOTOGRAPHY MANUAL, let us talk about the theoretical framework of becoming a badass street photographer, aka, a STREET STOIC.

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Dear friend,

Let’s continue STREET PHOTOGRAPHY MANUAL, and talk about the importance of wandering, following your curiosity, and being a “Flaneur.”

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