My current photography and video/vlogging setup is the Panasonic Lumix G9 and Leica/Lumix 12mm f1.4 lens (24mm full frame equivalent), with the RODE Video Camera Microphone, and it rocks for both still photos and videos!
Lumix G9 with the new upcoming Pro Henri Wrist Strap.
See all new Eric Kim Photography YouTube Videos >
Simpler is better
Essentially I believe the simplest setup is the best. The purpose isn’t to maximize your video/audio quality; the purpose is to simplify the technical stuff, so you can focus what’s truly important:
Making great content which inspires, motivates, and empowers yourself and others!
In Praise of Intelligent Auto Mode in Panasonic
The Panasonic Lumix cameras has an “iA” (intelligent automatic) mode which rocks. I just plug the RODE video microphone into the Lumix G9, and hit record. It’s awesome, it’s so simple and the video quality is amazing, and it just works!
The future of photography is *BOTH* video and still photos
I think the future for photography is shooting both still photos and videos. In talking to my buddy Bil Brown (commercial and fashion photographer), he says his clients want both video and still photos. This is why Bil invested in a RED CAMERA, that does epic 5k video and still photos.
Start your own YouTube channel
Instagram is a bad platform for innovation and video. Start your own YouTube channel, and start uploading to it!
In a nutshell, once you’ve uploaded any video to your personal Google account into YouTube, you have a channel!
For more info, here’s the official instructions to start your own YouTube channel:
Create a personal channel
To get started with your personal YouTube account with your personal Google Account:
Follow these instructions to create a channel that only you can manage using your Google Account.
- Sign in to YouTube on a computer or using the mobile site.
- Try any action that requires a channel, such as uploading a video, posting a comment, or creating a playlist.
- If you don’t yet have a channel, you’ll see a prompt to create a channel.
- Check the details (with your Google Account name and photo) and confirm to create your new channel.
If you want to make a ‘pro’ YouTube channel, follow these instructions:
Use a different name on YouTube than your Google Account
If you want to use a name or photo on YouTube that’s different from what you have for your Google Account, connect your channel to a Brand Account. You can do this to support your business or brand identity on YouTube without showing a connection with your personal Google Account.
What should I upload?
If you’re new to YouTube, it’s easy. Just record a video on your phone, and upload directly to your youtube channel using the YouTube app on your phone.
On your phone, find the video file, then click “Share to YouTube”.
It’s seriously that easy.
What type of videos should I make?
Some ideas:
1. Vlog:
Just use the selfie mode on your phone and talk normally, like talking to a friend. Or use your digital camera with the swivel screen and talk normally.
2. Slideshow
Use iMovie on your MacBook or Apple device, and make a photography slideshow of your favorite photos and share it to your YouTube channel.
Another idea, download the “GoPro Quik” app (available for both Android and iPhone), and use it to make epic slideshow with fun music and transitions.
3. GoPro street photography POV
Get a GoPro and mount it on top of your camera, and shoot your own POV (point of view) videos!
Search for ‘GoPro hotshoe mount’ on Amazon, and buy one to get your setup going:
Just upload it!
The most important thing: just start! It doesn’t matter if you shoot 720p, 1080p, or 4k. Just record what is personally meaningful to you, what’s fun for you, and don’t take it too seriously!
Don’t be professional
I have the most “unprofessional” YouTube channel on the web, but somehow I got 50k subscribers from 2011-2018 on my channel.
There’s no rules to YouTube
YouTube is still the wild wild west. Upload as many or as few videos as you want.
Sometimes I’ll upload 10 videos in a day, sometimes I’ll go months without uploading anything.
I currently have 1,000+ videos in my YouTube channel, and no ideas on stopping.
Virtual reality is the future
Buy GoPro Fusion and get ready for the future of virtual reality! It’s the next big frontier, don’t get left behind.
Do it your way
Last advice: there’s no right or wrong way to make videos, cinema, film, or your YouTube channel. Just have fun with it, and figure it out as you go.
Experiment, fuck around, and make videos you would like to watch!
Just shoot it.
ERIC
Build Your Own Empire
To learn more, enroll in my “Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Photography Entrepreneurship” course on Udemy >
Never stop innovating: “Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Photography Entrepreneurship“.
How to Make a Living from Your Passion
- Do It Your Way
- How to Measure Your Progress as a Photography Entrepreneur + Come Up With New Ideas
- How to Make a Living From Your Passion in Photography
Put a Dent in the Universe.
- Fear Disguised as Reason
- Distraction is the Enemy
- Innovate for the Sake of Innovating!
- Reality is Malleable!
- Stoic Entrepreneurship
- Against Self-Preservation
- The Purpose of Life is to Make New Stuff!
How to Succeed as an Entrepreneur
- You Have No Limits.
- Calculated Risk-Taking
- Invest in Yourself
- The Secret of Happiness: Shoot for the Moon!
- Moonshot Thinking
- Why We Should all Be Photography Entrepreneurs
- Memento Mori Entrepreneurship
- Why it is Better to Beg For Forgiveness than Ask For Permission
- How to Become a Digital Nomad
- Why You Must Own Your Own Platform
- First Principle Thinking for Photography Entrepreneurs
- How I Became a Digital Nomad
- Better to Beg For Forgiveness than Ask For Permission!
- Spurn Pleasing Others!
- Create Your Own Niche
- How to Gain More Exposure For Your Photography
- Intense Focus
- How to Conquer Your Fears as an Entrepreneur
- Define Yourself
- Let Dissatisfaction Drive You Forward!
- It Doesn’t Matter if Someone Else Has Done it Before!
- How to Succeed as a Photography Entrepreneur: Be Extremely Resourceful
- Open Source Business Model in Photography Entrepreneurship
- Entrepreneurship 101: Growth and Innovation Over Self-Preservation
- How to Create Value as a Photography Entrepreneur
- Why Become a Photography Entrepreneur?
- Why You Must Ignore Nay-Sayers to Succeed in Entrepreneurship, Business, and Life
The Modern Photographer: Tips, Strategies, and Tactics to Thrive as a Visual Artist in the Digital Age
Marketing, Branding, Entrepreneurship Principles For Success
MODERN PHOTOGRAPHER is your new philosophical and practical primer to succeed as a modern photographer in today’s digital world.
Business Mental Models

- How to Succeed as a Photography Entrepreneur: Be Extremely Resourceful
- Open Source Business Model in Photography Entrepreneurship
- Entrepreneurship 101: Growth and Innovation Over Self-Preservation
How to Monetize Your Photography
- Photography Entrepreneurship 101: INFLUENCE
- Should I Monetize My Passion for Photography?
- 10 Practical Photography Monetization Strategies: Pricing, Google SEO, & Entrepreneurship
- How to Make Money From Street Photography
Why Become a Photography Entrepreneur?
Take control of your own photographic destiny:
THE MODERN PHOTOGRAPHER
- CREATIVE CAPITALISM
- How to Monetize Your Photography
- 5 Practical Photography Career Tips and Advice
- 10x Thinking
- How to Hustle as a Photographer
- How to Become Your Own Master Marketer
- The ‘T’ Technique of Success
- Go Ahead and Sell Out
- What is Your Unique Voice?
- Why You Must Self-Promote Yourself
- What is Your Unique Angle as a Photographer?
- Photography Content Marketing 101
- Why You Must Become Your Own Publisher
- The Art of Cross-Pollination in Photography
Photography Entrepreneurship Articles
- Why You Shouldn’t Trust Your Pictures to Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Flickr
- How to Make Money From Your Photography
- Photography SEO and Blogging: How to Become Number One on Google
- Intrinsic vs Extrinsic Motivation
- Now is the Best Time to Be a Photographer
- PRODUCERISM
- What Is The Value of a Picture?
- Your Photographic Labor is Not Free
PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOPS 101
- Chapter 1. How to Make a Photography Blog
- Chapter 2. How to Price Yourself
- Chapter 3. How to Find Your Market
- Chapter 4. Why Teach Workshops?
- Chapter 5. How to Build Trust
- Chapter 6. How to Market Yourself
- Chapter 7: Why Should Someone Attend Your Workshop?
KEYS TO SUCCESS
- Why You Must Be a “Personality” in Order to Succeed
- THRIVE OR DIE.
- Impatience is a Virtue
- Create Your Own Category
- HOW TO DREAM BIG.
- Will Not or Cannot?
- Why Not?
- How to Think BIG
- How to Stay Ahead of the Curve
- How to Invest in Yourself
- The Two Camera Rule
- MEANINGFUL DIFFERENTIATION
- Advice For College Students
- How to Thrive in Uncertain Times
- CANNIBALIZE YOURSELF.
- DO AND GROW RICH
- Does Fear of Punishment Hold You Back?
- HOW TO GET MORE FOLLOWERS
- How to Innovate
- How to Build Your Own Empire
- YOU ARE ENTITLED TO HARD WORK.
- PICK YOURSELF.
- OWN YOUR PLATFORM
- 10 KEYS TO SUCCESS
Table of Contents
Learn how to make a living from your passion:
- Preface. BRAVE NEW WORLD OF PHOTOGRAPHY
- Chapter 1. How to Create Value
- Chapter 2. ZEN CAPITALISM
- Chapter 3. Scarcity
- Chapter 4. How to Brand Yourself
- Chapter 5. How to Build a True Following
- Chapter 6. The Blueprint to Success in Photography
- Chapter 7. HOW TO BE BOLD
- Chapter 8. How to Sell Out
- Chapter 9. GO AGAINST THE GRAIN
- Chapter 10. EXTREME ABUNDANCE
- Chapter 11. Photography Experience Economy
- Chapter 12. Why You Should Make Money for Your Photography
- Chapter 13. How to Become a Famous Photographer
Photography Business 101
How to Make Money with Photography

- How to Charge More Money in Your Photography
- Why You Should Not Pursue Photography as Career
- Can Photography Make You Rich?
- How I Earn $200,000+ a Year From Photography
- How to earn $10,000 a month as a photographer
- Why you must be an expensive photographer
Photography Marketing 101
- Why Have More Followers?
- Why You Should Do Photography Work For Free
- How I Became an Internet Famous Photographer
- Photography Blogging Ideas
- Why You Should Promote Your Own Name
- How to Build a Following
- How to Stand Out as a Photographer.
- HOW TO GO VIRAL AS A PHOTOGRAPHER.
- How to Master Marketing
- How to Sell Yourself

How to Hustle.
- Entrepreneurial Advice to My 18 Year Old Self
- How to Become Insanely Productive.
- 5 Lessons From Hesiod on Hustling
Entrepreneurial Principles
- It is Better to Beg For Forgiveness Than Ask For Permission
- The Free Way to Become Rich
- JUST DO IT.
- 7 Steps: How to Make a Living From Your Passion
- How to Do What You Love for a Living
- How to Create an MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
- How to Fail Big
- How to Invest in Yourself
- How to Be Bold in Photography and Life
- Mission: Cover Your Rent and Food
- 1,000 True Fans
- The “10x Principle”: The Only Difference Between “Success” and “Failure”
- Make More Value Not Money
- We Live in a Photo Utopia
How to be a Full-time Photographer
- How to Make a Living From Photography
- The 3 Principles of Making Money With Photography
- Advice for Aspiring Full-Time Photographers
- Don’t Go Into Debt For Your Photography
- How to Brand Yourself as a Photographer
- Trust: The Most Important Thing You Need to Succeed as a Photographer
Photography Blogging
- How to become rich from photography blogging
- How to Make a Living with Blogging
- 50 Blogging Tips For Beginners
- How to Start Your Own Photography Blog
- A Photographer’s Guide to SEO, Blogging, and Social Media
How to Teach Photography
- How to Become a Photography Teacher
- How to Teach a Street Photography Class
- Why I Teach Street Photography Workshops
Social Media
- Why I Deleted My Instagram
- The Social Media Blackbook for Photographers
- Why Do You Need More Likes or Followers?
- Instagram is Going to Be the Next Facebook
- Don’t Trust “Free” Photography Social Networks