ERIC KIM

Autotelic Photography

This is a super basic idea, but I think an important one:

Do you enjoy looking at your own photos?

Moreover:

Would you pursue photography as an art-creation form, even if you couldn’t share your photos with others?

Why I think this line of thinking is important

  1. A simple goal in photography is to never stop making photos. If your motivation to continuously make new photos comes from the dopamine hits you get from likes on social media, then ultimately you’re making photos to impress others. This is bad when the focus is to impress others, instead of impressing yourself.
  2. Sometimes you make a photo that you love, but nobody else really cares for. Then let’s say you share these photos, and nobody ‘likes’ them on social media. You feel kind of depressed, and then you lose motivation to make new photos. And anything that prevents us from making new photos is bad.
  3. If we enjoy all parts of the photographic process (for ourselves), we will never run out of motivation.

What does ‘auto-telic’ mean?

Simply put, the word ‘autotelic’ means to do something for self-motivated reasons (self-motivation for your own self-purposes).

In basic terms:

Autotelic photography is a pursuit of art-making which strives to give you maximum enjoyment in all parts of the process.

Furthermore, your happiness in photography is not dependent on others; you can manufacture your own happiness independently — shooting photos for yourself, by yourself, and to please yourself!

finger

Of course you still share your photos, but before you share your photos, strive to maximize your own self-pleasure from your photos, THEN share them!

Practical tips

  1. Strive to make the photographic process as streamlined, simple, and easy/fun as possible! For example, only shoot JPEG, upload photos directly to your own website/blog, and experiment shooting with simpler cameras (RICOH GR II) or just shoot with your phone.
  2. Look at your own photos on an iPad, and enjoy looking at your own photos! Look at your photos at full-screen, enjoy them, and zoom in to enjoy the details.
  3. Use photograph both as an art-creating tool and a memory-recollection tool. Your photography is your art-work, but also as a way to spur lovely memories from the past with your loved ones!

Trive on!

ERIC