Month: July 2019

I just gave a talk at Google on the topic of becoming ‘Creative Everyday’ [pdf download link to Slides], and wanted to change the definition of “creativity” from the notion of “artistic innovation” to the propensity to create lots of things.

Therefore as a photographer, you are more ‘creative’ if you create more (new) photos!

Some ideas:

As a photographer, make fun compositions for the sake of it!

With muscles to make your muscles bigger/stronger, they call it ‘hypertrophy‘:

Ancient Greek ὑπέρ (hupér, “over, excessive”) + τροφή (trophḗ, “nourishment”).

• Hyper (over, excessive) = hupeir (beyond)
• trophe: nourishment, food.

Applied to photography and art–

How do we become bigger/stronger/more as artists?

A thought:

There is no ultimate ‘truth’.

Furthermore, to strive to search for ‘truth’ seems to be a waste of time.

Another issue:

We can strive to discover deeper self-knowledge about ourselves, and perhaps more ‘truthiness’ about the world. But all of this “truth” is subjective.

Then what are we to do with our lives?

A simpler goal: strive to make beautiful artworks. To determine whether something is beautiful in our eyes is far superior than to search for “truth”.

This is the problem —

When we think of “creative photography”, we typically mean to say “artistically innovative”.

But who is the judge whether a certain photograph is “artistically innovative”? And is artistic innovation in photography what we desire? Or is it better to just make good, deep, and meaningful photos and disregard “artistic innovation” in our photography?

RICOH GR III is sharp as a mofo:

No anti aliasing filter, JPEG— super epic. As my friend Jun says, “physics don’t lie” (bigger sensor generally = better image quality/aesthetics for photos).

Personal photography: shooting photos to spark more joy in your own life.

How to become a hyper-human?

We want hyper-cars. Why not become a hyper-human?

What I think we are striving towards as photographers and visual artists is this:

Create images [art works] which are beautiful.

Now, how do we do this?

My goal —

More people to become self-employed, in order to allow more individuals to do great things. Best way to move humanity forward?

Use ‘Gaussian Blur’ to better determine your compositions in photography:

Shoot and create art works with visual clay, beautiful people around you all day.

Street photography as a way of life. As a way of seeing the world, interacting with the world, and making art works out of people!

HAPTIC: Creative tools to empower you >

Simple street photography assignments to get you going:

21mm is one of the focal lengths which have been over-looked by photographers [for a very long time].

I will make the case that perhaps there is still a lot of unpaved photographic/composition grounds for 21mm [as a focal length].

The simple formula for photography, art, and more:

Make stuff and share it.

Don’t have anywhere to share it? Upload your photos to arsbeta.com

Simple idea:

You must shoot A LOT [quantity] in order to make GOOD PHOTOS [quality].

We must assert ourselves as artists, not just ‘photographers’. To simply think of yourself as only a photographer is quite demeaning towards yourself.

A thought:

What if the best thing you could do for yourself and humanity is to create the most epic art-works you are capable of?

For example, don’t think of yourself as a photographer. Think of yourself as an artist. As an artist, it seems that our only duty in life is to create the most epic art-works we are capable of.

When I first started working my first 9-5 job, I desired deeply to become self-employed.

Why? I desired freedom! To show up everyday at an office at an arbitrary time, to leave everyday at an arbitrary time, and to do this from Monday-Friday seemed hyper-bizarre to me.

I thought to myself: We are living in the most modern and technological society. Why do we still need to show up to an office and put in a 40+ hour work-week?

I desired to become self-employed to escape this technological slavery. But what happens once you are self-employed, no longer need to wake up by a certain time, no longer need to attend meetings, no longer need to sleep at a certain time, no longer need to “work” during the day if you don’t want to?

This is my grand thought:

To become self-employed as a necessary step or a pre-requisite to attempt to do and create really great things.

Originally sent on ERIC KIM NEWSLETTER:

Monochrome tips:

The best learning is self-learning. Some practical ideas for you:

The deepest black. Jet black. Phantom black.

Perhaps this is my ideal aesthetic.

Shoot More Randomly!

Why shooting randomly will help improve your photography:

Photography as the ultimate hybrid and synthesis between art and technology.

My ideals of composition in street photography:

How to make more ambitious images which are more elegant, stronger, yet simpler?

To improve, we usually think it means to make progress from Point A to Point B.

Questions on my mind:

1. What does it mean to “improve” your photography or art?
2. Is “improvement” even something desirable?
3. If so, how can we indeed “improve” our photography and visual artistry?

Perhaps we can thrive and achieve our apex of strength if we embrace the notion of the “greatest possible economy”?

If your passion is photography and you desire to monetize your passion and if you have the opportunity to get a free education, I encourage you to go to business school (instead of photography or art school).

But this is a huge thing:

Never go to school if you’re going to go into debt.

If you can do work-study, get scholarships, do it. Never ever ever go into debt, even for the most seemingly “great” opportunities. Debt is the devil; perhaps even worse.

Something I’m thinking a lot about entrepreneurship:

Why scale?

Or in other words:

Why is scaling up seen as desirable?

And also– are there hidden downsides of having a really big scale?

The best life is one ripe with photography.

Delete and stop using social media; build your own platform instead!

A philosophy from my buddy Nietzsche:

How could you live your life in accordance as if you were to live it indefinitely, on loop, and to think this was the most sublime thing in existence?

A practical thought:

If you want to invest in a new creative tool, better to buy a new RICOH GR III (instead of a new iPhone).

This is my rationale:

A new way of thinking about life:

I will optimize my life to live in accordance to myself. To optimize my life which is best for me. To optimize my life to not put unnecessary stress on myself (only positive stress, ‘eustress‘). To live more like a child– playfully, to challenge myself, and to live life to the fullest.

To ignore conventional wisdom. To discover the wisdom which works best for myself.

Practical ideas:

I want to go beyond the notion of ‘creativity’ as this “innate ability to make novel connections and to think differently”, into thinking about creativity as frequency and power of creating new art-works.

Beyond content marketing. Let us strive to create substantive ‘substance’ (not “content”).

Currently enrolled for ARSBETA.COM in Y Combinator’s “Startup School”, and thinking of Kevin Hale’s question for Week 1 lecture:

What is your unfair advantage?

A simple principle in life:

Share your dopeness (awesomeness) with others.

Through art, we desire to exert (ex+press) our inner artistic power.

An idea inspired by Cindy:

Is the purpose of photography to remember or to forget?

Once you’ve retired (no longer need to do toilsome labor in order to pay your rent and groceries), what is the “optimal” (best) way to live your life?

You make photos, you make illustrations, you make videos, you make music. You derive artistic stimulus from all sources: from listening to music, from films, from dance, from exercise, from philosophy — from anything!

To develop to the fullest extent– grow more variegated. Consider a tree. You have a singular trunk, but your roots grow deeper into the soil, and your branches continue to multiply, and grow higher and higher (while growing wider).

Strive to master MANY artistic domains in life!

Furthermore, strive to engage all forms of knowledge. Science, art, humanities– it is all good!

All arts which inspire and stimulate you are good!

And above all; focus on artistic creation, and your own artistic productivity!

ERIC

Also another idea:

Spend more time looking at your own photos instead of watching movies or Netflix?

As visual artists, perhaps we can only maximally thrive if we are continually making new images, every day– perhaps all-day?

If you desire more freedom in your life, strive to become more frugal.

The first version of PHOTOGRAPHY COMPOSITION MANUAL (download as PDF).

What is the motive force which induces us to photograph?

Some ideas:

1. Desire to immortalize a moment. Great joy and thanksgiving towards reality.
2. Desire to create visual art works. Photography as faster and more efficient than painting or drawing.
3. Desire to play. Photography as fun visual gymnastics if shapes, colors, forms, compositions. To photograph is like playing a musical instrument.
4. Desire to share our perspective and viewpoint with others. To signal and educate others what we consider beautiful. The photographer as the value judge of beauty.

When in doubt, just share it.

Even if there is a 1% chance you can help someone else, it is worth sharing!

A thought:

Many of us try to predict trends, or identify trends in order to follow them.

But what if we can create our own ‘reality distortion field’ (Steve Jobs), and create our own trend?

Do your photos take your breath away?

Recently when viewing my RICOH GR III photos on iPad Pro, I took my own breath away.

What is your passion in life? If you don’t know what your passion is, should you have a passion?

If you know what your passion is, should you pursue it? To what extent? Should you try to monetize your passion, or not?

Let me essay some of these thoughts:

To photograph is to live.

The more you photograph, the more you live.

The more you shoot, the more you wonder (and wander), the more hidden beauty you discover in life.

Photography is life.

Never go anywhere without your camera around your neck or on your wrist (or at least in your front pocket).

“‘Til you own your own you can’t be free. ‘Til you’re on your own you can’t be me. How we still slaves in 2016?” – JAY Z (I Got the Keys song)

Until you own your platform, you don’t own your photos (or yourself).

Photography as Self-Expression

Photography is a tool to “express” yourself (ex+press — to press out your soul into the world, via your photos).

If you desire to thrive as a photographer, #deleteinstagram and join ARSBETA.COM instead.

A thought when walking around today:

Do you love being alive?

Are you living your life in a way in which you suck out the marrow of reality? Where you deify existence, and being alive? Or are you living in a way simply to kill the time, and to live an existence as un-miserably as possible — waiting until you die?

Perhaps we prefer gritty black and white photos that don’t look like reality, because we need to fill in the gaps, and engage our imagination?

The upside of gritty, blurry, and out-of-focus photos. The less ‘photo realistic’ the images look, the better?

There is no ultimate ‘truth’ — only varying degrees of “truthiness” (degrees of truth).

Perhaps it is our evolutionary advantage that we delight in visual change. Visual change in landscapes, our environment, our fashion, our cars, our objects, and the visual art works we consume and create!

Active thinking: thoughts which arise when you let your mind go empty and fallow.

Reactive thinking: you must read or expose yourself to external stimuli in order to think.