Month: August 2019

JUNWOO KIM is the inventor of ARS COIN, and a talented visual artist, engineer, and a good friend.

Allen Iverson said it best: practice. Perhaps this is the goal: not to become the “best” or even to become “successful”, but to simply never stop practicing whatever your art form is!

Something fun in entrepreneurship, business and life is trying to accomplish “proof of concept”, whether or not your idea works in the real world.

A realization in life: Considering how short our lives are, it seems to be a waste of time, life, and energy to focus too much on small and petty lifestyle choices. Better to focus…

Filling the frame: an essential photography composition concept:

Cruise photography: something my buddy Todd Hata introduced to me a while back, and something new I want to explore:

What is virtue and why strive towards it?

As an artist (along with scientists), you IMPROVE life and the wellbeing and health of your fellow humans through your art creations and innovations.

A question on my mind: Where does our initial impetus to create art come from? For example a lot of older Freudian philosophers assume that the urge to create art is sexual; creating art…

Similar to Elon Musk — unified field theory of his companies (Space X, Tesla, Solar City) all working together and feeding into one another (Ashlee Vance idea from his biography on Musk). Basic idea…

My life purpose: to blog, to share ideas, to think, to plumb deeper levels of knowledge, aesthetics, and art, and to help motivate creators, photographers, and all individuals — to make, wonder, and challenge.…

Once you have reached financial independence, location independence, you retire, and have ample free time and leisure, the question is this: What is the best way to use my time and life? Some thoughts:

Zen photography: One camera, one lens (RICOH GR III) Monochrome (one color). Or for color photography, keeping the colors super simple. JPEG only Direct, honest, and genuine photos. Only photographing what you’re interested in…

Get free photography tips on Eric Kim NEWSLETTER > I had a nice chat with my buddy Don Dillonthe other day, and this was one of the big takeaways: Once you’re a good photographer with…

Super pumped to share that PHOTO JOURNAL (Third Edition, 2019) is now available! Also as an exciting promo: if you buy PHOTO JOURNAL right now, you can also INSTANTLY get a FREE digital download…

What makes interesting photos? Interesting details.

Reflection from PHOTO JOURNAL. Reflect what you love about your camera, and use this knowledge to empower you to keep making new and epic photos.

Discover more about the hottest straps in the photography game:

A visual and artistic gesture, a gist.  Composition as an impression. Fleeting, moving, dynamic, full of life and vigor.  To better understand your compositions and photographic and visual gist, sketch your images. I use…

Make a dynamic photo composition — lots of angles, triangles, low perspective, hands and head in different directions. The goal is to make a composition as interesting and dynamic/full of force as possible.

Money is a mode of human and social interaction, of quantifying labor, and a medium of human trust. Money isn’t “real”— it isn’t a physical thing, it is a metaphysical notion of “value” and…

One of the big problems about Silicon Valley startup thinking: The aspiration to build an epic company and one day sell it for millions (or billions). What if this was a bad way of…

It seems the purpose of utilitarianism and most of modern economics and philosophy is this: Raise the collective well-being of all humans. I think this is a good goal, but what does this even…

In WordPress, you can use ‘Tiled Galleries’ (like shown below), which is a great way to publish, share, and view your work:

All of life is ethereal. It will soon fade to dust. So why accumulate things, and worry so much about the material world?

Discovered Sergio’s photos on ARS, this is why I love his photos:

An interesting way to live your life: Fight for what you believe in, what you care about, and become the change which you wish to see in the world. Listen on ERIC KIM PODCAST

I like this notion of a ‘high culture’ (“haute culture” in French). What if we could do the same in the realm of photography? To elevate the culture of photography to a higher height.…

A thought on long-term success: We should play the long game!

What’s the best way to utilize your life? My basic idea: Focus your energies on entrepreneurship and art-creation.

Get free photography tips on Eric Kim NEWSLETTER > Dear friend, Happy Monday! To get you going for this week photographically speaking, this week’s photo assignment is WATER.

A philosophical thing: The point isn’t to eliminate all forms of pain and suffering. The point is: Gain more freedom over your personal life, and channel the GOOD types of pain and “suffering” to…

Currently watching the Neuralink launch video, and wanted to share some of my personal thoughts:

In my talk at Google I shared the notion of ‘digital share-cropping’: Don’t upload your photos to Facebook or Instagram if you desire control and freedom in your photography and artwork.

Two notions that can help us as photographers: ‘Crowd-sourcing’ and ‘wisdom of the crowds’. But what is missing? A ‘double blind’ component (the primary innovation in arsbeta.com).

A thought while napping today: I believe freedom (control over your life) is more important than ‘happiness’. Let me explain:

Auto photo — making photos automatically, self-motivated, by yourself. No thinking. Just shooting and making.

A thought while at the gym today: What if mental power was physical power? Which means, when we are lacking mental willpower, we are actually lacking physical strength and power. This means, if you…

Don’t constrain yourself. All art is good art!

Calligraphy to calm and express your soul.

Some notes from studying James Tompkin’s excellent Computer Vision course at Brown University:

One of my life dreams was to travel, and I’ve been on the road for the last decade+. What have I learned? Some personal reflections, also distilled in TRAVEL NOTES:

There are a trillion forms of self-expression in art. So why do we choose photography?

What’s real? What’s fake? What should we strive towards, and what should we avoid? What’s meaningful? What’s interesting to us? How should we live our lives?

A thought: We can binary categorize human beings into two categories: free or unfree.

Some thoughts: Don’t even waste energy to critique others. Focus on your own self development. Strive to build a mighty mind. War is our business. Self-war to elevate yourself. Struggle as fun.  Follow your…

My thought: Let us assume you got another 60 or so years to live on planet earth. What do you desire from reality?

An effective compositional technique in photography: juxtaposition (contrasting two different elements or concepts in a single photograph):

On RICOH GR III, I’ve been shooting a lot of videos (1080p, 60fps) in high contrast black and white. This has been great, as it is another way to experience reality, create art, and…

The biggest problem in photography, art, and modern life: We don’t think the future will be greater, brighter, and more wonderful. Fuck the nihilist thinking. The future is greater than we think!

I’m not so interested in the photos I’ve already shot, I’m more interested in the photos I have yet to photograph. Which means live and shoot/explore on– you still have SO MANY new photos…

Why do you photograph? What do you photograph for?

A life without pain and suffering is undesirable. This means, having pain and suffering in life is BENEFICIAL to life. But the question is– what type of pain is ‘good’ and beneficial to us,…

My worst hell: if I lived my entire life on planet earth (until death) living a basic life. A life without wonder, danger, adventure, radical self-experimentation, and searching for beauty, knowledge, and wisdom. Thus…

The ocean is vast Spread your mast, and spread your wings Let the liquid air take you where you need to be The ocean is free Overwhelming with billows and wind from within Sail…

One of my goals in life: Strive to have maximal energy everyday, and to never weary of my creative pursuits and activities. How is this possible? Some ideas:

To make your photos more artistic, make them more unclear:

I’ve been shooting a lot of videos on my RICOH GR III, but the problem with videos: What should I do with the videos? Videos are a bit difficult to share and publish. But…

Something fun I did while being disconnected on a cruise (without wifi): Experiment with all the post-processing options in Adobe Photoshop to better understand and de-construct your photos.

To photograph your everyday life with zest, gusto, and love: Recognize your life is precious, and strive to extract the maximum from your own life in your own photos. This means, don’t desire any…

How Long Can You Enjoy Things? Something I’ve learned in life: Many things we buy, possess, or experience is pure novelty. We might enjoy it once, or have fun with it for a day…

Besides the obvious, it seems an ideal strategy is whenever possible, never buy new.

If your motive is to make more intimate photos, shoot with a wider-angle lens (21mm, 24mm, 28mm, 35mm lens). The perspective of a wide-angle lens will create more intimacy in your photos, which means…

Currently on a 5-day Carnival cruise from New Orleans to Mexico (day 4), and this is my thought: A cruise ship is the ultimate psuedo-utopia. Let me explain:

You’re brave, what is your duty? If you really knew me, you would know I don’t care much for myself. I don’t think of myself at all.  My ego is just a tool. I…

A thought on success: Be insanely different from everyone (in other words, just be you).

Currently on a cruise ship (what I consider a pseudo-utopia). Currently thinking about money: What would be the purpose/function of money in a “post-monetary society”?

The less friction, the better. The more direct approach we take in life, the better.