Month: August 2019

Travel further with TRAVEL NOTES > A question: Will traveling actually help improve your photography? I think so. Not directly, but this is generally what happens: When you travel, you focus on making photos, …

Low-key: Shooting photos with a lower-exposure (darker).

A fun activity: Take screenshots of photos you’ve already shot! I call this ‘meta-photography’ — using the screenshot tool to photograph your own photos.

If you want to re-spark your passion for photography and travel, pick up a copy of TRAVEL NOTES on Amazon, or here in our HAPTIC SHOP.

Let us assume you are financially independent, location independent, nomadic, rich, and whatever form of success. Now the question is: How should I live my life? How should I direct my life-force-energy? My simple …

A thought: The end goal isn’t happiness, it is artistic ex/outpression, and the witnessing of yourself becoming stronger. Also, helping empower others along the way while you’re still alive! Happiness is a reflection of …

TRAVEL NOTES now live on AMAZON > RICOH GR III is the best travel photography camera. Small, compact, phenomenal sharpness and dynamic price, lightest [even smaller and lighter than RICOH GR II], recharges with …

Extract the Maximum from Reality and Life:

Dare to stare into the depths of your soul and exclaim whatever you want to the real world. DAREDare to care about what you are curious about, to follow your gut, to never second-guess …

Was on the plane and cruise ship without wifi, and instead of blogging in real time, and I used iBooks Author to put together some photos and some thoughts while in transit. Free PDF …

Better to be poorer, with more freedom, and more control over your artwork and life. For example as a musician, better to have a very small and dedicated fanbase [than to have millions of …

You don’t have a duty to help all of mankind. My idea: The goal is for you to create genuine thoughts, ideas, and art-works, and to share them as widely as possible. Even if …

This is the strange thing I notice: We admire things [cars, homes, electronics, stuff] more than we do humans. For example, we find Porsche cars more impressive than great individuals. We find Rolex watches …

One of my life goals: Strive to [everyday] have the maximal feeling of physiological power and self-confidence. To get drunk off Dionysian self-intoxication; to channel my inner powers to creative output.

In praise of thinking for yourself:

I don’t think the purpose of a vacation or any activity (sleep, nap, massage) is to “relax”. Better to think of it as recovery and to reinvigorate yourself!

TRAVEL FURTHER WITH TRAVEL NOTES > I think on your road to deepening your personal wisdom about the world, travel is a necessity.

My current thought: The objective of life is for you to advance your artistic innovation, insight, creativity. And how to do this? Optimize your life which prioritizes your artistic evolution and thriving.

EvolveStrive to enthrall yourself with your progress and strengthTo what length can you evolve forth? Is there any chord holding you back? How can you evolve? How can you fly higher, swim further, and …

When you see an interesting scene — keep shooting the scene, change up your composition/framing/orientation — and later when you review your photos on your computer, THEN choose your favorite! Download ZIP of Composition …

Make shotsPhotograph your thoughtsShoot your soul, emotions, and motionsBlack or white, chroma; it’s all dolce and sweet Your photos are your art; why hesitate, why not start? Chart your creative seas, stir it up, …

In praise of books:

Photography makes life worth living!

What is the root cause of depression? Why do we feel depressed some days, and uplifted other days? Does depression manifest differently in different people? Is the word “depression” even useful? Let me essay …

BOLD and BRAVE, no Regret or Shame

TRAVEL NOTES by HAPTIC PRESS Why travel? For me, traveling isn’t for the sake of traveling. Instead, traveling as a means or a bridge for self-introspection. When you travel, you finally get the distance …

Dear friend, Since dropping STREET NOTES, PHOTO JOURNAL, FILM NOTES, and STREET HUNT — we are very excited to share with you our newest creation: TRAVEL NOTES

More options, more stress, more distractions. In praise of “choice minimalism” of living.

In today’s world, assuming you have the means— why would you ever buy a gasoline car?

When you buy something, it requires much of you. You must take care of it, you must maintain it, you must use it.  You don’t want to just store it, or have it collect …

A lesson: Generally in life, more and bigger is worse. Let me explain.

Beyond “virtue signaling”— virtue flexing.

For many of us, we strive to retire, become “financially independent” and “location independent”. It seems the modern form of success is to become a “digital nomad”. But once you achieve all this — …

ERIC KIM PORTFOLIO BAG: Perfectly fits your iPad, iPhone, and RICOH GR III or II: Only 3 left in stock >

Free photography tips on ERIC KIM NEWSLETTER > An encouraging idea to start this week:Whatever ‘imperfect’ art you make is perfect! What I mean is this: In our lives, we are often discouraged to create …

It is pretty obvious that at this point, we are all always on our devices [phones, laptops, etc]. Is this a bad thing?

The joy of walking the streets, wandering, interesting with strangers (or not). The joy and delight in being a part of society. The joy of making art works from human beings in urban and …

What makes visual art so fun and great — The excitement to witness and create new forms, shapes, colors, and combinations! For example my impetus in photography: The excitement to witness new things, new …

Thinking about materialism and consumerism: Much of the things we purchase is in order to ‘flex’ our personal possessions. To assert our status, richness, power, etc. Questions: Is flexing ‘bad’? Why flex? What would …

Seeing beautiful design awakens me, invigorates me, and gives me new hope towards the future. I have a reason to keep on living, to keep witnessing beautiful designs but also to have the motivation …

Expression = ex+press the artistic power from within yourself outwards. I’d prefer the term “outpression”— pressing outwards (from inside yourself) your creative and artistic power and force.

In American and modern culture, it is all about consumerism, materialism, and obsession with accumulating more — more money, more possessions, fancier cars, fancier possessions and object/tools, more land, more homes, more everything. Now …

Free photography tips on Eric Kim NEWSLETTER An infinite amount of ways you can approach photography:

How I choose photos I like:

A maxim from our buddy Nietzsche. The basic idea: All wounds you receive in your life stimulate your recuperative properties in your body. Thus in life, realize that all the pain, difficulty and suffering …

In striving to come up with a good definition of street photography, it seems the most simple is the best: Any photo you shoot in public is a street photograph. Photo+graph= light drawing. Street …

A thought: Is it possible we can direct our own self-evolution within a single lifetime? [our lifetime]

HENRI NECK STRAP MARK III available in Mahogany Brown [Amazon] or Phantom Black [HAPTIC SHOP]. Learn more >

Where does our personal strength and energy come from?

Create your own ‘stories’, by just using your own website/blog to document your everyday experiences. Blogging as a tool to reflect on your experiences, to digest them, and to derive more joy from them! …

In praise of blurry photos, out-of-focus photos, and photos which are ‘imperfect’. Perhaps they better document our memories, emotions, and feelings of a scene — imperfect, gritty, full of movement, and emotional?

What is the practical parts of striving towards knowledge and philosophy? Should it be used as an aid to improve our lives, or to discover knowledge beyond ourselves — knowledge which not benefit ourselves, …

Strive to make beautiful products, beautiful websites, beautiful art works, beautiful photos, beautiful forms, shapes, music, and ideas. Transfigure the world with your artistic vision! This is the impetus behind HAPTIC, ARS, this blog, …

It seems that 90%+ of the online economy comes from advertising (Google/Facebook owns the majority). This basically means: Offer a free service to the user, and derive income from advertising. Now, I personally have …

A thought from our buddy Nietzsche [Twilight of the Idols]: Live your life (today) as you would desire to live again forever.

You make the rules. The photo or image isn’t sacred. Feel free to remix, modify, or alter the image however you desire.

To play is to be human.

A thought: Too much focus on being overly frugal and economical is bad.

What triggers you to make photos?

Currently the RICOH GR III is the best ‘standalone’ digital camera on the market. Superior to all competitors, including Leica Q2.

A thought — How do we actually “motivate” ourselves in life? Where does the power and energy of motivation come from? This is also tied to ideas on free will.

Perhaps a principle to life and our personal evolution and thriving: Never stop sharing.

The problem with technology now: Technology is too focused on data, ‘efficiency’, ‘optimization’, and all these nerdy things. What should technology be doing for us? Making us MORE ARTISTIC, more curious, and more child-like.

After mucking around with the new macOS Catalina beta on my laptop [and corrupting my hard-drive upon installing a new Beta Update], I did a fresh new install of the OS. It is great. …

Instead of mindlessly scrolling through Facebook or Instagram, or flipping through stories, why not scroll through our own photos? Scroll through our own “Media Library” on WordPress, to scroll through our “Camera Roll” on …

Nature: going outdoors, on hikes, fresh air; good for the soul. Even though we are mostly city folk, I think the hybrid of extreme city and extreme nature is a good one. So us …

What is a good direction to take your life? Direct your own personal evolution.

A simple way to think about and approach life: Only dedicate your energies on things you care for.