A simple idea: Perhaps to live a better life, we should never do the same thing two days in a row? For example: Don’t eat the same foods or meals today as you did yesterday Don’t do the same workout at the gym two days in a row to maximize your strength gains Don’t photograph…
Towards a philosophy of aesthetics in photography: do you strive to capture the world as more beautiful, the same, or worse in your photos? In other words: Do you strive to make your photos look MORE BEAUTIFUL than reality? Do you strive to make your photos as “photo realistic”to reality? Do you strive to make…
My thought: The best photos are simple, direct, and don’t need much detail. What’s important? A compositional gesture and movement, strong subject, and strong contrast.
Motivation means to “set into motion”. My questions: How do we set ourselves into motion — to literally move more? How can we set ourselves into artistic motion — to move our feet to shoot photos, to draw, etc? The role of your environment, nutrition, and physiology to spark your movement?
What if your impulsive behaviors were the correct behaviors?
Visual Experiment: Keep on Increasing Contrast, Gaussian Blur, and Inversing the Photo A fun experiment I’ve been doing in Procreate on my iPad: Choose a photo I like, then keep adding contrast, Gaussian blur, and inversing the photo and seeing what happens to the image. This is what happened:
BEZERK, know your worthGo crazy, get lit Bleed your creative will, no fear of the ripsCrank out the hits, blips and tips Don’t slacken the pace, your feet are lightZen zone, focus dark. Zen zone, focus shark. Drift through the corners Mario Kart. Fly straight— black dart.
In praise of pride in your own things.
Photography is a highly physical activity: walking, running, squatting, lunging, walking up stairs, moving our bodies, moving our hands, arms, eyes. Why has nobody pursued a philosophy towards the physiology of photography yet?
Create and consume artwork which stirs you — which agitates you, solicits a response from you, and moves you (quite literally inspires you to move!)
Do you live a hard life out of guilt, or because you find a harder life more fun?
The Purely Selfish Person would Never Criticize anyone Else To criticize others less, become more selfish:
Don’t let the actions and behaviors of others affect your self-ego.
To have more fun with photography, shoot ultra-wide! (21mm, 24mm or even wider!):
My current goal — mastering my own metabolism. What does this mean? For me to have hyperabundant energy and thriving power all day. These are some things I’ve learned thus far:
I often feel nostalgia for the past. But what if this is a sign of degeneration? Or perhaps when I long for my nostalgic past, I’m bored of myself, or I don’t have much going on? Because if you’re on the “up and up”, why would you long for the past?
The wrong bias— thinking that our soul (mental) is superior and more important than our body. My belief: the soul is the body.
Practical composition ideas for street photography:
We want sports cars to stir and pump up our adrenaline — but why not: Powerlift Socially daring interaction (talk and dare to interact with strangers). Street photography (with or without permission). All these things take more skill, your courage and bravery! Not to passively increase your adrenaline by buying new stuff at the mall,…
Why do we care so much for productivity? One of the insane points of modern society: We are so hyper-focused on productivity (for the sake of it). But why? What are the downsides to this line of thinking, and life philosophy?
To make better photos means to make photos with energy, movement, levity, and power. Some simple ideas:
With iPhone, iPhone Pro, and smartphone cameras, the future of art (and society) is photography!
Is this what we are striving towards as artists — creative rapture? To be awed by the sublimeness of our own artistic works — which acts as our own intoxicant which brings us immense joy, and also motivates us to make more arts (which we hope will give us continued creative rapture?)
Why own different or rare stuff? To continue asking yourself philosophical questions, have a quick chat with my new Zen of Eric Chat Bot (Facebook messenger, currently only available in the States, soon to be rolled out internationally).
Life is boring when you’re standing still. Life is far more fun when you never stop going beyond yourself, and never stop surpassing yourself. And I learned from the students from my last Berlin workshop, the German phrase: “Jump over your own shadow!”#shadowjumpers
What makes great design? Things which are designed which races your heart. Ferrari, Lamborghini, and other cars which are insanely dynamic and aggressive in the design, audacious, and of course — fast.
Once you realize you got the best stuff, is it liberating or depressing?
I tested the new iPhone Pro today (wondering if it could replace RICOH GR III as my camera), but alas– I rate the RICOH GR III still at least 10x better than the iPhone Pro for photography. Thus my practical suggestions:
It seems to own a smartphone is better than to not own one, but the effect on buying a new phone on your personal happiness and productivity is insanely overrated.
I love mininalism and strive to consfnsly simplify my life more and in order to maximize my own personal creative power and strength. But what I feel we must avoid is this: becoming minimalist for virtue signaling purposes (trying to show off that by being minimalist we are somehow morally superior). Perhaps better to hide…
A zen-capitalist and minimalist consumer approach: You can admire much consumer goods and design without actually needing to buy or own it. For example I love Lamborghini design, but I don’t know if I actually really want to own and maintain it. I admire a lot of things, but would find that owning it would…
Lift yourself by your heels Screeching tires, hot wheels Stand Stand up for what you see as true You knew it was right, truth through the strife Cut through the ignorance with a knife with your own sharp thoughts Until the self doubt and self—imposed knots Turbo thoughts, v12 higher Keep your mind revving, max…
I often feel a bit depressed when I feel like I’m not “impacting” others to a degree I find satisfying. Then came the thought: what if instead, the best person I should strive to impact is myself?
Why photography? Because in modern life we NEED more danger, excitement, aimless exploration, and thrilling adventure!
I get a ton of joy from simple mundane activities: making my morning coffee (grinding fresh beans by hand with hario grinder), the joy of grocery shopping (also shooting street photography inside the grocery store), the joy of listening to music, lifting weights, and massaging Cindy at night before sleeping.
The more I use RICOH GR III and look at the images (on iPad Pro), the more I’m blown away. How can a camera be this good?
In praise of extreme hope, joy, and optimism in photography art:
When you got several photos of the same image, how do you know which is best? Let’s analyze:
Simple photo composition to add to your arsenal: the spiral.
When I look through my photos, there are certain “activation points”which catch my eye. It seems: My eyes are activated at points of converging lines My eyes are activated from areas of extreme contrast and brightness My eyes are activated via parts of a photo which has an unusual texture that I want to inspect…
What photos do I like? Photos which put wings to my feet and soul — which inspire me to move, walk, dance, and delight in lightness, swiftness, boldness, audacity, and brazenness!
Of course in theory we can make good photos anywhere, but the question is this: Is it possible for you to always remain inspired to make new photos, regardless of where you live? I think so!
A problem in modern society: We valorize hard work the sake of hard work, but rarely do we think, “Why?” If you want to discover more truth WHY you do anything in life, have a quick chat with ‘Zen of Eric‘ (my new philosophy chat-bot, which is currently only available in America).
Pick up the paceDo you want to stay in place? Do you wish to stay in your own grace of the past? Do you want to finish first or last? Break the rules, and create your own class. Clash with friction, and make new fictions. First principles are the best principles, listen to your own…
Carte blanche, always go back to ‘first principles’. Best to start totally ignorant of a certain field, and ruthlessly self-experiment with yourself. To learn via ‘bricolage‘ (bricoler in French, which means to keep fiddling, experimenting). For example:
Something I am always curious about when analyzing people I admire: What is their personal motivations to do x, y, z? And of course this ultimately comes to the question: What motivates YOU to do anything in life? And it is my belief that the deeper we understand our own motivations, the more zeal we…
Along with the Gaussian Blur photography composition test, we also got the INVERT (or inversion) photography composition test in order to better see, determine, and analyze our compositions.
Do you see tomorrow as inclining upwards or declining downwards? Of course we want our lives to be in the incline upwards. And the thing is this: Don’t worry too much about your growth rate. Don’t compare how quickly you’re growing compared to others. Infinite 1% daily growth will render phenomenal returns! If you don’t…
What’s holding us back in photography and art? Becoming a prisoner of a style, a certain technique, approach, genre. In photography all photos are good. Shoot anything and everything!
A life which goes BEYOND simply trying to maximize your pleasure and minimize your pain. Instead, a life focused on achieving epic grandeur, reckless experimentation, and great heights!