To become great is to become big, strong, magnanimous. Anyone and everyone can become great. What is required?
- Time
- Patience
- Great industry
- Perseverance
- A spirit of playfulness
- Curiosity to continue
- Continual editing of your work and portfolio
- Always striving for more.
What is a great photographer?
A great photographer:
A great photographer is large, grand, and strong.
A great photographer strives for excellence and greatness. A great photographer is continually hungry for more. To constantly augment his or her abilities; to always consume the best great master photographers of the past, and to augment themselves with great visual intelligence and with great industry.
Ten years is sufficient
To become a great photographer, you only need around a decade of continuous focus and work (10,000 hour rule). This means hustling hard everyday for around 10 years. Consider Michael Jordan; he was able to master the game of basketball in around a decade.
It took me countless hours of shooting, analyzing the greats, reading and writing photo books, teaching, and blogging to become a master photographer. Even though right now I don’t consider myself the greatest of all time (yet) [that title is still reserved for Henri Cartier-Bresson], I still consider myself a great photographer. Why? I have high visual intelligence for photography, I have a strong portfolio, and I have deep wisdom and cross pollination between photography, visual arts, philosophy, and entrepreneurship. Truth be told right now for me at age 32, I don’t see any photographer even in my stratosphere.
Greatness is open to all
The extremely optimistic thought I have:
All is allowed and able to become great.
If we think that industry, effort and hustle are essential to greatness … isn’t this the ultimate optimistic idea? This means it doesn’t matter who you are, where you came from, what your lineage is, or what your background is. If you are hungry enough and want to hustle hard enough, you can become great.
What do you do once you’ve become a great photographer?
Simple:
Strive to become even GREATER!
ERIC
Discover more personal meaning in your photographic life with PHOTOLOSOPHY >
- Form and Substance ALL PHOTOS ARE ACCURATE, NONE ARE TRUTH.
- What Are You Trying to Message in Your Photography?
- Don’t Strive to Make Good Photos
- EVERY OPPORTUNITY IS A PHOTO OPPORTUNITY
- Photography as Your Personal Life Odyssey
- Grapher
- The Joyful Photography
- Photography 300 Years from Now
- All I wanna do is make photos and philosophize!
- First Get Happier, then Shoot Photos!
- No Artwork SHOULD Last Forever
- High Photography
- How to Photograph Your Everyday Life
- The Photograph is Not Sacred
- PHOTO MODE.
- The Visual Soundtrack of Your Life
- The Photographer is a Visual Explorer and Transformer
- Photography as the Ultimate Artistic Form of Self-Expression
- Don’t Seek to Please or Impress Others with Your Photos
- Shoot For Yourself
- Power Photography
- Creative Evolution
- The Artist-Photographer
- Photo Realism
- Perpetual Photography
- All Photography is Good Photography
- Optimal Simplicity
- Photograph.
- True Happiness in Photography
- NOW IS THE TIME TO SHOOT! #photolosophy
- Photolosophy: With Physical Proximity comes Emotional Proximity
- Why Share Photos?
- Chaos Photography
- Soul Street Photography
- Now is the Time to Shoot!
- Photolosophy 101: Don’t Photograph Others the Way You Wouldn’t Want to Be Photographed
- Photolosophy 101: Life and Death in Photography
- Photolosophy 101: Street Photography and the Art of People
- Introduction to Photolosophy
- Photography Entrepreneurship Philosophy
- Photography Philosophy 101
Unleash your creative potential:
2020:
- November 7th, 2020: ERIC KIM BLOGGING MASTER CLASS (Online, via Zoom). [Register Intent Here]
2021:
- April 10-11th, 2021: BOSTON / Discover Your Unique Voice in Photography Workshop [Register Intent Here]
- May 1-2nd, 2021: CHICAGO / Street Photography Composition Masterclass [Register Intent Here]
- May 22-22nd, 2021: NEW YORK CITY / STREET PHOTOGRAPHY MASTERCLASS by ERIC KIM [Register Intent Here]
Be notified of when new workshops are live here.
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