The Philosophy of Money and Photography

Towards a philosophy on money and photography:

1. Why money?

The first question:

Why money?

We need money to pay rent, buy meat, etc. But beyond this… what do we really need money for?

I think a lot of us photographers equate money with success. This means:

If I make money from my photography I have proof that I am ‘successful’.

But is this truly the case?

2. Un-quantifying your self-esteem as a photographer

So it seems the simple thing:

We want to make money from photography in order to validate to others and ourselves that we are ‘successful’ as photographers.

However… this is foolish. Better to derive your own self-generated self-esteem and ego in your photography instead of ‘crowd sourcing’ it.

3. What do we truly want as photographers?

Individual Economics

I think we want two things:

4. Of course we derive great joy from sharing our photos

I do not know one human being who doesn’t like to share their photos. Anyone who shoots photos (100% for themselves) seems like a rare bird (rara avis). It seems the vast majority of us like to share our art works.

5. Why would you not share your photos?

ERIC KIM RANDOM TURBO THOUGHTS

I think some people don’t share their photos because of fear of judgement or being seen as being ‘bad’ photographers. But this seems very silly. Isn’t it far more robust to just make photos which spark joy in your life, and then share it with others?

Certainly we don’t need to share *all* our photos. But share the ones you care for.

ERIC

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