Month: November 2020

What we are seeking is the *right* or optimal amount of stimulation. Too much stimulation is bad, but too little stimulation is also bad. To discover this “golden mean” (Aristotle) is our creative flow goal!

The more I’m out on the streets or in public spaces, the happier and more creative I am. So simple thought: Our physical and creative happiness is directly proportional to the time we spend out doors and in public spaces and in the city?

For example, lots of small fires can be controlled but one really huge fire cannot. So also perhaps in relationships, better to have lots of small little scuffles and arguments (which can be quickly and easily consoled) rather than one really huge argument which can lead to a divorce or even something worse which cannot…

Some quick thoughts. First thought: When it comes to our abilities, we often under-estimate ourselves greatly. This is bad. However we often over-estimate our ability to plan, forecast, and predict/control the future.

Long story short, stoicism is good for us right now:

A good stoic way to approach and live life: If you’re part of society and not a recluse, when you interact or engage with others who are pretty, just ignore them, don’t acknowledge what they said, and perhaps just act if you didn’t even hear what they said. This as a means to become less…

Visual acuity — the skill, your creative and compositional sensitivity to the world:

You’re a visual artist. You love the visual. Photography is just your core competency and passion, but all visual arts are good visual arts!

A thought: You express much via your photography in terms of what you consider beautiful and worthy to be shared!

What is our goal being photographers and visual artists? Simple; not to become a petty and small photographer, but to strive towards greatness, magnanimity, and to become a great photographer!

Everything is beautiful, if you look closely enough!

A thought I had while looking at this warmup video I made: Wow, seeing this video in monochrome, high contrast, sporadically going in and out of focus seems very artistic. To me, it was interesting because even though the videos were out of focus, it promoted focus meaning– The ambiguity of the shapes forced me…

More squats, more thoughts:

How I warmup at the gym:

We go to the gym to lift weights and get fit and exercise. Perhaps we should approach photography the same; the metaphorical gym for photography, replete with exercises, approaches, form and technique as well as programming and philosophy!

We all seem to acknowledge the fact that fitness is essential to physical health. But why don’t we acknowledge the fact that photography is also essential to our creative health?

Why exposure compensation is so valuable:

A realization: It seems the reason I love coffee shops, the gym, the mall, the library etc is because they tend to be “public” spaces … often indoor, which creates a better sociological space where people and strangers can bump into one another and rub shoulders with one another? In other words, I like being…

Why do we typically join collectives or are interested in collectives? Perhaps because we lack the self belief that we alone … we as individuals can do, attempt and enact great change by ourselves!

In life, it seems what we are striving towards is this: To be less foolish in life when it comes to our pragmatic decision making, and to become more wise.

The grand master in chess (and perhaps in life) starts with the end-game, and works his/her way backwards:

My #1 piece of advice for aspiring photographers: Start your own self-hosted photography blog (via WordPress.org) I see an uber-bright future for photographers and photography bloggers for the future — new unlimited heights of creative expression!

Question — What fun and interesting things can you discover about yourself or about reality through photography?

Thought: With work flow, and almost everything in life… strive to cut out the “middle man” or kinks in the pipe which prevent the directness of what you desire to do, or achieve. For example, the upside of using the iPhone/iPad lightning to USB connector — to import photos from my Ricoh GR III —…

It seems evident that our de is nosire as photographer-artists is to make beautiful photos. But how do we achieve this? Some thoughts:

Insight: when we perceive our personal growth and we see our self development augment itself, we are happy. When we see ourselves or perceive ourselves to be degenerating, we are unhappy. Then the question: What do we really want a a final end– happiness or self development? Or are the two things like an interconnected…

Our desire … to beautify ourselves. This is what drives our desire for fashionable clothes, hair cuts, cars, accessories, shoes, body building yoga and health fitness things, our diet and lifestyle, etc.

Our desire as artists, or as individuals with very sensitive eyes and visual senses: We hate the aesthetically ugly in shape, texture, and form … and we desire to banish ugliness from our eyes by either changing our environment (our homes, exterior and interior design, architecture, community, city, climate, and neighborhood).

Your photos will reveal your own personal politics and world view!

Technically we don’t get stronger *as* we lift the weight. When we successfully lift a new PR (personal record) in any of our lifts, it is just an acknowledgement of our pre-existing and innate (latent) stength. Technically we become stronger when we’re eating more meat, and sleeping and recovering and building our muscles through this…

Active rest, leisure, and emptying your mind as taking more skill and discipline than just “forcing” yourself to work more!

What we delight in as photographers and visual artists: form!

Why are music videos so fun (BlackPink)? Because– it seems we humans love the combination of both the visual *and* musical:

Words of wisdom from homeboy Publilius Syrus on ‘planning’.

Some pragmatic tips and ideas on how to do a one rep max squat, with no silly belt, knee wraps, steroids, protein powder, pre-workout stuff, creatine, testosterone, crazy genetics etc:

Of course beyond the obvious cases (like booking flights, or perhaps some work-related things), strive to never schedule a day in advance. This means, with any of your personal, life, health, fitness, art, creativity things … attack every day, day by day as it comes!

Innovation: your external conditions will never be optimal or best. So given your sub-optimal life conditions right now, what are the levers or triggers you can enable in order to optimize your sub-optimal for the better?

Since I’ve been getting back into weight lifting, I’m a trillion times more inspired in my art and arts creation. Which makes me think: Perhaps the core root and primal instinct of us to make art is derived from our physiological, bodily desire to express our physiological joy and well-being?

What Gives us the Impetus to Create?

Our goal isn’t to make the “best” or the most complex photo. I say it seems more interesting to contemplate what are the most basic and simplest elements of a photograph; to take it back to “first principles” (Aristotle, Physics).

It seems life is far more fun, interesting and fulfilling when we put ourselves in a situation which allows us to (self-directedly) maximally engage ourselves with either thoughts, ideas, knowledge, wisdom, art, or the act of creation.

Photography is about photographing, documenting and creating images that have to do with human affairs.

First sent on ERIC KIM NEWSLETTER Dear friend, In today’s topsy-turvy world, now is your opportunity as a photographer to shoot and document it. An interesting insight I had recently: Political photography IS street photography, which means… if you shoot things which are political, the photos are very interesting and meaningful. This means: Don’t allow…

Politics pertains to the “polis” (city, as good old Aristotle has taught us). Political photography and street photography seems to be the same thing.

Not sure what to photograph? Just photograph a full 24 hours in the day of your own life. To document it all— what you wear, what you do, what you eat, what you drink etc. And it isn’t about making a single great photo, but just a series of fun photos to document a simple…

The purpose of life, art, creativity, entrepreneurship is this: To always iterate upwards and forwards, to the heights and beyond! Or like Buzz Lightyear says: To infinity and beyond!

There is much we can change in our lives and much we cannot change in our lives. Which makes me think: In which contexts is it best to literally change the external circumstances of our lives (our environment, home, abode, lifestyle) and when should we change the internal attitude we have towards these certain things?

A life with photography is soooo much more fun and enjoyable. Why?