Apparently this was the last words of Goethe. Perhaps this is also a good motto for our lives and photography?
The brighter, the better.
An epiphany about myself:
The brighter it is, the happier I am.
I typically hate when it is dark. I prefer the light. The happiest places I’ve been is Vietnam (Hanoi, Saigon) where it is insanely bright. Also when I was living in a high rise apartment with huge floor to ceiling windows with insane natural light. Even now in the winter in Providence, installing a ton of LED strip lights in my kitchen has improved my mood 10x! Also great living in Mexico City.
Add more light to your life
Pragmatically speaking, choose an apartment or home with the maximal amount of natural light. I’m starting to think choosing a living place with the maximum amount of natural light is more important than “locationâ€. Better to live in a worse or less desirable location/neighborhood but more light! Same goes with cities or places you decide to live. I’ll never forget the dark gloom and melancholy I felt spending a winter in Marseille, Prague, and Berlin due to lack of natural light and the dark. And perhaps if we do decide to live in places with no light during the winter (Montreal, Umea in Sweden, etc)… create living spaces with insane amounts of light, lumens, and brightness.
Brighter photos
Street portrait with RICOH GR II shot with a flash at a gas station in San Mateo, California. 
Flash, blur. 
Tokyo flash, RICOH GR II. Escalator. 
Mexico City Selfie. Ricoh GR II and flash 
Leaf with flash. RICOH GR II. Hanoi 
Tokyo flash. Cat on man’s shoulder. 
My hand. Flash iPhone pro. 
Flash. Construction workers in Denver, 2019 #RICOHGRII 
Mumbai, 2011. Leica M9 x Flash 
Street portrait, woman looking right. NYC, 2015. RICOH GR II x FLASH 
Lips pink. Portra 400 flash, London. 
Mexico City Abstract. Flash. Black, 2019 
Suits street photography flash 
Flash suits. NYC. 
Seoul flash, grimace. 
African-american cop cutout. Downtown LA, 2013 #flash #portra400 
Sapa, 2019 #flash #ricohgrii 
Hanoi, 2019 #ricohgrii #flash 
RICOH GR II selfie with flash 
Dark Skies over Tokyo // RICOH GR II x FLASH 
Film Leica, 35mm, Kodak Portra 400, flash.
Perhaps also with our photos … more brightness! Shoot more with a flash, or increase the exposure compensation to your photos to make your photos brighter! One of the benefits of RICOH GR II over RICOH GR III (GR II has built in flash).
