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What to Ask For This Holiday Season

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First sent on ERIC KIM NEWSLETTER >

The holidays are coming up. What does this mean?

A chance for us to think about what kind of experiences we want to invest in, and what we want to do and accomplish.

Invest in experiences, not stuff.

I just came back from a short trip to Joshua Tree, and rented a nice AirBnb. And it was a phenomenal experience.

So if this holiday season you want to do something meaningful with your family, maybe institute a ‘no buy each other physical things’, and everyone in the family can chip in for a family trip together. Splurge on a nice ‘design’ airbnb, and go somewhere somewhat close. Eat some nice food, spend nice face time together, and perhaps constitute a ‘no screen time’ concept.

Photo stuff

For a photographer’s wish list, some things:

  1. RICOH GR III, or the new RICOH GR IIIx, and ERIC KIM NECK STRAP MARK II // ERIC KIM WRIST STRAP MARK II
  2. Merino wool clothing: Outlier.nyc black merino wool t-shirt. Merino wool black leggings / shorts (just buy whatever is cheap on Amazon).
  3. Photography books. My first photography book (if you got kids), Learn from the masters print edition, Creative everyday print edition, STREET NOTES print edition, Film Notes print edition, Photo journal print edition.
  4. A photography experience: Ask for a friend or a family member to pay for airfare, gas for your car, airbnb rental, or a photography travel photography experience adventure. Any kind of embodied reality experience that will give you the opportunity to make photos is good.
  5. Use money to book a Zoom session with a famous photographer to give you honest feedback on your photos. Offer $200 an hour (for high profile photographers) for an hour or two of their time. Ask for personal direction and feedback on your portfolio. You can just ‘cold email’ them.
  6. If you shoot film, ask someone to buy you some camera film. Buy Japan Camera Hunter film things.
  7. Subscription experiences: Ask for HBO max to watch the new Dune movie, Apple TV for the new foundation series, or Apple Music (I prefer it over spotify).
  8. Ask for meat: Butcher box meat subscription. Or ask a friend or family member to take you out to an all you can eat Korean BBQ experience.
  9. Ask a family member to buy you some crypto: Maybe ask them to buy you $100 worth of some speculative crypto currency (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Chainlink, Digibyte, etc). Perhaps buy some speculative NFT things.
  10. Ask for coffee (robusta beans, or ‘death wish coffee‘ on Amazon).

Invest in ERIC KIM EXPERIENCE

If you’re hungry to respire your passion in photography, elevate your photographic vision, and find your true vision in photography, invest in an ERIC KIM PHOTOGRAPHY EXPERIENCE:

  1. SAN FRANCISCO (BAY AREA) ADVANCED STREET PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP, November 13, 2021
  2. New: ERIC KIM MEXICO CITY TRAVEL STREET PHOTOGRAPHY ADVENTURE EXPERIENCE (December 18-19, 2021)

Open Source Free Downloads

HAPTIC DIGITAL SUPPLY:

  1. Travel notes mobile edition // print
  2. Photo journal mobile // print
  3. Zen of ERIC KIM
  4. Street Notes Mobile // Print

More in HAPTIC SHOP >

Turbo thought ideas to get you going

  1. What is popular is bad: Popular things are bad. Anti popularity. Challenge all popular ideas.
  2. We Don’t Want it To Be Predictable: Perhaps living a non-predictable life is a better life?
  3. What is Experience Without Memory?. Perhaps having a ‘photographic memory‘ simply means making photos as a means of augmenting your memory.
  4. Best to take lots of small financial risks rather than a few big foolish ones. Speculate in yourself. Self entrepreneurship. Maybe instead of spending that $1000 towards stock or cryptocurrency, maybe buy tools or experiences or books that can help you (self speculation funds). Also signup for digital goods, films, or subscriptions.
  5. I still think GoPro is better than iPhone for videos. If you want to do more YouTube or videos, just get a new GoPro hero 10. Get a head strap, and a ‘hotshot mount’ to do your own street photography pov films.

Ask someone to buy you a domain

Ask a friend or family member (to finally get you to start your own website and blog):

  1. Just get the cheapest hosting plan on bluehost.com
  2. Install wordpress.org

Start blogging, posting, and designing your own photography website.

Get the newspack open source theme for wordpress.org.

Apple products?

I don’t recommend the new iPhone Pro (save your money). Use that money on a new iPad Pro M1 instead.

Maybe a HomePod mini to play music at home (I am very anti Alexa and Google home devices).

If you want a new laptop, maybe still better to get MacBook Air (M1 chip) over the new 14” and 16” MacBook Pro M1 pro and M1 max. Why? The new 14” inch seems like a step BACKWARDS (it is 3.5 pounds, compared to the 13” MacBook Pro which is only 3 pounds). Also the MacBook Air is only 2.8 pounds (the lightest thing will ultimately win).

If you want a new iPhone, just get the iPhone mini. iPhone Mini is better than iPhone pro.

Fitness

If you want to get fit this holiday season, either ask someone to buy you a gym subscription (get into sumo deadlifts) or just buy a heavy kettlebell on Amazon (either a 70 pounder, or the 105 pound beast).

Kettlebell as a good life productivity hack.

Just spend time

The ultimate gift:

The gift of uninterrupted time.

Spend time with your loved ones, and those you care for. Tell them how and why you appreciate them, and give them love.

ERIC

Start here

  1. Books
  2. Products
  3. Workshops
  4. Ars beta
  5. Why app?

If this gave you a spark of inspiration or motivation, or even 1 good idea … feel free to share or forward to a friend or a fellow streettog!

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