Life Update from Mexico City

Life in Mexico City is good. Photography Paradise. Ideal place to escape the cold for us east coasters.

Ricoh for the win

I’m quite certain Ricoh GR III is the perfect camera, especially for travel and more. For street photography it is great and low-key. And with Covid and face masks, I feel we can become more ghost like and stealth.

Get ERIC KIM WRIST STRAP MARK II with it and you’re set.

Make pdf books

Another new innovative way to share your photos while on the road— PDF. Easy to make with Apple MacBook laptop in MacOS.

PDFs of Mexico City >

More photos here

The future of travel?

Travel for the brave. Now with Omicron, travel is far more risky. The question:

How bad do I want it?

Digital nomad or Silicon Valley billionaire?

It seems even Silicon Valley billionaires desire to live nomadically, not being tied down by physical possessions and homes. Even my ideal— don’t own a phone. Just a MacBook Air and RICOH GR III — the ideal minimal viable digital tools combination.

Funny enough being here, the digital nomads are very happy. Check out Todd Hata. Funny enough I’ve never met a happy person from Silicon Valley, no matter how successful or rich. And—

Many Silicon Valley billionaires who want to become digital nomads, very few digital nomads who desire to become (tied down) Silicon Valley billionaires.

So what’s the goal?

Photographers should have a blog. Why? The blog is the ultimate creative canvas to share your photos art and ideas. Even a thought, I think a lot of philosophers of the past would have loved to have a blog. for example, many of the thoughts from Nietzsche would have made really great blog posts.

We desire to propagate ourselves, and our artworks. 

Photo thoughts

  1. Just shoot it all.
  2. Shoot 10x more photos than you think you should
  3. To study composition, study the work of Henri Cartier Bresson, or bauhaus art. Also watch great cinema. 7samurai as a favorite
  4. Still much innovation left to be made in black-and-white photography. I actually think black-and-white photography is the future
  5. Think more philosophically about your photography.

Recap your photos from this year

Do a virtual photo catalog of your pictures from this year. Choose your best photo photos from this year, and make a set.

You can print them out, share them with friends and family, or publish them to your website or blog. You can also make a PDF.

Your photography assignment

Extreme minimalism. Upload your best photos to arsbeta.com

Holiday ideas

Some holiday ideas:

  1. Rent an Airbnb, and stay there a few days with friends or family. Always the best is to invest money in experiences, not stuff.
  2. If you want a smaller camera, get a Ricoh GR 3. ERIC kim neck strap mark II as a good choice to complement your Ricoh.
  3. If you want a new Apple product, I really like the new Apple mini HomePod. Syncs well with your iPhone, and use it with Apple Music.
  4. Watch the new Dune movie or the matrix movie on HBO max. If you don’t have HBO max, just subscribe for a month to test it out.
  5. HAPTIC HOLIDAY PROMO: Buy anything over $250 USD from the HAPTIC SHOP and get free ERIC KIM WALLET with your order. 

Digital medium format ideas

Just finished a workshop in Mexico City, and one of my students Chris Chung had a new Hasselblad digital medium format, the XD MARK II. Very cool camera, very compact, and probably the best designed camera I’ve seen in a long time. For the money, I think it is much better than even getting a digital Leica.

I still think that if you’re going to spend a lot of money on a digital camera nowadays, digital medium format is still the way to go. And just shoot in small JPEG, you still get the digital medium format pop and the 3-D feel.

Read more, how Mexico City is a perfect city >