10 Creative Photography Ideas for You

Dear friends,

To advertise my upcoming new ONLINE PHOTOGRAPHY CREATIVITY WORKSHOP, I wanted to share some quick thoughts with you on photography, art, and creativity:

1. Photography as the ‘Occam’s razor’ of artistic creativity

I like the notion of Occam’s razor (as simple as possible, nothing superfluous). Digital photography is this. What I mean is that with photography, you can most directly create art objects (your photos), with as little effort and mess as possible.

There is no other form of art which is as simple and direct as photography.

Even nowadays, I believe the RICOH GR IIIX as the supreme camera. And the upside of digital over film is that digital is 1000000x more cheap, convenient, and fast than film.

I feel that COVID-19 might have been the final nail in the coffin for film. Even though I love film, the aesthetics, the process, and the zen associated with it, film is now dead to me. Long live digital.

With RICOH GR IIIX, somehow they made the optics even more superior to Ricoh GR III. And I’ve actually discovered I actually really like the 40mm perspective. Now, I no longer think about the focal length — I just see, point and shoot.

2. Extra Small JPEG (high contrast black and white)

Assuming we create a ‘full stack’ digital photography solution, and assuming we won’t print our photos super big, then it seems that extra small JPEG (around 2000px wide) is ideal. Why? Even on a 13” MacBook Pro (or perhaps even the new 14”), your JPEG photos full-screen are big enough for your laptop wallpaper.

Also, the upside of extra small JPEG is that you can shoot more, more freely, with less risk. Why?

With extra small JPEG, you don’t need to think twice. It won’t take up much space, the photos will import super fast, and also upload super fast. In fact, shooting extra small jpeg on my RICOH GR IIIX has made my photographic workflow probably at least 10x as efficient even when compared to shooting ‘normal small’ JPEG.

Also, after extensive testing of the iPhone Pro, I’ve discovered the optimal is to just get the new iPhone SE (just use the iPhone as a phone), and optimize your photography with RICOH GR IIIX. As much as the new iPhone Pro seems to be the ultimate photo solution, it isn’t. In fact, I think that only lemmings will get the iPhone Pro. Even now when I observe people who have an iPhone Pro, they tend to be millennials (or zillenials, or gen-Z) Instagram-addicted folks who want to become ‘influencers’ or go to ‘festivals’, and simply want the best internet-connected camera/phone to flex their festival-centric lifestyle.

If your true goal is to focus on photography, just have a ‘standalone’ digital camera. RICOH GR IIIX.

3. New ways to share and publish your work

Something I learned from Cindy and her students is how well they use new technologies like Google Slides (it is like the new version of making a linkable website), Canva (the new ‘Photoshop killer’), Google Docs, etc to publish and share their artwork and ideas.

For example, you can easily make a photo book designed in Google Slides (export as PDF) or even using Apple Keynote to make a digital photo book.

Affinity Publisher is also a great solution for us when using our Mac (MacBook laptop) to publish digital works of art (beautiful e-books). I truly believe PDF is the future.

4. Retire Adobe products

I’ve been a hardcore Adobe Lightroom user ever since I was in college, but now, I just use Apple Photos (the default one baked into MacBook laptops, and also your iPhone/iPad). Why? Deeper integration. I love how Apple Photos easily syncs everything — the Adobe ‘Cloud’ is clunky.

For us photographers, assuming you just stick to JPEG, you can just cancel your Adobe Cloud service, and just stick to Apple Photos which is free. Of course you’re locked into the Apple Ecosystem, but we all already are anyways, so it isn’t a big deal. For me personally, I don’t pay for any subscription services (no Spotify, no Netflix, no Adobe cloud, etc) — only YouTube premium (for my family, so I don’t overhear annoying advertisements) and Dropbox Pro (and also pay for extra cloud storage for Google Drive and Apple iCloud). The fewer subscriptions you gotta pay, the better.

5. Use more of your money on experiences which will expose you to making new photos

Even beyond photo books— the best money you can invest in your photography is experiences. For example, use your money to travel (either domestically or internationally), use your money on hotels/airbnb, use your money for a cruise, or gas for a road trip.

In fact, I am becoming less price-sensitive when it comes to paying for AirBnb, or even Hotels, because I know in that kind of scenario, it will motivate me to make more new photos.

Some recent trips I did which I loved:

Socal to NorCal (Berkeley) road trip // stopped by Sacramento which I thought was actually very cool (Sacramento x Berkeley Road Trip 2022) also Morrow Bay
Lake Arrowhead mountain retreat
JOSHUA TREE (love love love it).

Some things which might be in the pipeline for me: