Dear friends,
A thought —
What awaits you? A bold new direction, and a bold new future in your photography.
How to unlock this? Some thoughts:
1. Always go back to first principles
If you think Aristotle and Elon Musk, the #1 entrepreneurial thought is–
Take things back to first principles.
Rather than thinking by analogy, think carte blanche, brand new, blank slate. For example, rather than thinking ‘how do you make a “BETTER” car, WHY do we need cars, or what is the purpose of cars?’
In photography, think to yourself:
What is the point or the purpose of photography, for yourself, and for others?
What is your end goal, your end game?
2. Think embodied reality
Another thought is this:
Photography is most easily possible when you expose yourself to new foreign environments, which stimulate your senses.
This is why it is so easy to photograph when you’re traveling and so difficult to photograph at home.
The interesting thing I learned from Cindy is the notion of Vietnamese ‘home’. The phrase in Vietnamese is often (for lets go home) it is:
“Di về“
“Ve” in Vietnamese literally means ‘to return’. So in a metaphorical sense, to “go home” means “to return back to the place where you started”.
So what is a ‘home’ anyways? The place where you return. Typically nobody lives on the road forever. Sooner or later, there is a place, a house, a locale you return to.
So I like this idea of being a world traveler, kind of like Sinbad, but eventually, sooner or later … you will return back… somewhere.
But otherwise, the best way to expose yourself to new embodied realities is to travel, attend in-person photography workshops, and to invest in experiences (buy experiences, not stuff).
3. Just buy RICOH GR IIIX
Just buy RICOH GR IIIX and call it a day (4K YouTube video review). Just shoot in extra small JPEG mode, for color use cross-process JPEG, or shoot extra high contrast for black and white, shoot in autofocus program mode.
Why do this? It is simple:
99% of the time we as photographers waste our time always thinking and wondering– do I have the best and most capable camera?
Once you no longer think about your camera, then you can truly focus 100% zen-zone on your photography, and nothing else.
10 Tips How To Become A More Zen Photographer >
4. Publish boldly.
I still think the best place to publish your photos is your own blog. Better than printing your photos, showing them in a gallery or exhibition, putting them in a printed book, etc.
The bold new future for photography is open source PDF’s:
ALL open source everything
Also:
And:
FREE Open-Source ERIC KIM Stock Photographs — Dropbox ZIP file download
Let us consider how bold Elon Musk was in open sourcing their electric chassis technology, which literally hyper-drove all the whole industry to embrace electric. It was a ‘win win’ for everyone.
It takes more courage to open source your work, than to close it.
Eric Kim on how to build a personal brand on the Artisans & Trade Podcast >
Petapixel: ERIC KIM Allowing high resolution downloads of his work (2013) >
5. Build a bold new platform
Something I am very proud of is arsbeta.com — a bold new approach to photography feedback and publishing.
I saw this as a great new way to get honest feedback and critique on your photos, something I did not see or witness anywhere else online (shout out to Kevin, Cindy, Annette, Jun Goodhouse Kim, Ben Mills, and the whole ARSBETA team in building it).
If your current reality sucks, build something to remedy it.
6. A bold new future for you
Some good books:
Also photography entrepreneurship 101 >
Turbocharge your photography at ERIC KIM EXPERIENCE
Upcoming workshops for you:
- (This Saturday April 30th 2022): ERIC KIM ONLINE CREATIVITY WORKSHOP (early-bird discount deadline is tomorrow, on Tuesday). Tuition is 200 USD, 99 USD early-bird discount. Buy Now // Learn More
- NEW: New York City CONQUER STREET PHOTOGRAPHY IN-PERSON WORKSHOP (June 4th, Saturday, 12-5pm Eastern time). Learn more >
START, BOOKS, WORKSHOPS, PRODUCTS
If this sparked any creative ideas within you, feel free to re-publish it to your website/blog (open source), or to share/forward to your friends.