First, don’t call it a cult, call it a “club“.

Second, have some sort of charismatic leader.

Third, some sort of physical place of activity or congregation. Some sort of temple.

Fourth, some sort of rituals, lingo, or verbiage.

Some good examples include The Cult of powerlifting, The Cult of coffee, The Cult of yoga, The Cult of Apple (Apple store as the temple), the cult of Leica, the cult of Tesla, the cult of Elon musk, etc.

Also the cult of bitcoin, crypto, cryptocurrency, crypto technology, and Satoshi.

Fight club, the movie fight club is a synopsis on building a cult.

After a lot of thinking and philosophizing, this is what I have gathered:

I think the ultimate privilege is simply to strive to make great photos, become a great photographer, and become an ever greater photographer.

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How?

The first thought to think and consider is this:

What does it mean to become a great photographer, and is it even a possible thing to become the “greatest“ photographer?

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Being inspired to make photos until you die at the age of 120

OK so let us assume that I could predict with you with 100% certainty that you will live to be 120 years old, in phenomenal health. If that were the case, how can you structure your life in such a way which allows you to stay inspired and motivated to make photos until you die at 122?

First things first, don’t own a home. At worst, just own a condo. A lot of my successful friends, like my friends Don Dillon and Tim Flangan have done this; the upside of owning a condo is that you can just travel, and travel the world, and ultimately you will still have somewhere to keep your stuff, and go back home to. And at least when you’re on the road, you don’t have to worry about maintaining your home or the outside of your house.

Second, structuring your life which allows maximum movement and independence. This means a life in which you spend a good amount of time on the road, traveling, in other foreign places. It could be as simple as wing road trips in America, or more complex like traveling internationally. The world is a big ass place. And this is what gives me great hope.

For example, there are still 1 trillion places that have not yet been to, which I am interested in. I’m interested in going to Lagos Nigeria, Morocco, South America, Eastern Europe, Hungary, etc. And before all of this Ukraine Putin stuff, I was very interested in going to Russia Moscow.

Making great photos

I hate to say it, but certainly there is a hierarchy in terms of great photos compared to not as great photos. What is the differentiating factor?

For myself, when I study the work of Henri Cartier Bresson, and look at his more advanced works, he is really good at the arabesque composition. The squiggly line composition, which adds elegance to his photos.

Also, a Dionysian aesthetic. This means a dark, hard aesthetic. Extremely high contrast black and white, extremely high grain. For example, lately I’ve been shooting on my Lumix G9 camera, after my Ricoh GR 3X broke. I was able to use the in camera JPEG setting of dynamic monochrome, adjusting the contrast to the max, the grain to the max, and I think I have discovered a new aesthetic which I might even prefer over the Ricoh GR 3X in camera high contrast black and white.

In terms of longevity, I believe black and white is more durable than color. Why is this?

First and foremost, we don’t see the world in black-and-white. This alone is the massive differentiating factor between black-and-white photography and color photography.

Secondly, color, color science, digital cameras, sensors, sensor technology is always changing in terms of color. Also JPEG, RAW settings. CMOS vs CCD sensors for color, etc. this alone is a massive headache; and there is also a quadrillion different types of ways to print color, display color, and also view monitors with different color profiles etc. Black and white makes your life 1 trillion times easier.

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The path to become a great photographer

How does one become a great photographer?

I think first of all, I think having an over stated ego, over inflated ego, over inflated self-confidence is a virtue and a good thing. First, I think you must have the desire, the audacity, and also the chutzpah to desire to become a great photographer.

I believe the 99.99% issue with modern day life is that it is considered immoral to desire to become great. That somehow, greatness, and striving to become great, is actually considered a vice.

Modern day life says one must be quiet, low-key, and ashamed of oneself. It is considered a vice to self promote, have self confidence in oneself etc.

I say, perhaps the best thing you could teach yourself, and also teach our kids is in fact to gain more self-confidence, to gain more audacity.

Great aesthetics?

In terms of making great photos, my simple thought is that making great photos is all about making photos which are strong, simple, and hard.

For example, some aesthetic thoughts:

1. Extremely high contrast black-and-white
2. Simple backgrounds
3. Some sort of strong character, subject, or happening or mood behind the photo

Making “objectively” great photos?

Something which I believe which is very unorthodox:

Personally speaking, I do believe that it is actually possible to make an objectively great photo.

But the question is, who decides?

First of all, you decide. Then maybe EK or arsbeta.com can decide.

Whose opinion matters?

Question —

Is it possible to make “objectively“ great photos?

I think so!

I NEED MORE BITCOIN!

EVERYONE STRIVES TO BE OR BECOME THE MOST DOMINANT.

For example, bitcoin is the most dominant crypto cryptocurrency. The hilarity is that everyone wants their token, coin, or crypto asset to become the next bitcoin. Why not just go with the GOAT (greatest of all time) instead?

Why does everyone hate ERIC KIM? Some theories:

1. People are confused by him. They cannot really put him in a neat little box.
2. People are befuddled by his masculinity, his insanely high self-esteem and ego, and also his demigod strength.