What is your passion in life? If you don’t know what your passion is, should you have a passion?

If you know what your passion is, should you pursue it? To what extent? Should you try to monetize your passion, or not?

Let me essay some of these thoughts:

To photograph is to live.

The more you photograph, the more you live.

The more you shoot, the more you wonder (and wander), the more hidden beauty you discover in life.

Photography is life.

Never go anywhere without your camera around your neck or on your wrist (or at least in your front pocket).

“‘Til you own your own you can’t be free. ‘Til you’re on your own you can’t be me. How we still slaves in 2016?” – JAY Z (I Got the Keys song)

Until you own your platform, you don’t own your photos (or yourself).

Photography as Self-Expression

Photography is a tool to “express” yourself (ex+press — to press out your soul into the world, via your photos).

If you desire to thrive as a photographer, #deleteinstagram and join ARSBETA.COM instead.

A thought when walking around today:

Do you love being alive?

Are you living your life in a way in which you suck out the marrow of reality? Where you deify existence, and being alive? Or are you living in a way simply to kill the time, and to live an existence as un-miserably as possible — waiting until you die?

Perhaps we prefer gritty black and white photos that don’t look like reality, because we need to fill in the gaps, and engage our imagination?

The upside of gritty, blurry, and out-of-focus photos. The less ‘photo realistic’ the images look, the better?

There is no ultimate ‘truth’ — only varying degrees of “truthiness” (degrees of truth).

Perhaps it is our evolutionary advantage that we delight in visual change. Visual change in landscapes, our environment, our fashion, our cars, our objects, and the visual art works we consume and create!

Active thinking: thoughts which arise when you let your mind go empty and fallow.

Reactive thinking: you must read or expose yourself to external stimuli in order to think.

Something I’m very interested in: the intersection of photography, technology, entrepreneurship, and philosophy. I feel this is very fascinating ground which hasn’t (yet) been fully analyzed in detail.

Are You Strong Enough, or Too Weak?

A way to think about life —

Don’t be afraid of failure or hurting/injuring yourself. Instead, just focus on building your own strength and become strong enough to pursue great tasks and aims in your life.

Generally speaking, buying books will always be a better investment than buying photo gear (#buybooksnotgear).

But at times, I feel a bit conflicted about photo books. In some regards, I think photo books are over-rated. And some ways, photo books are underrated.

Let me use this essay as an opportunity to explicate some of my thoughts and personal philosophies on photo books:

The RICOH GR II is a perfect camera. But the good news– the RICOH GR III is even better.

RICOH GR III in high contrast monochrome JPEG setting is epic.

Super enjoying the RICOH GR III; which gave me a thought:

Perhaps we should only ever purchase a camera which we can imagine using forever?

Of course nothing is meant to last forever. And of course digital photography is moving so quickly, that to never buy another digital camera ever again is also a foolish idea. If I plan on shooting photos until I’m 120 years old, I want new technologies in photography to be created!

But as photographers and creators, we need to love the cameras and tools we use. Keep experimenting with your equipment until you find a few tools you love, then stick with them! If you just feel “meh” about the tools or belongings you have, ditch them.

Hasselblad: killing it with insane innovations in digital medium format, and digital backs for their old school Hasselblad V system.

Life is about growth and progress. But a question which often gnaws at the back of our head:

“Am I making progress in my photography, artistic innovation, and life?”

Life is all upside, no downside.

Based on my thoughts:

1. Longevity: Ability to continue to innovate in their photography over decades. To keep shooting until they die (Andre Kertesz).
2. Self-confidence: Making photographic art works to impress themselves, not others.
3. Refusal to allow themselves be trapped within a genre.
4. To think of photography less about capturing reality. More delight in artistic form, tones–a more artistic approach.
5. Relatively simple, direct, yet elegant compositions. No need for “visual gymnastics” to “flex” their photographic skills.

Simple tips to get you going!

How does a photographer thrive? By shooting more (new) photos!

The world is your visual oyster. Exploit reality by shooting all the new photos you can!

Testing the 21mm ultra-wide angle adapter for the new Ricoh GR III, and really enjoying it!

What if our goal and motive as photographers was to capture the fullest extent of life, while we’re still alive?

To photograph people, nature, urban landscapes, plant life, and all of life?

When I look at artwork, I like artwork which “moves” me– quite literally moves me. Which encourages me to move around, dance, and go out and make more of my own artwork!

An idea: for fun, turn your photos into animated GIFs!

Refuse yourself to become a prisoner to your past self, your past artistic style, etc.

Free DOWNLOAD of Eric Kim Stock Photos (Volume 1).

Thanks to Cindy for the idea. The basic notion is this:

If you need free photographs or illustrations for a book cover, design, etc — these are for you.

Practical ideas:

It seems that success as a photographer in today’s brave new world of photography is 90% dependent on marketing skill, and only 10% photographic skill. It seems this is the truth.

Now, how are you to succeed and stand-out? Here are some practical ideas I’ve learned through my decade+ experience in photography, marketing, philosophy, and life:

Why don’t I like to possess things which others posses?

I deem JOSEF KOUDELKA as one of the greatest photographers of all time. Why? Let me share.

To make great photos, strive to make strong and simple compositions.

When in doubt, go light.

With enough of your personal willpower, you can achieve, do, become, or create anything.

But the practical question:

How do we “gain” more willpower? How can we strengthen our willpower?

A simple way of living life:

Devote all of your power and energy to do dope shit!

A thought inspired by Cindy:

You are the end.

What I mean is this:

Is there such thing as “ideal” aesthetics in photography?

To me, entrepreneurship is applied philosophy to reality. To become an entrepreneur takes 10000x more guts than to be a thinker and philosopher. Why? As an entrepreneur you are tied to reality (skin in the game, via Nassim Taleb). You’re a modern day hero. You’re taking on personal sacrifices and risks to better humanity and the collective.

Where should the profit motive fit?

I love monochrome. Here are some practical tips to help you elevate your monochrome vision:

I have a bold new vision of the future:

A world in which we derive happiness and meaning from creating and producing things (artwork), instead of striving to buy, possess, or consume.

In photography, using a wide-angle lens and getting very close will make better photos:

Why is happiness important? Why be happy?

Kind of random — but after years of experimenting with different headphones (noise cancelling, over-head, in-ear, bluetooth, wireless, wired, etc), I have decided:

In-ear monitor ‘earbuds’ are the best headphones.

Entrepreneurial concepts to help increase your likelihood of success:

What is art? Art is something that a human being creates.

Anything you create is an “art-work”.

Now perhaps the more practical question is this:

Is art a legitimate art-form? And is it on the same plane as painting or other forms of artwork?

I claim it is. Why? Let me explain:

ARS: The superior ‘anti-social’ social media platform BY photographers, FOR photographers!

How I shoot in real life:

Some of my favorite photos and why I love these photos:

A thought on art:

Perhaps we should strive to make beautiful things which we like to look at.

I am one of the most creatively productive people I know. Here are some practical thoughts and tips on how to create more:

What are the best camera straps for you? An overview of all HAPTIC STRAPS:

Some ideas on walking more and shooting more:

What makes a beautiful photo? How do we better increase our chances of making a beautiful photo? What type of camera do we need, and so forth?