Dear friend,
A lot of us want to be “motivated” (Latin means, ‘to move’). Some of us are self-motivated, and some of us lack motivation (the energy necessary to work, or act).
In this essay, I want to share some practical ideas on how you can self-motivate yourself.
Dear friend,
Something I realized– it ain’t enough just to shoot nice compositions of things. More importantly, we need to know how to recognize potentially interesting scenes BEFORE we shoot them. Or in more simple words,
“How do we know if a scene is interesting enough to photograph in the first place?”
Dear friend,
I think I am currently one of the most productive bloggers on the internet (and the world). I want to share how I do it– and perhaps a little on why I do it.
“I’m an alien.” – Elon Musk
Dear friend,
Philosophical question — why do so many of us want to be ‘normal’? Wouldn’t it be more fun and interesting to NOT be normal? Wouldn’t it be better to be a mis-fit than a “square”? Wouldn’t it be better to be an alien than a “normal” human?
Dear friend,
I got a question I want to work out with you: what is visual intelligence, and what does it teach us about being human?
To impress… literally means to IMPRESS (leave an indentation) upon someone else. I think what we are trying to do as photographers is to impress our viewers. Not necessarily to “show off”– but we are trying to make an impact on our viewers. Therefore it is essential for us to impress our viewers with our photos. But how do impress others with our pictures, and make a meaningful impact on our viewers? Some simple ideas:
I just watched the 2006 Werner Herzog documentary on the origins of the internet (“Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World“) and found this concept of a “log” interesting– specifically the concept of an “internet log” — nowadays we say “vlog” (video log) or “blog” (weB + log). And what are we as photographers in today’s world? PLOGGERS (photo-loggers); we use photographs to log and record our lives.
Dear friend,
A philosophical epiphany I had:
We need friction in life in order to do or accomplish anything.
Why is this? Let me explain.
Dear friend,
What is the future of photography? My opinion: image-selection, editing (choosing your best pictures), and curating your portfolio of your best pictures you care about.
My buddy Josh White is doing an artist talk at Leica Korea this Saturday, September 15th, 2018th. Don’t miss your chance to meet Josh, ask him questions about photography, and get inspired!
As photographers, we make pictures and photographs of reality. But a difficult question to answer is:
Why make images?
And also, why are images important to society?
Let’s reflect.
First of all, let us play with the Google Vision API and test it out:
Just tested out the new iPhone 8 camera, and I’m super impressed. All photos are straight out of camera, with no processing. Some personal thoughts:
Dear friend,
I’ve been philosophizing a lot about AI and studying AI (especially AlphaGo– just watched the Netflix documentary and was super inspired). Anyways, the question I have is this:
What can AI teach us about being human, or how can we better leverage AI to help us become smarter, more intelligent, or “better”?
The biggest problem in photography now: we have TOO MANY photos to look through. We are overwhelmed with our pictures, and we have no idea which of our photos are the best — and we’re uncertain which photos we should share/publish.
Made on iPad Pro 10.5 inch. Studying the work of Leonardo da Vinci and other Renaissance painters:
Basic idea: as a photographer, if you’re shooting street photography (or photographing anything that is moving), you are tracking the movement of the subject. The movement of the subject moving towards you, away from you, or in different directions. But how can we apply this machine learning concept of ‘image tracking’ to our photography? Some ideas:
Tip: Use the VSCO “distoria” filter to check whether your composition is good or not:
Bounding boxes are a fascinating concept for photographers– and a concept that many machine learning folks use to classify images, and detect images.
To curate your photos means to ‘care’ about your photos. So when you’re curating your portfolio; figure out which photos really speak to you — and why they speak to you!
I met a guy named Ryan at ‘Backyard Brew‘ in Palo Alto, and was super inspired by him — he taught me this concept of the ‘straight line’: directly do what you want to do, without getting distracted by money or other kinks in the link.
To be human is to create. Some simple tips to boost your creativity; excerpted from our book, ‘Eternal Return to the Creative Everyday‘ (all custom illustrations made by Annette Kim):
Perfection is Undesirable:
In life, I think it is good to always have the spirit of improvement, however I think we need to be careful of the Cerberus (false ideal) of perfection.
Dear friend,
Something I want to reflect with you is this:
What is image quality, is it important, why is it important, and what is the function of image quality? And is there an objective way to judge image quality– or is it all subjective?
Treat photography as visual experimentation. Have fun with it! And be like a visual scientist; never stop experimenting!
Taking photos is easy; curating your best photos is hard.
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” – Leonardo da Vinci
Dear friend,
A practical idea: in photography, life, and art, strive to keep your work super super simple.
A powerful idea I got from my buddy Nietzsche; in order to grow, we need BOTH pain and pleasure!
How do you know if you’re making progress in your photography? Is it important to make progress in your photography?
In the philosophy of photography and aesthetics, we can categorize photos into a binary categorization: either beautiful or ugly. But what makes a photo beautiful or ugly? Or what makes things beautiful or ugly?
We are in a brave new world of photography; we can leverage machine learning and artificial intelligence to make better photos! Some things I’ve been learning:
Dear friend,
A simple technique we can integrate into our photography — let us draw imaginary red arrows whichever direction our subjects are looking, or the direction they are walking!
Some of my favorite and may best street photography pictures, and why I think they are good:
Dear friend,
One of the most difficult challenges we have as photographers is to find inspiration to shoot new photos. Some practical ideas:
Dear friend,
A realization I’ve had after having a nice conversation with my buddy Christophe Wu: photography (and life) is all about point-of-view (POV); your perspective of the world.
Currently in San Jose, enjoying time with my mom, Annette Kim, Cindy, and loving life. Gonna teach a few workshops here, then off to NYC for another workshop, then Montreal in November (first time), then back in LA in December!
Dear friend,
An aesthetic and life philosophy I strive towards; subtracting the superfluous.
My good friend and former workshop student Martin just made a new YouTube video on 3 practical street photography composition tips. Give the video a watch and subscribe to him here.
Dear friend,
Take your photography seriously — it is your art-work, the expression of your soul, and what gives you the spirit to live!
What I think differentiates a good photographer and a great photographer is this: a great photographer is a better observer of the world around them! But how can we observe better as photographers, and why observe better?
The New ERIC KIM PORTFOLIO BAG: Create, travel, be prepared for every photography adventure EVERYDAY.
