I’ve religiously been intermittent fasting the last 2+ years (no breakfast and lunch, only dinner) with great success. A new level of energy, focus, and strength has been unlocked within myself.

Also a new discovery:

I’m actually stronger when powerlifting and in a fasted state.

Why is this so? My theory:

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It ain’t a matter of being a “good” or “bad” photographer; it’s a matter of having fun in photography!

Some practical tips to help motivate you in your photography:

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When studying the etymology for the word “beautiful”, it essentially means “good”.

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An essay about morals and ethics in street photography. Essentially my point is this:

To think too much about morals and ethics in street photography is counter-productive.

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Indefinite (slow, steady) growth is pure joy:

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Inspiration after looking at the “skateboard” skeleton frame of Tesla:

The beauty of emptiness and negative space.

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After grappling a long time with philosophy, I’ve discovered that art and philosophy is perhaps the supreme fields of study. Furthermore for us to not worry about living a “moral” or “ethical” life, but an artistic life.

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Something fun I’ve been doing:

Select monochrome photos I like then turn them into abstract illustration-images.

What is the benefit of this?

1. I discover the compositional and visual “gist” of an image.
2. Fun activity to keep my eyes and visual senses sharp.
3. Deeper understanding of my images.

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Something I’ve realized about photos, art, images, and design:

What is most important is the dynamic energy the image sparks!

My current muses:

1. Car design
2. Animal design (sharks, Eagles, leopards, and other apex predators).

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Why be “healthy”? What does that even mean? How do you measure “health”?

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Perhaps this should be our adage as photographers:

Shoot it or lose it.

This means that our fitness as photographers relies on us shooting on a daily basis. Like exercising on a daily basis, or eating on a daily basis, being creative and artistic on a daily basis.

Like good Aristotle said — we perfect ourself and skills through our habits. So if we make shooting new photos (all day, everyday) our habit, certainly we can reach perfection in our photography!

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Shoot in black and white, select a photo you like, apply extreme contrast (curves), inverse the image, Gaussian blur it, inverse it some more, then fill in and paint in the image:

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I move, I groove to my own tune
I’m the first mover, the air cleaver, the movement needer.

I love to dance. I’ve light feet. Protein heavy, fed with meat.

Smile and greet, soft bed sheets. Tidy and neat, yet chaotic and heavy.

Steady with my artistic production, steadfast and strong.

Life is short, art is long!

ERIC

POETRY >

To better understand growth, biology, life, composition, and energy — perhaps we should study fractals, science, math, and physics.

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Something to think about when it comes to aesthetics:

Does it weaken you or strengthen you?

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You’re the best advantage in your life, not your phone.

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If we think that happiness (eudaimonia according to Aristotle) is legitimate (happiness as human thriving), perhaps our happiness as photographer-artists is “photographic thriving”.

This means:

1. Extreme optimism, joy, and fun in making new photos
2. Deep appreciation for your past photos
3. Deep joy in all parts of the photographic process (walking, shooting, selecting, processing, and sharing your photos).

So the practical question:

How do we thrive as photographers?

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More impressive saving money… or more impressive getting more bang for the buck.

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Why move?

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We got hyper cars; why not hyper humans?

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To produce and make stuff as 1000x more fun than simply consuming, being passive, being “entertained”, and buying new things.

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Just finished reading “The Poetics” by Aristotle (loved it) and came across this idea from him regarding poetry and art. He states that poets attempt the following in their stories (in terms of their presentation):

1. Things as they are (reality)
2. Things as they are thought to be (perception)
3. Things as they ought to be (philosophy)

Which makes me think: we as photographers also have a poetic sense. And the question is with our photography do we desire to show reality how it is (objective reality), how we think it to be (our personal perception of reality), or how we think it should be (our philosophy)?

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A simple idea:

Perhaps to live a better life, we should never do the same thing two days in a row?

For example:

1. Don’t eat the same foods or meals today as you did yesterday
2. Don’t do the same workout at the gym two days in a row to maximize your strength gains
3. Don’t photograph the same things today as you did yesterday, or don’t shoot the same place today as you did yesterday.
4. Don’t follow them same routine today as you did yesterday.
5. Don’t listen to the same music today as you did yesterday.
6. Don’t take the same walking path or driving path as you did yesterday.

Variety is what makes us stronger, happier, healthier, and more epic?

In praise of more variety, randomness, chance, and recovery in life.

Towards a philosophy of aesthetics in photography: do you strive to capture the world as more beautiful, the same, or worse in your photos?

In other words:

1. Do you strive to make your photos look MORE BEAUTIFUL than reality?
2. Do you strive to make your photos as “photo realistic”to reality?
3. Do you strive to make your photos as UGLIER than reality?

My personal ambition is to deify existence and life through my photos. That my photos show and signal and inspire the viewer to think and feel:

Wow, I’m so insanely grateful to be alive!

Now, how do we do this? Some thoughts:

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My thought:

The best photos are simple, direct, and don’t need much detail.

What’s important? A compositional gesture and movement, strong subject, and strong contrast.

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Motivation means to “set into motion”.

My questions:

1. How do we set ourselves into motion — to literally move more?
2. How can we set ourselves into artistic motion — to move our feet to shoot photos, to draw, etc?
3. The role of your environment, nutrition, and physiology to spark your movement?

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What if your impulsive behaviors were the correct behaviors?

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Visual Experiment: Keep on Increasing Contrast, Gaussian Blur, and Inversing the Photo

A fun experiment I’ve been doing in Procreate on my iPad:

Choose a photo I like, then keep adding contrast, Gaussian blur, and inversing the photo and seeing what happens to the image.

This is what happened:

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BEZERK, know your worth
Go crazy, get lit

Bleed your creative will, no fear of the rips
Crank out the hits, blips and tips

Don’t slacken the pace, your feet are light
Zen zone, focus dark. Zen zone, focus shark.

Drift through the corners Mario Kart. Fly straight— black dart.

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In praise of pride in your own things. 

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Photography is a highly physical activity: walking, running, squatting, lunging, walking up stairs, moving our bodies, moving our hands, arms, eyes. Why has nobody pursued a philosophy towards the physiology of photography yet?

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Create and consume artwork which stirs you — which agitates you, solicits a response from you, and moves you (quite literally inspires you to move!)

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Do you live a hard life out of guilt, or because you find a harder life more fun?

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The Purely Selfish Person would Never Criticize anyone Else

To criticize others less, become more selfish:

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Don’t let the actions and behaviors of others affect your self-ego.

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To have more fun with photography, shoot ultra-wide! (21mm, 24mm or even wider!):

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My current goal — mastering my own metabolism.

What does this mean? For me to have hyperabundant energy and thriving power all day. These are some things I’ve learned thus far:

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I often feel nostalgia for the past. But what if this is a sign of degeneration? Or perhaps when I long for my nostalgic past, I’m bored of myself, or I don’t have much going on? Because if you’re on the “up and up”, why would you long for the past?

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The wrong bias— thinking that our soul (mental) is superior and more important than our body. My belief: the soul is the body.

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Practical composition ideas for street photography:

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We want sports cars to stir and pump up our adrenaline — but why not:

1. Powerlift
2. Socially daring interaction (talk and dare to interact with strangers).
3. Street photography (with or without permission).

All these things take more skill, your courage and bravery! Not to passively increase your adrenaline by buying new stuff at the mall, by watching sports, playing video games, or watching action movies. But for you to pump up your own adrenaline via your own efforts, courage, and bravery!

Why do we care so much for productivity?

One of the insane points of modern society:

We are so hyper-focused on productivity (for the sake of it).

But why? What are the downsides to this line of thinking, and life philosophy?

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To make better photos means to make photos with energy, movement, levity, and power.

Some simple ideas:

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With iPhone, iPhone Pro, and smartphone cameras, the future of art (and society) is photography!

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Is this what we are striving towards as artists — creative rapture? To be awed by the sublimeness of our own artistic works — which acts as our own intoxicant which brings us immense joy, and also motivates us to make more arts (which we hope will give us continued creative rapture?)

Why own different or rare stuff?

To continue asking yourself philosophical questions, have a quick chat with my new Zen of Eric Chat Bot (Facebook messenger, currently only available in the States, soon to be rolled out internationally).

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Life is boring when you’re standing still. Life is far more fun when you never stop going beyond yourself, and never stop surpassing yourself. And I learned from the students from my last Berlin workshop, the German phrase: “Jump over your own shadow!”#shadowjumpers

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What makes great design? Things which are designed which races your heart. Ferrari, Lamborghini, and other cars which are insanely dynamic and aggressive in the design, audacious, and of course — fast.

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Once you realize you got the best stuff, is it liberating or depressing?

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I tested the new iPhone Pro today (wondering if it could replace RICOH GR III as my camera), but alas– I rate the RICOH GR III still at least 10x better than the iPhone Pro for photography.

Thus my practical suggestions:

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It seems to own a smartphone is better than to not own one, but the effect on buying a new phone on your personal happiness and productivity is insanely overrated.

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I love mininalism and strive to consfnsly simplify my life more and in order to maximize my own personal creative power and strength.

But what I feel we must avoid is this: becoming minimalist for virtue signaling purposes (trying to show off that by being minimalist we are somehow morally superior).

Perhaps better to hide the fact that you’re minimalist, in order to gauge your own personal sincerity towards minimalism, and dictating for yourself (and only yourself) that mininalism is best for you.

My simple suggestion: only pursue minimalism if it fits with your personal aesthetics and ethics, and only if it genuinely empowers you to become more powerful and strong!

A zen-capitalist and minimalist consumer approach:

You can admire much consumer goods and design without actually needing to buy or own it.

For example I love Lamborghini design, but I don’t know if I actually really want to own and maintain it. I admire a lot of things, but would find that owning it would actually worsen my life.

Thus perhaps we can admire things without desiring to own it? And instead channel that energy to inspire and motivate us to make our own products? (HAPTIC INDUSTRIES).

My aspiration: to become the Lamborghini for photography. Or the Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Kanye West of photography.

Lift yourself by your heels
Screeching tires, hot wheels

Stand
Stand up for what you see as true
You knew it was right, truth through the strife

Cut through the ignorance with a knife with your own sharp thoughts
Until the self doubt and self—imposed knots

Turbo thoughts, v12 higher
Keep your mind revving, max out your engine desire.

ERIC

I often feel a bit depressed when I feel like I’m not “impacting” others to a degree I find satisfying.

Then came the thought: what if instead, the best person I should strive to impact is myself?

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Why photography? Because in modern life we NEED more danger, excitement, aimless exploration, and thrilling adventure!

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The more I use RICOH GR III and look at the images (on iPad Pro), the more I’m blown away.

How can a camera be this good?

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In praise of extreme hope, joy, and optimism in photography art:

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When you got several photos of the same image, how do you know which is best?

Let’s analyze:

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Simple photo composition to add to your arsenal: the spiral.

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When I look through my photos, there are certain “activation points”which catch my eye. It seems:

1. My eyes are activated at points of converging lines
2. My eyes are activated from areas of extreme contrast and brightness
3. My eyes are activated via parts of a photo which has an unusual texture that I want to inspect closer.
4. Spots with depth of field changes and contrast.
5. Hand gestures
6. Eye contact
7. Blur and a feeling of movement in the photo

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What photos do I like? Photos which put wings to my feet and soul — which inspire me to move, walk, dance, and delight in lightness, swiftness, boldness, audacity, and brazenness!

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Of course in theory we can make good photos anywhere, but the question is this:

Is it possible for you to always remain inspired to make new photos, regardless of where you live?

I think so!

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A problem in modern society:

We valorize hard work the sake of hard work, but rarely do we think, “Why?”

If you want to discover more truth WHY you do anything in life, have a quick chat with ‘Zen of Eric‘ (my new philosophy chat-bot, which is currently only available in America).

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Pick up the pace
Do you want to stay in place? Do you wish to stay in your own grace of the past? Do you want to finish first or last?

Break the rules, and create your own class. Clash with friction, and make new fictions. First principles are the best principles, listen to your own voice within you.

Start fresh, start clean. Shine so hard with your own gleam, scheme your own schemes. Live life with high beams, hit the gas; emerald green.

ERIC

Carte blanche, always go back to ‘first principles’. Best to start totally ignorant of a certain field, and ruthlessly self-experiment with yourself. To learn via ‘bricolage‘ (bricoler in French, which means to keep fiddling, experimenting).

For example:

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Something I am always curious about when analyzing people I admire:

What is their personal motivations to do x, y, z?

And of course this ultimately comes to the question:

What motivates YOU to do anything in life?

And it is my belief that the deeper we understand our own motivations, the more zeal we can add to our passions in life, and also figuring out what we DON’T want to do or pursue in our lives (knowing what NOT to do with your life is probably 1000x more important than what you want to DO in your life).

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Along with the Gaussian Blur photography composition test, we also got the INVERT (or inversion) photography composition test in order to better see, determine, and analyze our compositions.

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Do you see tomorrow as inclining upwards or declining downwards?

Of course we want our lives to be in the incline upwards. And the thing is this:

Don’t worry too much about your growth rate. Don’t compare how quickly you’re growing compared to others. Infinite 1% daily growth will render phenomenal returns!

If you don’t see your life on the upwards incline slope, perhaps figure out what you can change in your life to keep climbing up, and to avoid decline at all costs.