Set the bar higher, high-flyer
Don’t mind if you don’t reach the top— just keep hustling hard, and don’t you stop

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Check out the Stanford ‘Image Painting‘ demo to see how AI and deep learning can re-construct your photos; helping you better judge your own picture compositions!

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Dear friend,

I’m studying a lot of AI, and have been philosophizing (my entire life) about technology-human integration.

A realization today:

We are seeking to ‘augment our intelligence’ with technology, yet what I think we really want to do is to augment our wisdom!

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Authentic
Whatever life has given you, you’ve been blessed with

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What if we lived a life without fear and anxiety — how much more of our potential could we reach?

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To live a more epic life — go hard, and supersede (your self-perceived) limits

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Dear friend,

Simple question:

What is your dream in life, and what are you willing to sacrifice in order to achieve it?

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Dear friend,

Some practical ideas on realizing your potential (recognition of your talents), as well as having the strength to turn these skills into reality!

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Should we augment reality?

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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.

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Dear friend,

Do you remember when you were a kid, and you had to deal with ‘lag’? To me, lag (or latency) is one of the worst things as a gamer. But how can we use this analogy of ‘LAG’ in real life?

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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?”

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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.

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“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?

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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?

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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:

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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.

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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.

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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.

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I love shooting JPEG. Why? It simplifies my photographic workflow and life.

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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!

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Make elegant pictures
Create your own visual scale; break it off the Richter

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Dear friend,

In today’s modern world with AI, smartphone cameras, and automated cameras– what is the function of the photographer?

Why take pictures? To me, photography is visual poetry.

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Dear friend,

A practical life philosophy: live in a straight line.

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Dear friend,

For us to become better visual artists, we must undergo ‘visual training’.

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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.

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Dear friend,

Something I’m curious about — what would a “post-like” society look like?

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First of all, let us play with the Google Vision API and test it out:

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Dear friend, consider this your visual gym — strengthen your visual muscles:

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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:

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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”?

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Dear friend,

A basic idea: why make better compositions in your photography?

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Dear friend,

Simple question: what is your end-game in life?

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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.

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Dear friend,

A lot of folks are afraid of AI (artificial intelligence), and the effect of technology on our everyday lives. My suggestion: turn yourself into a centaur; half-man, half-machine.

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Style: the impression you stick on your viewer.

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Made on iPad Pro 10.5 inch. Studying the work of Leonardo da Vinci and other Renaissance painters:

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To me, the best use of our human metabolism is to create art!

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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:

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Dali is the original surrealist:

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Tip: Use the VSCO “distoria” filter to check whether your composition is good or not:

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Dear friend,

I want to make the case why you might want to become an entrepreneur.

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Bounding boxes are a fascinating concept for photographers– and a concept that many machine learning folks use to classify images, and detect images.

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Made on iPad Pro and Procreate App:

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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!

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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.

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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):

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Dear friend,

A basic idea: we are constantly in a state of becoming, a state of flux as photographers, artists, philosophers, and humans.

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A simple question: why walk?

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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.

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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?

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Treat photography as visual experimentation. Have fun with it! And be like a visual scientist; never stop experimenting!

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Taking photos is easy; curating your best photos is hard.

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My best pictures (so far):

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“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.

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A powerful idea I got from my buddy Nietzsche; in order to grow, we need BOTH pain and pleasure!

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How do you know if you’re making progress in your photography? Is it important to make progress in your photography?

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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?

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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:

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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!

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In photography, one of the most challenging tasks we have:

How do we know whether we should keep or ditch a certain photo?

This is what inspired me to build ARS BETA with my friend Kevin, Cindy, and Annette, to make a photography platform which helps you select your best photos!

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Dear friend,

I love wide-angle lenses. Why? Let me share:

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Some of my favorite and may best street photography pictures, and why I think they are good:

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Dear friend,

One of the most difficult challenges we have as photographers is to find inspiration to shoot new photos. Some practical ideas:

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To critique a photo means to judge a photograph. But some questions to tackle: why critique photos, how to critique photos and what value do we get from photo critiques? In building up ARS BETA, I wanted to share some practical ideas on photography critique.

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Dear friend,

To be happier in life, create more!

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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.

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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!

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Dear friend,

An aesthetic and life philosophy I strive towards; subtracting the superfluous.

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