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How to Become More Inspired in Your Photography
Inspiration is our life blood in photography, and all artistic matters. So the question is this; how do we become more artistic, or more inspired in our photography art and lives?
1. Extra small JPEG
I think the path to the greatest inspiration and motivation is becoming the most productive photographer. That means, to every single day shoot a shitload of photos. My personal ideal is to shoot at least 1000 photos a day.
A simple solution is to shoot with a recall GR 3X digital camera, and shoot extra high contrast black-and-white photos in extra small JPEG. I’ve been experimenting shooting just a small JPEG an extra small JPEG, and it looks like extra small JPEG photos import at least 10 times faster. This is good because we want insanely fast beers, even at the expense of quality resolution etc.
For example, if I had the option of having a Tesla car that could go from 0 to 100 in 10 seconds, or, if I had a Tesla with a range of 1000 miles but it took an hour, I will take the prior.
Once again —
- Tesla Model 3: Has range of only 200 miles, but can recharge from 0% to 100% in 10 seconds.
- Tesla Model S Plaid: Has a range of 1000 miles, but takes 1 hour to charge from 0%-100%.
I would prefer the Tesla model three with less range, but faster recharge times.
The same thing with smart phones; perhaps we don’t need that much battery, or battery life. What should just be improved is recharging times.
Therefore in the context of guitar if you, it seems wise to shoot extra small JPEG because it will offer you at least thousand X faster speeds in terms of importing time, loading time, uploading time, publishing time, etc.
The future of photography is smaller resolutions. Once again, 99% of people are just gonna look at your photos through an iPhone, how many pixels do you really need? I say 2000 pixels on the wide end is sufficient.
2. Just blog it
Assuming that you want to become the master of your own domain, you must own your own domain. This means on your own website domain, create a website a bluehost.com and install wordpress.org.
Would you rather be a billionaire and a slave, or to be poor and be a master? I would choose the second.
Assuming that we are the new Spartans, we do not want to become a servile slave to king Xerxes, even if he promises us all of the women, pleasures, and gold in the world. We would rather be the king Leonidas, eschewing luxury comfort and fame and power, and instead, putting our supreme joy in our own personal liberty.
3. Creative freedom
This morning I was thinking to myself, what is freedom? I don’t really have a good answer, but it seems that the most were the goal we could just focus on is their own creative freedom. That is, having the liberty to create whatever we want to create, and to publish and share whatever we want to share.
Do you want to become a digital master? Once again, just think yourself,
Can I upload nude photos?
If you cannot upload nude photos, show nipples or penises or balls or testicles etc., without getting it removed or getting your account flagged, or getting your account suspended, you are not free.
4. Just shoot a lot
The myth of the decisive moment is that when you see something happening, there is only one great photo that could be made. This is incorrect. The best way to think and approach it is that there is a continuum of interesting potential moments, and every moment is different, beautiful and valuable. Therefore, it is wise to “work the scene”, you discover the significance the composition and the subject matter as you’re shooting, while you’re shooting.
5. On becoming a happier photographer
I like to think it is your duty to be happy. In fact, I think the reason why a lot of people suffer in modern day life is that they think it’s their duty to be miserable. In fact, the happier we are, the better of a photographer you will become, and also more productive you will become.
In fact, I think there is the strange bias in photography that in order to be a legitimate and great photographer, you must photograph the pain, the suffering, the injustice in the world. It is like some sort of self flagellating virtuosity.
For example, the more I think about it, Magnum photographers are bad. Don’t be a swallower.
6. On living a more dynamic life
Dynamism and inspiration go hand-in-hand. For example, if you stay inside your house 24 hours a day, for weeks on end, will you find any inspiration to make art or photos? I doubt it. I believe there is a physiological condition linked to walking, outdoor air and fauna and allergens and wind and other micro particles in the air, and also sun UV radiation that stimulates our photography.
Just think to yourself, if you walked outdoors for 12 hours a day, and just photographed anything which tickled your fancy, with your Ricoh GR 3X digital camera in your front right pocket, wouldn’t you find inspiration and things to photograph?
7. Photo assignments
- Photograph your hand. Shoot photos your hand in macro mode, and shoot it in high contrast black-and-white. Look for all the subtleties and nuances in your hands. Also as a fun assignment, put weightlifting chalk on your hands, and photograph it that way. You will see even more interesting details.
- Take care camera to the gym, and shoot candid street photos of people at the gym.
- Go to the mall. Yes, you can even shoot mall street photography! You could shoot photos of people at a indoors mall or an outdoors mall. For example, currently being in Southern California, I actually really like going to the Irvine spectrum and shooting photos there. Why? Go to where the fishes are. Shopping centers and shopping malls are great because there is a high density of people, and also, typically people are in a good mood when they’re shopping. Also, you can create some sort of social documentary critique photo project, in which you could photograph capitalism and consumerism in all of her grandeur.
8. So where should I share or upload my photos?
Your own blog. Then arsbeta.com if you want honest feedback on your photos.
9. Now what?
The fun thing about blogging is that blogging is a good way to motivate yourself. For example, I like this idea, write a blog post about these topics:
- Reasons why I am sometimes unmotivated in photography
- How I inspire myself in photography
- When am I motivated in photography, when am I not?
Feel free to use any of these titles to make a blog post.
10. Travel
Traveling is good. Almost all of my great gains in life came from travel. For example, the first time I traveled internationally outside of South Korea was Beirut Lebanon, one of the most formative experiences of my life. Thank you to everyone out there, and especially Thomas Leuthard, Mohammed Badr, Loryne Atoui.
Also, my experiences traveling to Tokyo, and my time with Charlie Kirk and Bellamy Hunt. Also Mijonju and the whole gang.
Also all of my great times in Singapore. Shout out to all my friends at Leica Singapore, Gracia, and Adam and Callan and ABC and everyone like Kevin at IPA.
Any sort of travel is good. Why? It will put you outside of your comfort zone, and you’ll learn much. A list of places that I’ve traveled to, which have shaped and formed me:
London, Manchester, Dubai, San Francisco, Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Stockholm, Umea, Hanoi, Saigon, Seoul, Paris, Marseille, etc.
I could go on and on and on on all the places I’ve been to. So this is not the interesting thing. What is most interesting is just living a maximally dynamic life. becoming more of an adventurer, more nomadic, etc.
11. Attempt more
How far can you fly as a photographer? Some ideas:
- Can you shoot 1 billion photos before you die?
- Can you thrive as a photographer without the aid of social media? To only use your own website and blog instead?
12. Photo assignment
Your photo assignment is macro. Shoot in high contrast black and white macro, of anything you see in the world. Your hand, your thumbprint, your fingerprint, droplets of water, fractal patterns in plants and natural things the patterns within meat, etc.
Upload your best photos to Arsbeta.com
Inspire yourself
- Conquer fear in Boston March 25th
- Carte Blanche Innovation in Berkeley April 15th
- June 19-23rd: ZEN ZONE IN HADONG SOUTH KOREA
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MORE STREET THOUGHTS
More ideas from STREET NOTES.
- Go out, and ask a bunch of strangers to make a portrait of them. You must keep asking for permission until you get 10 people to reject you
- Insane minimalism: when you go out and shoot, subtract subtract subtract. Aim for a minimum viable image
- Strive to innovate within street photography by refusing to just shoot what is standard street photography. There is still so much innovation to be had.
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RICOH GR IIIX.
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