ERIC KIM ₿

For me the ideal trifecta to build:

1. Your artistic muscles
2. Your physical muscles
3. Your philosophical muscles

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What is the ideal living domicile?

Some thoughts on the ideal home:

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I think I get this from Bruce Gilden as a photography assignment: shoot what you’re afraid of. Totally makes sense. If you see something which scares you, it probably interests you. And the more you can harness your fear and adrenaline in order to make more epic photos, the better.

Like Jimmy Iovine says:

Don’t let fear get in your way. Instead, you harness the fear and get it to push you ahead from behind!

What are we truly hungry for and searching for? Deeper photographic wisdom.

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Your opinion regarding your own photos is always in a state of flux and changing. Certain photos which you were super enthusiastic about one day, you might lose that enthusiasm over time.

Typically time is the ultimate judge. The longer you allow your photos to sit and marinate, you gain deeper wisdom and insight into your photos.

Thus to always be editing your photos means to always review your photos (new and old), and always re-upload and make new albums with old and new photos.

And the great optimism of always editing your photos:

You’re always being creative!

ERIC

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Something which endlessly fascinates me:

How to make the best composition of a given scene?

I was looking through some photos, and a simple realization:

The simpler the photograph, the more superior.

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When out shooting in the snow, shooting high contrast monochrome on Lumix G9, the best function is the ability to quickly adjust exposure compensation using the right thumb wheel.

Which made me think:

How come nobody ever talks about how essential exposure-compensation is in photography, and how it makes photographs more beautiful and artistic?

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Or why if your life goal is to maximize your photographic output, it’s best to live on the East Coast than the West Coast:

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We all know that in order to become stronger and more fit physically, exercise is essential. Same goes with our artistry. We need to exercise our creative and visual muscles. Some ideas and exercises you can do:

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We are not just mere photographers, we are also artists. But the thing is:

Some photos we create are *more* artistic than others.

For example, if I make a photograph of my grocery list receipt, I wouldn’t call it ‘art’ — I did it simply to record information. However, if I perhaps positioned the receipt in an intentional way, shot it in high contrast black and white, was mindful of the composition, framing, and light … I would consider it my artwork.

So the question:

What makes a photo ‘artistic’?

Some thoughts:

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What’s the best way to live life? Simple:

Do what scares you.

By doing that which scares you, you’re more likely to achieve epic things, and discover more interesting things about existence.

What is “scary” anyways? Something you want to do, but you’re afraid of the negative consequences of attempting it.

Thus once again … if you’re afraid of doing something, it actually genuinely means you’re interested or curious about it.

For example let’s say you’re afraid to invest money into cryptocurrency. Why are you afraid? You’re interested, but fearful that your money will go to $0.

Sure in life you can do many things which you’re afraid of, and you might still fail. You might hurt yourself, you might go bankrupt (Donald Trump), get into massive debt (Kanye West), etc. But fulfilling your personal curiosity about yourself, your limits and to treat life as an interesting experiment … isn’t it worth it?

Your photos are visual poetry:

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Chiaroscuro: the Italian word which means ‘clear‘ (chiaro) and ‘obscure‘ (oscuro). Thus in simple photographic terms, chiaroscuro is the art of extreme contrast (juxtaposition) between the clear and the dark in a photograph:

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The upside of winter and the snow:

More opportunities for beautiful images!

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A thought and realization:

In life, all experiences are good experiences.

This means:

No experiences are “good” or “bad” in themselves. All experiences meld and form you to become *more*.

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Barre is essentially dance classes meets yoga meets ballet-fitness. The reason why barre is so interesting to me — it’s perfect for weight lifters and power lifters. In fact I prefer it over yoga.

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STREET by KIM: New free photo e-book from ERIC KIM:

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Is there a science to art? Or perhaps science *and* art as the ultimate hybrid synthesis?

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The best way to live life!

What is mood? Mood is your physiological condition. How much energy, hype, motivation and energy you have in your muscles.

The trillion dollar question: how does one improve their mood?

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To be an artist isn’t enough … we must also become more entrepreneurial. 

The only artists who succeed … are a hybrid of good self-marketer, good self-brander, good self-promoter, and risk-loving entrepreneur. 

Or in other words:

No guts, no glory.

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By studying geometry, we can better understand the dynamic relationships of lines, shapes, forms, and planes in our photographic compositions. As a consequence, we become more cognizant of the dynamic visual forms in our photos when analyzing them, and also spot them intuitively when we’re out shooting photos!

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A realization while walking in the snow and shooting photos:

The purpose of photography is to be creative and create.

In some ways, all photos you shoot are creative. But at the same time, the joy of photography is to see how creatively ingenuous you can be with your compositions, framings, ability to spot and notice interesting arrangements of things, and the novelty of the world around us:

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Creativity is fun when you take matter and reimagine and retransform it into something else:

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For example, seeing a guy help another guy jump his snow-plow:

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What keeps me going? Creative optimism and self-motivation:

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If I could easily synthesize my primary 3 interests and passions, it has to be a combination of street photography, philosophy and entrepreneurship.

Why?

1. Street photography: This is just a more active and interesting form of sociology for me. I love humans, I am endlessly fascinated by society, life, lifestyle, and new modes of human living.
2. Philosophy: The *why* of things has always been interesting to me.
3. Entrepreneurship: My interest and passion in becoming self-employed, *NOT* to work ‘for the man’, and gain more freedom in life … in order to maximize my artistic and creative output.

I do believe being able to hone into the 3 primary things you are intensely interested and passionate about is hugely advantageous. Triangle (3) as enough variety, but not too much. Thus if you can discover your 3 passions and effectively cross-pollinate them, you’re onto something!

ERIC

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What are the best photos? The ones which impact you and the viewer the most:

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Life is a journey. As a photographer, your task is to document your photographic (and life) journey:

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In modern times, everyone wants to be ‘happy’. It seems much of consumerism and capitalism is to maximize our ‘happiness’.

But what is happiness? Is this even something to be desired?

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A thought —

The upside of monochrome photography is that it is more optimistic?

Or deeper:

To make optimistic photos in monochrome is more difficult and takes more skill/creative ingenuity than making optimistic color photos.

Let us consider — color is naturally more optimistic, bright and colorful than monochrome. To make dreary, moody, and depressive photos in monochrome is easy. To make optimistic photos in monochrome is a more unique approach.

And perhaps also with color … perhaps color photography that is hyper-saturated but more pessimistic is interesting?

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Personal studies on iPad and Procreate. The gist:

As I study Bauhaus design, I find images which compel me. If I’m compelled to sketch, trace, dissect and analyze these designs … I find them great and worthy of attention!

This is how I self-teach and self-learn design, visual arts and practically everything:

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Art means approach and technique. This is my personal take on black and white photography:

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Free motivation on ERIC KIM NEWSLETTER >

Dear friends, wanted to shoot you some words of motivation and words of creative energy.

First of all, recognize that you’re not just a photographer, you’re a visual artist. This means that photography and the camera is only another means to making photos. This means that you’re not a photographer; you’re an artist.

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Artist vision as a photographer means you see more subtlety, beauty, and connections in everything you see, witness and experience.

As photographers our greatest attribute and advantage is our creative sight and vision. Thus to leverage this strength is the goal for us to see the world more beautifully and abstractly!

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Question:

*Why* exhibit your photos?

What is the functional purpose of exhibiting your work? What are the negative consequences of *not* sharing and exhibiting your photos?

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Not tomorrow, not yesterday or in the past; now is your decisive moment. Your decisive moment to innovate, wildly experiment, disregard self-preservation and see how far you can climb — ever upwards!

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Open source beats:

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As digital artists, we both deconstruct art works and re-construct them:

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What is a designer? Someone who designates (points out) importance.

If you’re an artist and creator, you’re also a designer. 

Let us consider how we all design things in our everyday lives from our homes, clothes, cars, devices, and things we make, collage, curate and create.

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What are we? Visual artists.

What tools do we employ? The best tools to suit the creative task at hand.

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A realization:

In life, the best life is mostly via negativa (Nassim Taleb) — less concerns, fewer possessions (but higher quality), less b.s., less anxiety, less noise (sound canceling headphones which are “via negativa” as the ultimate luxury.

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Simple idea:

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Painting, photography and art … all as a hybrid:

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Photographers are designers. We create a design… we designate beauty in our photos.

When we photograph, we design the frame— what elements go where.

Also, some of the best photographers have either formally or informally studied design, and applied their design principles to photography. Josef Koudelka, Laszlo, the Bauhaus school, Man Ray, etc.

Also note much of the Bauhaus designers were also passionate about photography, and the limits of visual experimentation.

Also the more I experiment and study design, the better my photography becomes:

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COVID ain’t going away anytime soon. Thus, it seems a wise decision to *not* delay your street photography pursuits! Some practical ideas:

1. Broaden your definition of street photography
2. Shoot at the grocery market
3. Shoot socially distant street photography (12+ feet away outdoors)
4. Wear a mask when you’re shooting street photography
5. Shoot street photos without people in it
6. Photograph signage which mentions COVID-19. Historically this will be interesting because sooner or later… Covid-19 will be a thing of the past. This means at least you got a visual documentation of what happened during all this Covid craziness.
7. Shoot street photography at the beach, mall, or any other place where humans congregate (which are still open for you, according to your local law).
8. Shoot selfies of yourself in the streets.

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This quote from Henri Cartier-Bresson has always puzzled me. But I think I got it figured out:

Even the smallest little detail can be beautiful, a theme (leitmotif) into itself.

In other words:

The smallest most tiny, most mundane, most ordinary details can be insanely beautiful in photography!

In praise of shooting macro photos, and just looking for small details:

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In photography composition, we deal with planes in two dimensional space (in photos), whereas the reality is three-dimensional.

Therefore what we are doing in photography composition:

How can we play with planes and perspective, to make more dynamic photos?

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Simple idea:

Considering photography is our passion, and considering there is no ultimate purpose to life, and considering that photography may be our Archimedes lever in life … isn’t the optimal approach to life to optimize for your photography and photographic output?

This then means:

1. If your thing is street photography, preferably live in a downtown city. This will maximize your photography opportunity moments.
2. Use the smallest and most convenient always carry with you type of camera setup would will minimize the friction and barrier for you to shoot more photos. This may be RICOH GR III, iPhone Pro, or Google Pixel.
3. Expose yourself maximally during the day for the maximum of novelty of environments and situations. This means it is perhaps better to be more profligate (“wasteful” in money) and frequent more coffee shops, restaurants, or just going out to shop or buy groceries. To be surrounded by other humans is best.

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For me, photography is the joy of seeing, observation, and creative insight. This is how I see:

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Creativity as an approach and technique, not some sort of god-given gift to the select few.

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A thought while at the local Chinese grocery market:

Why do we feel like we must stay “consistent” artistically?

For example in photography, why this pressure to stick to only color or only black and white?

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Simple assignment:

Print out a bunch of 4×6 photos of meaningful life moments and memories, and collage them with your partner and soulmate.

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Gratitude
I’m on a new spiritual latitude
With the oceans and waves
I love life, I want to stay.

Gratitude takes skill
and physiological will

No need for hundred dollar bills
or basic thrills

Your life is trill and great
You don’t consume life, you make.

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The first step in philosophy — always challenge and question what the ultimate purpose of x, y, z is. To use the ERIC KIM “why?” chatbot to discover deeper meaning and purpose in your life, and what you decide to do and what you decide *not* to do.

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Not to be petty. To prioritize the joy and happiness of your partner over your own. To strive to become more stoic, zen and strong. To take things in life like it’s “not a big deal”.

To attempt great things in life. To love risk and not to shirk from it. To avoid doing anything in life which we consider base, unworthy and dishonorable for ourselves.

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Dear friend,

A thought:

Life is far more interesting and engaging when we can see MORE photo opportunities.

And the realization:

With monochrome (black and white), there are more options for seeing potentially interesting photos.

As a consequence, we find more motivation to shoot monochrome and to see in monochrome.

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A thought:

Perhaps ‘happiness’ and ‘joy’ are a bit overrated.

Perhaps better to focus is on strength — specifically, physiological strength.

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Very quick thought:

The very big upside of shooting high contrast monochrome, and also post processing your monochrome photos to look more dramatic is this:

— You can have more opportunities to make interesting photos in your eyes!

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Post processing as also fun, creative and an art:

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What I think interests me the most … humans and environments. Perhaps this is my interest in street photography? Humans in environments which are new, foreign or different/novel to mine? The interest of mine in exploring and discovering and witnessing new environments, and my joy of also my fellow human beings!

Perhaps this is why I love traveling and being outdoors, or in public spaces? And I also prefer living in apartment complexes, surrounded by other humans?

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In experimenting with virtual reality, augmented reality I’ve been very interested in the notion of depth. Depth perception — the use of our two human eyes. Why depth?

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Why do we love the new so much? Life is about the new.

For example, what would life be like without new babies and new humans? Without new technological innovations? The economy is all about producing new things.

Also for us artists … we must also delight and frolic in the new!

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Why photography? To me, photography is visual poetry.

Visual poetry — visual sublime. Elevated mood, heightened joy and delight in life!

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Very simple thought:

The purpose of art is to inspire and motivate us in life … to give us bright new light. A new excitement for living! To live for tomorrow, the day after … and theoretically, until infinity!

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Some ideas:

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What is our prime worth as a photographer? Our vision. Our ability to see artistically is the goal:

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New epiphany:

In life, prioritize for aesthetics. Let the function take care of itself later!

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We photographers are artists. Let nobody else tell you otherwise.

There are a few things that bring me as much joy in life as photography.

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