ERIC KIM ₿

You are your own master:

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Often when we try to ‘improve’ or ‘optimize’ things (which already work quite well), we either break it, or make things (or make our lives) *WORSE*!

So:

1. Be very hesitant to ‘upgrade’ your car, devices, lifestyle, etc.
2. Never buy into the first generation of … anything. Always stick with the second-generation or beyond.
3. Be very wary and skeptical of the new, ‘improved’, or ‘optimized’!
4. Typically speaking, stick with what works! Innovate with your final artwork approach, not the process.

Whether we like it or not, quarantine is the new way of life:

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This is what we should be optimizing towards. Via negativa approach to achieve this:

Get rid of, uninstall, don’t use, or avoid anything which interrupts or impedes your creative flow.

Kill and prune all distractions (or potential distractions) with courage, vigor, and might.

How do you know whether certain things in life are worth pursuing or not? Simple:

If you’re not personally interested or curious about it, it isn’t worth for you to pursue.

If your personal interest or enthusiasm in something is just “meh”, don’t do it.

Perhaps the most efficient workout:

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Virtual reality is only good insofar much as it makes us appreciate “real” (embodied reality) more than the virtual.

VR is the future and is already prime time and is already here.

What interests me about VR isn’t the silly video games and stuff — it is more artistic, creative… using VR and VR tools to CREATE, MAKE, and imagine new things!

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In praise of being self made. Also, better to be self made, to buy things with your own hard worked money than to simply be given things on a silver platter.

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One of my greatest joys:

Having the freedom to photograph.

To photograph without bounds, to photograph as innocently as a child, without fear of being reprimanded or told what to photograph or what *NOT* to photograph.

Then perhaps the greatest joy of being a photographer isn’t to be a ‘good’ photographer, but to be an *unbounded* photographer!

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Virtual reality — good if we can use it as a philosophical tool to better understand and *AUGMENT* our humanity!

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What greater joy is there besides our fellow human beings?

My lesson about virtual reality:

Ironically enough, the more I use Virtual Reality the more I actually appreciate *real* (embodied) reality!

When youre in the VR zone and having fun and you get out of VR, real life is sooooo much more refreshing! The ultimate open world concept, ability to explore, engage with other real flesh based humans, best graphics and best refresh and frame rates! No lag!!!

HOW I VR:

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Playing around with the 3D virtual reality sketching and tooling app by Adobe (Medium), and find it highly fascinating, especially for us photographers with all the camera angles possible!

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An epiphany while swimming around in Oculus:

To passively consume is boring, to actively create is fun and interesting!

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Holy shit this is insane!

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How to see composition:

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HDR: high dynamic range. I just discovered RICOH GR III has a very good HDR JPEG setting on the camera, which is actually quite awesome.

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Brave new world of future of creativity:

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How to see and shoot layers in photography and street photography demonstrated on Tilt Brush by Google and Oculus Rift S:

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If you really desire to be more productive, get more stuff done, and also explore more creative outlets (let us say boot camp x Oculus Rift S for virtual reality in Windows 10), having two laptops (more than one) seems best.

Why? Some thoughts:

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Why I love photography so much:

The ultimate infinite form of creativity that is the perfect mix of both embodied reality (you gotta be there ‘in person’ in order to make photos) as well as the ‘virtual reality’ (digital photos on a computer screen).

If you’re stuck at home, bored and want to practice composition, give selfies a go:

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A cool photography project you can pursue:

Go to a loyal junkyard or a “Pick and Pull”, take along your camera, and shoot what you see!

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What are we hungry for and searching for as photographers and visual artists? The sublime.

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Been on the Facebook research page (good stuff) and I’ve been musing on the future of life, and living:

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The most robust form of ownership: self ownership. Far more important than owning a home, owning a fancy car, owning a lot of money, etc.

How to understand three dimensionality in photography composition:

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Virtual reality is finally here, and it is damn good:

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The miracle of fish:

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MY LIFE:

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The future is already here:

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What is money good for? Food glorious food!

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How to become more creatively productive:

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Certainly we must consume (some) stuff in order to live. We must consume energy, food, resources, coffee, wifi and the such.

But the problem is when we derive our self-worth and our self-esteem based on what we consume or purchase.

Vain meaning not ‘self-centered’ and ‘self-pompous’ but vain meaning VANUS in Latin (empty). This is the problem with vain consumerism, or vain things:

It leaves us feeling empty.

Isn’t the goal to feel whole and full, and over-flowing and over-abundant? Perhaps we can only feel truly thriving when we are actively creating, making, and building!

“The maximum — searching for the maximum is what has always interested me.” (Josef Koudelka)

Thought:

Modern times is all about minimalism — why not maximalism?

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In search of the sublime in composition and beyond:

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A thought:

Individuals often like to complain about x, y, z. But instead of complaining about these things, perhaps we should rather embrace new ideas for change. Or in other words, become the change which we desire to see manifested in the world!

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The key to wealth building: construction; either physical or metaphorical.

The new leisure class: no more working for an income or for a self identity. Extremely abundant leisure. Time to think, create, produce and pursue entrepreneurship out of genuine personal interest, not just base money.

A thought:

Our desire for beautiful homes, neighborhoods and environments is perhaps the desire to have beautiful thoughts and to feel beautiful ourselves?

The other day I just test drove my friend Kevin’s Tesla Model 3 (Dual Motor) with the semi-autonomous driving function enabled. Some quick thoughts:

1. Very fast: The torque and pickup on this thing is pretty insane. I do not envision actually needing or desiring a car any faster in terms of acceleration. When I gunned the gas pedal (or the “acceleration pedal”, considering it is an electric car), it went into hyper drive, and every time gave me a small heart attack from the speed.
2. The semi autonomous driving function works very well: Just keep one hand on the steering wheel, and it knows how to drive very well! No hiccups here.
3. Styling is great. Front of the car looks like a Porsche 911, the flush handles are cool, and the interior is fantastic. The “faux” (fake) black leather is actually very comfortable and feels premium. The minimalist spartan interior is very well designed — feels super spacious, the comfort of sitting in the driver seat is like you’re the captain of your own spaceship.
4. The only thing I didn’t really like were the turn signals: When you activate the left or right turn signal (the handle on the left), it doesn’t really give you a satisfying clicking sound and feeling before you’re turning like you’d get on a Japanese car, a Toyota or Nissan/Honda, etc. Something as subtle as my unfamiliarity or dislike of the Tesla turning signal mechanism is probably enough to discourage me (or convincing myself) to *NOT* desire a Tesla vehicle for myself.

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A thought:

Whenever I communicate my ideas with others, my ideas either get shut down or refuted by others, or they become *changed* and *modified* by others.

Which then makes me think… if I truly desire to have original thoughts ideas and entrepreneurial pursuits, perhaps sharing my ideas with others or asking for feedback is a *bad* idea.

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Towards a more “flesh-forward” approach in photography and art:

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Think waves, like on a bar graph.

Why are wave compositions interesting? Rhythm, motion, and a “roller coaster-esque” visual experience!

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One of my critiques in photography:

Too many photographers strive to make photos which are “ironic” or “clever” in terms of composition, layers, etc.

For example, towards a critique of Alex Webb and the “layered” style of street photography:

Photographers are trying to see how clever they can get with the layers in their photos instead of trying to make deep and meaningful and emotionally-stirring images.

Photos which are simple, severe and strong and great in impact regarding composition is far superior to any street photo with a quadrillion layers, a quadrillion random heads poking out, etc.

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Why do we desire to control, change and modify our environment? What do you do once you have the best or “perfect” environment for yourself? Your perfect and ideal home, neighborhood, city, etc?

Images help me imagine, think, and become more creative!

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Towards a brave new future of visual entrepreneurship:

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A thought:

Real photographers don’t use Instagram. Why? Their self-esteem is robust. They don’t care for the approval of others. They just make photos to please themselves, and share the few that they like (in a form that they can control which is not digital share-cropping).

Real photographers will typically share their photos and portfolio on their website, blog, in prints, publications, e-books, print books, etc.

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Yes, you can shoot street photography in a small town! Some thoughts:

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Quick thoughts:

1. 16” MacBook Pro (maxed out) refurbished from the Apple Online Store. I am convinced, this laptop is straight up a gift from god. See all refurb MacBook Pro laptops in the Apple Online Store here.
2. Fast wifi connection: Pay the extra bucks for Fiber Optic, Gigabit internet, or whatever for home. Having faster wifi will truly give you an edge when working from home or whatever.
3. For vlogging, or shooting video or photo: The Lumix G9 + 12mm f/1.4 lens (24mm full frame equivalent) setup is good, with the RODE Video microphone with wind jammer. It can shoot up to 60 FPS in 4K!!! A typical 10-minute video is around 10 GB — more than enough resolution for your vlogs, videos, or whatever. If you want something even a step up, perhaps the Lumix S1-H is the next step.
4. Self-hosted website hosting. Bluehost.com and install WordPress.org. Then I recommend getting the WordPress.com ‘Jetpack‘ plugin-service. To backup your site, and access additional services to speed up and optimize your site.

A quick behind-the-scenes peek of how I give feedback on photos (online using ZOOM, and using the iPAD + Lightning to USB-C adapter to my MacBook Pro laptop):

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An insanely happy discovery:

If you get an Oculus Rift S, and install Windows 10 in BootCamp for a maxed-out 16” MacBook Pro … it works well!!!

No lag, no problemos. Some setup stuff:

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Don’t be a sucker. Own yourself. Own your own social media platforms, and create your own idealized future for yourself:

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This is insanity.

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It seems the culture is:

Thou art virtuous to the extent one is able to save money, not waste it, and ‘invest’ it towards the future.

But … to save money towards what ends, for whither?

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Mexican food is the best food:

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Do not go to photography school. Serious waste of time and money. Better to just learn for yourself via trial and error, by experimenting by yourself, watching YouTube videos, and reading websites blogs and forums than to waste serious $$$ (and time) to go to photo school.

I used to think:

If you get a full ride, or you can go to photography school for free… it is a good idea.

Now I take that back. Even if your photography education was fully-paid for and free … photography school is bad because:

1. Waste of your time (4 years you can rather do something more interesting … Industrial Design major at RISD seems like a ‘real’ major you can actually learn true technical skills like 3D, etc).
2. Your photos become generic. If you go to photo school, what will happen to you? You will become indoctrinated with the boring type of photo — apathetic, bored, and dis-interested photos of miserable people looking miserable.

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What we are searching for in photography? Not tips … wisdom. Deep wisdom — pragmatic ideas which can actually help empower you as a photographer. Some thoughts:

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What is my archimedes lever? Blogging. I think:

There is still so much unpaved ground when it comes to blogging.

Perhaps bloggers shall inherit the future:

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Perhaps this is what drives us as entrepreneurs and creators:

What we currently see existing in the world is kinda lame, or ‘meh’ and we desire to create our own idealized things which we wish to see manifested in the world and in reality!

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We all think about ‘body-building’ as this niche sport-thing. But let us go beyond that. Better to just think:

My body itself is a work of art, and it is my desire to build my own body to the max.

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We all like great designed things. Fancy watches, sports cars, bags, clothing, cameras, gadgets, tools, etc.

But this is the problem with modern day capitalism-consumerism:

We think we are artists when we select our own aesthetic tastes by going online or to the mall, and buying things which we think represents us as people, artists, and individuals.

This ain’t good. Why? It limits you. This means your artistry or artistic self expression is limited by the things which already exist out there. But if you truly want to be a creator, innovator, or to push the needle forward … you gotta build it.

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