Calligraphy (Zen Brush 2 app on iPad) has transformed my visual artistic life. Now I have another mode of artistic self expression and creation. I can BOTH make photos AND make calligraphs from my mind.

I encourage all photographers and visual artists to experiment with calligraphy — a whole brave new world awaits you!

A realization:

We must think deeply on what we desire to become, in terms of our character, our personality, our body, and our mind.

More focus on self development of our body and mind, less concern for externals.

Pure beauty is perhaps in the chaotic, random, and uneven:

Ideas to make new street photos with more force, energy, and dynamism.

One of the newest products cooking up in HAPTIC:

To be the first to be informed when this hyper-limited edition will be released, register intent by sending an email to hapticindustries@gmail.com

First sent to ERIC KIM NEWSLETTER:

Dear streettogs,

Hope you’re doing well! I just wanted to send you a quick email, with some quick turbo thoughts on how to re-spark your passion for photography. Practical tips to get you going in your photography again! Here are the basic ideas:

When you design things, you impute your personal aesthetics, ethics, and philosophy into your designs:

The best life is the self-centered life.

A thought:

Don’t worry too much about how “good” you are as a photographer (comparing yourself to others). Instead, just focus on making your own photos.

Less interest in the photos of others (even of the great master photographers). Ultimately your focus as a photographer is to make your own images, NOT to become anyone else.

Trust physique more than “health”:

As a photographer you’re a visual experimenter. Your camera is the visual hammer — hammering out, and sculpting reality to your own desires!

A thought:

Many of us desire fancy things like fancy sports cars, fancy clothes, fancy homes, fancy watches, accessories, cameras, devices, etc.

But what if instead of desiring these objects (totems of power), we instead decided to turn our own bodies into the things desired?

A thought:

We must think in terms of possibility (physics, first principles) not probability (being “realistic”).

Anyone can live a basic, comfortable, and mediocre life by simply following orders, being industrious, and listening to the rules. But if it is your ambition for a new type of elevation in life, you must think in terms of what’s possible (governed by the law of physics).

What does it mean to become BEYOND healthy?

Make yourself:

Never stop making new photos:

I think “skill”in photography is a bit overrated. More fun and interesting to keep going out to shoot, experimenting, and letting randomness, chance, and chaos work in your favor!

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:

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:

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

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.

Indefinite (slow, steady) growth is pure joy:

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

The beauty of emptiness and negative space.

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.

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.

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).

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

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!

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:

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.

Something to think about when it comes to aesthetics:

Does it weaken you or strengthen you?

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

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?

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

Why move?

We got hyper cars; why not hyper humans?

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

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)?

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:

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.

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?

What if your impulsive behaviors were the correct behaviors?

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:

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.

In praise of pride in your own things. 

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?

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

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

The Purely Selfish Person would Never Criticize anyone Else

To criticize others less, become more selfish:

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

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

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:

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?

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

Practical composition ideas for street photography:

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?

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

Some simple ideas:

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

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).

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

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.

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

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:

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.

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!