I like this notion of a ‘high culture’ (“haute culture” in French).

What if we could do the same in the realm of photography? To elevate the culture of photography to a higher height. To go BEYOND small and petty issues in photography. To think long-term in our photography and artwork, to focus on long-term thriving, and to use this knowledge to EMPOWER ALL PHOTOGRAPHERS on the globe, and far into the future!

Some proposals:

A thought on long-term success:

We should play the long game!

What’s the best way to utilize your life? My basic idea:

Focus your energies on entrepreneurship and art-creation.

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Dear friend,

Happy Monday! To get you going for this week photographically speaking, this week’s photo assignment is WATER.

A philosophical thing:

The point isn’t to eliminate all forms of pain and suffering.

The point is:

Gain more freedom over your personal life, and channel the GOOD types of pain and “suffering” to propel you to higher heights, and to become more epic and powerful!

Currently watching the Neuralink launch video, and wanted to share some of my personal thoughts:

In my talk at Google I shared the notion of ‘digital share-cropping’:

Don’t upload your photos to Facebook or Instagram if you desire control and freedom in your photography and artwork.

Two notions that can help us as photographers:

‘Crowd-sourcing’ and ‘wisdom of the crowds’.

But what is missing? A ‘double blind’ component (the primary innovation in arsbeta.com).

A thought while napping today:

I believe freedom (control over your life) is more important than ‘happiness’.

Let me explain:

Auto photo — making photos automatically, self-motivated, by yourself. No thinking. Just shooting and making.

A thought while at the gym today:

What if mental power was physical power?

Which means, when we are lacking mental willpower, we are actually lacking physical strength and power.

This means, if you desire more mental willpower, build your physical and physiological strength!

Don’t constrain yourself. All art is good art!

Calligraphy to calm and express your soul.

Some notes from studying James Tompkin’s excellent Computer Vision course at Brown University:

One of my life dreams was to travel, and I’ve been on the road for the last decade+.

What have I learned? Some personal reflections, also distilled in TRAVEL NOTES:

There are a trillion forms of self-expression in art. So why do we choose photography?

What’s real? What’s fake? What should we strive towards, and what should we avoid?

What’s meaningful? What’s interesting to us? How should we live our lives?

A thought:

We can binary categorize human beings into two categories: free or unfree.

Some thoughts:

Don’t even waste energy to critique others.

Focus on your own self development.

Strive to build a mighty mind.

War is our business. Self-war to elevate yourself. Struggle as fun. 

Follow your passion like the winged wind. Meditate on the shortness of your life and strive to use all your energy and willpower to create something epic, lasting, and powerful. 

My thought:

Let us assume you got another 60 or so years to live on planet earth. What do you desire from reality?

An effective compositional technique in photography: juxtaposition (contrasting two different elements or concepts in a single photograph):

On RICOH GR III, I’ve been shooting a lot of videos (1080p, 60fps) in high contrast black and white. This has been great, as it is another way to experience reality, create art, and to EXPAND my self-expression/outpression!

The biggest problem in photography, art, and modern life:

We don’t think the future will be greater, brighter, and more wonderful.

Fuck the nihilist thinking. The future is greater than we think!

I’m not so interested in the photos I’ve already shot, I’m more interested in the photos I have yet to photograph.

Which means live and shoot/explore on– you still have SO MANY new photos you have yet shot! You have so many new experiences you have yet experienced!

There are still SO MANY new adventures you have yet undertaken, so much new knowledge and visual science we have yet discovered.

The future is bright my friends!

ERIC

Why do you photograph? What do you photograph for?

A life without pain and suffering is undesirable. This means, having pain and suffering in life is BENEFICIAL to life.

But the question is– what type of pain is ‘good’ and beneficial to us, which helps us to grow?

My worst hell: if I lived my entire life on planet earth (until death) living a basic life. A life without wonder, danger, adventure, radical self-experimentation, and searching for beauty, knowledge, and wisdom.

Thus it seems a good strategy in life to AVOID [by all means] living what you consider a ‘basic‘ life.

This means in your entire life never stop exploring, never stop discovering, never stop conquering, never stop evolving, never stop hustling, never stop aspiring for more. Never stop anything!

The ocean is vast
Spread your mast, and spread your wings
Let the liquid air take you where you need to be
The ocean is free
Overwhelming with billows and wind from within
Sail furiously, sail free
Harness the power of the ocean and follow your own internal motions and flow
Like the ocean stay steady and strong
Your tides incircle the earth; your waves will never die.

ERIC

One of my goals in life:

Strive to have maximal energy everyday, and to never weary of my creative pursuits and activities.

How is this possible? Some ideas:

To make your photos more artistic, make them more unclear:

I’ve been shooting a lot of videos on my RICOH GR III, but the problem with videos:

What should I do with the videos?

Videos are a bit difficult to share and publish. But a fun new idea:

Turn your videos into animated GIF images!

For example, I like the GIPHY CAPTURE tool on Mac (made these videos on my MacBook laptop). Essentially what I do is this:

1. Play the video on my laptop
2. Use GIPHY CAPTURE to choose a part of the video I want to select
3. I trim the video, then export as .GIF
4. I upload the GIF file to my blog WordPress ‘media library’, and I publish and share it on a blog post.

To me, this is a very fun way to re-analyze your photos, and also view your photo-videos!

GIF as a future format for photographers: hybrid between photo and video!

Something fun I did while being disconnected on a cruise (without wifi):

Experiment with all the post-processing options in Adobe Photoshop to better understand and de-construct your photos.

To photograph your everyday life with zest, gusto, and love:

Recognize your life is precious, and strive to extract the maximum from your own life in your own photos.

This means, don’t desire any other life but your own life!

How Long Can You Enjoy Things?

Something I’ve learned in life:

Many things we buy, possess, or experience is pure novelty. We might enjoy it once, or have fun with it for a day (or a few days), but after a week or two — we get bored with it, and we want to go ‘onto the next one’.

The point of this essay is for me to reflect:

What do we get bored of, and what don’t we get bored of?

Besides the obvious, it seems an ideal strategy is whenever possible, never buy new.

If your motive is to make more intimate photos, shoot with a wider-angle lens (21mm, 24mm, 28mm, 35mm lens).

The perspective of a wide-angle lens will create more intimacy in your photos, which means that the viewers of your photos feel like they’re in your shoes. This means you will better make photos which can transport your viewer into your own two feet, seeing the world from your own vantage point and perspective.

Currently on a 5-day Carnival cruise from New Orleans to Mexico (day 4), and this is my thought:

A cruise ship is the ultimate psuedo-utopia.

Let me explain:

You’re brave, what is your duty? If you really knew me, you would know I don’t care much for myself. I don’t think of myself at all. 

My ego is just a tool. I yield it to guide my soul. I feel my role is to help empower others. To encourage, and uplift their spirits. To wear my confidence like mail, chained tight to my purpose with no kinks.

Drinking the Dionysian gin and tonic. Staring at my goal, I nod it. 

What is your duty to mankind? Only you can say. Let no nay-sayers guide you otherwise. Tie up your loose ends, and seek your own end.

ERIC

POETRY >

A thought on success:

Be insanely different from everyone (in other words, just be you).

Currently on a cruise ship (what I consider a pseudo-utopia).

Currently thinking about money:

What would be the purpose/function of money in a “post-monetary society”?

The less friction, the better. The more direct approach we take in life, the better.

Travel further with TRAVEL NOTES >

A question:

Will traveling actually help improve your photography?

I think so. Not directly, but this is generally what happens:

When you travel, you focus on making photos, you shoot more, and thus you learn more, and improve your photography!

Low-key:

Shooting photos with a lower-exposure (darker).

A fun activity:

Take screenshots of photos you’ve already shot!

I call this ‘meta-photography’ — using the screenshot tool to photograph your own photos.

If you want to re-spark your passion for photography and travel, pick up a copy of TRAVEL NOTES on Amazon, or here in our HAPTIC SHOP.

Let us assume you are financially independent, location independent, nomadic, rich, and whatever form of success.

Now the question is:

How should I live my life? How should I direct my life-force-energy?

My simple thought:

Perhaps the end-game is for us to focus on creating our artwork [photography and beyond]!

A thought:

The end goal isn’t happiness, it is artistic ex/outpression, and the witnessing of yourself becoming stronger.

Also, helping empower others along the way while you’re still alive!

Happiness is a reflection of power and thriving?

When are we happy? We are happy when we are witnessing progression in our life, when we have strong health, and strong confidence in ourselves. To strive towards happiness is good; but we want happiness in order to maximize our health, in order to maximize our creative output and personal evolution!

TRAVEL NOTES now live on AMAZON >

RICOH GR III is the best travel photography camera. Small, compact, phenomenal sharpness and dynamic price, lightest [even smaller and lighter than RICOH GR II], recharges with USB-C. There are no ‘real’ flaws with the RICOH GR III in my eyes [only thing I wish is it had an integrated flash — but even this seems optional at this point].

It seems that with traveling, the point is for you to experience more, to think more, to be less weighed down, and to photograph more. It seems that if these are the goals, to have the smallest, lightest, and most affordable camera [use your money towards travel expenses] is the best option.

Long story short, if you like any form of photography (travel, street, personal, documentary, etc) — it seems the RICOH GR III is the ultimate camera.

ERIC

Extract the Maximum from Reality and Life:

Dare to stare into the depths of your soul and exclaim whatever you want to the real world.

DARE
Dare to care about what you are curious about, to follow your gut, to never second-guess yourself.

DARE
Dare to bear your heart and soul to others; to never water yourself down in falls. Your goal is to enthrall others and you; to steer your own rudder in life.

Strife is beautiful; life is a beautiful war. You’re hard in your core, and you have much to share with others still in store.

Let the creativity seep out of your pores and veins, and let yourself go insane. No stains from your past holding you back. Steer straight and never veer — your destination is near!

ERIC

POETRY

• Life Isn’t Fair
• UPLIFT.
• Don’t Be Timid
• FLY HIGHER!
• Ain’t Nobody Stopping You!
• Seize Today!
• You Were Destined to Do Great Things, My Dear
• Fly Higher!
• CREATIVE DYNAMITE
• KILL EK
• ROOTS.
• MURALS.
• Keep Sailing

Was on the plane and cruise ship without wifi, and instead of blogging in real time, and I used iBooks Author to put together some photos and some thoughts while in transit.

Free PDF DOWNLOAD >

Better to be poorer, with more freedom, and more control over your artwork and life.

For example as a musician, better to have a very small and dedicated fanbase [than to have millions of fans, but being forced to make music you don’t care for].

Better to be poor and own your own website/blog to freely share your thoughts and opinions, than to be controlled by some sort of publicist who won’t allow you to say what you really think.

You don’t have a duty to help all of mankind. My idea:

The goal is for you to create genuine thoughts, ideas, and art-works, and to share them as widely as possible.

Even if you can positively impact and empower 1 other human on planet earth — you’re fulfilling your duty!

This is the strange thing I notice:

We admire things [cars, homes, electronics, stuff] more than we do humans.

For example, we find Porsche cars more impressive than great individuals. We find Rolex watches more impressive than brave and courageous individuals. We find big homes more impressive than great thinkers. We find stacks of money more alluring than innovative minds.

Perhaps this pre-occupation with objects, money, and things more than individuals and real human beings is a sign cultural and social degeneration?

My suggestion: Let us focus on admiring people more than things, possessions. Instead of admiring things, let us admire heroes and individuals we desire to emulate!

ERIC

One of my life goals:

Strive to [everyday] have the maximal feeling of physiological power and self-confidence.

To get drunk off Dionysian self-intoxication; to channel my inner powers to creative output.

In praise of thinking for yourself:

I don’t think the purpose of a vacation or any activity (sleep, nap, massage) is to “relax”. Better to think of it as recovery and to reinvigorate yourself!

TRAVEL FURTHER WITH TRAVEL NOTES >

I think on your road to deepening your personal wisdom about the world, travel is a necessity.

My current thought:

The objective of life is for you to advance your artistic innovation, insight, creativity.

And how to do this?

Optimize your life which prioritizes your artistic evolution and thriving.

Evolve
Strive to enthrall yourself with your progress and strength
To what length can you evolve forth? Is there any chord holding you back?

How can you evolve? How can you fly higher, swim further, and go more?

My idea: strive to impress you. Channel your dissatisfaction in a positive way. Allow yourself to go hard all day, everyday, let yourself go cray cray. You’re here to stay. Creative self doubt, just slay.

No need to pray or hope. Just do it now, share your dopeness and authenticity.

You’re strong, focused and raw. Throw your javelin, and dare.

ERIC

When you see an interesting scene — keep shooting the scene, change up your composition/framing/orientation — and later when you review your photos on your computer, THEN choose your favorite!

• Download ZIP of Composition Files >

Make shots
Photograph your thoughts
Shoot your soul, emotions, and motions
Black or white, chroma; it’s all dolce and sweet

Your photos are your art; why hesitate, why not start?

Chart your creative seas, stir it up, and venture endlessly.

ERIC

In praise of books:

Photography makes life worth living!

What is the root cause of depression? Why do we feel depressed some days, and uplifted other days? Does depression manifest differently in different people?

Is the word “depression” even useful? Let me essay some of my thoughts:

BOLD and BRAVE, no Regret or Shame

TRAVEL NOTES by HAPTIC PRESS

Why travel? For me, traveling isn’t for the sake of traveling. Instead, traveling as a means or a bridge for self-introspection.

When you travel, you finally get the distance away from all the craziness and hecticness in the world. Even the benefit of flying on an airplane without wifi; finally the chance to disconnect — which will open up and free your mind.