Human artist blog / Street photography / Philosophy
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Street photography as courage. Photography philosophy as embodied life. A living archive by ERIC KIM.
My thought: It takes more wisdom to USE wealth (than to simply acquire it). It is pretty straight-forward in accumulating wealth (live extremely frugally, have a higher income than your expenses). For myself personally, …
Why read? My thought: Reading is one of the best and direct creative stimuluses we can do in order to improve and quicken our own thinking. I’m against the notion of “reading for the …
As adults what capacity have we lost? The ability to play! To play for the sake of play. To play with our super abundant energy. To play as a form of creative activity and …
It takes more skill, sincerity, and magnanimity to share your joy (rather than your pain, dissatisfaction, and suffering).
The art of solo travel: travel at your own cadence, follow your own internal rhythms. No rush, no obligations. Just do what you want to do, and don’t do what you don’t want to …
A thought: Perhaps our impulse to make photos is this innate desire for us to control, capture, or transform the world or reality to our whims.
What pushes you forward in life? What motivates you towards creative activity? What motivates you to wake up in the morning? What pushes you to write, read, think, or create art? Do you create …
Art — the act of expressing something from the deepest recesses of your soul outwards. But the question is— what do you want to express from within you, outwards?
If you’re looking for something to shoot, look for gritty textures.
Extreme faith and hope into the future:
We love Elon Musk, Tesla, and electric cars. Why no love for “electric cameras�
My thought on how to stay inspired in your photography: Tighten your feedback loop between shooting, selecting your photos, and publishing your photos. This will keep you prolific to keep shooting new photos, derive …
In extreme praise of photography.
“Mens agitat molem.”- Virgil (Mind agitates [moves] matter). Agitate comes from “ago” (Latin), which means to set into motion, to lead, to drive/propel/cast. To agitate ourselves (self motivate ourselves to move, act, and to …
Many of us desire more money, however I believe a better goal is this: Seek to maximize your leisure hours and mental space. Better to be poorer with more leisure than richer with less …
In Praise of Diversity Currently connecting through the London Gatwick Airport and something that I love about London (and a lot of cosmopolitan cities) is this: I love diversity in human beings, culture, society, …
When I look through my photos, it is great– almost as if I am re-living certain life experiences (double joy from a single experience!)
A thought while in transit: When it comes to travel, nomadic living, or perhaps just life in general — the lighter, smaller, and more compact, the better. Anti weight, anti matter, anti bulk, anti …
Flex, strive towards the apex, no baseless, just chase it. Apex, the highest point. The goal for which we strive— the fire which keeps us live. Strive towards higher heights sublime, dashed with wine …
In praise of (intermittent) degenerative behavior.
Thinking about artists I admire, and what I think makes them great artists, and what makes their artwork great as well.
Ricoh GR 3 has the most epic dynamic range for monochrome I’ve seen thus far!
Something which is lacking in modern life: Our ability (or confidence) to brazenly assert our OWN OPINION (quoting ourselves, not others!)
There are no objectively ‘best’ things in the world (this is all subjective). But I think there are MANY ‘perfect’ things in the world!
A thought: Perhaps the joy of us as photographer is this: To discover beauty in unexpected places!
Keanu Reeves: my favorite actor. JOHN WICK series: my favorite movie series. I find the philosophy underlying the JOHN WICK universe absolutely fascinating. Let me share some basic ideas:
A thought in photography and life: Be highly selective. For example in photography, be highly selective about the photos you decide to keep or ditch. In life, be highly selective in terms of the …
Is it possible to live life with only upside and no downside? I think so!
Hero: a demi-god, a watcher or protector of others. In Ancient Greek a hero was any of the major combatants in the Iliad (either the Greek or the Trojan side). I think today, we …
If spontaneity is the goal, my question: How do we actually become more spontaneous, and how do we (allow) ourselves to live more spontaneously?
A spontaneous life is a better life:
JUNWOO KIM is the inventor of ARS COIN, and a talented visual artist, engineer, and a good friend.
Allen Iverson said it best: practice. Perhaps this is the goal: not to become the “best” or even to become “successful”, but to simply never stop practicing whatever your art form is!
Something fun in entrepreneurship, business and life is trying to accomplish “proof of concept”, whether or not your idea works in the real world.
A realization in life: Considering how short our lives are, it seems to be a waste of time, life, and energy to focus too much on small and petty lifestyle choices. Better to focus …
Filling the frame: an essential photography composition concept:
Cruise photography: something my buddy Todd Hata introduced to me a while back, and something new I want to explore:
As an artist (along with scientists), you IMPROVE life and the wellbeing and health of your fellow humans through your art creations and innovations.
A question on my mind: Where does our initial impetus to create art come from? For example a lot of older Freudian philosophers assume that the urge to create art is sexual; creating art …
Similar to Elon Musk — unified field theory of his companies (Space X, Tesla, Solar City) all working together and feeding into one another (Ashlee Vance idea from his biography on Musk). Basic idea …
My life purpose: to blog, to share ideas, to think, to plumb deeper levels of knowledge, aesthetics, and art, and to help motivate creators, photographers, and all individuals — to make, wonder, and challenge. …
Once you have reached financial independence, location independence, you retire, and have ample free time and leisure, the question is this: What is the best way to use my time and life? Some thoughts:
Zen photography: One camera, one lens (RICOH GR III) Monochrome (one color). Or for color photography, keeping the colors super simple. JPEG only Direct, honest, and genuine photos. Only photographing what you’re interested in …
Get free photography tips on Eric Kim NEWSLETTER > I had a nice chat with my buddy Don Dillonthe other day, and this was one of the big takeaways: Once you’re a good photographer with …
Super pumped to share that PHOTO JOURNAL (Third Edition, 2019) is now available! Also as an exciting promo: if you buy PHOTO JOURNAL right now, you can also INSTANTLY get a FREE digital download …
What makes interesting photos? Interesting details.
Reflection from PHOTO JOURNAL. Reflect what you love about your camera, and use this knowledge to empower you to keep making new and epic photos.
Discover more about the hottest straps in the photography game:
A visual and artistic gesture, a gist. Composition as an impression. Fleeting, moving, dynamic, full of life and vigor. To better understand your compositions and photographic and visual gist, sketch your images. I use …
Make a dynamic photo composition — lots of angles, triangles, low perspective, hands and head in different directions. The goal is to make a composition as interesting and dynamic/full of force as possible.
Money is a mode of human and social interaction, of quantifying labor, and a medium of human trust. Money isn’t “realâ€â€” it isn’t a physical thing, it is a metaphysical notion of “value†and …
One of the big problems about Silicon Valley startup thinking: The aspiration to build an epic company and one day sell it for millions (or billions). What if this was a bad way of …
It seems the purpose of utilitarianism and most of modern economics and philosophy is this: Raise the collective well-being of all humans. I think this is a good goal, but what does this even …
In WordPress, you can use ‘Tiled Galleries’ (like shown below), which is a great way to publish, share, and view your work:
All of life is ethereal. It will soon fade to dust. So why accumulate things, and worry so much about the material world?
Discovered Sergio’s photos on ARS, this is why I love his photos:
An interesting way to live your life: Fight for what you believe in, what you care about, and become the change which you wish to see in the world. Listen on ERIC KIM PODCAST
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. …
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.
Get free photography tips on Eric Kim NEWSLETTER > 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 …
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.