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ERIC KIM PORTFOLIO BAG: Perfectly fits your iPad, iPhone, and RICOH GR III or II: Only 3 left in stock >

Free photography tips on ERIC KIM NEWSLETTER > An encouraging idea to start this week:Whatever ‘imperfect’ art you make is perfect! What I mean is this: In our lives, we are often discouraged to create …

It is pretty obvious that at this point, we are all always on our devices [phones, laptops, etc]. Is this a bad thing?

The joy of walking the streets, wandering, interesting with strangers (or not). The joy and delight in being a part of society. The joy of making art works from human beings in urban and …

What makes visual art so fun and great — The excitement to witness and create new forms, shapes, colors, and combinations! For example my impetus in photography: The excitement to witness new things, new …

Thinking about materialism and consumerism: Much of the things we purchase is in order to ‘flex’ our personal possessions. To assert our status, richness, power, etc. Questions: Is flexing ‘bad’? Why flex? What would …

Seeing beautiful design awakens me, invigorates me, and gives me new hope towards the future. I have a reason to keep on living, to keep witnessing beautiful designs but also to have the motivation …

Expression = ex+press the artistic power from within yourself outwards. I’d prefer the term “outpression”— pressing outwards (from inside yourself) your creative and artistic power and force.

In American and modern culture, it is all about consumerism, materialism, and obsession with accumulating more — more money, more possessions, fancier cars, fancier possessions and object/tools, more land, more homes, more everything. Now …

Free photography tips on Eric Kim NEWSLETTER An infinite amount of ways you can approach photography:

How I choose photos I like:

A maxim from our buddy Nietzsche. The basic idea: All wounds you receive in your life stimulate your recuperative properties in your body. Thus in life, realize that all the pain, difficulty and suffering …

In striving to come up with a good definition of street photography, it seems the most simple is the best: Any photo you shoot in public is a street photograph. Photo+graph= light drawing. Street …

A thought: Is it possible we can direct our own self-evolution within a single lifetime? [our lifetime]

HENRI NECK STRAP MARK III available in Mahogany Brown [Amazon] or Phantom Black [HAPTIC SHOP]. Learn more >

Where does our personal strength and energy come from?

Create your own ‘stories’, by just using your own website/blog to document your everyday experiences. Blogging as a tool to reflect on your experiences, to digest them, and to derive more joy from them! …

In praise of blurry photos, out-of-focus photos, and photos which are ‘imperfect’. Perhaps they better document our memories, emotions, and feelings of a scene — imperfect, gritty, full of movement, and emotional?

What is the practical parts of striving towards knowledge and philosophy? Should it be used as an aid to improve our lives, or to discover knowledge beyond ourselves — knowledge which not benefit ourselves, …

Strive to make beautiful products, beautiful websites, beautiful art works, beautiful photos, beautiful forms, shapes, music, and ideas. Transfigure the world with your artistic vision! This is the impetus behind HAPTIC, ARS, this blog, …

It seems that 90%+ of the online economy comes from advertising (Google/Facebook owns the majority). This basically means: Offer a free service to the user, and derive income from advertising. Now, I personally have …

A thought from our buddy Nietzsche [Twilight of the Idols]: Live your life (today) as you would desire to live again forever.

You make the rules. The photo or image isn’t sacred. Feel free to remix, modify, or alter the image however you desire.

To play is to be human.

A thought: Too much focus on being overly frugal and economical is bad.

What triggers you to make photos?

Currently the RICOH GR III is the best ‘standalone’ digital camera on the market. Superior to all competitors, including Leica Q2.

A thought — How do we actually “motivate” ourselves in life? Where does the power and energy of motivation come from? This is also tied to ideas on free will.

Perhaps a principle to life and our personal evolution and thriving: Never stop sharing.

The problem with technology now: Technology is too focused on data, ‘efficiency’, ‘optimization’, and all these nerdy things. What should technology be doing for us? Making us MORE ARTISTIC, more curious, and more child-like.

After mucking around with the new macOS Catalina beta on my laptop [and corrupting my hard-drive upon installing a new Beta Update], I did a fresh new install of the OS. It is great. …

Instead of mindlessly scrolling through Facebook or Instagram, or flipping through stories, why not scroll through our own photos? Scroll through our own “Media Library” on WordPress, to scroll through our “Camera Roll” on …

Nature: going outdoors, on hikes, fresh air; good for the soul. Even though we are mostly city folk, I think the hybrid of extreme city and extreme nature is a good one. So us …

What is a good direction to take your life? Direct your own personal evolution.

A simple way to think about and approach life: Only dedicate your energies on things you care for.

As a photographer you got a trillion things to shoot. Question — what should I photograph? Meaning — Are there certain subject matter which is more interesting or less interesting to photograph? Are there …

An idea I got from my buddy Ryan from Backyard Brew in Palo Alto: Perhaps the best way to live life is directly. To think about your personal ‘end game’, and attack it directly.

A simple way to approach blogging, sharing, or publishing online: Just share your own life experiences and journey with others. It ain’t a matter whether your life is ‘interesting’ or ‘boring’. Just keep it …

When analyzing your photos or the photos of others, integrate ‘Bounding Boxes’ [in red] to think about the spacing/composition of your photo:

Get free photography and life inspiration on ERIC KIM NEWSLETTER > A thought: Perhaps we should focus on tiny (incremental), 1% improvements everyday (no breaking the chain).

Currently reading the ‘What happened to the future?’ essay on Founders Fund, and trying to think: What is the future of photography?

I don’t know about you, but I hate banner-based advertising on blogs and websites. The practical question is: How do you monetize a blog WITHOUT using advertising? Thoughts:

My epic vision [and the vision of all of us at ARS: Cindy, Kevin, Jun, Annette] is this: ARS is social media ‘done right’ for photographers. A social media platform for photographers that isn’t …

Anti-perfection in art. Just because someone else did it before doesn’t mean you shouldn’t attempt doing it as well (you will always do it differently). Anti self-criticism. Making art as a creative process, of …

It seems we are are obsessed with growth. But my questions: What is “growth”? Why is it so desirable? And how does one actually “grow”?

Don’t worry about it being a “good” or “bad” photo in the eyes of others. Instead, select your photos based on whether YOU like the photo or not. If you’re not sure whether the …

To feel guilt in photography is nonsense, and improper of us. To feel guilt is to let external societal pressures guide our own instincts and intuition. We should not prioritize the needs of society …

When we blame ourselves, essentially we are signaling to ourselves that we’re too weak to change things. “Blame” is essentially signaling of who has power. When you blame others for certain conditions of your …

A photo idea: document 24 hours of your own day!

What I think we desire to do as artists: Create [more] beautiful things!

Free photography inspiration on Eric Kim NEWSLETTER > Hey streettogs, Happy Friday! I wanted to start sending you some more email newsletters to hopefully keep your mind full of ‘turbo thoughts’, and also to …

Photography is fascinating because it is supposed to be a ‘factual’ depiction of reality. Thus, to somehow ‘fuck’ with a photograph seems to be immoral. Why? It loses its ‘authenticity’.

The RICOH GR III is easily easily easily the best camera ever made [thus far] for street photography.

All photography is good photography, but I still think street photography is the best:

Photography and nothing but photography!

Reduce friction in your life in order to maximize what you truly desire to do. Simple ideas: Wear the same outfit everyday: All black everything. All merino wool everything. Same pair of shoes everyday. …

A life without photography or art isn’t a life worth living.

When I don’t walk around all day, leave the house all day, or have the opportunity to engage in any physical activity– my brain, mind, and soul gets strange. But the second I leave …

Composition and boxes are really interesting to me. Is there an “ideal” way to compose a box, series of boxes, or a rectangle?

Practical ideas:

What does it mean to become a ‘full stack visual artist’? You own the means of production You own the means of distribution/sharing/business You know how to manage the marketing, technical aspects, and all …

A good incentive to giving constructive critiques on arsbeta.com The more critiques you give to others, the better you understand your own photos, and gain better understanding how you can improve in YOUR OWN …

Mode — type, style. We got airplane mode. Why not photo mode?

Currently participating in Y Combinator’s “Startup School” for ARSBETA.COM and enjoying this idea: With your startup, what kind of really big problem are you trying to solve?

As kids we are told ‘sharing is caring, it can be fun!’ But as adults– what is the pragmatic upside of sharing? Why share at all? How do we benefit from sharing? My basic …

I think what we desire is this: Optimal simplicity in order to maximize what is important to us. Simplify our photo equipment (RICOH GR III in JPEG x iPad x Apple Photos) to quickly …