ERIC KIM ₿

A simple process of photography:

1. Shoot photos
2. Select the photos you like
3. Share the photos you consider personally-meaningful

Could we do this into infinity?

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Eternal life… in order to do what?

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Never placate others to avoid them from hating you
Placate yourself, please yourself, and do it with help from yourself and your own soul’s wealth.

We’ve all been dealt different hands, but we have the power to make our own plans
We got skill, insight, intuition and strength,
We got the power to do anything we want.

So what do you really really want? Not for yourself to vaunt on social or the gram.
What do you really want for you, and for yourself?
Do you really care to placate and appease others who already lack confidence in themselves? Are you doing it for the masses, hoping to make a pact with them, to get them to clap for you?

Clap and applaud yourself, for sticking to your own life goals, and building your own dope world.

Life is short, brutal, and hard — but you’re harder, smarter, and more swole than circumstances.

So take your chances and be bold. Why wait? The world is yours.

ERIC

People make the sucker mistake thinking that money is the ultimate wealth.

What is the real purpose of wealth? We don’t own money for the sake of owning money. If you were starving in a cell, and had a trillion dollars sitting next to you, and you couldn’t trade the money for food– obviously you’re not going to be ‘rich’. The only purpose of money in modern society is to trade money for items, tools, housing, food, experiences, and things.

Then comes the question–

What is the greatest human good?

My belief:

The highest human good is freedom!

Freedom to think what you want to think, the freedom to do what you want to do, the freedom over your time-schedule-mind, and the freedom of self-expression and self-creation.

So once again friends–let us not get suckered and deceived.

Money as a ROAD and a BRIDGE in order to achieve maximal freedom/control in your life.

Never control freedom/control in your life for more money– this is the ultimate trap.

ERIC

It seems in modern times with social media, Netflix, YouTube, video games, phones, etc– we are distracting ourselves to death.

We are so afraid of being with ourselves, and striving towards an Uber-epic goal or aim in life that we endlessly distract ourselves.

Also the other ill:

Modern life is constructed in a way to distract us (often without us even knowing about it).

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What environment do you best thrive in?

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You are your own authority

Write your own verses, the lyrics to your own story

Never bow down or cower to another,

You’re the superior– cheerier, stronger — never getting wearier.

Never look to another; only look at you, through and through

Look into your own depths, and see yourself reflected clear as day.

I believe I am an optimistic nihilist. A nihilist in the sense that I don’t believe that there is an ultimate ‘truth’ in the world, and that there is no ultimate ‘purpose’ of being alive.

However I am optimistic– optimistic of human potential, optimistic of the future, and optimistic of what we can become!

Simple photographic philosophies to get you going:

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Not good or bad …will it make you stronger or weaker?

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To be more productive and creative, REMOVE and SUBTRACT the superfluous your life ! 

Rather than thinking what new devices and things you can add to your life to “improve” your productivity, efficiency, effectiveness, or whatever — experiment for a month to constantly subtract (don’t use a phone, don’t use your tablet, don’t use your headphones or listen to music, etc).

Never stop culling!

ERIC

Aesthetics AND Composition are Essential for Photography

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Never look back; anti-nostalgia. We must forget in order to dream new, attempt new, and strive for new.

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It is our goal to strive for our own personal truth. To discover a deeper level/degree of “truthiness” to our own lives. Deeper and more profound knowledge in ourselves, the optimal conditions for us to thrive (lifestyle, diet, exercise, climate).

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I am anti-social media. I believe there are a lot of positive boons (pluses) to social media, but overall for society and the individual– I see social media as a ‘net negative’.

Many of us suffer from not having enough inspiration to shoot photography.

An idea: experiment NOT sharing or uploading photos to social media for a year, and see whether this will inspire you to make new photos for yourself!

The genius of Steve Jobs, Apple, and other great products:

Creating something which is simple, intuitive, and fun to use!

To create things which are a JOY to use, and tools which EMPOWER us!

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Better to Set Epic Goals and Fail, than to Accomplish Mediocre Goals

A life philosophy:

Our lives are short — why waste it being normal, average, or mediocre?

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Volition is my mission to exercise

To guide me through the path of my life— to fight with all the beautiful strife.

To thrive, to fly higher, to take the hits and punches like Ryu from street fighter

To get lit, lighter — wings spread high, golden glue— they won’t rip or tear, on these golden stairs to the next level, the next frontier.

The future is bright, dare you steer?

ERIC

The photos you decide to shoot and not shoot reflect your own personal aesthetic and philosophical preferences — what you deem as beautiful (and not beautiful).

The subject-matter you photograph reflects your social circle, where you live, and the things which you experience.

Takeaway:

The more subjective your photos to your own personal life, the better.

All his photos are auto-biography — let us not let the silly notion of “objectivity” to cloud or blind our creative insight and genius!

ERIC

We all have gut instincts for our own personal and creative needs , desires, and wants (self-preservative instincts).

We must have the courage to obey our own gut instincts. This means:

Never do anything which is contrary to your gut instincts.

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My thought:

We should strive as photographer-artists to make pictures which are beautiful! We optimize our camera, equipment, processing style, composition and form to reflect this.

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What is happiness? Is happiness important?

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Perhaps the best way to live our lives is to strive to max out everyday.

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Why is it that children are so artistically creative, innovative, and productive? Their “tabula rasa” approach to life and artistic creation. Because they don’t have any prior knowledge of the history of art, they can create without constraint, self-judgement, or insecurity!

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Matisse as one of the masters of composition and color:

To Be More Creative, Spend More Time in Coffee Shops.

Besides the caffeine, it seems the biggest benefit of doing creative work at a coffee shop is that it makes you more creatively productive! While at the coffee shop, I feel more stimulated and alert, I’m motivated, and have the energy and drive to actually make things!

Why is this? Some theories:

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My thought:

Image quality is overrated. We should optimize our cameras and tools to make more beautiful aesthetic images!

For example:

1. Beautiful grit and grain in images (digital cameras that have film filter/grain presets)
2. Ability to turn on random light effects in our cameras (like HUJI cam and Calla Cam). The joy of light leaks, and discoloration.
3. Experiment shooting film, or jpeg on digital cameras with film effects. Or on the smartphone with Huji cam or Calla Cam.

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Strive to fulfill your own true needs.

A true need as a need that YOU have deemed is right for yourself, and worthy of yourself.

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Let us make this our own personal imperative in life:

To obey ourselves, our own inclinations, to follow our own instincts, and when our gut says something is bad for us — to listen to our gut!

To become more self-focused. To obey our own selfish needs and desires (not to see “selfishness” as a vice, but our ultimate creative virtue!)

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Zen not as a meek mentality — zen as simple, strong, concentrated, powerful— without superfluous distractions, superfluous weight.

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“I photograph to see what the world looks like photographed.”

Garry Winogrand

Whenever you see anything, just photograph it; you can never predict 100% what the final photo will look like!

Photograph it because you’re curious what the scene will look like as a photograph.

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Use your life, your personality, your ego, and experiences in order to create art!

The photographer as the currently most evolved form of artist-cyborg, embracing technological tools to create artwork. 

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The most satisfying part of existence is to be an artist … to disappear into your artwork … and to keep making art.

Artist as the apex individual in society — artist-philosopher-king, tyrant ?

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Reality looks more fun and interesting with photography!

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Southwest flight to Honolulu. Gonna be here for a month for Cindy’s work; traveling light with just my Xiaomi 9 SE phone, iPhone 6S Plus and 13 inch MacBook Pro.

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Change, bust out the range
Ride out the bills– do it for real.

You cannot change yourself without pain
No gain without insane faith in your potential
Gravity isn’t holding you down; so why stay on the ground?

Loud out your sound–sonic boom it
Take opportunities in life with no Guile
If you live to be 120 in great health, you’ll be here for a while

So stay strong, stay woke.
Keep your mind swole, and you’ll never go broke.

ERIC

To maximize our personal thriving, perhaps we shouldn’t look back– we should only look ahead!

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What is a “limiter”? It is something in your mental wiring which holds back your potential.

For example:

1. Physical-mental limiter: The mental limiter which holds you back from attempting new “PR”’s at the gym, because you’re afraid you might injure yourself by attempting a heavier weight than you’re used to.
2. Entrepreneurship limiter: The limiter that prevents us from starting our own business, because the fear that we may fail and become bankrupt and seen as a “failure” (fear of social stigma).
3. Remove your creative limiter: The false idea that we shouldn’t upload more than 1 photo, blog post, or video in a single day. I say fuck that — why not 10x that? Why not upload 10 photos a day? Publish 10 blog posts a day? Make 10 beats a day? Upload 10 videos to YouTube in a single day?
4. Creative genre limiter: Don’t trap yourself just in a single art genre. Do anything and everything which interests you! Be like Kanye West — he refused to just be a producer, and strive to rap as well. Then after rapping, he strove to get into fashion, and succeeded (when everyone told him to just focus on music). Indulge in all forms of artistic creation and expression!

We are always told: “Quality over quantity”.

But what if this was a mistaken notion? What if we should in-fact, focus on quantity over quality?

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Let us assume you will live to be 120 years old in excellent physical and cognitive health. What do you desire to accomplish, do, achieve, or create while you’re still alive?

To me, this is the beginning of philosophy.

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My buddy Daniel (head of the Brussels Street Photography Festival) is currently putting on their 4th edition!

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Advice based on what works for me — hope these can help you too:

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I believe that tips are actually more beneficial, and generally more profound in knowledge and wisdom than “high brow”intellectuality.

Why? Let me share.

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Personal and philosophical thoughts on social media:

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To live a more fun, interesting, playful, and rewarding life– perhaps we should optimize our own personal lives for our own personal creative productivity.

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There are no ultimate morals or ethics in life. You have the power to determine your own morals and ethics in your life. Of course you must accept the consequences. But this life is the only certain life — why live for another life or even an after life? 

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To me, powerlifting, deadlifts, etc is more mental than physical. I believe that powerlifting is 90% mental, and overcoming your mental blocks.

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Why aspire?

Think about the opposite:

What would a life of non-aspiration look like? And would a life devoid of aspiration be a life worth living?

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Something I wanted to essay about:

What makes a great photograph?

Also — does it even matter if a photograph is ‘great’? Is ‘good’ good enough?

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A simple thought and idea:

What should I photograph if I want to make more “interesting” photos, more meaningful photos– or to find more ‘inspirational’ things to photograph?

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Thinking about video games —

1. People want an “open world” concept
2. Gamers want to have fun, explore, discover, and adventure/quest
3. Gamers want to exercise their “hand eye coordination”skills (consider first person shooter games)

How can we integrate these video game traits to real life? Simple — by playing and shooting street photography!

Street photography as playing, while also making art work.

A thought while at the gym today:

You didn’t ask to be born, thus you technically “owe” anything to anybody.

So perhaps we should think BEYOND “duty” and “original sin”. We didn’t have a choice in being born, but now we have a choice how to live our lives (we have the faculty of free will, and we have the power to live our lives however we desire).

It seems the best thing I’ve come up with so far is this:

Not to treat life as a miserable self-flagellation or “self-sacrifice” type of duty. Instead, to treat life like a fun game!

Simple thoughts:

1. Use a “standalone digital camera” like a RICOH GR II in order to NOT get distracted while shooting. While I think smartphones are legitimate cameras, the biggest downside of smartphone cameras is the fact that it is very difficult to focus on the simple task of only shooting photos! This is a good case of shooting film; you can only do one thing at a time.
2. Shoot while walking, and don’t think too much while shooting photos. The best photography is instinctual and from the gut. Don’t worry about getting a “good” photo while shooting. Just enjoy the walk, shoot, and don’t think too much. Fall into the zen-like trance of wandering the streets, and just responding to scenes you find interesting and just shooting! Also, when you see an interesting scene, allow yourself to shoot as many photos of the scene as you want.
3. Shoot JPEG: You can shoot quicker (no buffer or lag), and later it is easier and quicker to look through and review your photos. And yes, you can post process jpeg photos.
4. Shoot P (program) mode: “Set it and forget it!” Distinguish yourself and your photos via your composition, not what your technical settings are.
5. Find a good place to shoot: I prefer being in an urban setting, with a decent amount of people walking, and (of course) sidewalks where I can dance around a bit. I prefer environments with larger plazas– which allow multi-directional movement. Essentially the idea is have a good walking place, that allows enough regularity from navigating a certain city or downtown area, and also enough randomness to keep things interesting! I cannot get into a ‘flow’ when shooting in a very boring suburban neighborhood or environment– some “danger” helps me focus!
6. Keep your camera around your neck or on your wrist: I really like the ERIC KIM Neck Strap MARK II with the RICOH GR II, as it is always on you — and because the Ricoh GR II weighs practically nothing– you forget you have it on! Another option– experiment using a wrist strap (Henri Wrist Strap OG, or Henri Wrist Strap PRO), and just go on walks with your camera attached to your wrist. The way I like to think about it: Rappers wear heavy chains, watches, and bracelets. Perhaps we should think about our cameras on our necks and wrists like rappers wear chains!

I am passionate about composition — to me, it is the root and foundation of all artwork and aesthetics.

But how do we improve our own composition? Easy — research compositions from other artists whose work inspires you, deconstruct it, sketch it, break it apart, figure out how it works, then determine how you can integrate it into your own artwork!

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Luxury isn’t buying stuff, nor is it living a certain “lifestyle”— it is about having the luxury of time, your own attention, and your own focus and willpower to create your own artwork!

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A thought:

Perhaps what we should be optimizing for in our personal lives is FOCUS, not ‘privacy’.

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In today’s epic and hyper-connected world with smartphones and the internet– what is the role of a ‘standalone’ digital camera?

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A thought while bored in mass today:

What gets better with time, and what gets worse with time?

When it comes to purchasing things, should we optimize to only buy things which get better or more beautiful over time? For example, beautiful patina, wear and tear, rips and holes (raw denim, wabi sabi aesthetics, leather).

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Don’t think about race, ethnicity, genetics; think epigenetics, hacking your own DNA, and modify and build yourself with your willpower, effort, and fearlessness.

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What we are doing as photographers and creators: creating a beautiful visual stream of images— not caring too much for a single image, but delighting in the totality and collection of images as a whole and a stream. Including photos we’ve created, images we remixed, hybrid images, sketches we’ve made, traces we’ve made, and screenshots of other artwork which inspires you!

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How would you live your life differently if you didn’t believe in an afterlife? 

As a photographer do you prefer to create the image, or be surprised?

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GATTACA: one of the great films.

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In life, perhaps we shouldn’t worry too much about external ‘success’, money, material things, etc– perhaps we are the happiest when we maximize our day to be artistically productive.

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One of my favorite Nietzsche quotes:

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

But what does this mean– both philosophically and practically?

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Why are aesthetics important in terms of art, design, our clothing, cars, devices, cameras, and more?

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Perhaps we should think beyond photography — to create a hybrid between photography, painting, and any form of visual art-remixing.

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Some current thoughts I’m having on color theory:

1. Why color? If you have the option between monochrome and color — why would you choose color?
2. What if color is connected with physiological responses? For example the color red as being the color of lust, sex, danger — a woman (or man) with red lipstick or clothing as seen as more powerful, formidable, or sexual.
3. Color combinations: Is there an “ideal”for color combinations? Are all color combinations socialized? Or is there some biological “truth” to more ‘desirable’ color combinations?
4. Is if the role of the artist to imitate “natural” colors, or to totally disregard all nature, and create “unnatural” colors?

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