santa monica - ERIC KIM ₿

New Beginnings Day 8: Street Photography With Wireless Flash at Santa Monica

Today I hit the streets of Santa Monica and the beach armed with my new YN-560 Speedlight Flash and wireless transmitter. It is a new setup that I have been trying out, which seems to be far better than using a chord for my streetÂ photographyÂ with flash. Not only is the kit extremely cheap (only $67 for the flash and $20 for the wireless transmitter) but it works well and gives me great images! Screw buying a Canon Speedlite 580EX II for around $500. Having shot with it in Santa Monica today, I have been extremely pleased. Read more to see all the pictures I took.

Anyways I also have 4 more spots open for my July 30-31st streetÂ photographyÂ workshop in Hollywood, Los Angeles! It is going to be a ton of fun meeting other street photographers, shooting together in the streets, while also getting helpful critique and learning new techniques. Please email me at erickimphotography@gmail.com if you want more details or would like to sign up!

3 Ways How Being Injured Helped me Become a Better Street Photographer

About two weeks ago, I was playing basketball and when I went up for the rebound, I landed on someone’s foot and fell my entire weight roll onto my left ankle. Then I proceeded to hear the cracks (like cracking your knuckles, except times five) and then the final pop at the end. It was a pretty serious sprain.

I then went to the doctor the next day and got an x-ray. Although I didn’t break any bones (thank God), I was going to be in crutches for at least 2 weeks. This meant going 2 weeks without shooting any street photography.

As you guys can imagine, I got pretty antsy staying at home all of the time. I felt that the streets were calling my name–and longed to go shoot.

Fast-forward 2 weeks and now I am walking with a slight limp (thanks for all the words of encouragement + prayer). I took the liberty the other day to shoot street photography, and I gotta tell ya–it was pretty damn painful. Every step forward felt like a thousand needles piercing into my ankle, and it was hard to even walk the distance of a block or so.

But as I like to think, “Everything happens for a reason.” I then noticed that although it was difficult shooting street photography while still injured, there were some learning points that I got out of it. This is what inspired me to write this post. I will therefore tell you how being injured helped me realize some points that helped me

1. Walking slower helped me capture moments I might have missed.

"After the Rain" - Santa Monica Street Photography — "After the Rain" - Santa Monica

Due to the fact that I was injured, I walked extremely slowly while shooting street photography around the 3rd Street Promenade. Although at first this was incredibly frustrating, I started noticing things I might have missed while healthy. I started to see more “interesting characters” I might have missed if I were walking at full speed. In slowing down, I started to “see” better as a street photographer.

What Goes on in My Mind When I Shoot in the Streets

What should I take a Photo of Penguin 5D — What goes on in my head when I am doing street photography. (Yes, that is a penguin version of me with a Canon 5D)

Stumped for ideas, I recently I asked to the members of myÂ Facebook Fan page what I should blog about next. These are the responses that I received that inspired me to write this post:

- Eric Houng:Â “What prompts you to snap a picture of someone? is it cuz you see a story about that person? stuff like that :] (inspiration… that’s the word i was looking for hahah)”
- Mithun Kumar:Â “Do we apply brains or just go with the instincts when photographing on Streets?”
- Yvette Murphy:Â “Related to above requests– how much of it is planned, i.e. you see the possibility of a shot ahead of time and wait for it to happen and, simply, spontaneous, i.e. the right place at the right time. For example, I had seen the possibility of a great shot, I waited for the right time…and perhaps I lost patience, but it never happened.”
- Rick Heath:Â “What does one need to do in terms of mindset on the street….I would love to do this but do not want to be threatening. How do you be forward in a nice way. Does this make sense? In other words, what does your mindset need to be…..frame of mind, etc.”

Therefore I will try my best to explain my Â “workflow” of my thoughts when shooting in the streets. The scenario I will explain my thought process when I went to shoot on the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica (during my lunch break yesterday). I tried my best to record and write out my thoughts as candid as possible.

The One Million Dollar Question

I only wish that he "made it rain" after taking this photo

So the other day when I stepped out of my office on 3rd street to go take some photos during my lunch break, I was spotted by a group of Christian missionaries handing out fake one-million dollar bills to passer-by’s. They had interesting caricaturesÂ of what I perceive to be famous celebrities in place of some of our beloved presidents. As they noticed at me gazing at them, one of their representatives walked up to me and asked me, “If you were going to die tomorrow, would you definitely be sure that you would be in heaven?” Wow–what a loaded question. I then casually responded, “Of course not.” The man then asked me for 2 of my minutes and during that split-second decision I thought to myself, “Sure, why the hell not.”

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