{"id":31326,"date":"2016-11-20T06:00:26","date_gmt":"2016-11-20T14:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/?p=31326"},"modified":"2016-10-19T01:16:15","modified_gmt":"2016-10-19T08:16:15","slug":"dont-define-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/11\/20\/dont-define-yourself\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Define Yourself"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Portrait
Portrait by Luis Donoso<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I recently re-read the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Tao Te Ching\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and came across a quote that said something like, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you define yourself, you will never know who you truly are.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve read hundreds of business, marketing, branding, and advertising books. They always tell you that you need to define yourself\u00e2\u20ac\u201d define your mission statement, your \u00e2\u20ac\u0153brand\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, or what your specialty is.<\/p>\n

For a long time, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve done that. I wanted to focus on branding myself as a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153street photographer.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Of course it is my passion, and I wanted people to know it.<\/p>\n

However in the recent few years, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve felt a bit trapped. I felt that by pigeon-holing myself into \u00e2\u20ac\u0153street photography\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201d I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been able to spread my wings as much.<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, I see myself as a teacher.<\/p>\n

So recently, I tried to change all of my biographies to something more general \u00e2\u20ac\u201d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153photography educator\/teacher.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

But perhaps that is a bit too specific as well. Maybe I should have no biography, which would give me ultimate freedom.<\/p>\n

Why is it dangerous to define yourself?<\/h2>\n
\"NYC,
NYC, 2014<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Many of us have many interests and passions in life. To simply define ourself with one definition can limit us. It can make us feel trapped.<\/p>\n

By defining yourself within a narrow genre of photography, you might not have as many opportunities to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153cross-pollinate\u00e2\u20ac\u009d your style in photography.<\/p>\n

For example, I have been criticized a lot for not being a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153real\u00e2\u20ac\u009d street photographer. And it is true. I mix fashion, portraiture, and other forms of photography into my work. Not only that, but I gain the biggest inspiration from sociology, psychology, and philosophy in my photography.<\/p>\n

I know a lot of other photographers who consider themselves first artists and painters, and secondly photographers. I know many musicians who also do photography as a side-hobby. And their creativity knows no limits; because they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t put themselves in a small cage of definition.<\/p>\n

Un-define yourself<\/h2>\n
\"Hong
Hong Kong, 2014<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So friend, as an experiment try to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153un-define\u00e2\u20ac\u009d yourself. Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t put cages on your limits. You were born for great things, not just one small thing.<\/p>\n

Always,
\nEric<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently re-read the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Tao Te Ching\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and came across a quote that said something like, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you define yourself, you will never know who you truly are.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31088,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-posts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/eric-kim-street-photography-portrait-photographer-by-luis-donoso-2016-profile-headshot.jpg?fit=%2C&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}