{"id":33251,"date":"2017-01-18T12:00:13","date_gmt":"2017-01-18T20:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/?p=33251"},"modified":"2017-01-20T21:07:28","modified_gmt":"2017-01-21T05:07:28","slug":"cut-the-fat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/18\/cut-the-fat\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Cut the Fat\u00e2\u20ac\u009d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Hanoi,
Hanoi, 2016<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When it comes to photography (and food) — you want to cut the fat, and eat the meat.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

What is the meat\/fat in your photos?<\/h2>\n

\"0-eric-kim-street-portrait-marty-sf\"<\/p>\n

For me, I eat the fat (and often ask my friends and family members to give me their fat). But for most people, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re supposed to cut out the fat and throw it away.<\/p>\n

Think of the same metaphor for your photography. What is the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153meat\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of your photograph, and what is the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fat\u00e2\u20ac\u009d?<\/p>\n

\"1-marty-contact\"<\/p>\n

The \u00e2\u20ac\u0153meat\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is what is interesting in your photograph. It is what has the emotion, excitement, energy, people, and your primary subjects and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153happening\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in the photo.<\/p>\n

The \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fat\u00e2\u20ac\u009d are the distractions. The \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fat\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of your photo can be over-lapping figures in the background, cars, telephone wires or poles, white cars, plastic bags, or anything that distracts or takes away from the frame.<\/p>\n

Uncover the essence of a scene<\/h2>\n

\"0-eric-kim-street-photography-downtown-la-eye\"<\/p>\n

As a photographer, you are more of a visual surgeon than anything else. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re trying to remove<\/em> the tumors from the scene. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re trying to remove<\/em> the cancer.<\/p>\n

Or imagine yourself as a sculptor. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re trying to carve away the superfluous or unnecessary from the scene \u00e2\u20ac\u201d to uncover the beautiful statue within.<\/p>\n

Why do we want to add?<\/h2>\n

\"downtown-la-eye-contact-sheet\"<\/p>\n

In modern society, we are always so obsessed with addition. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re trying to do more work, to earn more money, to have more friends, and have more social media followers.<\/p>\n

Try to go opposite. Aim to subtract from your life, photography, and whatever. By subtracting the fat from your life, you have more focus on what is really important. And by subtracting the fat from your photos, you give more focus to what is visually-important in your frame.<\/p>\n

Assignment: Cut the fat<\/h2>\n

\"0-eric-kim-street-photography-portrait-braids-nyc\"<\/p>\n

When you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re shooting, focus on the edges of the frame, and always try to cut the fat. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Work the scene\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and every time you click, try to remove at least 1 superfluous element \u00e2\u20ac\u201d until you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re left with the essence of the scene.<\/p>\n

\"1-contact-braids-nyc\"<\/p>\n

Learn more techniques<\/h2>\n

To learn more photography technique, check out Photography 101 ><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re interested in specific street photography technique, check out: \u00e2\u20ac\u015315 Street Photography Techniques<\/strong><\/a>.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When it comes to photography (and food) — you want to cut the fat, and eat the meat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36887,"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-33251","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\/2016\/12\/pick-20161224-E0002301eric-kim-street-photography-ricohgrii-hanoi-cindy-project-5.jpg?fit=2000%2C1325&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33251","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=33251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}