{"id":35242,"date":"2016-12-16T12:00:35","date_gmt":"2016-12-16T20:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/?p=35242"},"modified":"2016-12-17T08:18:41","modified_gmt":"2016-12-17T16:18:41","slug":"shoot-for-the-few-not-the-many","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/16\/shoot-for-the-few-not-the-many\/","title":{"rendered":"Shoot For the Few, Not the Many"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"eric-kim-photography-cindy-project-black-and-white-12-self-portrait-ricohgr-car\"
Berkeley, 2016 #cindyproject<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been recently inspired by the Roman poet\u00e2\u20ac\u201d Horace, who gave a lot of practical advice to other poets in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ars Poetica\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (the art of poetry):<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

What can we learn from poetry?<\/h2>\n

One of the practical tips he gave was to write for the few, not the many.<\/p>\n

I think the way we can apply this to our photography \u00e2\u20ac\u201d photograph for the few, not the many<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Do you like your own photos?<\/h2>\n

To start off, start off by photographing for yourself. Ask yourself the question, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Do I like my own photos?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Once you make photos that please yourself, then seek to find a few others that will like your work. For me, that is just a few close friends, Cindy, and perhaps my mom.<\/p>\n

For me, it means 100x more if Cindy or my close friends tell me that they like my photos, then getting thousands of likes on social media.<\/p>\n

Shoot for your \u00e2\u20ac\u0153inner circle\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/h2>\n

It is easy to take photos to please yourself. Then after that, it is easy to photograph for your 3 best friends.<\/p>\n

Consider these group of people your \u00e2\u20ac\u0153inner-circle.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d These are the people you are trying to please, and impress with your photography.<\/p>\n

And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve also found, it is better to have a small (but very loyal following) than a large and mildly-interested following.<\/p>\n

For example, from a business perspective, I sell photography workshops at a premium price. Only a few people who really trust me will sign up for the workshops \u00e2\u20ac\u201d not people who are just mildly interested in what I do.<\/p>\n

The same goes with your photography. If you make some photos that very influential people really like \u00e2\u20ac\u201d they will help market and promote your work to a large audience. So in a sense, as long as you can influence 1 really-influential person, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve done your job as a photographer (at least in terms of marketing).<\/p>\n

Alienate a wider audience<\/h2>\n

As my friend Charlie Kirk says, avoid to make \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ikea\u00e2\u20ac\u009d photographs. These are photographs that mildly please a wide audience, but deeply impress nobody.<\/p>\n

Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make generic photos for the masses. Make artful, soulful, and personal photos for the few.<\/p>\n

Always,
\nEric<\/p>\n

Learn more: Personal Photography ><\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been recently inspired by the Roman poet\u00e2\u20ac\u201d Horace, who gave a lot of practical advice to other poets in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ars Poetica\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (the art of poetry):<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35214,"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,"_ek_photo_artist_note":"","_ek_photo_thesis":"","_ek_photo_camera":"","_ek_photo_place":"","_ek_photo_human_moment":"","_ek_photo_sequence":"","_ek_photo_question":"","_ek_photo_canonical_claim":"","_ek_photo_ai_summary":"","_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-posts"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/eric-kim-photography-Cindy-Project-black-and-white-12-self-portrait-ricohgr-car.jpg?fit=4928%2C3264&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35242","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=35242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}