{"id":67143,"date":"2017-10-12T08:16:19","date_gmt":"2017-10-12T15:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/?p=67143"},"modified":"2017-10-12T08:19:43","modified_gmt":"2017-10-12T15:19:43","slug":"make-pictures-for-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2017\/10\/12\/make-pictures-for-yourself\/","title":{"rendered":"Make Pictures For Yourself"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Cindy.<\/a>
Cindy. NYC, 2017.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dear friend,<\/p>\n

Make pictures for yourself. Make pictures that bring you<\/em> joy in life.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Who is your real<\/em> audience?<\/h2>\n

Make pictures of your loved ones. Make self-portraits of yourself, to remember your own mortality.<\/p>\n

Make pictures that bring joy to your life. Make pictures that when you look at your own pictures, you smile.<\/p>\n

Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seek to make \u00e2\u20ac\u0153clever\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153good\u00e2\u20ac\u009d pictures that you hope will impress or please others. No. Only make pictures which you<\/em> think are good. Never let yourself share pictures that you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like… hoping that others will like it.<\/p>\n

Do your pictures get better or worse over time?<\/h2>\n
\"Cindy<\/a>
Cindy in bed. NYC, 2017<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My only criterion whether a picture is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153good\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or not is this:<\/p>\n

\n How many times you are willing to look at your own picture without getting bored, or feeling disgusted.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For example, I only know how much I like a picture depending on how many times I like to look at it. For me, the more I look at the pictures of Josef Koudelka<\/a> and Richard Avedon<\/a>, the more<\/em> I like them.<\/p>\n

For coffee, the more fruity, bright, and light-roasted acidic espresso I drink, the more<\/em> I like it.<\/p>\n

I know Cindy is my true soulmate because the more<\/em> time I spend with her, the more<\/em> I enjoy her company, our intellectual discourse, and our fellow silliness.<\/p>\n

I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like that much music, books, philosophy, film, or literature. But, the few authors and artists I like… I repeat<\/em> looking at their art, I repeat listening to their music, and I repeat digesting their ideas.<\/p>\n

Duration is key.<\/h2>\n
\"Red<\/a>
Red and yellow storefront. NYC, 2017<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The only test of whether art is good or not:<\/p>\n

\n Does it get better<\/em> or worse<\/em> over time?\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Great art is like a good bottle of wine… the longer you let it mature, the better it gets. Or like fermentation with good kimchi\u00e2\u20ac\u201d the longer you let it ferment, the better it tastes (of course, to a certain limit… and also hoping that you have a separate kimchi refrigerator\u00e2\u20ac\u201d yes, that does exist).<\/p>\n

The solitary artist and photographer<\/h2>\n
\"Ford<\/a>
Ford Mustang Taillights. NYC, 2017<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s assume you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to live to be 100 years old.<\/p>\n

Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you want to dedicate your life making art that you yourself like?<\/p>\n

If you were the last human being on earth, or a solitary human being on a spaceship\u00e2\u20ac\u201d would you still make art? I would. And if I were my only audience, I would certainly make art and pictures which impressed me, and brought me joy.<\/p>\n

Being a selfish artist is good.<\/h2>\n
\"Man<\/a>
Man in ticket counter Penn station. NYC, 2017<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Essentially I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m encouraging you to become a more selfish, and a more self-centered artist. Yes, in a positive way.<\/p>\n

Too much of modern society tells us to be selfish or self-centered is evil. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wrong.<\/p>\n

The more you can please yourself, the more you will end up pleasing others.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Therefore my philosophy is this:<\/p>\n

\n The more selfish you can be, the more selfless you can be.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As a Christian, it is my duty to help the weak, the poor, and those less fortunate than myself. I grew up broke as fuck, and I still remember, my mom not being able to afford to spend $300 to fix the tires or the brakes on our old Nissan Maxima\u00e2\u20ac\u201d driving in fear of the cops pulling us over, or perhaps even getting into a fatal car accident when it would start raining.<\/p>\n

Do you live to photograph, or photograph to live?<\/h2>\n
\"CREATIVE<\/a>
CREATIVE EVERY DAY<\/a> SPREAD<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The best part of photography and art: pictures are the elixir of our soul. Great pictures give us encouragement to life, to become something greater, and for us to share that joy with others. For me, photography motivates me to LIVE MORE, EXPLORE MORE, and life with more gratitude, appreciation, and joy.<\/p>\n

But remember:<\/p>\n

\n You cannot empower others, unless you first empower yourself.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

BE STRONG and CREATIVE EVERY DAY<\/a>!
\nERIC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear friend, Make pictures for yourself. Make pictures that bring you joy in life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":67117,"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-67143","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\/2017\/10\/373607EC-0CF8-4A84-8BC2-47EF14A7675F.jpeg?fit=5376%2C4032&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67143","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=67143"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67149,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67143\/revisions\/67149"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}