Eric Kim and a disconnect?

[JoeLopez]

like it or not, the hustle we speak of is a significant part of 'true photography'. as the market changes for photojournalism/documentary work, man of us who produce the work you see in magazines, on the wire, in galleries etc, must find other ways of getting work out there. when i come across someone like Eric, i don't default to categorization. i become instantly curious and look for hints and/or ideas on how to keep going.

so yes, this is an interesting topic for many of us. folks who depend on the camera and photographs to eat, pay the mortgage/rent and so forth. 'true photographers' if you will.

My point is, a thread ripping on a fellow photographer gets more reply activity than most threads more directly related to photography gear, technique and images shared ;-)

As I posted early on, haters hate the hustle. Personally, I enjoy his work and contributions to the photography community. I recently bought his handbook 'Street Notes' to help me further learn and grow my Street Photography.

 

[emraphoto]

My point is, a thread ripping on a fellow photographer gets more reply activity than most threads more directly related to photography gear, technique and images shared ;-)

As I posted early on, haters hate the hustle. Personally, I enjoy his work and contributions to the photography community. I recently bought his handbook 'Street Notes' to help me further learn and grow my Street Photography.

Haters do hate the hustle. Everyone hustles though... often more than they actually photograph.

 

[Michiel Fokkema]

I think I'm only the second person here who actually took a workshop with him and actually know him.
I did a 5 day workshop with him in Paris and it was very good. Learned a lot and practised a lot.
A few weeks later he was in Amsterdam for a workshop and I helped him out there a bit.
He is a very nice guy.
He never claimed he is a good street photographer or want to be the best, but he tries to be the best street photography teacher.
He does know a lot, studied a lot and his program and exercises are very well thought out. He is also very open to constructive criticism on his own behaviour.
He is open on how he operates and what drives him, very transparent.
He can live from teaching street photography workshops, good for him.

so yes, all the criticism is very likely envy.

 

[edge100]

So here's a question/disconnect for me...

It seems that the popular posit in is to dislike Eric Kim with varying degrees of intensity. Now I haven't met him in person nor have I taken a workshop but personally he seems like a pretty damn good photographer AND as far as the 'hustle' goes he is knocking it out of the park. By 'hustle' I mean all the things one must do to make a living producing photographs... self promotion, sales, revenue generation and so forth.

So what's the deal? He puts out good photographs as far as I can see (although I am not a big fan of 'street' photography) and his writing/articles/self promotion is usually sound.

Why the hate?

I have met Eric in person (had coffee with him in SF a few years ago). He's a nice, if somewhat overly-earnest guy. I'm not a fan of his photography, but there is no question that he has a very keen grasp of marketing.

 

[kbg32]

Eric is very honest about who he is and about his work.

At least he doesn't participate in "Photoville"....yet, as far as I know. I have an intense dislike for "Photoville", which to me is all about making photography fashionable.

 

[JoeLopez]

Eric is very honest about who he is and about his work.

At least he doesn't participate in "Photoville"....yet, as far as I know. I have an intense dislike for "Photoville", which to me is all about making photography fashionable.

I hadn't heard of Photoville until your post. Seems harmless, what is there to be against an event to network and share photography?

PHOTOVILLE is New York City’s FREE premier photo destination. Produced by United Photo Industries, the annual festival is a modular venue built from re-purposed shipping containers. By creating a physical platform for photographers of all stripes to come together and interact, Photoville provides a unique opportunity to engage with a diverse audience — a veritable cross-section of the world’s photographic community.

 

[dmr]

I hadn't heard of Photoville until your post. Seems harmless, what is there to be against an event to network and share photography?

I've heard of it and am interested, but never was going on when I've been scheduled to be in the city.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

I hadn't heard of Photoville until your post. Seems harmless, what is there to be against an event to network and share photography?

I was reading about and thinking of planning short NY trip to get where. It seems to be very democratic photo event.

 

[PKR]

I was reading about and thinking of planning short NY trip to get where. It seems to be very democratic photo event.

I'll bet there wouldn't such an uproar about this guy if his subjects of interest were flowers or cats rather than "street" photos? I think the street photo thing has a built in anger element, when it is discussed.

 

[ptpdprinter]

All criticism = envy.

Really? All criticism?

 

[Michael Markey]

I'll bet there wouldn't such an uproar about this guy if his subject of interest was flowers or cats rather than "street" photos? I think the street photo thing has a built in anger element, when it is discussed.

I have to agree with that although I can`t think why that is so,

The first photograph I took was a street photograph
It was in 1963 / Belgium and I`ve been taking them on and off since ... including tonight. 🙂

 

[x-ray]

I have to say I never herd of this guy much less looked at his images or read his writing. I just took a look at a bunch of his work but not read any of his words yet.

This is very subjective, from looking at a couple hundred images I think he needs to do a better job of culling his images. There are some very nice images but at lest 90% should be trashed. To me it appears he shoots anything and everything that he sees but just can't bring himself to toss the majority. It might be in part that he's a bit impressed with himself.

Whether I or you like his work or not, he's out there doing it and trying to grow and promote his work. Something many of you might not understand, this is an important part of getting your work out there. Everyone has their own style where some of us are more subtle in out approach to customers and others hit you in the face.

I was a part of the Professional Photographers of America in the 70's through the 80's. I always was a commercial photographer with the exception of 4-1/2 years as a PJ in the 60's into the early 70's. I never did weddings other than a handful I was forced to do. In th professional world there were two big name wedding guys that stand out in memory. One was Monte Zucker who shot thousands of weddings, wrote books, did videos, taught seminars and lectured to professional organizations. I can't say I liked his work particularly but others did and made him a multi millionaire. He was always out promoting his work image and in our face about it.

The second was a guy named Bill Stockwell. Bill was another wedding and portrait guy that BIGTIME BLEW a major wedding. This was in the early days of C-41 film when there was no under exposure latitude. Anyway Bill loaded 100 speed Vericolor in his Hasselblad backs thinking it was 400. The popular style at that time was a little flash fill and drag the shutter for available light in the background. Well if you ever shot any of that early film at 2 stops under you have a good idea of what his images looked like. There were faint images but everything was a milky muddy blue mess.

I guess Bill was a conman deep down. He had to salvage his mistake so as not to get drug into court. What Bill did was coin a term that made him extremely rich. He called the images "Misty's". He said they were a view through the misty eyes of the bride. Bill made millions shooting "misty's" and taught seminars, made videos and wrote books on how to do it. Amazing I know but that's 90% of being a good business man sometimes. It saved his butt and made him rich. Amazing!

Here's a quote from the NY Times about him "Mr. Stockwell, who calls himself ''the Misty Messiah'' in selfsalute to ... after 40 years as a photographer and 3,800 weddings".

Kim is no different than these guys.

 

[jsrockit]

The second was a guy named Bill Stockwell. Bill was another wedding and portrait guy that BIGTIME BLEW a major wedding. This was in the early days of C-41 film when there was no under exposure latitude. Anyway Bill loaded 100 speed Vericolor in his Hasselblad backs thinking it was 400. The popular style at that time was a little flash fill and drag the shutter for available light in the background. Well if you ever shot any of that early film at 2 stops under you have a good idea of what his images looked like. There were faint images but everything was a milky muddy blue mess.

I guess Bill was a conman deep down. He had to salvage his mistake so as not to get drug into court. What Bill did was coin a term that made him extremely rich. He called the images "Misty's". He said they were a view through the misty eyes of the bride. Bill made millions shooting "misty's" and taught seminars, made videos and wrote books on how to do it. Amazing I know but that's 90% of being a good business man sometimes. It saved his butt and made him rich. Amazing!

Here's a quote from the NY Times about him "Mr. Stockwell, who calls himself ''the Misty Messiah'' in selfsalute to ... after 40 years as a photographer and 3,800 weddings".

Great story! Thanks.

 

[PhotoGog]

All criticism = envy.

Solid argument there.

This is a ridiculous comment. Go and read Hazlitt's 'On Criticism' and have a think about it.

 

[michaelwj]

I find it interesting that threads like this tend to get more activity that true photo/photography threads.

It won't last. In a few days it'll slip off the front page. The good image/gear threads keep trucking year in year out. Check out the "Let's see your Leica M", over 1,000,000 views. The 35 pre-asph summilux thread keeps trucking too, and have you seen the Photo Association thread! Talk about a long image thread!

 

[Lucas.f/8]

I think he is extremely interesting. He is committed to making all his content open sourced. He seems to be making himself rich in the process. Who knows? Maybe one day he will convert all his haters into admirers. I don't think he is very interesting in terms of philosophy nor do i like his pictures. I am, however, rooting for his "artists journey" wholeheartedly. Rorschach test. I like him.

 

[michaelwj]

He has also said that if you don't have haters then you aren't doing anything worthwhile. As in only mediocre is universally not hated, but anything good has lovers and haters, but not many in the middle. So I guess this thread proves he is not mediocre?

 

[aizan]

the kardashians have lots of haters...and i'm not sure they're doing anything worthwhile. 😀

 

[valdas]

I have never thought of EK as a photographer, I knew him as a yourtuber who posts some reviews (I found them a bit funny, but not necessarily interesting). But after reading this thread I did some reading of what EK writes and I have to say that I kind of start to like him. "Learn from Masters" section on his website is quite interesting, some of his photography business thoughts/approaches are also very good (e.g. Do it for free or be expensive). We can have opinions about him as a photographer - I found his photos quite good/interesting, but not in the same league as street photogtaphy masters. But he seems to be a good teacher and also a good businessman with the right ethics.

 

[LukasB]

I've only been pursuing Photography for about 5 Years now, but the Eric Kim-hate has been going on for as long as I've been interested.

I find him to have quite an abrasive Personality, but often People who are driven and have a good attitude are resented by People with the opposite. I like his Photography a lot. It's not groundbreaking, but it doesn't have to be. I don't mind him.

+1 for being a young, Film-only Photographer, too.