How to overcome apprehension

I haven't followed his work extensively but my first reaction seeing it some years ago was that he was doing well and was clever enough to use the internet in a way that lifted off his popularity. From a point onwards I lost interest and never revisited his work.
It (his effective use of internet) was due to his being essentially a chameleon, and an obsessive one. He's driven this way and that by the waves of popularity, and he hyper-fixates on things. His street photography investment went only as far as it gained him attention and accolades.
 
Just as an aside, Eric Kim went off the deep end a few years ago, and he now mainly posts narcissistic bodybuilding videos, and rambling psuedo philosophical rants about the value of eating meat and being strong. He has become a caricature of himself.

His photography never stood out to me as being particularly good, and the reasoning he displayed in his posts about photography was full of misconceptions and holes. So I don't get why he had such popularity back then.
Yes, he became lost during lockdown and never get back.
Lockdown broke many people and many can't still recover from it.

I was reading his articles about street photography. He didn't add anything new.
But popularity reason is simple - he was bringing it to the masses.
Mass is never smart to digest John Free's videos of to how street photography and why it is done for not the reason of becoming famous.
Or find and read HCB books with his own words. I personally came to it after Kim's quotes of HCB.
But many are not into it. They just want to meet someone who talks about street photography, walks the walk and it will be with some others who are interested.

How many did it like him? Very few. Sometimes it might be not a popularity, but limited choice.
 
It (his effective use of internet) was due to his being essentially a chameleon, and an obsessive one. He's driven this way and that by the waves of popularity, and he hyper-fixates on things. His street photography investment went only as far as it gained him attention and accolades.

He lost his business during lockdown. Just as hundreds of millions have lost their businesses and jobs and still couldn't recover.

I totally get it. During Covid it was for real. People were getting sick at my previous work even if building became 99% empty. Toronto downtown became just as empty, but I was afraid to go where just for street photography.
I ride on trains, else and still see people panicking if someone if coughing nearby.
 
Speaking of "looking back"...

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Does anyone recall John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers from the '60s/'70s? They did a song called "Lookin' back" that gets in my head every time the phrase comes up.

I was lookin' back to see
If she was lookin' back to see
If I was lookin' back at her

Of course I didn't remember the chorus's lyrics correctly and had to look it up. Bouncy little tune.


.......................
In earlier FSU we had similar kind of wording song.
 
He lost his business during lockdown. Just as hundreds of millions have lost their businesses and jobs and still couldn't recover.

I totally get it. During Covid it was for real. People were getting sick at my previous work even if building became 99% empty. Toronto downtown became just as empty, but I was afraid to go where just for street photography.
I ride on trains, else and still see people panicking if someone if coughing nearby.
No need to be an apologist for Kim. He could have put money away for a rainy day, instead he was trying to get rich with cryptocurrency. The guy just shouldn't be representative of who photographers are and we could leave it at that.
 
Thanks for the on-topic replies. I just watched a YouTube video, Walkie Talkie, on Daniel Arnold. It was helpful to hear about his process. I did notice, however, he took several ‘stealth’ pictures that the subjects had no idea what he was doing.


I'm subscribed to PB's channel. I don't really know anyone from his videos, maybe one or two.
This is the one I subscribed after seeing him on PB's channel.



All of the episodes are worth to watch. Real street photography, not like Leica street YT videos.
But even where, while photos could be just pathetically empty, photog himself might be an interesting person.



Here is nothing wrong with hip shooting, it just more on self-fooling, than stealthy.
Been on the streets since 2007, IMO, it just never comes as good as split of second framing.

Exclusions? I was very skeptical about high praising of Ricoh GR(D). Until I got original GRD and GRD III. It is totally different from mobile phones and EVF/OVF framing. It is still comes best with framing, no hipsting, but process of framing is different and not as intruding as with to the eye. It just an act of person who can't be taken seriously with thing smaller than any phone these days.

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No need to be an apologist for Kim. He could have put money away for a rainy day, instead he was trying to get rich with cryptocurrency. The guy just shouldn't be representative of who photographers are and we could leave it at that.
Haters will hate.

I highly doubt what b(v)logging and workshops gives any big savings. Even one+ million subscribers on YT doesn't automatically brings big money. It could be still 20K USD per year.

I know two people personally who took crypto, stock way because they were frustrated.
No, three for sure.
One was my dear colleague in Finland father. Who was kicked out from Finnish education system, because math became unnecessary or what ether new wave reasoning.
But as person with functioning differently from new wavers brain, he took the challenge. And won. After couple of years he offered big money to his son...

Winners go through losses. I learned from Ted Rogers memoirs. He went near bankruptcy three times, put double mortgage on family house. Far from ideal person, but Rogers company gives a lot of work places for Canadians still.
 
I must admit that I was a bit nervous when I took this shot 😅
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Leica M6/uncoated Summar 5cm. Kodak double-x in HC-110.
 
We seem to have worked through Eric Kim and moved on. Not a bad thing, I reckon.

When I "discovered" his site some years ago, I read through it, and learned a few tricks - for me a classic case of old dog new tricks - but he then drifted off into strange tangents, built himself physically into a sort of Frankensomething monster type, and started posting odd things about food and diet, flashing images of himself trying to look as if he was made of cast iron covered in Portland cement, all of which quite put me off.

So I stopped reading him. I do wish him the very best in his obsessive quest to become an Asian Superman - but I won't be returning to his site to check on his progress. I did note he has a pretty and superphotogenic wife and he has taken some quite good images of her. Good on them both...

To sum this up, my take on EK is that he just burned out from too much writing and what certainly passes as an OCD personality. In a lot of his writing he went on and on endlessly, and returned to his topics to post more of the same, as if possessed of a sort of religious mania about his pet topics. Which may have bored many of his readers and driven them away.

To his credit, he did teach me a few good photo tricks. As for his style, I thought his images were passably okay, but not "me".

Even in my teens (early '60s) I disliked "posed" photos of people staring at and smiling for the camera. To me this is too reminiscent of my childhood 'Stand There And Don't Move And Smile For the Kodak Brownie' type of snapshooting.

I favor an entirely different type of people/street image-making for the little I do of it. I use either a 35mm/2.0 (film days) or an 85/1.8 and 180/2.8 (digital period). The latter I find not at all like stalking as someone has posted, rather for me it's most relaxing as I can sit in the shade at a market with a cool Bintang beer at my side and happily click away at people from a respectable distance. Most times I suspect they are aware of what I'm doing but I try to not be intrusive and so far I've got away with it, except for two occasions.

One time a young lady selling chicken feet in an East Java food market gave me the third finger with both hands, which conveyed a definite message so I ceased and desisted. The second time two young men who were selling batiks came over to enquire what I was doing, out of curiosity. We had a long and pleasant chat and I ended up buying some nice batik prints from them at local prices. So win-win for all parties.

I find my 180/2.8 gives me by far the best people images. It also keeps me as a discreet distance and my subjects usually are not greatly discomfited by seeing me in action. But I also struggle with the notion that I'm hiding away from people and avoiding them. Which is not good. It's also not me.

The little street photography I nowadays do happens when I'm in the right mood in the right place at the right time. Often during one of my photo rambles in Indonesia or Malaysia.

We all have our different and fried approaches and styles for this type of photography. As we see here in this thread. I particularly like Ko.Fe's casual and laid back style of interpreting his live subjects, as well as many images posted by others. So yes, this thread is super good!!
 
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...and sometimes you don't even have to make an effort. They came running after me: "Hey Mister, please take our picture"!


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Southern Vietnam, Vung Tau, Villa Blanche. Nikon FM3A - Nikkor 2.8/28 AIs - Fuji Color 100.

I rate this image as one of the rare occasional exceptions to my dislike of people looking at and smiling for the camera.

This is most pleasant. Every aspect falls nicely into place. The poses are informal and relaxed - a group of seemingly very nice people having an enjoyable time. Good one...
 

You two would love it in Australia. Notably at public events where alcohol (and often either loud music or animals being made to suffer in the name of either sport or nutrition) is one of the prime motivations for mass attendance...

Thankfully, our cities are more cultural havens and mostly exempt from such louche behavior. Although there is one lift (= elevator) at Southern Cross railway station in the city center - it has the whiff of a pissoir for the local homeless and I do not recommend it for anyone who is faint of nostril.

Anyway, to sum all this up - :poop:

Can we now return to safer, saner and less heavily-scented topics...
 
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It can be quite difficut to predict how people will react - i came across this company of friends one morning - very drunk all of them.
I run behind them to photograph them and whilst i took the picture, one of them turned around and gave me an ominous look.

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I used a 35mm, so i was quite close to them. He turned and walked towards me, said something in (?) German (?) and then posed.

Scan12090.JPG

He gave me a hug and left. It was during Covid, so the whole social distancing things went south. But i got two good pictures.
 
It can be quite difficut to predict how people will react - i came across this company of friends one morning - very drunk all of them.
I run behind them to photograph them and whilst i took the picture, one of them turned around and gave me an ominous look.

View attachment 4839185

I used a 35mm, so i was quite close to them. He turned and walked towards me, said something in (?) German (?) and then posed.

View attachment 4839186

He gave me a hug and left. It was during Covid, so the whole social distancing things went south. But i got two good pictures.

Alcohol turns off the upper brain functions and all you are left with is lizard brain. And lizard brain ain't pretty.
 
Alcohol turns off the upper brain functions and all you are left with is lizard brain. And lizard brain ain't pretty.

Not always. I had two aunts, now deceased, who drank like, well, two fish in the ocean. They guzzled flagon sherry and port like water, every day starting in the late morning after their household of domestic pets had been looked after. Both lived together, and it's interesting to note that their small cats and dogs were better treated than most people's children.

Anyway, one aunty was naturally born nasty but with drink turned ever so sweet. The other was entirely the opposite, and after two water glasses of fortified sludge went from Madam Jekyll to Miss Hyde - I wrote "Miss" and not "Ms" as the emotional shock of any notion of being the latter would surely have killed the biddy. Both were Edwardian leftovers to their very core.

When "under the influence" as we then said, they were anything but lizard-brained. Often they spoke unpleasant truths about family members, which amused me as I myself even as a child held much the same opinions about those relatives. I listened and laughed to myself and held my tongue as my well-meaning but highly neurotic stepmother took all disagreement or any unpleasant comment as a personal attack and I would then hear nothing but recriminations from her for my behavior for at the very least, the next week.

One day I secretly snapped a photo of them - this in 1962 or 1963. I no longer have that negative as said stepmom carried on as if she had been groped in public and demanded that I destroy the image. Which I did. I used to listen to her nonsense in those days. By 1965 when I came home from two years in boarding school I had learned to stand up for myself. Why this did not carry over to my being a success in street photography, I really do not understand. I have always been shy of "confronting" people in public with a camera, altho' at times I've forced myself to do it, and generally my end results were mixed - a blend of good and rotten.

However, I do agree that lizard brains are not pretty things to have to deal with, especially when fueled by too much ethanol. Sadly we have an ample supply of those in Australia, and I most definitely do not mean those of the four-legged species.

Overall, an interesting post by boojum. Noted and enjoyed.

(Added later) They were great-aunts from my maternal grandmother's family. And there is a photographic connection here. One GA had a brother who married my mother's eldest sister in the 1940s, he was her first husband (of three) and she his first (and only) wife. This 'uncle' was a man of mystery, a banker in Asia in the '20s in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Rangoon, Singapore. He met my aunt at a party at the iconic Raffles Hotel in 1940 - she was then a nurse in Singapore) - and they took up together. A year later he had her sent home to Canada, as if aware of what was coming. He turned up mysteriously in Canada after the fall of Singapore but never revealed how he escaped the Japanese Occupation.

He had two cameras, a prewar Rolleiflex and a Contax I, which he kindly let me play with in the '50s. My first serious images were made with that Rollei in 1961, when I was a precocious 13. I still have those negatives, unimpressive they are but nonetheless a treasured visual part of my personal and family history.

The two ladies lived to almost 90, indulging all the while, and eventually passed away not long one after the other.

Interesting to say they also enjoyed good wine and had a taste for select vintages. Now and then I sneaked into their kitchen pantry to quaff a glass of German reisling or a Lisbon rose or a French Beaujolais or burgundy or Cotes du Rhone. I'm sure they knew but they said nothing. To them I attribute my lifelong taste for and love of good wine.

Many years after they left us I revisited the house (which the family had left untenanted) and in the cellar I found a small alcove with a few bottles. A sherry with a handwritten date (1951) on the label and two bottles of French wine, one from 1947 (my birth year), the other from the '50s. I snagged both and later opened them. The sherry had evaporated a little but was drinkable; the two reds were corked. The '47 ended up as salad vinegar and the '50s went into a bolognese, so none of it got wasted.

A few small events in a long life. I'm now mid-70s, still enjoying life, still uncorking good wine and traveling with my cameras - Nikkormats, Rollei TLRs, Contax Gs, Nikon digitals, latterly Fujis. when I go overseas I take a corkscrew and a crystal wine glass. Good plonque is meant to be properly appreciated.

Long may it all go on.
 
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Not always. I had two aunts, now deceased, who drank like, well, two fish in the ocean. They drank flagon sherry and port like water, every day starting in the late morning after their household of domestic pets had been looked after. Both lived together, and it's interesting to note that their small cats and dogs were better treated than most people's children.

Anyway, one aunty was naturally born nasty but with drink turned ever so sweet. The other was entirely the opposite, and after two water glasses of fortified sludge went from Madam Jekyll to Miss Hyde - I wrote "Miss" and not "Ms" as the emotional shock of any notion of being the latter would surely have killed the biddy. Both were Edwardian leftovers to their very core.

When "under the influence" as we then said, they were anything but lizard-brained. Often they spoke unpleasant truths about family members, which amused me as I myself even as a child held much the same opinions about those folks. I listened and giggled and held my tongue as my neurotic stepmother took any disagreement or unpleasant comment as a personal attack and I would then hear nothing but recriminations from her for my behavior for the next x days.

One day I secretly snapped a photo of them - this in 1962 or 1963. I no longer have that negative as said stepmom carried on as if she had been groped in public and demanded that I destroy the image. Which I did. I used to listen to her nonsense in those days. By 1965 when I came home from two years in boarding school I had learned to stand up for myself. Why this did not carry over to my being a success in street photography, I really do not understand. I have always been shy of "confronting" people in public with a camera, altho' at times I've forced myself to do it, and generally my end results were mixed - a blend of good and rotten.

However, I do agree that lizard brains are not pretty things to have to deal with, especially when fueled by too much ethanol. Sadly we have an ample supply of those in Australia, and I most definitely do not mean those of the four-legged species.

Overall, an interesting post by boojum. Noted and enjoyed.
Thank you for the story! You made my day.
 
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