10 reasons why Eric Kim is still the best Street Photography teacher

Last week, me and Martin U Waltz, Sebastian Jacobitz and Chris Candid from Berlin1020 met Eric Kim and his wife, Cindy Nguyen. 2 years have passed since I met Eric the first time. The first time was in London, when I was attending his Street Photography Workshop. Eric´s workshop motivated me to invest much more time and effort in my greatest passion, Street Photography. In London and also last week when we met in Berlin I was fascinated by his way of motivating people and pushing them to their limits. No matter what some haters may say, to me Eric Kim is still the best living Street Photography teacher. Here are the 22 reasons why you should learn from Eric:

  1. Eric gives you an essence of various areas of knowledge: He mixes sociology (he is actually an sociologist), literature, philosophy (he loves Seneca and the Stoicists), Design (he is collaborating with his sister Annette Kim and Cindy Nguyen who are both very talented graphic designers) and art. Every aspect of his photography is inspired by so many different influences which makes not only his photos, but his way of teaching Street Photography unique.
  2. He is listening to people and has the ability to connect to strangers within moments. That is a benefit not just for photographing bypassers and strangers on the streets, but also for his techings. He brings out the best in everyone who attends in on eof his workshops.
  3. He really cares. Though you might think he is greedy and overvalues his knowledge because he charges more than some other photography teachers, what makes Eric unique is that he is really interested in what happened to the people who attended his workshops – and if you are not happy with the workshop, you will get your money back. So you have nothing to lose but I´m sure you will be as happy as I have been with Eric´s workshops.
  4. He has the biggest ressource of Street Photography knowledge online. Also if you don´t want to spend a few hundred Dollars for his workshops, you can learn from his Website and his Youtube Videos – 100% free.
  5. He studied all the great Photographers from Cartier-Bresson to Winogrand and summarized the essence of these master´s work in a way nobody did before. So you can either choose to buy a few hundred books and spend a few years time to aquire this knowledge or you can just go to Eric´s Learn from the masters.
  6. Eric has his very own techniques to bring you out of your comfort zone. For example, if you´ve never made portraits of strangers on the street before, he asks you to get 10 “No´s” from people. If getting “No´s” is the aim of your fist time approaching strangers on the streets, the fear of rejection is decreasing rapidly.
  7. He is not the typical extrovert “Here am I” – Photographer like Bruce Gilden or Thomas Leuthard – he wrote about his fears of approaching strangers on the streets and taking candid shots in the beginning and how he became better and better. He is still having some of this fears today – some of his most important sayings to me is: “If you are really afraid of taking a photo, you need to take it”.  He is an extraordinary example of someone who starts from scratch without an formal education in this area and with fears nearly everybody has before their first street shots – and becomes the most influential Street Photography teacher within a few years.
  8. His workshops are not only about the teacher – they are also about meeting new peers. I met Chris Wilson at the workshop who became a good friend. Good photographers cannot exist without people who are sharing their interest – to exchange ideas, to encourage each other and to develop further.
  9. Eric is always choosing the most interesting Street Photography locations – from London to Tokyo, from New York to Berlin – these cities inspire everyone.
  10. If you are fast, you can benefit of his “early bird” prices for the workshops, so take a look at the current workshop plan.

If you don´t have time for the workshop or you don´t want to fly to one of the cities on the workshop list, you can also learn from Eric´s books. His new book “Modern photographer” is about professional marketing as a photographer today. Not only from a marketing perspective, but also from a philosophical-humanistic point of view. You can buy it here.

Nevertheless, before you are listening to all the haters out there, take your time and listen to Eric to get an idea about what you can learn from this guy. Okay, his 100,000 Dollar Video was strange, so what? Everybody makes trange things from time to time – that makes us human.

Cheers, 

Oliver

 

 

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