ERIC KIM FOOD VLOG PHOTO THOUGHTS

Street Photography and Pork Belly (삼겹살) Thoughts Some thoughts on Street Photography and some thoughts on Pork Belly (ssamgyupsal, 삼겹살): Does Street Photography Need to Be Shot Without Permission, or Candidly? Even the word “candid“, means more being straight forward and honest”— not about being “posed” or “unposed”. Even the Latin “candidus” means “white”, from “candeo”— I shine. Why the differentiation? First, we must consider our our personal history and origin. Whether we like it or not, Henri Cartier Bresson is our granddaddy. Any notion of mobile photography, starting with the compact 35mm camera comes from him. My personal theory is that Henri Cartier Bresson himself was kind of this pretentious fellow. If you watch these old documentaries on him, he himself loved to photograph other people, but he himself hated being photographed. I found this discrepancy quite cowardly; for a photographer to thrive, a photographer must be comfortable being on both sides of the lens. Therefore, I think the reason why Henri Cartier Bresson was such a huge proponent of not interacting with your subject was that he himself was kind of antisocial. Maybe he lacked the courage to interact with strangers, and he preferred being a fly on the wall. However, a lot of his famous photos were actually shot with permission or some sort of acknowledgment from the subject. For example, his famous photo of three women in a triangle composition; if you inspect his contact sheet, you can see there was a clear interaction between him and subjects. Also, it seemed that Henri Cartier person had a passion for portrait photography. And this is the grey zone; certainly his subjects knew that they were being photographed, but what Henri Cartier Bresson was trying to do was capture his unique perspective of them which wasn’t his overt style of posing. What he seemed instead was something deeper, something more profound and interesting. And this is the big thing about photography; photography doesn’t need to be about posed or not posed. Rather, you as an artist striving to make some sort of image that you yourself find beautiful and interesting. Pork Belly (삼겹살) Something I’m very curious about; why is it that in so many world religions Judaism, Islam, etc., eating pork is prohibited and is not considered Halal? Some theories: 1. Is it really harder to digest? Something I get very very suspicious about is when Asian people say that eating meat, red meat, beef, etc. is hard to digest. Their claims are not scientific at all; my personal theory is that it is a moralistic thing; because meat, beef is considered so expensive compared to just eating rice and noodles, being a person who eats a ton of meat, and only meat is considered immoral. Also, if you grew up poor, or poverty stricken, there is a general Asian notion that everyone must suffer together. There is a funny Vietnamese saying that says something like, “if one horse is sick, none of the horses eat.” It is a basic notion of collective suffering and compassion. 2. Do not trust Bill Gates One individual who I am very anti-and suspicious of is Bill Gates. It seems nowadays, he is generally seen with an aura of being ultra compassionate, and altruistic. But in truth, I think he is pr