Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Body
What’s poppin’, people? It’s Dante.
Get out of your mind and get into your body.
As photographers, we have two eyes connected to our brain that allow us to see everything, but it’s ultimately our physical body that allows us to navigate the world and to photograph.
When I’m photographing, I’m not walking around with the camera to my eye, looking through a viewfinder and waiting for things to align. I’m not looking at the screen and hoping the composition works out.
I’m responding quickly to my gut.
By putting the camera on a wrist strap, I have this pure extension of my body, of my eyes. The way that I move ultimately influences the photograph.
Humans don’t naturally walk through the world seeing perfect visual compositions everywhere. What interests me more is discovering how life looks when it’s photographed through the way you move into a scene.
Let Go of Control
Photographing requires you to relinquish control.
Allow your body to flow.
Allow instinct to carry you.
This happens when you stop thinking and just shoot.
When you stop analyzing.
When you stop rationalizing.
When you commit to clicking the shutter and making new frames.
The goal isn’t to nail a shot. The goal is to wake up excited to play the game again.
The goal is to find yourself waking up in the morning enthusiastic to continue practicing.
To go out there.
To walk more.
To see more.
To photograph more.
Getting attached to a single image or defining success through one photograph distracts you from the real work:
Making new frames.
Embrace the Mundane
What’s amazing about photography is that it asks you to embrace the mundane nature of life.
To embrace the passage of time.
To embrace repetition.
To embrace the thousands of reps required before you discover something meaningful.
This requires commitment.
It requires physical engagement.
It requires you to stop trying to say something and instead allow your body to walk, observe, and respond.
Photography is a physical act.
It’s the act of going out there.
Walking.
Observing.
Noticing.
Being engaged with reality.
The Mind Is Secondary
The more caught up you become in your mind, the less likely you are to make impactful photographs.
The more you force things.
The more you contrive.
The more you try.
The less natural the photographs become.
The best photography flows from you.
It’s natural.
It arises through the passage of time.
Through being alive.
Through stumbling through life.
Through paying attention.
The mind is secondary in this game of photography.
The Passage of Time
Street photography takes time.
Especially candid street photography where so much is outside of your control:
- The light
- The people
- The moments
- The situations you encounter
It takes years of obsessive daily practice to find a handful of frames that truly sing.
That reality can feel overwhelming.
But the people who fall in love with the process itself are the ones who survive long enough to find success.
Now I’m 30 years old.
It’s May 31st, 2026.
The first time I walked out with a camera was back in 2014.
I was 17 or 18 years old with a Nikon FM and a 50mm lens.
I remember walking through the streets of Italy during a family trip.
And honestly?
It took nearly two years before I made a photograph that genuinely interested me.
Two years.
That’s how long it took before things started to click.
Before I began to understand how to make pictures on the street.
Finding Your Voice
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that your voice doesn’t come from studying photography.
It comes from doing photography.
I remember being in Baltimore when things finally started to change.
The photographs I began making weren’t created because I suddenly understood composition better.
They emerged from play.
From engagement.
From curiosity.
From being fully present in the world.
The technical side comes together naturally over time.
But your voice emerges through action.
Through being on the front lines of life.
Photography Is About How You Live
Photography has less to do with cameras than most people think.
It has more to do with:
- The way you move through the world
- The way you feel about life
- Your emotional relationship with reality
- Your willingness to stay engaged
The photographs are merely a byproduct.
A byproduct of stumbling.
Of observing.
Of noticing.
Of living.
Commit to Endless Repetition
If you want to continue photographing for years without burning out, you must surrender to repetition.
You must show up whether anything great happens or not.
You must be willing to:
- Walk
- Photograph
- Discover
- Repeat
Even now, after three and a half years of making black and white photographs every day, I know that only a handful of those frames may stand the test of time.
And that’s normal.
You might photograph for an entire year and only make one or two truly great images.
That’s okay.
Because if you continue:
If you keep showing up.
If you keep surrendering to the process.
If you stop thinking and start doing.
Eventually you’ll find a way of photographing that brings you joy.
Thought of the Day
Let go of the outcome.
Stop dwelling in your mind.
Photograph for the sake of photographing.
The images made from this state — where you’re not thinking and you’re simply engaging with the world — will reflect something much deeper.
They’ll reflect your soul.
They’ll reflect the way you move through life.
If you’re constantly trying to force compositions and rationally engineer photographs, you’ll miss the real thing entirely.
Get out of your mind. Go out there and play.
Seize the day.
Flux Generator
Submit a catalog to me.
I’d love to see what you’re making.
If something resonates, I’ll print it, review it, and potentially share it on YouTube.
I love printing photographs and spending time with the work.
The only constraint:
Black and white only.
That’s pretty much the thought.
See you soon.
Peace.