Use photography as a way to augment reality

I photograph because I love life

Photography is my Will to power

I do enjoy making something good

Strong is a better word to use than good

I like making strong photographs,

But I’m simultaneously detached from my photographs,

I just know that if I’m making good work that I feel good about myself

I don’t think it’s a bad thing to have an attachment to your ego

I like making photographs because it’s something that I’m actually good at

Being good at something and being in love with doing something for the sake of doing something is a combination that brings you to paradise

I do want to be the best that I can be

I’m going to keep striving

It feels good when you stop striving

But maybe it’s more important to reframe what you’re striving for

Is it crazy that I’m audacious and want to strive to make a dent in the world of photography 

I’m not striving to impress others

Honestly, I’m just striving to impress myself 

Why Street Photography Changed How I See Life

I’ve hopped off my golden chariot and arrived in the Garden of Eden.

What’s poppin, people? It’s Dante, getting my morning started with the Ricoh GR IIIx tucked right into the front right pocket. First photo of the day. Snapshot. Boom. Done. That’s it. Call it a day.

Seventy-one millimeter crop. Get close to the trees. The light. Dial down the exposure. Whoa. This is good.

Today’s thought is about finding joy through the medium of street photography.

The medium itself comes from the streets. Photography is about being outside, in the open world, in embodied reality. And is that not the ultimate privilege in the modern world? To be outside, under the sun, with freedom of movement in your physical body.

The ethos of street photography, to me, is exploration. Wandering. Curiosity. Moving through the world.

I treat photography as a way of being.
A way of seeing.
A way of living my everyday life.

Because without a camera, life can feel mundane. Same routes. Same routines. Same tasks. The hamster wheel of time. Wake up, go to work, check things off the list.

But when I have a camera in hand and I’m moving my body through the world, I step outside the passage of time.

The past dissolves.
The future dissolves.
There is only now.

And when I make a photograph, I say yes to life. I affirm the mundane nature of existence and find meaning within it. And finding meaning within the mundane is what brings joy.

Every morning I see the same squirrels jumping from tree to tree. And yet it never gets old. It’s the most beautiful way to start the day.

Photography gives me an excuse to look more deeply.
An excuse to live more meaningfully.

With a camera in hand, I find more meaning. I find more joy.

You could throw me anywhere in the world, at any time of day, and I’ll find something to say. I’ll find a way to play. I’ll create on the canvas that is the world.

That’s why I love photography.

It gives me infinite possibility for exploration and curiosity through how I see and interact with life.

The places I’ve been.
The people I’ve met.
The things I’ve done.

None of it would have happened without a camera and the audacity to go out and see.

The camera gives me permission to leave my hometown. To explore unfamiliar places. To move with the flow of life.

I think back to my time in the Peace Corps. Living off the grid in Zambia. My first night in a mud hut. Opening the door to find a scorpion inside. Sleeping under a mosquito net, staring at spiders, listening to insects outside the walls.

Waking up thankful I was still alive.

Riding a bike along dirt paths to new villages. Learning Ichibemba. Working with fish farmers. Cultivating land. Worshiping outdoors under a church built of sticks and tarps, thousands of people gathered beneath the open sky.

Lying under the stars, talking about the meaning of life, staring into the galaxy, I found clarity. Peace in the unknown.

Those experiences — those stories — are where meaning lives.

Photography gave me the ability to experience life more openly, more deeply.

It’s the antidote to modern monotony.

There is no finish line in photography.
No peak.
No final story to tell.

The photographs we make are simply a record of the life we lived during our finite time on Earth.

When we die, the titles don’t matter. The money doesn’t matter. The career ladders don’t matter.

What lasts are the moments.
The quiet mornings.
The shared glances.
The lived experiences.

Knowing that I will die helps me cherish these moments while I’m alive.

I don’t need validation.
I don’t need fame.
I don’t need success.

What I need is curiosity.

Photography gives me an excuse to be curious. To step onto the front lines of life. To engage with humanity. To play.

And that’s why photography brings me so much joy.

It gives me permission to play.

or even worse- the box involuntarily built for you by others

“No Cars Go” is one of the most emotionally charged songs by Arcade Fire—a track that captures escape, innocence, and the longing for a place untouched by modern noise.

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Origins & Versions

• The song was originally written in the early 2000s and appeared in a rougher, more lo-fi form on Arcade Fire’s self-released EP.
• It was later re-recorded and expanded for their 2007 album Neon Bible, becoming far more cinematic and emotionally overwhelming.

The Neon Bible version is the one most people know—bigger, louder, and spiritually urgent.

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Meaning & Themes

At its core, No Cars Go is about escape.

Not escape as running away, but as returning—to childhood, freedom, and a world before surveillance, traffic, schedules, and obligation.

Key ideas:

• “Between the click of the light / And the start of the dream”
  → That liminal space between waking life and imagination.
• “We know a place where no cars go”
  → A mythic refuge. A shared secret. A memory of purity.

It’s not a literal place—it’s a state of being.

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Sound & Build

Musically, the song is a slow ignition:

• Begins restrained and intimate
• Gradually layers strings, drums, and group vocals
• Explodes into a collective release, almost ritualistic

Arcade Fire excels at this feeling: private emotion turning into communal catharsis.

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Why It Hits So Hard

• It taps into childhood nostalgia without sentimentality
• It feels like running with friends at night, believing the world is still open
• Live performances often turn it into a chant, blurring the line between band and audience

It’s not sad in a quiet way—it’s achingly hopeful, which is often more painful.

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In One Line

“No Cars Go” is about remembering a place inside yourself that modern life can’t reach—and desperately wanting to go back.

Not because I am extreme. But because I refuse to live divided.

I am whole.

• Clarity
• Discipline
• Perception
• JOY