Archimedes of Syracuse (c. 287–212 BC) was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer, widely regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians and scientists in history. Born in the city of Syracuse on the island of Sicily, he made significant contributions to various fields, particularly mathematics, physics, and engineering.
Key Contributions:
Mathematics: Archimedes made profound advances in geometry, particularly in the areas of calculating the area of shapes and the volume of solids. He developed the method of exhaustion, a precursor to integral calculus, to calculate areas and volumes with great precision. He also discovered the relationship between the surface area and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing cylinder.
Physics and Mechanics: Archimedes is famous for formulating the principles of leverage and buoyancy. The principle of buoyancy, known as Archimedes’ Principle, states that a body submerged in a fluid is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the body. This principle laid the groundwork for fluid mechanics.
Engineering and Inventions: Archimedes invented numerous machines and devices, including the Archimedean screw for raising water, compound pulleys for lifting heavy objects, and various war machines like catapults and the Claw of Archimedes—a device purportedly used to defend the city of Syracuse from Roman invasion by lifting enemy ships out of the water and capsizing them.
Astronomy: Although less is known about his contributions to astronomy, Archimedes did engage in the study of the universe and attempted to calculate the distances and sizes of celestial bodies.
Legacy and Influence:
Archimedes’ work influenced not only his contemporaries but also generations of scientists and mathematicians that followed. His writings were preserved and studied throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance, helping to inspire the scientific revolution. His approach to problem-solving, particularly his use of mathematical rigor and physical reasoning, laid the foundation for modern scientific methods.
Archimedes is also famous for the anecdote involving his discovery of the principle of buoyancy while taking a bath, which led him to shout “Eureka!” (meaning “I have found it!”) as he ran through the streets of Syracuse. His contributions have made him a symbol of genius and a pivotal figure in the history of science and mathematics.
“Give me a place to stand, and I shall move the Earth.”
This quote reflects Archimedes’ understanding of the principles of leverage, emphasizing the power of applying force at a distance using a lever. It illustrates the concept that with the right tools and knowledge, even seemingly impossible tasks can be achieved.
If nutrition were intuitive, chronic diseases and widespread sickness wouldn’t be as prevalent.
The goal is to delve deeper into the nuances of nutrition.
Old vs. New Models of Disease and Nutrition
Historically, certain nutrients, like saturated fats, were demonized.
There are still “diet cults” that demonize various nutrients, particularly saturated fats.
It’s important to bring nuance to the conversation; not all saturated fats are the same (e.g., coconut oil vs. dairy fats).
A shift is needed from focusing on single nutrients in isolation to considering the whole foods we consume.
The Standard American Diet (SAD)
The SAD is high in added sugars, unhealthy fats, and refined grains, often found in ultra-processed foods.
These ultra-processed foods are engineered in labs to create customer loyalty.
The SAD is linked to chronic diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, certain cancers, and dementia.
It is primarily carbohydrate-based (45%-65% carbs, 20%-35% fat, 10%-20% protein), leading to concerns about adequate protein intake for body composition and metabolic health.
The Role of Protein and the Protein Leverage Hypothesis
Protein is the most satiating macronutrient.
The “Protein Leverage Hypothesis” suggests that increasing protein intake could naturally reduce overall calorie consumption by promoting satiety.
Overconsumption of carbohydrates and fats is common in the SAD, but the real issue may be the overconsumption of unhealthy added fats, sugars, and refined grains.
Ultra-Processed Foods: Definition and Impact
Ultra-processed foods are industrial formulations containing multiple ingredients, usually high in calories, added sugars, fats, and salt.
The NOVA food classification system categorizes foods based on their processing level: minimally processed (e.g., meat, fish, eggs) to ultra-processed.
Ultra-processed foods are associated with higher mortality, dementia, cardiovascular disease, and cancer risks due to their lack of satiety and nutrient content.
Study on Satiety and Ultra-Processed Foods
A study by Kevin Hall in 2018 showed that when subjects ate minimally processed foods ad libitum, they naturally consumed fewer calories.
When switched to ultra-processed foods, the same subjects consumed an excess of 500 calories, highlighting an 800-calorie swing due to food quality.
The quality of food influences the quantity consumed, making ultra-processed foods a significant factor in the obesity epidemic.
Characteristics and Risks of Ultra-Processed Foods
Ultra-processed foods contain ingredients not commonly found or used in home kitchens (e.g., industrially refined seed oils, emulsifiers, artificial sweeteners).
Seed oils, like soybean and canola, are refined, bleached, and deodorized, making them prone to oxidation and potential health risks.
These foods are low in protein and typically a mix of unhealthy fats and refined carbohydrates.
Added Sugars and Their Impact on Health
Added sugars contribute to empty calories, hyper-palatable foods, and perpetuate hunger, with average consumption at about 77 grams per day (20 teaspoons).
High-sugar intake is linked to several health issues, including elevated blood pressure and reduced testosterone levels.
The insidious nature of added sugars leads to excessive intake without providing nutritional benefits.
Seed Oils: Concerns and Recommendations
Refined, bleached, and deodorized seed oils (e.g., soybean, corn, canola) are a concern due to their oxidative properties and potential health risks.
There is a lack of long-term data on the impact of these oils on overall health, particularly concerning brain health.
It’s advisable to minimize consumption, especially in fried foods, where these oils can generate harmful byproducts like aldehydes.
The Five R’s of Real Food
Does it Roam or Ripen? Is it an animal or a plant?
Does it Rot? Real foods are perishable and have a shorter shelf life.
Can I Recognize it? Foods should be easily identifiable and not have long ingredient lists.
Could you eat it Raw? Natural foods can often be consumed raw.
Could you Recreate it? Foods that can be made in a home kitchen are generally minimally processed and healthier.
Conclusion: Key Takeaways for Healthy Nutrition
Focus on achieving a healthy body composition by consuming minimally processed, nutrient-dense foods.
Prioritize protein intake to support muscle health and overall vigor.
Avoid ultra-processed foods and added sugars, and be mindful of seed oils to maintain metabolic and cognitive health.
Embrace a holistic view of nutrition, considering the entire food matrix and its entourage effect on health.
“Create your blank canvas” suggests the idea of starting fresh or beginning anew, free from any preconceived notions, restrictions, or influences. It is an invitation to embrace the potential of a new beginning, where you have the freedom to shape and define your own path, experiences, and creative expressions. This phrase implies the power of choice and the opportunity to construct your reality or vision from a point of complete openness, much like an artist beginning to paint on an empty canvas. It’s about seizing the moment to design your life, actions, or creative work authentically, guided solely by your inner vision and aspirations.
My favorite video game of all time was Minecraft. Minecraft is the most sold video game of all time, and I believe this to be the case because of how great it truly is. The world is an endless expanse for the individual user to create and build upon. There are dungeons to conquer and new terrain to explore, in infinite ways. Maybe we should design our lives like Minecraft, where we can terraform real life. I was chopping trees down at work the other day, and it felt this way, as I completely transformed the terrain, the landscape, and the area surrounding a sculpture and garden.
Get outside the box
I cannot be boxed in, to the four corners of a room, to an office, a cubicle, or even a social media platform like Instagram. Consider the Instagram grid, the algorithm, and the way you are locked into this closed system. It becomes more difficult to build, to create anew when confined to the corners of a box. However, with a website, there is an endless expanse for you to build upon. Firstly, if you’re serious about photography, delete your Instagram immediately, and start your own wordpress.org website, hosting your firstnamelastname dantesisofo.com on bluehost.com, and install the Astra theme.
Ever since I started my own blog, I feel like I have this endless canvas to work upon. There are so many possibilities for what you can do with the blog, such as presenting your photographs in a portfolio, slideshow, videos, PDFs, digital downloads, blog posts, essays, sharing poems, videos, audio, podcasts, etc.
I suggest everyone get a GoPro Mini and just start recording your own thoughts. When I record my thoughts, I’m essentially just thinking out loud and sharing these thoughts with the world, through a Spotify podcast, uploading it to my blog, and YouTube. By fleshing out my thoughts through speaking, I’m understanding how I think about photography, philosophy, society, and the world in general, by embracing authenticity. To me, this is my core mode of expression, besides photography, as I now start to dabble with writing. It feels like I’m just getting started, and there’s just so much to do. Starting a blog gives you an endless opportunity to create and build upon, to reiterate, and to share your authentic self with the world.
Beyond ordinary
Every morning, I enjoy waking up at 4-5 AM, and go for a morning walk, where I get my steps in wearing my 40-pound plate carrier, with barefoot shoes on, camera in hand, making photographs, and voice dictating these blog posts. If you’re going to attempt to build something, to become someone, or to become a certain thing, why settle for the ordinary, or just good enough? If I’m going all in on photography, I’m going to strive to go beyond the ordinary, to become extraordinary, to become the best photographer that I can possibly be. This means I’m going to be photographing as much as humanly possible, as early as possible, by quite literally waking my physical body up immediately in the morning, reaching for my camera, and going outside. Throughout the day, no matter where I am, I will be making photographs. It’s funny, lots of photographers ask me, when did you get outside today? When did you start photographing? As if I have a set schedule to practice, which I suppose is technically from 3 to 6 PM during my typical route shooting in the streets of Center City. However, I think it’s funny to just respond, 5 AM. As soon as I wake up in the morning, I start practicing photography. Photography is the cup of espresso that gets me up in the morning. I am beyond motivated, passionate, or even obsessed with photography, but have become completely called to it, like a vocation.
My vocation is to be outside.
Ever since I was a little boy, I would spend my days in the Wissahickon forest, chopping down trees, building forts, bridges with stones, and blazing new trails. I would bike endlessly along the Schuylkill River Trail for miles and miles, toward the Valley Forge National Historic Park. I’ve always been an adventurer, explorer, and builder, since a very young age. While I’ve enjoyed playing video games like Minecraft, I also enjoyed tinkering in the real world, the great outdoors, where I naturally thrive. I think my intuition, my inner child, told me to return to nature, quite literally. Since working in horticulture, outside in a park for the start of my day, I feel like I finally found my calling in life.
Actually, the real reason why I decided to start working in the park is that last year when I was unemployed, deciding what I wanted to do next, I was spending the entirety of the day in the streets of the city and found it to be quite unnatural. There was a part of me that kept going back to the river, returning to parks, and just naturally gravitating towards green spaces, where I felt like I could not necessarily spend all day on the street as much as I love it. Also, as a man, and somebody who has the instinct to protect and provide, if I want to build a family one day, I could honestly not tell you where a true safe space to raise a child is in the city of Philadelphia. The streets are just too dangerous, and not necessarily a place where I would ever bring a child. However, Fairmount Park is away from the chaos, and a place where I could see a child be raised, growing up out in the open spaces, exploring the trails, and the parks, similar to how I experienced my childhood as a young boy.
Shout out to Spencer, the number one dad in the city of Philadelphia, who is honestly the only man I ever see with his child every day, who walks the streets shooting street photography with his baby strapped to his chest. It’s quite a strange world when you can see only one family per day, and the rest are just stuck inside offices and the children are stuck inside daycares.
The goal of humanity
The more I contemplate human nature and society, I believe we are either going on decline, or on incline. Is society collapsing, or rising? Frankly, it seems more on the decline, considering the lack of population growth and innovation in real life. The problem with innovation is that it is all occurring within the digital spaces. Everybody is looking down at their phones, listening to their AirPods, and not necessarily in tune with their actual surroundings in the physical world. What this means is, there is nothing being built in real life, nothing being done to innovate the streets, the infrastructure, the architecture, and the places that we actually inhabit. We are responding to technology, and modernity, by innovating within the digital world, and that will inevitably lead to the decline of the physical world.
Have you ever seen the movie Ready Player One?
In the movie, this community is living in complete poverty, in tin shacks stacked on top of each other, like a refugee camp. Despite the poverty and the ugly environment that they are faced with in real life, they have modern technology, such as virtual reality, and the ability to enter a new world by simply strapping on a headset, glazing over their eyes with an LCD screen. Part of me feels like this is happening in real life, where we inhabit digital spaces throughout the day for work, play, entertainment, and even social communities now when it comes to making friends or forming relationships. If the physical world around us is crumbling, I don’t believe we should lock ourselves into a matrix world, pretending that the real world is fine and without need for building or repair.
Speed is important
When I would play Tony Hawk Pro Skater, I always maxed out my speed and air stat points right away. Why? I knew that speed was the most critical attribute to acquire within the game, to unlock new locations, to reach new goals, to find the secret tape, to advance within the game itself.
I believe we should focus on speed, especially within the realm of photography, as this will enhance our ability to improve at a rapid rate. By using a compact digital camera, such as a Ricoh GR, and removing the viewfinder, focusing solely on using an LCD screen, we will become more in tune with this flow state of production, where we liberate ourselves, and snapshot our way through life. Always having a camera in your pocket, there is no longer an excuse for you to not practice your photography. I enjoy treating photography like a personal diary, as a way for me to remember the day, and to create visual notes or instant sketches of life.
I highly suggest every photographer to purchase an iPad Pro.
When I hit the streets, I make photos quickly with speed. Towards the end of my walk, around 5:30, the Wanamaker Organ sounds inside the Macy’s building. I bring my iPad along with me, importing my photos from that very walk, directly into my iPad Pro’s built-in Photos app from the iOS that’s preinstalled, and go through the photographs with speed. I simply tap on the thumbnail, viewing the photographs at a 3 x 3 grid, favoring them, and throwing them into a selections album. This way, I can go back out, photograph for another half hour, come home, and then back everything up immediately to my Google Photos Drive, and publish the photographs directly to my blog. This workflow provides me with the ultimate speed, staying on top of my archive, and always making the effort to cull immediately, provides me with less of a headache down the line when I actually come to want to make real keeper selections.
Quit film photography
This workflow is phenomenal, as the small JPEG file, with high contrast, black-and-white baked in, with the contrast cranked to the maximum, provides the quickest way to make a photograph in the current year of 2024. The problem with film photography is how slow it is, from the time it takes you to load the film in the camera, to line up your composition with the viewfinder, to set your camera focus, to press the shutter, to then send it to a lab to be developed, to have it returned to you, to go to a dark room, to print it with chemicals and then finally scan it and have a digital file.
By the time it takes you to get the photographs from a roll of film to the final product of a print or a digital scan, I have already made a month’s worth of new work and photographs. He who makes more photographs will ultimately make more successful photographs. At this rate, who is going to succeed more, innovate more, and improve more, within the realm of photography?
Person A: Shoots one roll of film per day Person B: Shoots 1,000 photos digitally per day
I think the answer is obvious, and we all know that person B will ultimately be the better photographer, in every single way. It’s up to you to decide whether you want to become extraordinary with me, as we can all thrive together, or remain ordinary, and just good enough. Get over the romanticization of film photography, the tactile feel, the print, the gallery, the blah blah blah. It’s all over, done with, in the past, and time to move on.
Money, money, money
I remember being a young boy, watching TV shows like American Idol, and I believe before American Idol would come on on a Friday night, The Apprentice by Donald Trump would come on. I remember the theme song played some song that went along the lines of, “money money money, mooooney” in a sort of jingle.
In this modern world, where we print money ad infinitum, with a brilliant implementation of the Federal Reserve’s power of money printing, inflation is inevitable. This means, the value of our dollar is decreasing every single year. If the value of our dollars is decreasing every single year, what is it that we should do with our money? Should we keep our money in our bank account, allowing the bank to borrow it? Or, should we invest our money in a scarce asset, like gold? Or maybe we should invest in the Fortune 500 companies, as these will increase our capital gains over the years at a steady rate. Honestly, none of these ideas seem too great. Holding money in the bank, allowing the bank to simply borrow my money, using it to pay off loans, or even better yet, fund the endless wars occurring overseas, that I want nothing to do with. It seems like the only option is to take self-custody of our money, and put it in a true scarce asset. It seems that there’s only one true scarce asset that is currently being built within our modern world, being Bitcoin. Bitcoin is cryptographically proven to be a scarce asset, whereas gold is not. You could tell people to go out and mine gold, and they will find more gold, endlessly. However, there are only 21 million bitcoin that will ever be produced, making it the only real scarce asset. When my ancestors arrived from Italy and entered the United States of America through Ellis Island in New York City, they had the opportunity to purchase property before the bank started to own everything. They built their families, through the baby boomer generation, having the ability to raise a family with one income, own a home, have multiple children, and have a thriving life. Now, in this modern world, my generation, Generation Z, frankly does not possess the ability to rise to the occasion, raise a family on one income, purchase property, own a home, a car, etc. However, we were born with iPhones, and all this technology, allowing us the ability to own property digitally, where there is nobody in between us and acquiring it, besides our open minds and our ability to adapt to modern times. We may not be able to own a physical block in Manhattan, but we can own a digital block like in Minecraft, or cyberspace.
I first learned about Bitcoin when I was walking down the street on Market Street here in Philadelphia, looking at the electronic billboard, at the beginning of 2024, that was describing the ETF, where you can purchase Bitcoin through the bank. From there, I started to do my own research, and came to the conclusion that Bitcoin is the only option if you want to hold your money, and have it increase in value over time.
At this rate of inflation, the average worker has to work for an hour or two, just to be able to afford to eat an ice cream or a roll of film. The strategy? Don’t buy film, but BTC.
A lot of people can’t even afford to have three square meals per day. So what can we do about this? Stop buying food. Stop buying anything. Fill your freezer with meat, don’t eat breakfast or lunch, and eat the most satiating food before you go to sleep. Increase your physical strength, buy Bitcoin on Coinbase, and just chill. The number in your bank account means nothing anymore. In the future, the real flex will be how many Satoshis you have. If you can even get to 1 BTC, you will be a legend.
If you want to learn more, I’ve basically gone through every single video from these two websites:
I just gave my copy to my engineer friend, who for the past year was mocking me about Bitcoin being stupid, and is now reading my book. We will all get Bitcoin at the price we deserve.
I believe in this future of decentralization, where the individual holds their private keys and their personal bank. I think if George Washington was alive today, he would also partake in Bitcoin. I think Bitcoin is hope, and ultimately allows the individual to think more about the future optimistically. If my money will go up in value over the next 20 years, I will simply hold my money in that asset that will allow for this, giving me hope for the future, to pass down wealth, generally, to think more about family, and how to build a future. In today’s world, we’re so consumer-driven, because the value of our dollar is decreasing, we’re spending the dollars endlessly, on things that truly do not matter. We live in a consumer age, where we follow our base whims and desires, purchasing random junk. Because the purchasing of our decreasing, we’re simply spending it with a pessimistic view of the future. I believe that the money problem is also a reason why we are seeing a decrease in population and families forming. However, Bitcoin reframes the way that you think about money, where you simply make money, and don’t spend it, giving you an optimistic outlook on what is to come, rather than what there is here, right now, to purchase. It essentially reframes the way you think about money from instant gratification to delaying the gratification.
I believe that the present holders of Bitcoin will be the future builders of the world. If you want to build a future, we need hope, we need a life raft, something that can get us out of this sinking ship, and build a new world together.
A healthy diet balances the energy (calories) ingested daily with the energy expended, a concept known as energy balance.
Macronutrients: Include proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. The appropriate ratio for each person depends on individual health goals and needs.
Micronutrients: Essential vitamins and minerals, along with beneficial compounds like phytochemicals found in whole foods. Bioavailability varies between plant and animal sources.
Minimize consumption of ultra-processed foods as they tend to be low in nutrient density and high in calories. Healthy dietary patterns are generally low in ultra-processed foods.
Understanding Energy Balance
Energy Balance: Refers to the equilibrium between calories consumed and calories burned. Maintaining this balance is key to weight management.
Calories: Essential for bodily functions and activities. The source of calories matters; a calorie is a unit of measurement, but its effect on the body varies based on its source (e.g., French fries vs. eggs).
Methods to Estimate Calorie Needs:
Mifflin-St Jeor Method: Uses weight, height, age, and gender to calculate Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) and Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE).
Weight by 15 Method: A quick estimate by multiplying body weight by 15 to gauge daily calorie needs for energy balance.
Food Journal Method: Tracking daily intake to estimate calorie needs if weight is stable.
Macronutrients: Proteins, Carbohydrates, and Fats
Proteins:
Vital for building and repairing tissues, creating enzymes and hormones.
Protein Quality: Determined by amino acid content and digestibility.
Digestibility Scores:
PDCAAS (Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score): Measures how well protein is absorbed.
DIAAS (Digestible Indispensable Amino Acid Score): A newer, more accurate measure showing that animal proteins are highly digestible.
Carbohydrates:
Provide energy; quality matters more than quantity.
Favor whole foods (fruits, vegetables) over processed carbs to maintain health.
Fats:
Essential for absorbing fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K) and providing satiety.
Focus on whole food sources of fat rather than added fats.
Micronutrients and Their Importance
Micronutrient Deficiency: 90% of Americans are deficient in at least one essential micronutrient.
Sources:
Animal products generally offer more bioavailable forms of vitamins and minerals.
Plant sources are valuable, particularly for specific nutrients like magnesium found in dark leafy greens and almonds.
Magnesium: Critical for hundreds of bodily processes, including DNA repair and energy production.
Optimizing for Satiety
Satiety: A key feature of a healthful diet that helps in weight management by promoting fullness with fewer calories.
Three Satiety Superstars:
Protein: The most satiating macronutrient. Encourages fullness and reduces overeating.
Fiber: Slows digestion, expands in the stomach, and reduces hunger hormones like ghrelin.
Water: Drinking water before meals can reduce calorie intake; hydration also plays a role in reducing perceived hunger.
The Role of Fiber
Benefits of Fiber:
Helps manage blood sugar levels by slowing carbohydrate absorption.
Reduces inflammation and supports gut health by promoting beneficial bacteria.
Assists in lipid and hormone balance by trapping certain compounds like estrogen and cholesterol.
Increasing Fiber Intake: Should be done gradually to allow the gut microbiome to adapt.
Conclusion
A healthful diet is not one-size-fits-all but should be customized based on individual needs and goals.
Focusing on whole, minimally processed foods rich in protein, fiber, and water can optimize satiety and nutritional intake.
Understanding macronutrient and micronutrient requirements is crucial for long-term health and wellbeing.
Zoom into the smallest atom in your body out of the seven octillion atoms that make you, you. Then zoom out to the hundreds of trillions of galaxies in the universe.
I’ve recently been reviewing my old POV footage from my travels and my journey in practicing street photography. While going through my footage of the Chinese New Year, I remembered a moment when a lady in charge was yelling at me to get out of the way, to not be so close, preventing me from making a photograph of the dragon dance. At that moment, I just grinned and got even closer. This moment felt like a walk in the park for me, especially considering my experience on the front lines photographing conflicts between Israel and Palestine at one point.
How did I gain access to photographing these places throughout my journey?
By breaking the rules.
Take the Road Less Traveled
I took the road from Jerusalem to Jericho in 2017. Upon arrival, my friend and I encountered a checkpoint, greeted by flames and rising smoke at the border. There were cars backed up, a traffic jam, and nobody was permitted to enter Jericho. We hopped into a stranger’s car, who then drove us to an area by the border, far away from anybody. Standing atop a hill, looking out towards the clashes occurring, we checked if the coast was clear. Slipping through the barbed wire fence, we hopped the border from Israel to Palestine and began running downhill, entering the nearby refugee camp as quickly as possible. We strapped on our reflective construction vests—our pretend photojournalist clothes—as we marched through the alleys. When we arrived at the front lines, we were in the heat of the action. I remember hiding behind a small dirt hill, ducking as we were being shot at, making photos as young men used slingshots and threw rocks at the Israeli soldiers. Eventually, I mustered up the courage to get closer and closer, finding myself at the front lines, hiding behind a concrete barrier. It was then that I made one of my greatest photographs of all time, capturing a masked man gazing towards me, with the fiery scene in the background.
How did I make this photograph?
While the composition, moment, color, layers, and story are strong, these elements have nothing to do with how I made the photograph. I made this photograph through courage, audacity, and being bold. I believe that anybody can make a photograph, but not everybody can become courageous. The best photographs are a reflection of your courage and your lust for battle, by positioning yourself on the front lines of life.
Be Bold
The best photographs result from being bold, by taking a risk. So, when I was in Chinatown photographing the New Year celebration, I knew I had to be bold, to simply not listen, to take a risk, and to break the rules. When I first started practicing street photography, around 17 or 18 years old in high school, I would run around Philadelphia with a disposable camera, photographing only with flash, not asking for permission. When I first started shooting, I was immediately inspired to be as audacious and courageous as possible with a camera because I knew that overcoming the fear of photographing strangers was the most critical hurdle to overcome in order to get better at street photography. I spent a lot of time photographing this way, embracing confrontation, photographing aggressively, and frankly being a nuisance on the streets. I’m glad I got that bug out of me early on because it taught me to let go, to be bold, reckless, and to break the rules of social norms.
Become a Creative Barbarian
When we photograph, we aren’t just creating, we’re conquering with each press of the shutter. By always carrying the camera with me, I am in a perpetual state of production and creativity, photographing endlessly throughout the day. I am always in a flow state, recognizing the world as my canvas, which keeps me in this Dionysian frenzy, conquering the day. I thrive in the chaos, the unknown, the unpredictable nature of the streets.
Treat the street as your arena, the battlefield, and conquer the world through photography.
Harness the Power of Nutrition
Some simple thoughts on nutrition, health, diet, fitness, etc. Firstly—stop counting calories and weighing yourself.
Person A: eats 2000 cal of Oreos
Person B: eats 2000 cal of red meat
Which person is going to have better health?
Obviously person B, who is eating red meat. However, maybe this isn’t so obvious, especially for previous generations, who have been taught that saturated fat is bad for you. We are now learning that these fats are very good for us and are necessary to store energy in our body. The most essential nutrients to consume are both fats and protein.
There is no such thing as essential carbohydrates, and you would not develop a deficiency disease from not consuming carbohydrates. So, you do not need to eat carbs at all, as your body will naturally produce sugar. Sugar is addictive, and something to avoid.
Increasing your intake of meat products, such as beef, lamb, and even eggs or butter, will increase your vitality, energy, and satiate you more than following a standard American diet, which warns you of cholesterol and eating red meat sparingly.
60% of adults’ calories and 70% of children’s calorie intake today are from ultra-processed foods, which have become a staple of the standard American diet and lead to metabolic disease.
Around the same time that we learned that saturated fats were “bad” for us, cigarette companies started to produce these ultra-processed foods from companies such as Kraft Foods, General Foods, and Nabisco. Many of these companies are responsible for producing breakfast foods that we were programmed to eat since we were kids, constantly being preached that you must eat three square meals a day, and that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. For breakfast, in the United States, many people consume ultra-processed food. When this is the first meal of your day, you’re essentially telling your body to be addicted, to be a consumer, to become dependent on eating more food. You will actually become hungry later in the day if you eat this way. So much of our food has become poison, similar to tobacco and cigarettes. Avoid the poison, and consume more natural, animal-based protein.
Stretch Your Legs
Every morning, find a nice patch of sunlight on the grass and practice some simple yoga to stretch your legs. The simplest stretch of all, by reaching for my feet, by touching my toes, I am stretching my legs and strengthening the most important part of my body. I believe our legs are the most critical, as they move us through the world. My goal in life is to basically be standing and walking all day. Why? Very simple. I am a photographer, and a photographer must be able to move throughout the entirety of the day in order to make photographs. Because of this, I focus on stretching my legs by touching my toes, reaching for my heels, stretching my calves, doing the pigeon pose, downward dog, and pistol squats. Also, by wearing my weighted vest in the morning and walking, I’m increasing the strength of my posture, my legs, and my feet, with barefoot shoes on.
Think about it, our legs and posture are critical to focus on. My favorite lift in the gym is simply picking up two heavy dumbbells, 80 pounds on both sides, and walking with them, with my chest open, shoulders back, and head upright. When I walk in the morning with my 40-pound weighted vest, this is what I focus on for one hour, as soon as I wake up—simply walking with intention, strengthening my core, and focusing on my posture and legs. I want to have the ability to walk with a strong gait throughout the entirety of the day, with vigor and vitality. By waking up, stretching my legs, and strengthening my posture, I am focusing on these very simple fitness goals.
Uncage Yourself
“Society tames the wolf into a dog. And man is the most domesticated animal of all.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
We’re currently living in a zoo utopia, where we prefer the air conditioning, the four corners of a room, cubicles, and the comfortable cushion of a chair. Let’s go beyond these cages, and be a free, undomesticated wolf. Man has become domesticated like a dog, docile, and weak, eliminating our will to power. Anything that stems from weakness, that causes a decrease in vitality, is something that we must avoid at all costs.
What is the quickest way to decrease your vitality?
Sitting down. Anytime I spend on my butt, I feel my body start to shut down; I start to yawn, and become tired or weak. This is not a great feeling, and something I must avoid, and you should too. If you are in an office, we must be more critical about these spaces. These are the spaces that domesticate us, that tame us, making us weak. These spaces are atomizing us, like animals in a zoo. If you’re in one of these positions, stand at your desk, and don’t sit down. I work from home, I invested in a standing desk, and made a home gym, because I recognized how much this mode of working zapped away all of my physiological energy.
Why does this matter so much?
If we desire to become creative barbarians, to break the rules, to be bold, fueled with courage, we must increase our vitality and avoid weakness at all costs. He who has the most strength in his legs shall conquer the streets.
