Why I Shoot JPEG (And Never RAW)

What’s poppin, people? It’s Dante.

Today I’m thinking about why I shoot JPEG and don’t shoot RAW.

Essentially, I shoot with a JPEG file — even with a monochrome camera — with a JPEG recipe, with the image control settings and everything baked within the camera. And the reason is simple: I’m trying to remove all friction in my practice.

The goal for me as a photographer is to be in a perpetual flow state of making new photographs.

And I choose to shoot with a JPEG monochrome camera setup because I’m looking for the fastest workflow possible.

You see, I’m looking to photograph with speed.

I’m not shooting monochrome or JPEG because I’m trying to create some aesthetic stylistic choice. I really couldn’t give a shit about that kind of stuff. I’m trying to speed up the process of photographing.

I’m trying to make it so photography becomes effortless and the flow state is inevitable.

And to get there, I had to strip away all the superfluous.

For the past three years, adopting a JPEG workflow has provided me with insane speed in terms of the amount of output I’m able to produce.

I mean, I have photographs everywhere.

I’ve got 13,000 prints stacked up on my table. I’ve made 360,000 frames in three years. I’ve never made this many photographs in the decade of my practice.

So the reason I’m shooting JPEG is simple:

Speed. Speed. Speed.

The Technical Reason: Speed and Simplicity

If we want to get into the technical side of things, I’m also interested in the longevity and simplicity of a JPEG file.

My workflow is incredibly simple.

I’ll take the JPEG file and import it directly into the Photos app on my iPad Pro, and I have this contact sheet where I can quickly go through, select, cull, and publish work at lightning speed.

It takes about a minute to import 1,000 photos.

Then I upload the photos and back them up immediately.

My entire archive from three years of shooting is only about 57 gigabytes.

That’s insane.

Initially, shooting JPEG was purely a technical decision. I was tired of the burden of coming home and dealing with RAW files — waiting for backups, putting things on hard drives, going through the whole process.

Back in 2022, I was in Hanoi, Vietnam, photographing with color and shooting RAW files. I’d be sitting in the hotel room at night thinking:

Holy shit, this is so slow and clunky.

It just felt ridiculous.

So I went home, sold my camera equipment, picked up the Ricohs, switched to JPEG, and I haven’t looked back since.

Now I’m making more photographs than ever.

The Philosophical Reason: Creative Constraint

But beyond the technical reasons, there’s also a philosophical side.

Once the workflow became frictionless, the entire practice changed.

I go out.
I photograph.
I come home.
I upload.
I back up.
I publish.

No processing.
No Lightroom.
No tinkering.

And that constraint becomes creatively liberating.

The more creative constraint you introduce, the more creative freedom you actually gain.

Freedom isn’t infinite choice.

Freedom is the elimination of choices.

The result is baked into the camera. I already know how the photograph will look. There’s nothing left to tweak or adjust afterward.

So instead of obsessing over photographs I made yesterday, I’m just in this perpetual photo flow state of making new frames.

Photography as Instinct

I’m not trying to make a perfect picture.

I’m not trying to make a photograph that describes life as fact.

I’m trying to make photography inevitable.

I’m stripping all the technicality away so that all I’m left with is intuition.

That’s why the commitment to JPEG is so powerful.

Yes, there’s a technical advantage — speed, file size, simplicity.

But philosophically, it’s about imposing a limitation that allows me to photograph prolifically, every single day.

I haven’t missed a single day of photography in three years.

Because there’s no friction.

No decisions about color or black and white.

No editing afterward.

I’m just making instant sketches of light when I’m out on the street.

Quickly.

Instinctively.

Creating Faster

With this workflow, I can go on a trip somewhere and photograph for a weekend.

By the time I’m on the train coming home from New York City, I’ve already:

• Culled the photographs
• Sequenced them
• Published them online
• Laid them out for a potential book

I can create a photo series in a weekend.

All because of a simple creative constraint.

By setting parameters around my practice, I’m actually forced to think more outside the box.

Stripping Photography to Its Essence

At the end of the day, I’m not trying to create my own style through some JPEG recipe.

That’s not the point.

The point is to strip everything down to the essence of the medium.

Just a black box.

A shutter button.

Light and shadow.

And when you remove everything else, you become a vessel for the medium.

That’s why I choose JPEG.

That’s my thought of the day.

Street Photography as a Visual Diary — Ricoh GR IV Monochrome Walk in Philadelphia

Entering the Flow on the Schuylkill River Trail

What’s poppin’, people? It’s Dante.

Today we’re going to be looking at photographs I made yesterday with my Ricoh GR4 Monochrome on the streets of Philadelphia.

I started my day off with a nice walk along the Schuylkill River Trail where I typically get my day started. I simply entered the flow state in the morning with my camera.

I don’t look for anything — I’m just living my life and going to the places that make me joyful.

Really, at the end of the day, I’m following my bliss. I’m trying to have fun when I’m out there with my camera.

I’m not out there hunting and putting on my photography hat — going out there to tell a visual story. I’m simply walking through places I genuinely enjoy inhabiting.

Photography as a Visual Diary

I want to talk today about the power of curiosity and treating photography as a visual diary.

When I say visual diary, I mean it simply.

I believe that the reflection of the photographer’s internal state arises externally in the things that we make.

As you photograph your way through the day, week, year, and lifetime — you are creating your own world with the camera.

I also believe the power of monochrome is that we’re stripping away color.

We’re stripping away reality and abstracting the world, giving birth to something new through the act of making a photograph.

A Streamlined Workflow for Flow State

On a practical level, I shoot with a small JPEG file and high-contrast black and white image control settings cranked to the maximum.

The reason I approach the streets this way isn’t for an aesthetic decision.

It’s because I want to enter the flow state.

To enter the flow state, one must be in tune with instinct.

And to return to instinct and intuition, you have to remove the technical hurdles of photography.

By streamlining the process to a JPEG file — light and shadow, what you see is what you get — there’s no going back in post-processing. Everything is done in the moment I click the shutter.

My approach makes photography effortless.

I use automatic settings so the camera disappears and I can enter the flow state seamlessly.

I’ve got a black box with a shutter button, and I’m simply snapshotting my life.

Following Curiosity Like a Child

As I walk through the day photographing things — clouds, details below my feet, everything around me — I become curious.

When I’m out there photographing, I’m simply following my childlike curiosity.

As a child, I grew up about five miles down this river. I used to explore the Wissahickon Forest in my backyard — climbing trees, building teepees with sticks, sharpening spears, attempting to hunt deer.

I loved exploring the unknown.

Now as a photographer at 29 years old, that curiosity still drives me.

On this particular walk I photographed a boy practicing martial arts with a medieval longsword.

Seeing that moment reminded me of that childlike courage — exploring the forest, conquering new terrain.

Those spontaneous surprises that arise on a walk are what fuel my curiosity.

But I don’t go out seeking them.

I simply follow the inner voice that calls me to places where I enjoy being.

Letting Life Flow Toward You

When you let go and allow life to flow toward you, and you’re simply present with your camera, you can express your internal state more authentically.

I don’t believe style comes from choosing color versus black and white.

I believe style is a direct reflection of the photographer’s instinct and internal state.

Instinct is everything in this practice.

When you photograph loosely throughout your day — whether it’s a mundane nature walk or a chaotic market in the city — you begin cultivating your voice as an artist.

And while it takes time, a simplified workflow accelerates the process.

When the camera becomes an extension of your body, finding your voice becomes much more natural.

From Chaos to the Mundane

For the past three years photographing this way, I’ve become far more prolific.

Scenes like chaotic crowds outside Reading Terminal Market come naturally to me. I’m comfortable photographing people up close in busy environments.

But what once required friction was photographing places without people — barren streets, quiet paths in nature.

Learning to articulate the mundane became the challenge.

Returning to black and white and stripping photography down to light and shadow changed how I see.

Now I follow the light.

Following Light

Light is always changing.

The way it falls across surfaces, people, and places is always in flux.

No two days — no two moments — will ever be the same.

By stripping color away and returning to the essence of the medium, light becomes the subject.

High-contrast black and white allows me to find infinite novelty in the mundane.

I can walk the same route every day and still find something worth photographing.

Removing Friction from the Practice

My goal is to remove friction until only pure instinct remains.

Over time, instinct compounds into style.

Photography becomes almost like Zen meditation.

I’ll throw the camera around in strange ways.

• Dropping the shutter speed to 1/4 second
• Shooting from the waist
• Using crop mode
• Photographing quickly without looking at the LCD

Because the camera is an extension of my body, I understand my position relative to the moment without hesitation.

There’s no thinking.

Stop Thinking, Start Responding

When I’m photographing, the goal is to stop thinking.

The goal is to simply respond.

I don’t want to have a single thought while making a photograph.

When I remove thought and stay present, the joy of the practice appears.

I might walk into a church and notice something around the corner.

Following that curiosity leads me into unexpected scenes and small adventures.

Life on the front lines is waiting for you.

There’s so much to see, explore, and photograph in this life.

Curiosity as the Guide

Since stripping away the technical aspects of photography and simplifying the process, I’ve found an endless ability to discover things in the world.

Treating photography as a visual diary of daily life changes how you see light and life.

My curiosity guides me.

I’m not looking for anything.
I’m not trying to say anything.

But whatever I have to say will be said through the photographs I make.

With that being said, thank you for watching.

And I will see you in the next one.

Peace.

The word diary ultimately comes from the idea of “daily.”

Etymology

• Latin: diarium — meaning “daily allowance” or “daily record.”
  
  • From dies = day
• Medieval Latin: diarium evolved to mean a daily journal or record of events.
• English (16th–17th century): diary — a book for recording events day by day.

Root breakdown

• dies (Latin) → day
• diarium → daily account / daily record
• diary → a record of one’s life written day by day

Interesting note

Originally, diarium referred to something like a daily ration or allowance, especially for soldiers. Over time the meaning shifted to a daily log of activities.

Related words

• Daily — occurring every day
• Journal — from French jour (day)
• Diurnal — relating to the daytime or a 24-hour cycle

So a diary is literally:

A record of the days of your life.

Which is actually pretty fitting for what you’re doing with your street photography diaries — documenting the daily unfolding of light, people, and the city.

A Sea of Light

The more that I shoot consistently every single day, the less I care about the content within my frames.

The notion that the content, the story, the subject itself has any inherent meaning in a photograph is irrelevant in terms of my personal practice.

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To change. To transform. To evolve.

Light is something ever changing, ever moving, giving shape and form to everything around me.

And so when I treat light as my subject — as the thing itself that I am primarily interested in as a photographer — I find infinite new ways to make new photographs.

Even when photographing the same “content,” the same locations, the same subject matter — mundane people walking along the sidewalk, the same landscape behind the Art Museum — I feel an overwhelming sense of joy and power from the act of thriving in the mundane.

Flux is joy

Living in Philadelphia is absolute paradise.

When I look beyond the horizon, I remind myself how open the world is — but simultaneously how there is nowhere left to go but inward.

The more I travel within my mind, within the way I see and feel about the world around me, the less desire I have to wander off the narrow path.

So I walk the same narrow path.

Growing strong.
Stronger each day.

Watching the leaves wither and decay, and then grow back again in the spring.

Everything around me — and within me — is always changing.

And by recognizing that change, by living in a place where there is real seasonal transformation, I flourish.

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A place where it is always sunny, always the perfect temperature, always the perfect conditions — where there is no stress, no challenge, no burden to overcome — may appear ideal.

But it risks stagnation.

This does not mean suffering is something to seek.

Ease matters.

A life that is physically healthy and mentally strong, free from unnecessary pain, is essential for flourishing.

But what I have realized over the past few years is this:

Without change, it is difficult to find joy.

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At first this may seem like a contradiction.

Walking the same path.
Photographing the same places.
Seeing the same faces.

But when light itself becomes the subject — when the infinite variability of light becomes the thing I am chasing — novelty emerges everywhere.

Light touches the camera sensor differently every second.

And in that moment, the world becomes new again.

Through this endless transformation, I thrive.

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Flux is joy.

To change.
To transform.
To evolve.

That is happiness.

That’s an interesting contrast, and linguistically you’re pointing at two attitudes that can look similar on the surface but feel very different in spirit.

Equanimity

Equanimity means calmness and balance of mind, especially in difficult situations. It implies awareness and control.

• You feel things.
• You understand what’s happening.
• But you remain steady and composed.

Philosophically, it’s admired in traditions like Stoicism, Buddhism, and Christian mysticism—the idea of being inwardly stable regardless of circumstance.

It has a moral beauty to it because it suggests discipline, depth, and presence.

Nonchalance

Nonchalance means appearing casually indifferent or unconcerned.

• It often implies detachment without care.
• Sometimes even apathy or dismissiveness.

The key difference is that nonchalance often pretends nothing matters, whereas equanimity knows things matter but remains steady anyway.

The Core Difference

You could summarize it like this:

• Equanimity: calm strength
• Nonchalance: careless indifference

Or even more simply:

Equanimity feels grounded.
Nonchalance feels hollow.

So your intuition makes sense. Equanimity carries a sense of inner mastery, while nonchalance often feels like emotional laziness or avoidance.

(切ない / setsunai) is a Japanese word that describes a bittersweet, aching emotional feeling.

It’s difficult to translate perfectly into English, but it usually means something like:

• A painful kind of nostalgia
• Longing for something you cannot have
• A tender sadness
• Melancholy mixed with beauty

It’s the feeling when something is beautiful but also slightly heartbreaking.

Simple examples

• Watching someone walk away that you love.
• Seeing a childhood place that no longer exists.
• A quiet moment at sunset that makes you feel both peaceful and sad.

In Japanese aesthetics

The idea overlaps with other Japanese emotional concepts like:

• Mono no aware – awareness of the impermanence of things
• Wabi-sabi – beauty in imperfection and transience

So “setsunai” is the emotional sensation of that impermanence.

Why it appears in Provoke

The photographers and writers around the Provoke movement often tried to express raw emotional tension and fleeting reality in their work.

A photograph that feels unresolved, imperfect, fleeting, and emotionally charged could easily be described as setsunai.

It’s not clean beauty.
It’s beauty with a wound in it.

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Interestingly, Dante, the mood of setsunai actually fits a lot of your high-contrast monochrome diary photography—that feeling of walking alone, noticing small moments in the city, where something ordinary suddenly feels poignant and transient.

“Once Zhuangzi dreamed he was a butterfly, a butterfly fluttering about, happy with himself and doing as he pleased.
He didn’t know he was Zhuangzi.
Suddenly he woke up, and there he was, solid and unmistakably Zhuangzi.

But he didn’t know if he was Zhuangzi who had dreamed he was a butterfly,
or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi.”

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What the Story Means

Daoist philosophers used this story to question the nature of reality and identity.

Main ideas:

• Reality is fluid — what we think is solid may not be.
• The boundary between dream and waking life may be illusory.
• Identity is not fixed — “Zhuangzi” and “butterfly” are transformations of the same underlying Dao.

In Daoism this relates to the concept of Dao, the underlying flow of reality where all forms continuously transform into one another.

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The Daoist Insight

The deeper point isn’t just about dreams.

It suggests:

• Humans cling too tightly to fixed categories (self vs world, dream vs reality).
• But existence is really continuous transformation.

In Daoist language, this is often called “the transformation of things.”

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A One-Sentence Version

A very simple way people summarize it:

“Am I a man dreaming I’m a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming I’m a man?”

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Interestingly, Dante, this idea fits your Flux philosophy almost perfectly — the notion that things are always in transformation, just like Heraclitus’ idea that you can’t step in the same river twice.

• Once You Don’t Give a Fuck, You Are Finally Free
• Radically Say Yes to Life

Radically Say Yes to Life

The other day, I was basking in the glory of the sun. Thank God for spring is here. Just chilling on the corner, catching the sunset, what a beautiful scene. Children playing in the fountain, that is empty, and soon will be filled, couples, hand-in-hand, locals laying in the grass, people sitting in the park on the benches, reading, birds, chirping, and that annoying guy who is playing the flute that pollutes the park with sounds that pierce your ears.

And then, as I was photographing on this particular day, and it seems like whenever the sun comes out, especially during the winter time, in the city these days, groups of masked protesters emerge from the shadows, with frankly tired looking bodies and faces full of anger and bitterness. Like ghouls exiting from the cave, they emerge as slaves to information and media that is fed upon their screens. They scream and chant “drop bombs on Tel Aviv.”

A strange looking woman with a peculiar smirk on her face comes up to me and asks, “do you like what you’re hearing and seeing? Want to learn more?” With a communist “socialist revolution” newspaper with the hammer and sickle icon, pamphlet in hand.

And so who in their right mind would like what they hear, when it involves death, destruction, and war? Since when has it become normalized to be full of hatred, bitterness, and ugliness of the soul?

Things are getting weird. My theory is, media, photographs, television, videos, basically all of this visual, audio, information that people are indulging in, is enslaving people’s minds at scale. It’s not just a meme or some little thing to brush off that you need to stop using your phone, or go touch grass or something. Considering a simple flicker of a shadow casted upon a wall can move the physical body of mass amounts of people, despite whether the outcome of their actions is good or bad is baffling to me. The influence of this media is now getting to a point where people will inwardly destroy themselves and everything beautiful around them.

And so now those who are spending their time under fluorescent lights in the darkness, trapped in the four corners of their room indoors, scrolling on their scrying devices are receiving their revelations from the fallen angels they sought, and are now full of hatred and ugliness, moving in the direction of chaos and destruction.

And so what is the antidote to this modern degradation of the human spirit? Creating beautiful images through the power of media and art. An absolute fuck yes to life, waking up in the morning with insatiable love for life and curiosity, with pure physiological vitality after getting a good night of sleep, after breaking your fast and eating clean whole foods and red meat, being so full of power after lifting heavy weights and pulling the weight of your body up on a bar. Having balanced hormones, taking cold showers, regulating your nervous system, and spending time under the sunlight in nature away from the screen. And so when you are so radically healthy, so full of love, physical strength, testosterone, and power, the overwhelming joy that you feel can never kill your love for life.

And so the radical approach forward in the face of degeneracy and ressentiment is not wearing a mask and spreading hatred— it’s allowing the sun to kiss the skin of your face and meet God.

If a vehicle is something that carries or conveys, then the human body can be understood as the vehicle of the self.

Your body:

• carries your mind
• carries your soul
• carries your consciousness
• carries your actions through the world

So in this sense:

Your body is the vehicle through which your being moves through reality.

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Ancient Philosophy

This idea appears across many traditions.

Greek Thought

In the dialogue Phaedrus, Plato describes the soul like a charioteer guiding horses.

The image suggests:

• the soul = driver
• the body = chariot

The body carries the soul through the material world.

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Christianity

In Christian thought, the body is often described as a temple or vessel.

In the New Testament:

“Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.”

— from First Epistle to the Corinthians

Here the body is seen as the dwelling place or vessel for the divine presence.

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