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

Prosperity and abundance are often mistaken for accumulation. In truth, they begin as states of alignment.

Prosperity is right order: your energy flowing toward what is worthy of you. It’s when effort meets meaning, when work nourishes rather than drains. A prosperous life is not loud—it’s stable, grounded, and quietly confident.

Abundance is overflow: not hoarding, but having more than enough to give. It’s the feeling that life itself is generous—ideas come easily, strength returns daily, beauty appears uninvited.

Together, they point to a deeper truth:

• Abundance without purpose becomes excess.
• Prosperity without gratitude becomes hollow.

When you live in rhythm—with your body, your craft, your values—abundance follows naturally, and prosperity becomes inevitable.

Not because you chased them,
but because you stopped resisting the flow.

Stop comparing, competing, striving, and live for yourself in the present moment!

Nous (νοῦς)

Nous means intellect, mind, or the faculty of direct understanding.

It is not step-by-step thinking.
It is not discursive reasoning.

It is immediate insight — seeing truth directly.

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Simple Explanation

Nous is the part of you that knows without needing to think.

• When something suddenly clicks
• When truth feels self-evident
• When you see rather than calculate

That is nous.

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Nous vs Reason (Logos)

• Logos (reason): analytical, sequential, moves from A → B → C
• Nous: intuitive, instantaneous, whole

Reason explains.
Nous perceives.

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In Classical Philosophy

• Plato: Nous apprehends the Forms — truth beyond appearances
• Aristotle: Nous grasps first principles — truths that cannot be proven, only seen
• Plotinus: Nous is the divine intellect — the realm of eternal reality, just below the One

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Modern Analogy

Nous is like:

• Vision vs calculation
• Recognition vs deduction
• Awareness vs thought

You do not reason that fire is hot once you touch it — you know.

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Short Definition

Nous is direct, intuitive intelligence — the eye of the mind.

Visitor comes from the Latin verb visitare, meaning “to go to see,” “to come to inspect,” or “to frequent.”

Etymological breakdown

• Latin: visitare — to go see, inspect, pay attention to
  (frequentative of videre = to see)
• Old French: visiter — to go see, examine
• Middle English: visitor — one who comes to see

Core meaning

At its root, a visitor is literally “one who sees.”

Not a possessor.

Not a resident.

But someone who arrives with eyes open, attentive, observant, passing through.

Philosophical undertone

Embedded in the word is a powerful idea:

To visit is to see without owning,

to witness without control,

to be present without permanence.

In that sense, we are all visitors — in cities, in moments, even in life itself.

Detaching From Outcomes in Street Photography

What’s poppin, people? It’s Dante.

This morning I wanted to talk about detaching from photographing anything specific — and why letting go of outcomes has fundamentally improved my photography.

When I think about improvement, I don’t think about better photos in a linear sense. Improvement is subjective. For me, improvement derives from the process itself. It comes from walking more, seeing more, photographing more, and spending time out there on the street.

That’s the only place improvement actually happens.

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Improvement Lives in the Process

You don’t improve by thinking about improvement.

You improve by doing the work.

By being out there. By walking. By observing. By making frames. And over time, something starts to shift internally — your perception, your instincts, your intuition.

Improvement isn’t a checklist. It’s not a measurable output. It’s something that emerges naturally from time spent engaging with the world.

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Letting Go of Preconceived Ideas

By detaching myself from anything specific that I’m trying to photograph, I’ve found peace with the process.

I’m no longer tying myself down to a preconceived idea of what street photography is supposed to be. I’m not limiting myself to moments, gestures, facial expressions, or “decisive moments” anymore.

Instead, I’m just exploring.

That’s where flow begins.

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Photographing Everything

Over the past three years, I’ve been photographing strictly in high-contrast black and white. And that choice unlocked an entirely new way of seeing.

I started photographing everything.

Buildings. People. Textures. Lamp posts. Puddles. Stickers. Ordinary scenes. Reflections. Chaos. Quiet moments.

I stopped limiting myself to only photographing people or “moments.”

And that’s when creative flourishing really began.

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Flow State and Authentic Expression

As I enter the flow state and make more frames, I start discovering my authentic expression as an artist.

The more I make, the more I learn about myself — how I see, how I respond, how I move through the world.

That discovery doesn’t come from thinking.
It comes from doing.

By removing the burden of expectation, I allow myself to play. And through play, something honest emerges.

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The Flux Archive

On my site, there’s a tab called Flux.

It’s an archive of over 13,000 photographs I’ve made over the past three years. Everything is chronological. There’s a timeline where you can visit any year, any month, any day, and see exactly what I photographed on that date.

It’s a visual diary. A record of presence.

When I open a random day — like February 11, 2024 — I land on the chaos of a Chinese New Year celebration. Crowds. Noise. Movement. Disorder.

And the question people always ask is:

What are you looking for?

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Order and Chaos

When I’m in chaotic environments, I’m not looking for anything specific.

I might position myself on the outskirts. I might isolate moments. I might look for separation. But I’m not hunting for a particular gesture or expression.

I’m simply allowing life to deliver moments to me.

There was a moment where a man stood next to me, smoking a cigarette. He glanced toward me. The background separated cleanly. Everything aligned.

I clicked the shutter.

That wasn’t planned. That wasn’t hunted. That was instinct.

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Embracing Play and Spontaneity

When you detach from outcomes and embrace play, the photographs you make become more interesting.

You stop judging what’s “worthy” of a photograph.

A puddle becomes interesting. Reflections become interesting. Light bouncing off a bus stop becomes interesting.

Those cliché moments you used to avoid?
They become doors to curiosity.

When you photograph purely for yourself — without attachment — your inner child takes over.

And that’s where the real work comes from.

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Curiosity as the Only Rule

The only thing I cultivate on the street is curiosity.

That childlike curiosity that wants to explore, tinker, make mistakes, and play.

Sometimes I intentionally put my camera into macro mode and photograph balls of light just to see what happens. Sometimes I make “mistakes” on purpose.

I don’t shy away from exploration.

I don’t shy away from pushing boundaries.

That’s how growth happens.

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Everything Is Photographable

I genuinely believe everything is photographable.

But it requires an open mind — free of preconceived notions.

When you see this way, the mundane becomes fascinating. Life becomes rich. The world opens up.

Street photography, to me, is about embracing the ordinary nature of life and allowing surprise to emerge.

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Instinct Over Control

There’s a fine line between order and chaos.

I have a rational understanding of composition, focal length, positioning, and framing. That knowledge exists.

But when I click the shutter, I let go.

I respond instinctively and allow the chips to fall as they may.

The photograph often surprises me — and that surprise is the point.

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Detachment Is the Key

Street photography is unpredictable. You can’t control outcomes. You can’t force great photographs.

All you can control is being there.

Being present. Being ready. Being open.

When you detach from projects, themes, checklists, and expectations, you free yourself.

And paradoxically, you come home with better photographs.

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Final Thoughts

Improvement doesn’t come from chasing results.

It comes from curiosity.
From walking.
From seeing.
From photographing more.

Detach from outcomes. Let go of trying to say something. Let go of trying to make something great.

Just be there.

When the moment arrives, you’ll be ready.

Peace.