August 22, 2025 – Philadelphia
Ricoh GR IV Announced – Why It’s the Future of Street Photography
Ricoh GR IV Announced: The Future of Photography Is Here
Yo, what’s poppin people?
It’s Dante. Getting my morning started here in Philadelphia. Got the Ricoh GR III snapshotting my way through the mist. Beautiful, foggy day.
Looking up at the new Comcast tower. Ricoh GR shirt on.
Today is May 22, 2025. Apparently they just dropped the Ricoh GR IV announcement.
Ricoh GR IV is in Development 🔥
This is good news. Real good.
Ricoh is the new Leica.
“There’s nothing to fix, right? Don’t fix what isn’t broken.”
The Ricoh is already perfect. They just need to keep producing it.
Why Ricoh is King for Street Photography
- It’s compact.
- It fits in your pocket.
- It’s digital.
- It’s for real photographers.
Saw this at the Italian Festival last weekend—some young girls handed me an old Canon point-and-shoot to snap a pic.
That’s the vibe now. Compact digital is the future.
“Sell the Leica. Buy the Ricoh.”
No Upgrades Needed
Ricoh knows the deal.
They’re not out here chasing megapixels or gimmicks.
- Keep it simple.
- Small JPEG files.
- High contrast black and white.
- Bake your settings in.
That’s the move.
“Shoot the smallest JPEG file humanly possible. Crank the contrast. Get beauty straight from the camera.”
No more post-processing. Just:
- Shoot your day.
- Come home.
- Plug in a USB-C to SD reader.
- Import to iPad Pro.
- Favorite your selects.
- Upload to your website.
Boom. Done.
Why This Is the Ultimate Workflow
You eliminate friction.
“There’s no excuse not to shoot.”
You’re on your commute?
Lunch break?
On your way to work?
You’re making pictures. Just like that.
I’m out here taking self-portraits.
Photos of windows.
Playing with textures.
One of my favorite things: Macro Mode.
You can get up close to the dew drops on leaves—
pure texture, pure form.
Abstracting Reality: Drawing with Light
When you use the high contrast setting on the Ricoh:
“You’re no longer waiting for the world to give you something. You’re making something out of nothing.”
It’s light on surface. That’s all photography is.
You’re drawing with light.
And you’re doing it instantly.
Highlight-Weighted Metering = Power
Use the Highlight-Weighted Metering Mode.
- Expose for the highlights.
- Crush the shadows.
Example: dew drops on a leaf—light glistening.
Background? Blacked out. That’s the look.
You can underexpose, overexpose, play with it.
That’s the beauty of ambiguous spaces in high contrast black and white photography.
“You isolate, crush shadows, expose for highlights—and you have more fun in your life as a photographer.”
Ditch the Neck Strap
Please. Just use a wrist strap.
I got the official Ricoh leather one.
Strap it to your camera. Keep it in your pocket. Keep it on your wrist.
Using two Ricohs—one on neck, one on wrist—was fun, but…
“One camera, one lens is all you need.”
Preferred Settings & Quick Tips
- Cloudy day? Program Mode.
- Street shooting? Aperture Priority + Snap Focus at 2 meters.
- FN Button: Switch between Single Point AF and Snap Focus.
- Keep it simple.
And remember:
“You don’t need to adjust any camera settings when you strip it down to the essentials.”
All you need is:
- Black box
- Shutter button
- FN Button
- Exposure lever
That’s it.
Welcome to the Future
Out here getting misted in Logan Square, Philly.
“Ricoh GR IV official announcement, reporting live from Logan Square.”
This is the future of photography.
Go Ricoh or go home.
Forget the Leica.
Forget the sensor dust.
Forget the megapixels.
“Shoot the small JPEG. Let the dust gunk up. That’s how you know you’re living.”
Final Word
Photograph like an amateur.
See like a child.
- Be on the ground.
- Look around.
- Capture what’s in front of you.
Photography should feel fun again.
Alright. I gotta get the bus. Peace out.
Shinjuku
Shinjuku
Shinjuku (新宿) is one of Tokyo’s most vibrant and dynamic wards, known for its skyscrapers, nightlife, shopping, and transport hub. It’s often described as a “city within a city” because of its sheer variety and energy. Here’s a detailed breakdown:
Overview
- Location: West-central Tokyo, just a few minutes by train from Shibuya and Ikebukuro.
- Reputation: A mix of business, entertainment, shopping, and nightlife.
- Transport: Home to Shinjuku Station, the busiest railway station in the world, serving over 3.5 million passengers daily.
Main Districts in Shinjuku
- West Shinjuku: Tokyo’s skyscraper district, with the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building (free observation decks with views of Mt. Fuji on clear days).
- East Shinjuku: Bustling with shops, restaurants, and nightlife. This includes:
- Kabukicho – Japan’s largest red-light district, but also packed with izakayas, karaoke bars, host clubs, and quirky attractions like the Robot Restaurant.
- Golden Gai – A famous nightlife area of tiny alleyways filled with small bars, each with its own theme and regulars.
- Omoide Yokocho – A nostalgic alley of tiny eateries serving yakitori and ramen, reminiscent of postwar Tokyo.
Attractions
- Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden: A huge, beautiful park blending Japanese, English, and French garden styles. A peaceful contrast to the neon chaos outside. Famous for cherry blossoms in spring.
- Samurai Museum: A small but engaging spot to learn about samurai armor and history.
- Shopping & Electronics:
- Isetan, Takashimaya, Odakyu, Keio – Major department stores.
- Bic Camera, Yodobashi Camera – Electronics megastores.
- Entertainment: Countless cinemas, pachinko parlors, arcades, and live music venues.
Atmosphere
Shinjuku is sensory overload: flashing neon lights, crowded crossings, giant billboards, and people flowing in all directions. Yet, just minutes away you can step into a serene garden or a tiny back alley bar. It’s a microcosm of Tokyo—modern and traditional, chaotic and calm.
Tips for Visiting
- Best Time: Evenings for neon and nightlife, daytime for gardens and shopping.
- Safety: Very safe despite its reputation; police presence is high, especially in Kabukicho.
- Navigation: Shinjuku Station is notoriously complex—give yourself extra time to find the right exit.
- Local Flavor: Don’t miss yakitori in Omoide Yokocho or a late-night drink in Golden Gai.
We Must Evolve
My favorite Pokémon game was silver, and I always started with Cyndaquil. I remember thinking how cute he was with the long nose and the fire from the tail. But everyone who plays Pokémon knows that you gotta let your main evolve into its final form. Once you evolve cyndaquil to typhlosion you learn new moves, like flamethrower or eruption, and can deal some serious damage.
Nothing is really happening in modern cities
How to change the world
We must evolve
People honking and screaming in cars
As everybody is moving extremely fast just walk very slow
Just do nothing
How to design a life of leisure
Crabs in a bucket
We were all told that we wanna be millionaires
Why is there such an obsession with money
Why nature is the only inspiration you need
This is what it looks like when you remove God from society
Hamster wheel
Rat Utopia
We are domesticated zoo animals
Nothing is really happening in the city. Key strokes. Beeps and boobs. A few mouth movements followed by vibrations. Nothing is actually being produced
All we do is consume- we don’t produce
We just maintain the physical realm to the bare minimum
Nobody is going to perform optimally if we are navigating through the lens of acquiring money for the sake of it
When people treat a 9 to 5 as a job this way, of course they aren’t going to perform
Return to vocation
I cannot wait for automation
Driving seems antiquated
Once AI replaces all of the useless jobs, we can go back to meaning, virtue, philosophy, God, family, and art and create a new renaissance
A blacksmith in medieval Europe had a vocation
The blacksmith produced quality products that lasted generations
We need cotton fields to make high-quality clothes
Decentralize your food supply
Decentralize your food and your money
Just live below, your means and disconnects from the system as much as you possibly can
We are all slaves to time
Return to the physical but be beyond it
In the world but not of it
Street Photography Masterclass with the Ricoh GR III
Street Photography Masterclass with the Ricoh GR III
What’s poppin, people? It’s Dante.
Today we’re going to be breaking down some of my street photography using the Ricoh GR III. I’m gonna share with you some behind the scenes of the contact sheets, analyze compositions, and dissect what makes these photos so great.
The First Principle: Walk More, See More
Let’s start simple. Real simple.
“The more that you walk, the more that you see. The more that you see, the more that you photograph. The more that you photograph, the more curious you become.”
And the more curious you become, the more lust for life you have. That lust — that exuberance for the everyday — reflects right back in your photos.
Photography Isn’t About Photography
“I believe photography has nothing to do with photography. Photography has everything to do with how you engage with humanity out there in the open world, on the front lines of life.”
If you want to become a better street photographer, you gotta fall in love with life first.
This isn’t for the once-a-week shooter. Street photography is for those who show up every single day with rigor and vitality. Yes, it’s a numbers game. But it’s also about finding something uplifting in the same mundane lane.
“Photography is a visual game and a physical pleasure.”
Composition is Physical
Where you stand matters. A lot.
“The result of the composition derives through your intuition, through your gut, through where you position your body and press the shutter.”
Composition is a dance between the moment and the background — a synthesis of content and form.
Rome: The Choke Point
Every day in Rome, I’d hit the streets with my GR and walk to the Colosseum. Why? Because of the light. Because of the energy. It was a choke point — an area packed with people.
Tip #1: Find a choke point.
Once you’re there, you set the stage. Background first, then wait for the foreground to fall into place.
You don’t always need to hunt. Sometimes you need to fish. You set your frame and wait for the subject to step into it. That’s what I did:
- Set the Colosseum in the background
- Paid attention to light and shadow
- Waited for a subject to enter the frame
- Clicked the shutter
“This is the art of patience. A photographer must respond intuitively — but also be present enough to wait for the stars to align.”
Philadelphia: The Chinese New Year Celebration
In my hometown, Philly, I hit the streets during Chinese New Year. I found a subject: a man smoking a cigarette. He wasn’t facing me — so I waited. I worked the scene.
- Raised the Ricoh above eye level
- Isolated him from the background clutter
- Waited for the moment he turned toward me
- Captured the gesture
“Getting close and filling the frame in the foreground with a subject, with a gesture, with something visually impactful, is going to elevate a mundane moment to a new height.”
Proximity is power.
Events give you that opportunity.
Coney Island: Basketball on the Beach
First time seeing basketball on the beach. First time on Coney Island. I treated the scene like a puzzle:
- Background – the amusement ride
- Middle ground – the basketball hoop and pole
- Foreground – the man jumping to dunk
“Photography is like visual problem solving.”
I worked back to front. And by the time that man jumped in the middle of the frame, I was ready. Everything aligned.
Rome Again: The Couple by the River
This frame wasn’t loud. It was tender. A couple walking hand in hand along the river.
Started on one side. Switched to a new vantage point from the bridge. Elevated the frame — literally and figuratively.
- Beautiful backdrop
- Leading lines from the path
- Clouds, river, clean horizon
- Couple walking into the composition
“Set a beautiful stage and be patient. That’s the art.”
Paris: The Eiffel Tower and the Woman
Had 48 hours in Paris. Landed at night. Picked up my GR and went straight to the Eiffel Tower.
Found myself on a bridge again. Observing. Waiting. Watching.
And then she appeared — a woman on the ledge, having her picture taken.
“I can’t stress enough the art of patience.”
There was so much chaos. Low light. People everywhere. I had to:
- Position the Eiffel Tower in the background
- Let the chaos move through
- Wait for her pose to align with the frame
Shot at 1/15 or 1/30. Worked the scene. And waited.
Final Thoughts
“Be patient like a fisherman and fast like a hunter.”
If you want to get better at street photography:
- Walk more
- Fall in love with life
- Work the scene
- Set your stage
- Solve visual puzzles
- Get close
- Be patient
More Resources
If you want to go deeper, check out:
- 🌐 My Website – DanteSisofo.com
- 📺 My YouTube Channel
- Composition breakdowns
- Tips and tricks
- POV series from Mumbai, India
If this helped you, inspired you, or even just entertained — thank you for being here. I appreciate you sticking to the end.
Peace.
The Importance of Removing Preconceived Notions in Street Photography
The Importance of Removing Preconceived Notions in Street Photography
The Problem with Preconceived Ideas
Having a preconceived idea about what a place may be like kills creative vitality. If you go to a certain location expecting something in return, with an attachment to an outcome, you will suffer.
Liberation Through Detachment
When you’re detached from any preconceived ideas of what you will find or what you will photograph, you liberate yourself and enter a flow state.
Knowing Too Much About Photography
One particular idea I have about preconceived notions in street photography is that we know too much about photography. We carry ideas in our head of what a photograph should look like or what we want to create. But when you remove that from your mind and let your photograph come from your heart, then you truly begin.
The Limits of Expectation
When you hold onto the image of a book you’ve seen or a photograph you want to replicate, you become limited by that perception of what your photographs can become.
The Narrow Path to God
The Narrow Path to God
When I go for my daily walk on the Schuylkill River Trail in Philadelphia, I always take the path towards the art museum, towards the cliff behind the Philadelphia Museum of Art, so that I can appreciate beauty. This is the most objectively beautiful view in the city of Philadelphia: a beautiful art museum, beautiful architecture, Greek-inspired temples, a river that is ever flowing, and a horizon with a tree canopy.
But why do I go this way? Firstly, when I’m walking on the path, there’s only one option—onwards and upwards. And when I arrive upwards, to the cliff, I’m at an elevated space. And when you’re at these elevated spaces, you connect with God. Why? Because you have a Panopticon view of your surroundings. You see from a perspective that is from above, looking below. It’s like you become an eagle in flight, and the eagle flies above you, and you see with clarity, with pinpoint accuracy, from a third-person’s perspective, from the bird’s-eye view.
Mercury and the Narrow Path
What’s interesting about the particular location I visit is that there’s a sculpture of Mercury with his wings, standing atop the gazebo that is just nearby the cliff. And so it is as if when I’m at this location, Mercury travels all of my thoughts and prayers, carrying me effortlessly upward toward God.
It’s the spot in the city where I know I can always find Jacob’s ladder, but it requires you to be on the narrow path. For when you’re walking along this path, if you turn left, you’ll fall into the river and drown to death. If you turn right, you could get hit by a train and die. And so there’s this elimination of the choices—whether or not to go left and right—that provides me with freedom. I simply move onwards and upwards.
The Endless March
The greatest thing about this path is that it is endless. It extends all throughout the state of Pennsylvania. I could continue marching on this path for as long as I wish. This trail extends all the way to Valley Forge National Historic Park, where George Washington and his troops were stationed during the Revolutionary War.
If I just walk five miles up the river, I’ll wind up in the Wissahickon, in the forest where I grew up playing as a young boy, building teepees with sticks, bridges with stones, exploring the unknown all on my own. I can find myself returning to the Garden of Eden, to paradise.
Now the trail just opened up a new extension alongside the river that points towards Gray’s Ferry. The issue with this new path is that there is an end. I hardly walk this new path because of the endpoint. I don’t like knowing that there will be an end to the march. I like knowing that I can march endlessly. While a new path can be enticing, repetition and consistency upon a similar and narrow path will lead to mastery.
Street Photography and Mastery
It’s the same thing with street photography. I’ve been following the same route pretty much every single day, walking from Rittenhouse Square to Washington Square for nearly three years now. And throughout my time, walking with repetition for nearly three years straight, I’ve become a master of my domain.
I can recognize the patterns in nature and human behavior. I study the light and where it falls at which time of the day during which seasons. I understand when people move in and out from their office buildings and bus stops, and which locations I must position myself at optimal times to receive God’s grace through the photographs I make.
The patterns that exist in nature and human behavior are something I’m very intrigued by. There’s something profound about a city, and the world generally, that becomes like a living organism.
The City as a Living Organism
The paths and roads that we walk upon are like the veins within our bodies that carry the blood and nutrients toward our heart. The office buildings, the homes, the structures that we dwell in are like the cells containing the information our body needs.
The light is the source that brings our life, providing plants the ability to undergo photosynthesis and grow. Humans are like trees, with our roots planted deeply within hell, a foundation built upon suffering. But like the trees, we extend our limbs, growing taller so that we can reach towards the light.
Some trees will die and fall, and have an end, where there will be no light. The trees that had a stronger foundation outcompeted those other trees, and so they stand tall and firm, basking in the light.
Life as Suffering
And so what I’ve realized is, life isn’t all love and light. Life is suffering. And the more you endure, the more hardened you become. The stronger your foundation, the more God will reveal His light and allow it to shine through you.
The Visual Diary Approach to Street Photography
The Visual Diary Approach to Street Photography
My new way forward with street photography is extremely simple and has been providing so much more joy in my everyday life. I simply live my life and bring my camera for the ride. I don’t go out seeking photos — I just let them come to me.
Flow State
The goal is to remain in a perpetual flow state throughout your day, week, month, year, and lifetime. By simplifying my process from the ground up, shooting with a small compact camera like the Ricoh GR1, contrast black-and-white small JPEG files cranked to the max, literally gives me the simplest workflow you can possibly adopt as a photographer. Using automatic settings, a simple camera, and a processing solution that requires zero post work is so seamless to the point where I genuinely never think — I just shoot. And from this state of being, I enter a flow state where the images I create become much more authentic — a true representation of my soul.
Soul Photography
We already know how to make great pictures, or at least I do. I know street photography is difficult for most to master, but what about people like me who have already achieved this? Once you achieve mastery, you have to let go. You have to break everything you know because otherwise it just gets boring and stale. There is really no point in me trying to make pictures like I’ve always done in the past, where I can pretty much drop myself in any location and come home with a successful street photograph. It just gets boring after a while, frankly.
How I Mastered Street Photography
I mastered street photography very early on because, in my early days, I was photographing in one of the most challenging cities you can possibly photograph in the world. Photographing in the neighborhood Santa on Winchester in West Baltimore is probably the most difficult place you could photograph in the United States. Seriously, there’s nobody in sight — just a bunch of boarded-up buildings and abandoned streets, maybe a few scenes here and there, drug dealers, and gangsters roaming around. It’s pretty bad and not necessarily an easy place to shoot.
And so, because of this, I learned the hard way, photographing in a place that required deep commitment, overcoming fear, and challenging myself to get closer to humanity in my own unique way, allowing me to photograph pretty much anywhere in the world seamlessly. If anything, photographing in West Baltimore was way more difficult than photographing in the West Bank. And then from there, I could pretty much go anywhere and come home with strong photographs, because I’ve already practiced in the most difficult way possible.
In fact, now that I’m thinking about this visual diary approach, I remember one of my best photographs I’ve ever made in Napoli, of the Italians eating watermelon by the sea. I wasn’t even on that trip to practice my photography — I was simply on vacation with my brother, reconnecting with our Italian roots, and just chilling on the rocks, swimming. I feel like, deep down, I’ve always approached photography this way, despite all of my travels. All the traveling and all the places I’ve gone to have come simply due to my inner curiosity and following that. And despite me making photographs of the external world, deep down, I always knew that they were reflections of my inner world because that is what I was exploring after all.
I’ve always known that as a photographer, I have this ultimate excuse to explore and to conquer new places, and so I would just keep pushing myself to go where the intersection between the unknown and curiosity leads me.
And so I think the moral of the story is, if you’re looking to master street photography, you actually should throw yourself into the unknown — into the abyss, into a dangerous or challenging situation — so that you learn and adapt on the fly, because from there, you can pretty much conquer anywhere.
Self-Destruct
Self-destruction is my greatest satisfaction right now. Completely destroying everything I think I know about photography — my approach, my philosophy, etc. — provides so much more joy these days. Every single morning when I wake up, I just pretend like I’ve picked up a camera for the first time, and when I go out and photograph, I just shoot whatever I find that piques my inner child’s curiosity. This puts me in a place where I feel like I can shoot endlessly with longevity, and from there, I just find so much more joy.
I think more people should start to destroy, because from that destruction comes creation. If you’re like me and you’re dissatisfied with the current state of street photography, maybe join me in my approach and create a new school, a new philosophy, a new approach that is liberating and free, simply embracing the snapshot and the visual diary.
The New School of Street Photography
The new school of street photography is very simple. We are anti-style. Street photography isn’t a style. Your approach to the medium isn’t a style. The way you process your pictures isn’t a style.
When you strip yourself down to the bare bones — to a point-and-shoot camera with automatic mode and high contrast black-and-white baked into the file — you return to the essence of the medium itself: light.
And so we bring our cameras for the ride, simply living our everyday life. We detach from the outcome of the photographs we make entirely, and don’t care if anybody sees them because we treat them as a visual diary. And from this place, we photograph light itself, which I believe — through simply photographing light, treating this as our subject — will reflect the inner light of our soul in the photographs we make.
Yeah, it probably sounds ridiculous, crazy, or stupid. But honestly, in this current state of photography, where 99% is junk, perhaps it’s time to create an entirely new philosophy.
Flux Photography
And so what is this philosophy? It’s embracing change, evolution, and flux. The simple mantra is this: your next photograph is your best photograph. We treat the snapshot as life affirmation, simply saying yes to life itself. And through this process of photographing, we enter the stream of becoming.
By embracing light as our medium and subject, we recognize that we cannot make the same photograph twice. The way light casts upon surfaces, people, places, and things will always be different and will never be the same. And so, through photographing our way through our everyday life, while we are photographing the external world, we are creating a new world — by embracing change and photographing our souls in flux.
