Never Be Bored in Photography

What’s popping, people? It’s Dante.

This morning, I’m thinking about boredom in photography and how to overcome burnout and stagnation.

I think everybody is looking for that next best picture, right? Always searching for those moments that feel interesting or worth photographing. Maybe you’re burning out. Maybe you’re bored of your hometown. I think that’s a completely natural thing to experience. Even I go through this.

What I remind myself every single day is to return to a blank slate.

To recognize that I am in control of my perception.
That I am in control of my curiosity.

That’s ultimately what I lean on when I go out to practice photography.

I try to return to a childlike state—a state of being where I’m not necessarily seeking, hunting, or looking for anything in particular. And through that blank slate, through that amateur reset, everything becomes fresh again.

I think boredom is normal.
But overcoming boredom is internal.

You can’t rely on your city, your hometown, or where you are to fuel your inspiration. That responsibility falls on you. You have to cultivate it from within.

So this is just a simple reminder to think about how you can cultivate a garden in your mind—a garden of flourishing and creativity—by channeling that inner child and returning to a blank slate, so you can continue to create every single day.

This passage is Plotinus at the peak of his mysticism, describing how the soul comes to know the Supreme (the One).

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What Plotinus is saying

1. The Soul must remain unified

“Thus, the Soul unlit remains without that vision…”

The soul cannot perceive the highest reality while it is divided, scattered among desires, thoughts, sensations, and external things.

Unity is required for vision.

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2. The Supreme is not seen by borrowed light

“…not by the light of any other principle…”

You don’t see the One by:

• reasoning
• concepts
• senses
• imagination
• external knowledge

Those are reflected lights.
The One is seen only by its own light.

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3. The Soul becomes what it sees

“The Supreme which is also the means to the vision…”

This is crucial.

The One is:

• what is seen
• the light by which it is seen
• the act of seeing itself

There is no subject–object split.

Just as:

• the eye sees the sun by the sun’s own light

So too:

• the soul sees the One by becoming illuminated by it

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4. Seeing is being

“for that which illumines the Soul is that which it is to see”

You don’t look at the One.

You are transformed into vision itself.

Knowledge here is not information — it is identity.

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5. How is this accomplished?

“But how is this to be accomplished?
Cut away everything.”

This is the method.

Not adding.
Not learning more.
Not accumulating insight.

Subtracting.

• Cut away images
• Cut away thoughts
• Cut away desires
• Cut away identity
• Cut away even the sense of “I am seeing”

Until only simple unity remains.

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The core meaning

Plotinus is saying:

The highest truth is not known by thinking, but by becoming simple enough to receive it — and in that moment, knower and known are one.

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Why this resonates with mysticism

This passage aligns with:

• Christian apophatic mysticism
• Eastern non-duality
• “Be still and know that I am God”
• “Die before you die”

It is not philosophy about God.

It is a practice of un-becoming until the divine is revealed from within.

Street Photography as a Way of Being | Photographing the Mundane

What’s poppin, people? It’s Dante.

Getting my morning started here in Center City, Philadelphia. Just making some photographs with the Ricoh GR IIIx. Sounds like there’s a subway running underneath me.

I’m just following my curiosity, photographing everything as I typically do.

Check out this nice little exit sign.

Making photos of whatever I find.

Look at this nice little loop, this knot that’s formed. Go to macro mode, photograph the shape. It’s kind of beautiful, you know — these simple abstract shapes that you can make.

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Photograph Everything, Don’t Take Yourself So Seriously

I think that when you’re practicing street photography, the most liberating way to do this kind of thing is to not really take yourself so seriously and to photograph everything.

Find yourself lost in your hometown. Just wandering.

When I’m photographing, I look at all the details — the trash, the textures, the buildings up above. I’m just kind of curious about how life will look photographed.

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The Somatic Experience of Being in the Street

When you’re open and receptive, when you’re in the moment, responding to the sights, the sounds, the smells of the street — embracing the somatic bodily experience of life openly — your intuition kicks in.

You enter this Zen zone of just noticing.

Noticing all of life’s complexities.

All the different things around me become infinitely fascinating once I uplift them in a photograph.

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Abstracting Reality Into New Worlds

I’m extracting from the world and abstracting it — creating new worlds from nothing.

But the something that I have in my frame isn’t necessarily what I see.

A lot of the time, what I see in my photograph when I get the result back is surprising.

What you see isn’t what you get.

What you get is what you didn’t see.

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Looking Beyond the Veil

High contrast.
Black and white.
Cranked to the max.
Underexposing.
Using the exposure compensation dial.

It feels like I’m looking beyond the veil.

The interesting path for me going forward lies in the mundane nature of reality.

But I don’t think reality is necessarily what it seems when you photograph things.

Life becomes a dream.

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Childlike Curiosity & Rebirth

That idea flows through me when I’m on the street.

Everything I see and witness is fueled by that inner childlike curiosity — like a child stumbling through the world.

Everything becomes fascinating again.
Everything feels fresh again.

Each morning feels like I’m reborn.

There’s a vitality that flows through me that provides clarity when I’m on the street.

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Responding to the Body, Not the Mind

I just want to feel deeply.

I respond to the gut.
I respond to instinct.

That bodily, somatic experience of being in the street — being receptive, being open — is what guides me.

I’ll blow around in the wind like a trash bag, like those pigeons flying overhead.

I photograph aimlessly.

Not trying to say anything.

Just allowing whatever comes my way to be what’s on display in the photographs I make.

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Control, Letting Go, and Walking

The beauty of photography lies in spontaneity.

You go outside.
You walk.
You see your town.
You make photographs.

The only thing you’re really in control of is being out there.

You’re not in control of coming home with an interesting photo.
You’re not in control of seeing anything exciting.

What is in your control is moving your physical body through the world.

Being open.
Being receptive.
Feeling.

Through the stream of photographing throughout the day, you’ll find what you want it to say.

You don’t need to go out there trying to say anything.

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Jump Into the Portal

Look at the puddles.

Jump into the portal.

Life becomes a dream when you walk around in the street photographing everything.

You just gotta slow down.

Oops.

Turn this off.

What’s poppin’, people? It’s Dante.

Currently in the woods here on this beautiful Monday, just photographing with the Ricoh GR IIIX.

Thinking today about goals — you know, setting goals in 2026.

I think the goals that we set should be internal, not necessarily seeking an external goal, but thinking more critically about how we can cultivate curiosity.

Wow, look at these geese flying by.
I’m about to get this photo.
Crop mode. 71 millimeters.
The geese.

Oh yeah.
Oh yeah — look at those geese, baby.

And so yeah, this is what it’s all about, right?
Waking up in the morning with enthusiasm for the day.

When you look at the word enthusiasm, it basically means to be possessed by God.
I want to wake up possessed by God each day — simply curious and grateful for another day.

I use photography this way:
as me saying yes to life,
affirming life,
and just saying thank you for the day.

My ultimate aim — my ultimate goal of 2026 — is to increase my curiosity by 1% each day.

By cultivating curiosity, it feels like there’s just endless possibility.

Detached from the outcome of making something “strong.”
Detached from the outcome of seeking fame, money, or any sort of reputation with photography.

Instead, really honing in on that internal goal of curiosity —
and waking up eager for the day.

That’s my simple way forward with this approach to everyday life and photography.

The goal is curiosity.

So for the past three years, I’ve been leaning towards abstraction in my Street photography.

I currently live in Philadelphia, my hometown, and I’m blessed to have a big city with lots of people and things to photograph. However, there’s not necessarily interesting moments or scenes to photograph most of the time. It’s a very mundane, every day, city.

And so because of that, the solution to this problem became abstraction for me.

I simply use abstraction as away for me to remain curious. Away for me to photograph the mundane, but still find new ways to articulate things.

And so I think abstraction is a great solution to this problem of the Monday nature of life in Street photography.

And so abstraction becomes something that I can carry with me wherever I may be, no matter if I’m in a bustling marker city, or on the outskirts in a forest.

I use abstraction, not only as a way for me to create a new world and evoke an emotional quality or a mood within the frames, because of course this is my interest, but in a very fundamental practical level, it is a solution to the problem being, how to walk the same mundane lane every single day, but still find something new to photograph, something new to say…