Kill the Masters of Street Photography
What’s poppin, people? It’s Dante.
Today’s message is simple: kill the masters of street photography.
It’s important to learn from those who came before us. To study photo books. To soak in inspiration. Especially when starting out, when our eyes don’t yet have a visual palette. But there comes a point when one must destroy in order to create anew.
Once you’ve learned from the masters, once you’ve taken what’s useful, the next step is to build upon it. That’s how you start to make work that’s truly yours. And eventually, to innovate, you must compete. You must challenge the old ways and break through them.
Inspiration: Breathing Life In
For me, inspiration isn’t something you’ll find with your nose buried in a book. It’s not just in literature, poetry, music, movies, or even photo history.
The word itself comes from inspirare — to breathe into.
The purest inspiration comes from walking in nature. From letting God’s creations breathe into me. From standing among trees and feeling that exchange of air. That’s inspiration in its rawest form.
Look closely at a tree. The patterns of its branches echo the shapes of your lungs. The veins on its leaves mirror the veins in your body. The water coursing through its trunk mirrors the blood flowing through your veins.
We are not separate. We are kin to the trees.
Roots and Competition
A tree starts as a seed. It must be watered. It grows roots. And then it must compete.
These trees stretch their limbs toward the sky, fighting for sunlight. Their roots run deep, but their branches push higher.
So it is with us. We must first plant roots by studying the masters. Build a foundation. Let inspiration fill us. But then — we must rise. We must compete. We must go beyond.
Like the trees, we reach for the sky. We extend ourselves beyond the canopy of the past. We destroy the old to create the new.
Kill the masters. Grow taller. Breathe deep. Compete. Create.