The Art of Discovery in Photography

What’s poppin’, people? It’s Dante, currently walking around Philadelphia. Got the Ricoh GR IIIx, and today I just wanted to talk about the art of discovery in photography and why I believe this to be the name of the game.

With photography, the goal should ultimately be increasing your curiosity and discovering new things, right?

Disregarding the preconceived ideas of what you should or shouldn’t be photographing.

Let Go of What Street Photography Should Be

When you think about street photography, you might be thinking about fleeting moments of people, photographing humanity, making a story.

But if you actually unlock yourself from these basic sort of presumptions and beliefs that have been put upon you through propaganda and social engineering, you can start to unlock your own way of creatively thriving.

What I mean by that is essentially letting go of anything that you’ve seen online, in photo books, gallery shows, in the history of photography, et cetera, that has been deemed to be a good photograph or interesting to look at.

Simply start photographing from your own pure, childlike curiosity.

Follow your bliss and only photograph things that you genuinely are curious about.

When I’m starting to tap into the flow state while photographing this way, I discover new things very naturally because of the way that my curiosity guides me.

Discover Something New

I think when you have a preconceived idea of what you should be photographing, it’s actually very easy to continue photographing the same thing repetitively and essentially lead to insanity, where you’re never going to discover or see something new.

My goal is to discover new things, to tinker and experiment, and to explore.

I want to essentially relinquish as much control as possible with my personal process and practice so that I can reveal something new through spontaneity and the unknown.

Relinquish Control

The practical ways that I achieve that goal are through photographing with a compact camera, shooting JPEG only, no post-processing, cranking contrast to the maximum, and using automatic mode.

Through these technical and creative constraints, I’m no longer thinking. I’m simply responding.

When I’m responding from my pure instincts, I can then cultivate and discover new ways of seeing, new ways of photographing, and hopefully discover something.

When you relinquish control as much as possible, then you can actually enter the flow.

What I mean by relinquishing control is it’s essentially the opposite of setting your camera up manually, holding the camera to your eye, locking in the composition, right?

All of these very basic ways of thinking about photography.

Setting your camera up on a tripod. Lining up the horizons cleanly. Following the basic rules of composition.

Instead, let go of all the basic rules that you’ve been taught around photography and what makes something good or successful or not.

Simply start photographing.

Put in the Reps

When you start photographing this way and you start to pound the pavement each day, putting in more and more reps, clicking the shutter more and more, I think it’s inevitable that you’ll discover something new.

And then each day that you discover something new, you increase your curiosity.

You fulfill that goal within itself within photography, which literally is curiosity.

Because without curiosity, why would you even start photographing?

The goal is to keep going, to keep walking, to keep exploring, and to essentially never get bored of the mundane nature of life.

I don’t ever want to continue making the same pictures for the rest of my life.

I want to discover new ways of photographing each and every day, each and every week, month, year, and lifetime so that I can continue on with my practice.

Make Photography Effortless

I would highly suggest that you start to consider what your goal is, why you’re doing what you’re doing, and how you can essentially get to a place where photography becomes effortless and easy.

Because I think the easier it becomes for you, the more you’re just going to start producing.

As you can see, I kind of just throw the camera around, not even really looking.

I’m snapshotting intuitively and responding to my instinct.

Through that act of simply clicking the shutter more, I discover more.

I think it’s a really beautiful place to be.

In just a few feet, I can make lots of frames.

It has everything to do with the way that I’m looking and thinking and experiencing my life.

Essentially, I’m going limitless with my practice, and I think you should too.