Walking Every Street in Philadelphia
March 2, 3, 4.
What’s poppin’, people? It’s Dante. :contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0}
I got a fresh pair of Vibrams. I get a hole in my shoes every couple months.
Today’s walk is Frankford Avenue, going all the way from the Frankford Transportation Center into the Center City area. I believe somewhere in Northern Liberties is where it ends, or somewhere along the river.
Doing my routine walk, covering the entirety of Philadelphia today.
Philly in flux.
Got the Ricoh GR monochrome. Popping that red filter to make a photo of this warehouse here.
The Creative Freedom of Extreme Constraints
It’s very intriguing, actually, this practice of forcing myself into this extreme constraint of walking a single lane, covering a street, and documenting everything.
And you know what it’s doing for me?
It’s creatively extremely liberating.
I’m starting to look at all this infrastructure, the mundane nature of life, the tattered posters on the wall, the way light interacts with surfaces, and find infinite ways to photograph the mundane.
So yeah, this challenge is proving to be extremely fruitful.
One of the fun things I like doing is photographing a surface that’s being illuminated by the sun from behind. Then I pop the red filter and photograph toward it, maybe underexposing a bit.
The mystery of the mundane and the way light interacts with surfaces is so intriguing.
While I’m treating this process as a way to strictly document the city and strictly document the street, I’m also exploring my visual sensitivities, aesthetic tastes, and visual flavors.
Using the Ricoh in a particular way allows me to achieve some really interesting results.
The mystery of the mundane and the way light interacts with surfaces is so intriguing.
Turning Photography Into a Game
It’s very fulfilling to give yourself a challenge where you have a tangible outcome you’re striving toward.
Currently, I’m geotagging my photos using the GR World app on my iPhone, and all of the GPS coordinates are being embedded into the metadata of my files.
I’m using that information to generate a project where every photograph I make is geotagged and placed onto a map on my website.
It almost feels like playing a video game where you unlock new terrain and explore new worlds.
I often reference Kingdom Hearts and Destiny Island, where Sora looks out beyond the horizon and wants to explore the unknown.
There’s something about the gamification of photography that I enjoy.
For one, I’m exploring places I’ve never been before.
Traveling by foot is good for your health.
I’m not necessarily going to find anything incredibly riveting on these walks. Most of the time I’m photographing infrastructure, buildings, people, and ordinary things.
But there’s something about it that’s deeply fulfilling.
At the end of the day, you finish a long walk, you’re exhausted, you go through the photos, make a project, print a zine, and suddenly you have:
- A physical object
- A digital archive
- A map of the city
- A record of your journey
And it’s an infinite project.
Building the Cathedral Brick by Brick
This could be a lifetime project.
Consistently documenting the city in a regimented, structured way.
Geotagging.
Documenting change.
Covering streets.
Covering neighborhoods.
There’s always another avenue to walk.
You don’t really need to travel far.
I’ve just been taking the train somewhere and then walking home while documenting a specific route.
There’s something to be said about having a goal that’s almost unattainable.
Something just beyond your reach.
You chip away at it every day.
Brick by brick.
Stone by stone.
Until you build your cathedral.
I like the idea of lighting up the map like a game.
Lighting up the entire city with photographs that I made.
Seeing which parts of town I’ve covered and which parts remain unexplored.
I’m just getting started.
I’ve done Broad Street.
I’ve done Market Street.
I did Germantown Avenue yesterday.
Today we’re doing Frankford.
And I’ll continue.
Glitching Through the Map
Walking through Philadelphia means constantly running into construction zones.
Detours.
Road closures.
Unexpected obstacles.
It reminds me of old video games.
You know when you’d find some weird corner of a map and discover a glitch?
You’d crouch, teabag, clip through the geometry, and suddenly find yourself underneath the world.
You weren’t supposed to be there.
But that’s where the interesting stuff was.
That’s kind of how I think about photography.
Sometimes you’ve got to break the rules.
You’ve got to explore the places nobody else notices.
At one point I found myself underneath part of the road infrastructure because of a construction area.
And honestly?
It felt like I had glitched under the map.
I was photographing Frankford Avenue from underneath Frankford Avenue.
Photography is a boots-on-the-ground endeavor.
No amount of clever ideas can replace actually being out in the world.
You have to walk.
You have to look.
You have to explore.
You have to photograph.
Following Curiosity
I haven’t really been curating any of the black-and-white work yet.
I know there’s something there.
I can feel myself orienting toward new ideas.
New photographs.
New possibilities.
But photography is a long game.
The goal is simple:
Keep photographing.
Keep experimenting.
Keep conquering new streets.
Keep exploring new terrain.
And build an archive of the city.
Not because someone else understands it.
Not because someone else approves of it.
But because it’s the work I feel compelled to make.
Because it fulfills something inside me.
Because it’s driven by curiosity.
Because it’s driven by instinct.
The act of photographing is an act of curiosity and an expression of my love for life.
Don’t Think. Move.
The message is simple.
Don’t shoot. Just do.
Move.
Hut. Two. Three. Four.
Hut. Two. Three. Four.
Time to explore.
And somewhere along Frankford Avenue, I heard a rooster.
Or maybe it was a chicken.
Either way, that’s the beauty of wandering.
You never know what’s waiting around the next corner.