Why I’ll Always Be an Amateur Photographer (And You Should Too)
What’s poppin’, people? It’s Dante. Getting my morning started here in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia.
Welcome to the Horticulture Center. Today, I’m thinking about what it means to be an amateur and why I consider myself one. Every day is full of possibilities—opportunities to learn, grow, explore, and photograph.
The Philosophy of an Amateur
My mindset is simple: remain an amateur forever. Never feel like I’ve seen it all, done it all, or that everything’s been done before. People say, “Everything under the sun has already been done,” but I think that’s foolish. Instead, I choose to adopt the mindset of a child, waking up with wide eyes, eager to explore and seize the day—carpe diem.
Looking at the Latin root of the word amateur, amator means to love.
“An amateur is one who does something for the love of it.”
This is the joy of life—to follow your joy. My goal in practicing street photography daily is to explore, not get caught up in what makes or breaks a “good” or “bad” photograph, but to simply make photographs.
The Spirit of Play
Every day, I embrace the spirit of play through photography. Moving my body through the world, catching the sunrise, and letting the photograph be a surprise. I never want to feel like I’ve mastered photography. I want to be an amateur forever—doing this thing for the love of doing it.
“I can see myself dying with my camera in hand. I can’t seem to get this thing off my wrist.”
Photography is my philosophy of life—to snapshot my way through it, to find beauty in the mundane. Looking at trees and just saying, Wow, life is extraordinary.
Uplifting the Ordinary
Photography is about articulating the world around us—putting order to the chaos. There’s so much beauty out there. But when you become hardened by society, stuck in expectations or past achievements, you stagnate. You hit a wall.
I’ve been there. After a decade of street photography, I felt like I hit that wall. Traveling, making impactful compositions—it became easy. Too easy. And that’s when I knew something had to change.
Returning to Curiosity
I returned to a compact digital camera, my Ricoh GR IIIx, and embraced the snapshot mentality. Carrying a small camera all day allows me to enter a chaotic frenzy of production, shooting macro, nature, trees, landscapes—things I wouldn’t have before. Letting go of the outcome and focusing on curiosity.
“By detaching from the result, I’ve made more progress in my photography than ever before.”
Each day is a fresh start. I destroy old ways of seeing and rebuild anew. I strip things down—photographing in black and white, focusing on light and shadow, returning to the essence of photography.
Light: The True Medium
Photography comes from phos (light) + graphia (writing). We are writing with light. When you adopt this mindset, the world becomes a canvas.
“When you look at light itself as the medium, there is so much to photograph.”
It’s not about making an “impactful” photo. It’s about the process, the journey, the act of seeing. This is where meaning is found.
The Goal: Never Miss Another Sunrise
Forget the books, the galleries, the exhibitions. Forget the distractions. My goal as a photographer is simple:
“To never miss another sunrise again. That’s the ultimate goal. That’s the ultimate sign of success.”
To remain an amateur, to explore endlessly, to keep curiosity alive. Because it’s the eyes of an amateur that will describe what it was like to live in 2025 and beyond. Not the professionals. Not the serious photojournalists. But the everyday life photographer.
And that, my friends, is why I remain an amateur—forever.