Yeah, I think there’s an important lesson to learn from these little ants here.

Little worker ants.

They’re just working, right?

Have you ever seen an ant not working?

I just took a ridiculous amount of photos of these things. At least 100.

I think I got something decent.

Got a little macro shot with the crop. That’s about as close as I can get with the 50mm crop in macro mode, but it does the trick.

But the important lesson to learn from these ants is actually these sticks.

I think they’re matchsticks.

Although I don’t know why the ants are all over the tips of the matches. Is there something in the matchstick tip that’s good for ants to eat?

I don’t get it.

But they’re attacking it.

YOU ARE THE ANT

And those sticks are basically your neighborhood, right?

The sticks are your neighborhood.

And you are the ant.

That’s basically how I think we should be as street photographers as much as possible.

We should just be attacking our neighborhood.

Just hammer away at it.

I was watching a street photography interview where photographers were being asked where tourists should go to shoot street photos.

And everybody was giving the standard answers.

Midtown.

Times Square.

Washington Square Park.

Places like that.

But then they were asked about their favorite neighborhood.

And most of them said their favorite neighborhood was just some place you’d probably never even heard of.

Their local neighborhood.

Because they had a connection to it.

HOME IS DIFFERENT

And I think that’s pretty spot-on.

This is where I live.

I’ve lived in Santa Monica for seven years, so this is home to me now.

But my actual local neighborhood is about a mile away from where I’m standing right now.

And I find that when I take photographs just a couple blocks from my apartment, if I get a photo that I really like, it feels much more satisfying.

Even compared to getting a photo down here.

And I’m only about a 20-minute walk from home.

There’s just something different about making a photograph in the place where you actually live.

HAMMER AWAY AT YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD

So I think the lesson from the ants is pretty simple.

Just hammer away at your local neighborhood.

Go out there over and over again.

Photograph the same streets.

Keep looking.

Keep working.

The local neighborhood isn’t getting flooded by tourists.

It hasn’t already been seen by everybody.

And because you actually live there, you’ve got a connection to it that someone visiting for a couple days isn’t going to have.

That’s where I think you can start creating work that actually feels unique to you.

Even in a city as big and photographed as Los Angeles or New York, you can still make unique photographs in your own neighborhood.

You don’t always have to go looking for the famous street photography location.

Sometimes the best photos are at home.

Just be the ant.

Keep working.