Seeing the Unseen

Stories Are Waiting Right Outside Your Door

When I think about photographing my neighborhood, I remember why I picked up a camera in the first place, it was to try to tell stories about the world right in front of me. It wasn’t to make art or to win awards; it was to connect with the world around me using my camera. Photographing my surroundings helps me find meaning in everyday moments. I’d like to share some thoughts I have about photographing the places where we live.

Our neighborhoods hold stories. They are living, breathing books with new chapters being written every day, and photography is how we can keep those stories alive. Thinking back to when I took my first photos, I realize how much photography connects me to these stories in a meaningful way. Reflecting on my own connection to photography, I want to talk about why photographing your own corner of the world should matter to you, your community, and even to people you may never meet.

We often don’t realize how important it is to document our everyday lives until much later. Years down the road, those little, mundane details of daily life can become nuggets of gold. Images you take today can tell people in the future what life was like for you, capturing things that words often cannot describe. You're not just taking photos; you're recording a time and a place.

Walking around the neighborhood with my camera is a meditation for me. I will stop to see how light filters through a tree or notice the story some old building is telling with its peeling paint. Tiny changes, sometimes barely noticeable—like a fading mural or a new window display—remind me that I am part of something much bigger. Practicing this kind of mindfulness has changed how I see and value my surroundings over time. It also slows me down.

After years of capturing ordinary moments in my neighborhood, I found myself relying on my camera in an entirely new way. When my wife, Elizabeth, died in the summer of 2022, it was photography that saved me. And I really mean it SAVED me. My intense grief made my world feel small and isolated. Once I caught my breath again, I started taking short walks in the neighborhood with my camera. Those early morning walks weren’t about taking pictures at first; they were about trying to ground myself again. Eventually, I’d find moments to pick up my camera and capture something that caught my eye. Photography became my way of reconnecting with the world around me.

Eventually, the photos I took on these walks came together in a personal project I titled “11218 Plus,” named after my neighborhood's zip code. At first, it was just me photographing mundane details on the streets, but it grew into something larger. I wanted to highlight the overlooked: hidden details, liminal spaces, people just doing their things.

Over time, the project began to help me process the intense change to my life and ground me in a new world without my partner. Taking these photographs repeatedly gave me a sense of stability and exploration. Documenting my external world became a way to process my internal one. Slowly but surely, life continued, revealing its small, beautiful moments along the way.

If you’ve never thought about photographing your immediate surroundings, I’d say do it. Begin with your block or your favorite coffee shop. Don’t worry about whether it is ‘artistic,’ whether it is perfect. Find what draws your eye and capture it. And if you can, print some of those photos. Share them. Make them tangible. You have no idea who might see them and feel the moment you captured. This kind of photography isn’t so much about the photos as it is about being present and saying, ‘These moments matter.’ They do.

---

For those of you who have recently subscribed to our Substack: Welcome! If you enjoy the content we’re producing here, please consider listening to our “Street Shots Photography Podcast.”

And, if you’re interested in Antonio’s “11218+” project, you can check out his zines at Blurb.com. Purchasing some will directly help us produce this newsletter and our podcast as well.