Last month’s 500px Guest Editors were all photography educators in one form or another. Already passionate and successful photographers, they’ve taken their skill and started spreading it around to benefit the rest of us.
For portrait master Dani Diamond, this happens through one-on-one mentoring, workshops, and resources like Fstoppers where he’s a staff writer and shares tips, tricks, and cool ideas he comes up with to keep his portraits fresh.
Scroll down to find out what he loves about being an educator, hear the most valuable piece of advice he ever received, and see his favorite Editors’ Choice pick.
500PX: What’s the best part about being an educator in the field of photography? What do you get out of it?
DANI DIAMOND: The best part of being an educator is the fact that I’m learning equally as much. People ask me questions that I may not have the answers to which forces me to research and learn.
In addition, knowing others are being inspired pushes me to work harder to hone my skill.
What’s the most valuable tip, trick, or piece of advice you’ve ever received in regards to advancing or improving your photography skills?
DANI: The most valuable tip I got was to stay clear of social media. Facebook and all other social media outlets are a controversial topic. Personally, I believe that while these platforms are a great source of inspiration, they do more harm than good for photographers who are starting out.
Before I discuss the dangers of social media, I will say this: social media is the key for marketing and a necessary evil in our trade. However, Facebook is like cancer, it’s the rust accumulating underneath a car. It eats away at life and kills creativity slowly. Countless hours are lost by surfing through other photographers’ work.
Personally, I followed a group of photographers and I found their insane skill level to be depressing and disheartening. I decided that the best way to change that was to quit social media. For six months, I was “Facebook free” and I was out shooting and editing every single day. Those six months changed my mentality and my skill level immensely.
If you could recommend one learning resource to our community, what would it be and why?
DANI: If I could recommend one learning source for our community it would be reading articles on sites such as Fstoppers. You can see a full list of articles I’ve written on every aspect of portrait photography here.
My favorite Editors’ Choice pick been this month would be Playdate by Adrian McDonald:
Aside from a technically perfect portrait he captured a moment, not a cheesy posed moment but a pure candid moment. Photographers like him are rare to come across.
To see more from Dani, follow him on 500px, visit his website, like him on Facebook, or say hi on Twitter.
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