One Thing: Becoming a lifelong learner

One of the few images that actually worked during my overuse-of-wide-angles phase. (Shaminder Dulai)

Kill your ego.

The thing I love about the photo and video world is that you’re limited only by your creativity and ambition, the desire to discover new tools and ways of getting better at wielding them. The professional world can be competitive, but if you’re willing to learn, open to feedback and offer help when asked, it can also be a nurturing and fulfilling family.

One Thing: Advice, tips and tricks from the DPReview editors About this series: Our team cuts through the noise to share the things that made the biggest impact on our work and what lessons you can bring into your own work. Read the entire series here.

Early in my career as a photojournalist, I was hungry to learn and ravenous to prove I belonged. That meant saying yes to every assignment, and researching and pitching my own work. Progress came in waves, with periodic highs and lows.

One particular day I was on a high, celebrating my first front page on the San Antonio Express-News. The kudos from my peers in the newsroom for my work felt good, but I mostly wanted feedback from one colleague in particular. This person was someone I deeply respected and wanted to model my career after. Later that evening she came into the newsroom after an assignment and looked my way as if to say great job, but instead she noted that something might be ‘off’ on my camera.

‘Oh no,’ I thought, alarmed and surprised. I didn’t notice anything amiss.

I hurriedly handed over my camera wondering what she had noticed. She gave my Canon EOS 5D Mark II and 16-35mm lens a once-over, looked back at the newsprint, flipped a few pages and then adjusted the lens.

‘There, don’t go below that line,’ she said pointing at the zoom now adjusted to 20mm.

I hadn’t realized it, but I was shooting everything, and I mean everything, at wide angle for weeks. I had just gotten my first 11mm and 16mm lens about a month prior, and was so enamored with the new tools and ability to channel my inner Nathanial Hörnblowér that I had gotten lost.

While waiting to fill their tea cups June Daniels, left, and Carrie Daveson, share a laugh as they comment on all the hats and how everyone is dressed up at a ladies tea party in San Antonio. This image from 2009 is an example of shooting wide for no reason. Instead of peripheral elements adding to the image, the moment is almost buried by the surroundings. (Shaminder Dulai)

One lesson: don’t be seduced by the shiny and new. A more important one: always be open to learning and thank the people who tell you the truth, even if it takes a little wind out of your sails. Her comment was my chance to learn, and it immediately showed in my later work.

Kill your ego.

I was grateful, then and now, for the reminder – not merely that my zoom lens had other focal lengths, but of how managing your ego and focusing on your craft pays off in the long run.

No one was safe from my wide angle, not portraits, not food photography, not even nuns trying to rest in the morning sun. Here, Sister Mary Louise Barba sits on a bench, unable to join the rest of her Sisters for morning prayer in the church due to limited mobility from a sprained ankle, which was brought on by chemotherapy for breast cancer. (Shaminder Dulai)

If you’ve been in the photo and video game long enough, you’ve no doubt got some similar stories. Let us know in the comments.