We recently connected with Christian Di Fede and have shared our conversation below.

Christian, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you manage your own social media?

Social Media has always been a conflicting subject for me. On one hand, I understand the appeal of it. The ability to connect with people, reconnect with lost family members, and keep up with people in your life. But at some point, I thought to myself, “Am I really connecting with these people?”. At the time, I was using Snapchat as my primary form of communication with friends because it was convenient to chat with multiple friends simultaneously by maintaining a streak with each of them. But is it really talking or connecting with my friends if I’m just sending one picture of my forehead once a day? I also found it a giant time-waster for me. I’m sure most people have that realization after scrolling on TikTok or Instagram Reels, and an hour of your life has passed in the blink of an eye.

Social media was also hard for me to justify working in cybersecurity, and knowing how toxic the algorithms can be to keep people engaged in the app, and these big tech companies profit off of other people’s data. The Netflix documentary called “The Social Dilemma” is a big eye-opener, and I recommend everyone watch it to understand how these social media companies manipulate the human mind. This past year, I decided to cut all my remaining social media (Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter).

This posed an issue for me trying to promote my photography. I didn’t really want to keep the Instagram App, I didn’t want to redownload the app to schedule posts because I felt like I would get sucked back in, so I researched ways to post and grow my brand. Though it seems a bit hypocritical, because of the company, the only alternative I could find is using Meta’s Business Suite. Though it has many flaws and bugs, it lets me post my photography and advertise it without being sucked into the social part for hours a day.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I have been doing photography for the better part of 8 years. No education or mentor to teach me how to use a camera, when I found a good deal on a Canon Rebel T5 and some various lenses on Facebook Marketplace, I picked it up and started to teach myself photography. My favorite part of my career in photography is that when I started, all the people I could practice portraits on were my friends, and even now, I still photograph them. It’s very cool to see the difference in my skill, the settings/themes of shoots, and my friends over time. One thing I want people to know about me and my work is that I am not a fan of the beauty standards in traditional modeling. I refuse to use Photoshop to make my subjects fit this beauty standard (make skinnier, remove stretch marks, etc). Being exposed to this line of work and primarily photographing women, I see this type of thing a lot unfortunately, and I believe this also attributes to the toxic social media cycle because it’s all too common for another person to compare themselves to what they see online and don’t realized it’s usually real. I’m proud of my subjects when they gain confidence from the work we produce together, whether it’s for fun or to build their modeling portfolio, I believe anyone can be a model. No one should tell people they aren’t good enough to model.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The best part of being an artist or creative is being able to see the work produced. Especially with photography, the gratification of seeing what you captured is instant. Of course, a big part of photography is editing afterwards, but there is nothing like realizing a certain angle or pose that is just hitting and taking as many photos as possible. Every time I have that realization, I straighten my back and go “ooooo that was the one”.

….. I might say that multiple times a shoot, though. It’s also a great hype moment if I have a model in front of me

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

This one is very photographer specific, but when non-creatives see the photos you produce, they go “wow, those are so good! What camera do you have?” Every photographer knows that’s pain. No one would go up to an artist after creating a beautiful painting and ask, “What paint did you use?”. Or if we are staying in the technology realm, no one goes up to videographers and asks, “What software did you use?”

It’s important to recognize the art that the artist created and the skill associated with it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://christiandifede.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/difede.jpeg/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christiandifede/

Image Credits

All photos are mine. I’m keeping my models’ names private for their privacy,y just in case.

Also, apologies for the picture of me. I only have self portraits wearing sunglasses