We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Dario Durham. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Dario below.

Alright, Dario thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I learned photography from Youtube University…haha. I started almost 6 years ago when I bought my first camera. It was a Canon Rebel T7. I would sit on my phone or in front of the computer for hours on end, I still do to this day! I don’t think anything that could have sped up the learning process. Photography, I’ve found, is a constant process of trial and error. So, in that regard, I’m always learning. I guess maybe I could have started my journey at an earlier age, but I’d just be further along and still learning. Honestly, I think that having any bit of creativity was the most important thing for me personally. I have always been a sort of creative. I did improv for a year and stand-up comedy for almost 7. So creativity has been an integral part of my life. I stood in my own way. And that’s even true today sometimes. Overthinking and constantly looking outside for creativity is always something that I think a lot of people deal with. As soon as you remove that roadblock the doors open up even more!

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

So I got into photography in 2020 at the start of the pandemic, and it was all because I just started dating my girlfriend, and she was a cook from Jordan. She started making all this food that I’ve never seen before, and I thought during the time of a shutdown that would be cool for her to put her work onto the Internet since that’s what people were doing. You know, we wanted to. I wanted to make it look good, so I basically said, “Hey, you should take pictures,” and I was the guy to take the pictures, so I went out and bought this expensive camera, the Rebel T7, and that was the most expensive camera. You know that I could afford at the time. I bought it in Star Wars shooting, and when I did that, it kind of became snowboarding something I love. I think part of that reason I fell in love with it is because I got to play with it a whole bunch, and I was also a comedian for seven years, almost 7 years, and you know, during that time, we were doing virtual shows, and I figured out a way to use my camera for that also. So the camera was always in my hand, and then I just started walking around taking pictures of different things. And you know, architecture was kind of like my niche, and I still love taking pictures of architecture because you know, we’re here in Chicago, it’s so beautiful, and so I started doing that a whole bunch, going to photo walks and just playing with different things. And then I started wondering what else can this camera do, and so I started buying lenses. I bought actually within a year’s time, I bought three total camera cameras, and so I’d elevated my game to the DS a lot from the DSLR to the mirrorless and started figuring out what that was doing in the possibilities that that had. And from there, I just really got good and started watching YouTube videos, and that carried the whole way since 2020. I still do it now. Then I found my photographer that I absolutely loved. Her name is Lindsay Adler, and she’s a fashion photographer based out of New York, and her stylist is fantastic. She’s like a wizard with pictures with lighting, and I just fell in love with it. I never shot people, and I didn’t want to shoot people to be honest with you because you know personal reasons, but it just wasn’t intriguing to me, and so I saw her, and it looked fun. So the Cinco de Mayo of 2024, I had 14 of my friends come over, and I set up a really makeshift studio with lights and a backdrop in my studio in my living room. I just shot my friends for five hours to get them to stay there for that long. Sara made tacos, so that was there. They enticement to come in and hang with me for a long time while I just take pictures and really just testing things out, but after that was done, I’ve fallen in love with it. I’ve fallen completely in love with portrait, photography, fashion, photography, and all the creative things, and I wanted to, you know, blend my style with what Lindsay Adler was doing, you know, because I looked at the Chicago landscaping. There are some fantastic photographers out here in Chicago, but I didn’t know. I didn’t see anything that was kind of like hers, so why not me was kind of my thought process, and I ended up stumbling across an affordable studio, and for my brother-in-law, he offered to go in with me, and so we opened up a studio, and then I started to have the freedom to play with. You know all the new gear that I had in the bigger space and figure out lighting and really hold my Lindsay. I left photography, but at the same time, I’m still trying to find my way as a photographer, and so that’s what I did that was a year to be a year this November. I’ve really come to understand what my style is: bold colors, fun, different types of things that you don’t see. You know, I have a bubble machine, and I use that, so I’m really starting to take shape of who I am as a photographer. You know, getting good at the basics, getting good at, you know, advanced lighting techniques, and in plain terms, color. And I think they’re starting to become my thing. I know when I shoot models, sometimes they want to come and get a nice, colorful shot, and I’m proud and glad to provide that. So that’s kind of who I am in and what I kind of offer to people. You know, I want you to feel good as a model and feel good as just a person when you come get a shot that stands out and it’s just bold and color, and you see yourself in the light that you truly are. That’s my whole goal: to make sure that people feel good when they leave my studio or wherever the photo shoot is that they have a product or something that they can look good in. Also, I scout people’s Instagram pages and social media to see if they have anything like mine, and when I don’t see it, it excites me even more because I get the opportunity to really provide something that’s gonna stand out on their page. So hopefully, I get seen a little bit more from different people in different angles.

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

The most rewarding aspect of being a photographer is seeing people literally smile from the moment they walk into the studio, and they say, “Wow, I haven’t seen all this equipment before.” And then when I take the pictures and they see themselves on the screen, and they get excited over the picture, or I see them sneaking a picture with their phone to send to a friend, or you know, even the most ultimate is when they post it as a profile picture. You know, those things are what make it worthwhile being an artist, and you know money is always going to be something you need to keep on propelling yourself, but I think at the end of the day, I want to see smiles on people’s faces. I want to know that they feel good about themselves ultimately because when I take a picture of them, it’s them; it’s not anybody else. It’s not whatever you know they might think or it’s that it’s them, and so when I see those kinds of cues that they have really enjoyed the process or they’re starting to enjoy the process, that’s it for me as a creative. I know that I’m doing something, and when you have somebody coming in and asking for a certain style of shot that you have provided or using your photos as a mood board, which has happened to me several occasions, those are that’s what you live for as a creative. You want your work to resonate, and that tells me that I’ve resonated with you.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Absolutely, I want to shoot for a big brand. I want to be in a magazine. I want those things, and every time I get behind that camera and I am in front of a model. The goal is to shoot as if this is going to be in the next Vogue or Elle or Harper’s Bazaar magazine. You know, I’m not there to waste anybody’s time, and I’m very transparent about the fact that I’m shooting like this the last time I get to use my camera, and so that’s always a driving force. It’s not the end-all because you know life happens, and I understand through other ventures in life that there are going to be some challenges in diversions along the way, but as long as you have a goal to set towards, there’s nothing that can beat that, and so that’s my goal. My goal is to be in a big, major publication shooting for something big, some big brand.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.dariodurhamphotography.com/
• Instagram: @dariodurhamphoto
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1F6MwMAopT/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Image Credits

All photos are taken by me, Dario Durham.

All models are name on each of the picture files.

HMUA for Jade & Megan: Ashley Klepitsch

My Studio Location: Backdrop Studio