Meet Nick Cincotta | Photographer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Nick Cincotta and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Nick, how has your perspective on work-life balance evolved over time?
My day job is I am a special ed teacher. That takes a toll on me every day. Coupled with me being the union rep, it adds to the stress of my job. For the past five years I have been the union rep and in those 5 years I have had to change my work life balance. I do not want to burn out as a teacher, so I found other ways to cope with the added stress. The major way that I have coped is photography. Photography has become something that I am deeply passionate about. I find myself planning days in advance when I’m going to add the pictures so that I have time to decompress, time for my family, time for reading, or writing. You saw that right, I am in the process of writing my first novel as well, a historical fiction about the life of Barnum Brown. Since I have tried to make photography a side hustle, because let’s face it teachers are underpaid, I found that I need to plan my day is more so that I am able to have time away from the screen. This was particularly hard during the last half of 2020, I was on zoom for four hours a day teaching combined often times with union meetings either rep council or a board meeting. I’ll be honest with you there were days I did not want to look at the screen. On those days I found myself taking more breaks continuing to edit and do my job as needed. As we are transitioning back into the classroom I am finding more time to both teach, plan out my days, edit, and just generally enjoy life

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I originally started out shooting cosplay at cons. I’d like to think that I have a wide variety of cosplay pictures from various cons, with 2020 being the exception. However I find that I like to do a lot with gel lighting and different color gels. In fact it was a picture like this that got me published for the first time.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I would want to do a trip down to San Diego coast. Starting Encinitas and work our way down. I want I want to take them inland specifically to see some of the areas that tourists don’t see. Experiencing Hodad’s is a must for a burger, but when looking for pizza there no other place than Caffe Calabria. For Mexican I’ll probably take them to Ponce’s especially for their happy hour and their margaritas.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Tom Cotner Doug Grant

Instagram: Instagram.com/dinosaur_man2002

Twitter: Twitter.com/dino_man

Facebook: Facebook.com/dinoman.photography

Image Credits
Top Danielle Radin, Madison and Payton Woolbert, Brynn Holmes, Kira Lagerwij, Kendra Kravig and Natalie Romero, Tatiana Gauz Bottom Jeff Knight, Scotty Zod, Jessica Harris, Lauren Keeling, Jessie Wise