S.F. Dan 鄧雪峰 was educated in Beijing. Outside of school, he played the violin and practised Chinese calligraphy, and became an ardent photographer when he came into the orbit of the Light Photo Club.
Upon his return to Guangdong in the early 1930s, S.F. Dan took up teaching. His entry in the London Salon in 1934 was selected for illustration in the Salon's yearbook. His achievement in photography is amply evident from the quality of his pupils' work.
F.S. Dan translated Pictorial Lighting by William Mortensen into Chinese. He was one of the founders of the Photographic Society of Guangdong and the Chinese Photographic Association of Hong Kong. In Hong Kong he established the Photo Co. Studio, the Studio Le Chic, and the S.F. Dan Institute of Art Photography; he was photography tutor at the Adult Recreation and Recreation Centre, the Teachers' Association of Hong Kong, the Caritas Centre and the University of Hong Kong's Extra-Mural Department.
This master photographer had pupils throughout the world; many of them became world-famous and some in turn became teachers of photography. An outstanding teacher combines personal excellence with empathy for his students, so that he can bring out the best in each with his individual temperament, cultural background and taste, and help him to develop his artistic potential to the full. This kind of teaching, as is the case with S.F. Dan, can be done through osmosis, without much overt instruction, so that the pupil is hardly aware of it. In the opinion of Professor Steven Cheung, "Master Dan's teaching is the paradigm of photography education in the 20th century."