With the Internet, you can get lots of info in advance, but a local person who knows how to work the system is invaluable.

I fell in love with traveling and thought being a photographer would be an interesting way to travel and make a living.

I like to move as much as possible and look at reflections, weird angles, subjects from airplanes and cranes. I feel sorry for the Jabba the Hut types who can't do this. Once an obese student told me that he wanted to be a war photographer. I said, "Really?" and then I shot him.

I have a completely worthless degree: a BS in Photojournalism from Boston University (BU). With this degree, I suppose I could have gotten a job teaching grade school kids how to photograph their relatives, but knowing about B&W photo processing and developing and how to shoot a picture story is good basic info that every photographer should have.

With the Internet, you can get lots of info in advance, but a local person who knows how to work the system is invaluable.

Freelancing in Somalia during their civil war and in Kuwait right after the first Bush War, I had some rather intense experiences that made life in the U.S. seem rather shallow and superfluous.

I don't shoot many corporate or commercial jobs, but when you do, you had better have someone helping who has done it before.