It is tough being patient when you are more than a half million dollars in debt.

My modus operandi after working for a decade as a self-funding freelancer, was to spend as little money as possible to get the job done, even if it was on someone else's nickel.

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.

To me a translator is very, very important. If the fixer is also the translator, so much the better. I have known photographers who didn't speak the language and would work in a place for weeks without one, getting by on common sense and smiles. But how many situations did they miss because they couldn't talk to someone and get the back story on details, small daily life things, etc.

The summer of 1966, I hitch-hiked alone for two months all over Europe instead of working on a farm in Spain. It was a big game to see how much I could see on $400. This got me hooked on traveling.

I drove a taxi at night during my last year at BU and then for another 18 months after graduating in order to buy cameras and pay the rent while I tried to figure out for myself how to freelance.