Digital makes it so much easier. No bricks of film, no worrying about airport X-rays, etc.

After I discovered my degree in photojournalism would only get me a job in a camera store, I taught myself lighting. I read tons of magazines and books and studied the photos trying to figure out how they were done. I bought some flash equipment and played around until I figured out how to make a subject look as I envisioned it should look.

Do something you like that you feel is important. Don't worry about making money at it right away. If you try hard and long enough you will figure out a way to do it. Better to die happy than die rich.

We live in an idiotic capitalist self-indulgent society where the sex life of a pop star is more important than impending starvation, land mines and child soldiers in Africa, or more interesting than the world's biggest man-made natural disaster in oil fields of the Middle East.

Digital makes it so much easier. No bricks of film, no worrying about airport X-rays, etc.

The fact that a thirteen-year-old project still resonates and can still have a large exhibit with lots of newspaper, magazine and TV press shows the timelessness of the project.

Hot air balloons are terrific to shoot from, although they have become very expensive, as has most lodging and food in the Napa Valley.