Having a partner who is your wife traveling with you can be great. We each have our roles in the work and then can help each other out on the emotional front when things get stressful, which they are.

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.

Everyone thinks it would be great to work for National Geographic. So did I.

Think about the photo you want to make beforehand. Then do it, but also don't be blind to better options that present themselves at the location. Be flexible, and be patient. Leave ego at home. Get the photo before you yell at the asshole, not after.

Pre-planning is essential. Research, research, research. If you are going to do a portrait, know as much as you can about the person beforehand. The web makes this very easy.

RAW is very forgiving. I was photographing a farm woman in Ecuador cooking over a small fire and my fill flash didn't go off a few times. I was about to delete the RAW files but decided to play with the curves first because I like the composition. It turned out that the image, although underexposed by two stops, was better than the fill-flashed images because the fire was the only source of illumination and it looked more real.

It is so much better to get the right exposure than to have to mess around later with Photoshop.