I sold all my medium format equipment in 2005 after Canon came out with the 12 megapixel EOS 1Ds.

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

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.

I sold all my medium format equipment in 2005 after Canon came out with the 12 megapixel EOS 1Ds.

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.

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.

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.