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.

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

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.

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

As a senior in high school my counselor recommended that I soften my science and math direction with an art course. Fortunately my high school offered a new course in B&W photography, so I opted for that instead of art, towards which I had an aversion. Composition is something that comes pretty naturally to me and I appreciate ordered chaos: the photo class turned out to be fun.

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.

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