I wanted life to be episodic. I wanted to be a magazine photographer and I was willing to do what it took to become that.

Increasingly, it's people not interested in National Geographic.

My best work is often almost unconscious and occurs ahead of my ability to understand it.

The class that I teach is called "The Life of a Photograph." It takes up the question, of the billion photographs that were taken today, how many will have a life, and why? So the new reality has made the question more pertinent, not less pertinent.

For sheer majestic geography and sublime scale, nothing beats Alaska and the Yukon. For culture, Japan. And for all-around affection, Australia.

The neatest part of this book I'm working on - to me - are the pictures that show the process... Because photographers... think things through and... it isn't luck, and it isn't random and it isn't accidental. It isn't.

Editorial photography has to be energetic and visually competitive.