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.

Exotic novelty. My statement to [people] is always, well, set this picture in your home town, is it still an interesting picture? Or is it just exotic? Would I care about this same picture minus its exoticism?

I did a story for the Geographic on Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, and Stephen Ambrose was the writer. He said, "I've got the easiest job in the world. I just have to re-tell the story of the greatest fishing, camping, hunting, canoeing trip of all time. You, Sam, have the hardest job, which is, pretend like nothing has happened in the last 200 years.

That statement [ Stephen Ambrose:'You, Sam, have the hardest job, which is, pretend like nothing has happened in the last 200 years.'] woke me up to the fact that the landscape that Lewis and Clark came across was greater than the Serengeti. And it's gone.

It's more difficult now, to be a Geographic photographer, than it was when I came along. And it wasn't easy at that time.

There are things that I teach, about building photographs, and that's why people come to my workshops. When people come to the workshops, they're consumed with seeking the subject, and I teach seeking the setting.

I had a book come out several years ago, when there were no blogs. This is a mark to me about how the environment has changed.