I have often described my professional career as "accidental". I never set out in earnest to become a professional photographer. My professional career really began with a solo exhibition of my artwork; at the time my photographs were primarily interiors of sex clubs, churches, and other hidden interiors. From that exhibition I got an assignment from Vogue to shoot still lives of jewelry, and an annual report for Chase; projects I was completely unqualified for. I then proceeded to get other assignments that I was equally unqualified for; cars, travel, portraits, fashion, more annual reports, everything. If I had to pigeonhole myself I'd say that a lot of art directors and editors think of me as a photographer who works in the gaps between specialties; an automotive specialist might be a little confused by a portrait assignment, but if you need a portrait of a person with a car in an interior, I might be the guy.   I've also managed to work in a particular specialty for each magazine; cars and business portraits for Fortune, photo-journalism for German Playboy, adventure for Men's Journal and Unlimited, etc.  

If there is a core philosophy to my work it is this: Every story/project is unique, the story is more important than I am, and the world is endlessly fascinating. The editorial content or objectives of the client dictate my visual approach.   What might be surprising is that this is especially true for the projects I have generated as "personal work", where my goal as a photographer is to be as transparent and visually economical as possible.

I do a fair amount of writing these days, another accident of my career. I was racing motorcycles as a hobby when Men's Journal called asking if I'd shoot someone else doing a first-person participatory piece on the sport. The only problem was that they couldn't find a writer willing to try it, so they asked me if I'd give it a crack. It was another thing I was totally unqualified for so of course I did it anyway. I have been writing 5-10 stories a year since then, including two regular motorcycle test columns. I enjoy it fully since it's always the writer who gets strapped into the race-car, or gets to jump out of the airplane while the photographer watches. The hard part was figuring out how to shoot while I'm also driving the racecar and writing the story. Remote controlled cameras make everything possible.