On the personal side, I was rock climbing and taking pictures with my friends. We took all sorts of portrait and action pictures, and I was thinking at the time that these are inherently difficult to focus correctly.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
DSLRs take beautiful pictures, but they are hard to focus.
At some point during my travels, I had a slight change of focus which would end up defining the rest of my career. I began taking pictures of people. In addition to all the buildings, street signs and fire hydrants, I started photographing some of the interesting humans that passed by me on the street.
I'm not an expert when it comes to technology, but what changed things for me was autofocus. I used to have to throw away half my pictures because it was so difficult to get the focus right.
It's hard for me to assess what I brought because each time you pick up a camera and point it at a person, you're trying to define that person so to talk generally is difficult because I have to think of a given image in order to conjure up what we're talking about.
You start blocking out things, and that's a really important part of taking a picture is the ability to isolate what you're - what you're concentrating on.
I don't think focus is in itself ever a bad thing. But focus of the wrong kind, or managed poorly, can be.
I'm actually pretty shy in real life. But I guess in front of the camera, I focus.
I've never put myself in the mindset that I'm actually any good at taking pictures, I just love to shoot things that catch my eye, whether it's landscapes or just my kids.
When you're used to looking through a stills lens and you have to capture an emotional moment, and that picture is not moving and yet it has to have impact, I think that's the first influence on my style.
For me, pointing and clicking my phone is absolutely fine. People say that isn't the art of photography but I don't agree.