Alex

My good friend, Alex DiFiori is one of my greatest photographic inspirations.  When all else fails, I can always count on him to kick my butt into gear and get me shooting again.  What I admire most about him is that he's constantly experimenting- new mediums, new subjects, just constantly challenging himself as a photographer.  And his work is amazing because of it.

It's important to keep skills sharpened.  No matter how much talent you've got, you've still got to go out and use it or it just gets dusty.  I try to shoot pretty often, but Alex has me beat.  His goal is to shoot one really good photo every day for a year.  To me, this is way more challenging than shooting a hundred pictures on your digital camera and assuming one or two of them came out well.  Really forcing yourself to try and take the best shot you can get is an excellent way to get better.

In that sense, film has an advantage over digital.  I think digital gives the excuse of laziness, but I tell ya, when you're paying for film out of your back pocket and your back pocket isn't exactly overflowing with cash, you definitely want those pictures to come out perfect.

I try to keep that ideal in mind while shooting digital- I try to wait for the moment and capture it when it happens instead of shooting in rapid succession and hoping something comes out salvageable.  I'm no Alex DiFiori, but I'm getting better!