Peter Menzel Quotes

It is so much better to get the right exposure than to have to mess around later with Photoshop.

Pre-planning is essential. Research, research, research. If you are going to do a portrait, know as much as you can about the person beforehand. The web makes this very easy.

With the Internet, you can get lots of info in advance, but a local person who knows how to work the system is invaluable.

I fell in love with traveling and thought being a photographer would be an interesting way to travel and make a living.

Hot air balloons are terrific to shoot from, although they have become very expensive, as has most lodging and food in the Napa Valley.

Everyone thinks it would be great to work for National Geographic. So did I.

It is tough being patient when you are more than a half million dollars in debt.

Freelancing in Somalia during their civil war and in Kuwait right after the first Bush War, I had some rather intense experiences that made life in the U.S. seem rather shallow and superfluous.

I drove a taxi at night during my last year at BU and then for another 18 months after graduating in order to buy cameras and pay the rent while I tried to figure out for myself how to freelance.

Everyone should understand that getting good photos is paramount to everything. You have to do what it takes and often comfort and sleep are the first casualties of an assignment.

I sold all my medium format equipment in 2005 after Canon came out with the 12 megapixel EOS 1Ds.

Digital makes it so much easier. No bricks of film, no worrying about airport X-rays, etc.

Before digital, I spent thirty years shooting color transparencies, which are very unforgiving of exposure. A half stop can make or break a good photo on slide film.

The summer of 1966, I hitch-hiked alone for two months all over Europe instead of working on a farm in Spain. It was a big game to see how much I could see on $400. This got me hooked on traveling.

My modus operandi after working for a decade as a self-funding freelancer, was to spend as little money as possible to get the job done, even if it was on someone else's nickel.

I don't shoot many corporate or commercial jobs, but when you do, you had better have someone helping who has done it before.

The fact that a thirteen-year-old project still resonates and can still have a large exhibit with lots of newspaper, magazine and TV press shows the timelessness of the project.