1. What is your honest opinion of the latest Star Wars movie?

After seeing the film twice in the opening 24 hours, I compiled a list of 27 major and minor issues with The Last Jedi. Those issues ranged from concerns about Leia’s superhero flight to Luke’s fish-catching methods. However, the film’s nostalgic elements combined with some powerful scenes allowed me to easily forgive those flaws.

2. What would you like to accomplish this year?

Everything.

3. What case would you make for housing your wedding, portrait, product and personal work under one URL roof?

For years, experts have suggested that photographers maintain separate portfolios for different kinds of work. And that’s a good idea for some businesses. If you’re a commercial photographer who targets ad agencies and Fortune 500 clients while also photographing weddings, then you should have more than one website. Same goes for a family portrait photographer who also maintains a boudoir practice. But for other photographers, it’s best to have a single website. It’s more expensive and takes more time to market and maintain multiple websites, it’s almost impossible to achieve good local SEO results across multiple properties, and you can achieve synergy across multiple practice areas with a single site.

4. What important thing have you learned over the years when it comes to creating an award-worthy wedding album?

Less is more.

5. What existing trend in photography do you wish would go away?

I typically avoid trendy styles or techniques in my own photography, but I don’t fault other photographers who use popular methods in their work. If I was pressed to point out just one thing that’s a bit overused, I think some photographers might benefit from using fewer dark and moody filter presets.

6. Who would you most like to have a long dinner with and why?

I’ve had long dinners with lots of my most favorite people in the world. That’s one reason why I’m chubby. But assuming I could pick anyone for a long dinner and assuming there was steak involved, I’d choose Barack Obama. I can’t think of anyone else in the world who would be more interesting, gracious and funny, or who I admire more.

7. What is the weirdest nickname you’ve had?

In the 8th grade, my classmates called me “Cricket.” The origin of that nickname speaks to my deep love of financial profit. One bright spring day, on a blacktop schoolyard in Dry Prong, Louisiana, a group of kids bet me that I wouldn’t eat a cricket. I left that encounter with a new nickname and $20.

8. What do you wish you knew sooner as a budding photographer?

I would have become a much better photographer far faster if I had studied and mastered on-camera flash and off-camera reception lighting sooner. In hindsight, instead of struggling through the long process of teaching myself those skills, my best move would have been to take Cliff Mautner’s Lighting and Skillset Bootcamp.

9. What was the most challenging venue you’ve photographed?

The fifth wedding I shot was in a church basketball gym. There were steel chairs positioned at round tables with plastic tablecloths. There were artificial ficus trees scattered around the room. The reception dinner was catered by IHOP. And the couple was lovely. I kept thinking that the venue and décor were preventing me from creating great photographs, and I did not meet the challenge.

Today, I would love to photograph a couple in a similar setup. I’d climb a ladder to photograph the ceremony through the basketball netting. I’d pull out the bleachers and create an ironic family portrait. And they had pancakes! Don’t even get me started on what I’d do with pancakes today.

Venues are what you make of them. Even with the most challenging venue, there’s always an opportunity to see beyond the mundane and go on to create really great images.

10. What are the most memorable hijinks you got into as a kid?

I was a perfect kid. I never got in trouble. Except for that one time when I was 7 and I decided to demonstrate my film-inspired karate trip moves on my sister. I might have accidentally broken her collar bone. There was no way I could have known about that huge, hard root hidden under all that soft grass. I gave up karate. But I still enjoy Bruce Lee films.

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