For me, the most important thing I learned was just honing my eye. I think I had a good eye.
I did grow up next door to Steve McQueen, who was a very famous movie star at the time, but as a kid it didn't impress me. We always had great fun with him. He would take us out on Sundays on his motorcycles, riding around in the desert; he was like a second father.
I'm pretty selective. I generally edit the contact sheets and then do work prints. Because I have my own lab and printers, I can afford the luxury of going through the contact sheets for black-and-white, making up work prints, seeing them big, and honing them down.
Actually, when I first started dabbling in photography, I was still working for my parents as a salesman.
I was an economics major, which I enjoyed because I had a good business sense.
