Good days and bad days.

Q: YOU HAVE YOUR BAD DAYS AND YOUR GOOD DAYS, AND THEN THERE ARE REALLY BAD DAYS. ON THOSE REALLY BAD DAYS, WHAT GETS YOU OUTTA BED IN THE MORNING? WHAT INSPIRES YOU?

A: My wife and my kids.

My family has to eat. Doesn’t matter that Dad is having a bad day or not. Doesn’t matter that Dad stayed up all night comparing himself to Jeremy Cowart again and went to sleep crying. Doesn’t matter if Dad lost the “artist’s way” on his last shoot.

I have to feed and house my family. I have to cover and protect them.

Photography is all I have. I’ve got nothing outside of a camera to feed and house and clothe this family of six under my roof. If I’m not shooting photos then I’m working at Starbucks or Kinko’s. I can’t feed this family on an $8 an hour job. I tell you the truth—if I were single with no kids I’d probably weigh 400 pounds and live in my mom’s basement. When kids entered my life I suddenly had a weight of responsibility on my shoulders. My world expanded beyond my own four walls, and I knew I had to do something with my life other than work retail jobs.

I know I’m going to have down times, bad times, frustrating times. I also know I’m going to have really good times. Inspiring times. I just keep sight of that. When things are good I brace myself for the inevitable downward spiral. When I’m in that downward spiral I’m not caught off guard; I knew it was coming. Things will get better again. You will never be stuck in one or the other. The depressing times seem never-ending when you are in the middle of them. You can wallow in the muck for only so long, but then you have to pick your ass up and get to work. You have to.

Professionally, I look to the life of Joe McNally. In this industry, no one inspires me more than he does. No one. He is the Grand Poobah on the mountain top. In my eyes, he’s the greatest working photographer alive.