It's a bit like gambling, you know, this drive to win grants and photo competitions, to get my work published in eclectic photography magazines, all of it leading to expiate my desire for fame. Fame gathered to me through a contract with a big publishing house, fame gathered to me like Ansel Adams or Stieglitz or Strand - some way that I can find for the world to recognize me as different.

But how can one lone photographer rise from the vast, vibrating ocean of twenty million photographers, all of who dream the same dream?

Adams and Stieglitz and Strand were pioneers working alone out in the empty stretches of a day when few could be or wanted to be famous. They didn't have an easy path by any means, but their paths were pretty much straight forward - learn your craft and go for it.

The 21st Century Photographer is a man or woman plagued by a technical shift that allows anyone and everyone to Become. . .

But I have never been one to shirk at competition or at setting a high goal for myself. I may have to climb a steeper slope to achieve my goal than my forbears, but I am standing on some great shoulders on this small piece of the time continuem that gives me as much of a chance as anyone else.