There's no sugary cliche. Most folk don't even know who we are, what we do, or how we do it, let alone want to pay us for it. I never want to take this for granted, so I try and and keep motivation simple, real, and positive. If I only scrape a living, at least it's a living worth scraping. If there's no future in it, at least it's a present worth remembering. For fires of happiness, and waves of gratitude, for everything that brought us to that point on earth, at that moment in time, to do something worth remembering with a photograph or a scar, I feel genuinely lucky to hand-on-heart say I love doing what I do. And though I may never be a rich man, if I live long enough, I certainly have a tale or two for the nephews, and I dig the thought of that.

-- Mickey Smith, from "Dark Side of the Lens"

I see life in angles, in lines of perspective, a slight turn of the head, the blink of an eye. Subtle glimpses of magic other folk might pass by. Cameras help me translate, interpret, and understand what I see. It's a simple act that keeps me grinning. I never set out to become anything in particular, only to live creatively and push the scope of my experience through adventure and through passion.

-- Mickey Smith, in "Dark Side of the Lens"