The Moment It Clicks: Photography Secrets From One of the World's Top Shooters

L Inc., Tokyo, all have been sources of wisdom and support. That is especially true of Sid and Michelle Monroe. They run the Monroe Gallery in Santa Fe, a wonderful repository of powerful pictures that stands astride the worlds of journalism and art. The fact that they have chosen to hang some of my work on their walls is one of the honors of my career.

    Photographers often develop extended families. As I write this I am out with a wonderful part of mine, my DLWS family. Legendary wildlife shooter Moose Peterson and his wife Sharon created the Digital Landscape Workshop Series a number of years ago, barnstorming around to beautiful parts of the country, teaching shooting and computer skills. I was lucky enough to join the team of Moose, Sharon, Laurie Excell, Joe Sliger, Kevin Dobler, and Josh Bradley to share pictures and laughs in equal measure, at the same time sharing our love of photography with lots of great folks. One of them was Scott Kelby. It was in a DLWS class that the light bulb Scott speaks of in his foreword went on. We were on a lonely road in Vermont, and he said, “Joe, come take a walk with me.”

    When Scott asks you to take a walk with him, you go. He is genius, friend, and mentor, and he knows a thing or two about writing books. He’s also got a warm heart and a generous spirit, in addition to being a heckuva good photographer. We have had many long talks about light, the language of photography. He and his buddy, Dave Moser, believe in the power of images and the importance of education. At the end of our walk, Scott gave me this very good advice. He said, “Joe, you need to write this book.”

    For once, I actually listened to good advice. Scott and his wife Kalebra, Dave Moser, and Kathy Siler combine to run Kelby Training, NAPP, and a whole bunch of other stuff. They, in turn, brought the project to Nancy Ruenzel and Ted Waitt at Peachpit Press. Together, these folks are a force of nature, and I consider it my incredible good fortune they swept me up in their creative whirlwind. Doing the book brought me into contact with Jessica Maldonado, a peerless designer who took my pictures and some fairly lunatic ramblings and made coherent, beautiful pages out of them. Editor Cindy Snyder has been everything you want from an editor—calm, organized, forward moving, and smart. In addition to being all of those, she has taught me a great deal about the English language along the way.

    At the end of the day, nothing is possible without the women in my life—Caitlin, Claire, and Annie. Caity and Claire are becoming amazing women and citizens of the world: adventurous, smart, beautiful, empathetic, and just plain with it. I hope their often-absent, nutty photog father has shown them that it is in fact a large and astonishing world, filled with knowledge, possibilities, and difference. I hope I have helped them get ready for it, just a little bit.
     
    And my wife, Annie…I feel her sweetness, decency, love, humor, friendship, faith, and loyalty every day, in every breath. While this book is largely about what has gone on, and pictures that have been made, it is also very much about now. I could not have written this from another place, a place different from where I am now. And that place is the happiest place I have ever been. That place is Annie.

About the Author

     

    Joe McNally is an internationally acclaimed American photographer and long-time photojournalist. From 1994 until 1998, he was
Life
magazine’s staff photographer, the first one in 23 years.

    His most well-known series is Faces of Ground Zero—Portraits of the Heroes of September 11th, a collection of 246 Giant Polaroid portraits shot in the Moby C Studio near Ground Zero in a three-week period shortly after 9/11. A large group of these historic, compelling, life-size (9×4′) photos were exhibited in seven cities in 2002, seen by almost a million people. The sale of 55,000 copies of the exhibit book, printed by
Life
, was part of an effort that raised over $2 million for the 9/11 relief effort. This collection is considered by many museum and art professionals to be the most significant artistic endeavor to evolve to date from the 9/11 tragedy.
     
    Some of Joe’s other renowned photographic series include:

    “The Future of Flying”: Cover and 32-page story, National Geographic , December 2003. The story, on the future of aviation and the first all-digital shoot for the magazine, commemorated the centennial observance