One of my earliest photography memories comes from a trip to Washington, DC to spend a week with my cousins. As a kid, I was overly interested in my surroundings and in documenting them. Because of this, I ended up taking an entire roll of film (yes, 35mm FILM) of the Washington Monument. I captured the northern face from 200 yards away, 100 yards away, 50 yards away, you get the picture. The same thing happened with the south, east, and west faces. I snapped shots of the bottom half, the top half, and the flags surrounding it. I think I had done a school report on it or something. Anyway. When I got the photos developed, my father—an avid photographer himself—sat me down, and we had a conversation that would change the course of my photography forever. It was something along the lines of "Film is expensive...Developing pictures is expensive...DO NOT take an entire roll of shots of the same thing... If it happens again, YOU will pay to develop the pictures." I got the message. 

And right then and there, I vowed to be more selective—to seek out the most important things to photograph. I started taking more pictures of people, and fewer of stone monuments. The same determination to capture the best moments, the most authentic gestures and emotions, carries through in my photography today.