Sam Abell

When I first went to 'National Geographic,' I thought I was the least qualified person to step through the doors. But because of my parents and the culture of continual learning they imposed on us, I later came to believe I was the most qualified person who ever worked there.

My dad had been an ardent amateur photographer, and he taught me to compose a photograph from the back to the front, and then populate the picture.

There are grander and more sublime landscapes - to me. There are more compelling cultures. But what appeals to me about central Montana is that the combination of landscape and lifestyle is the most compelling I've seen on this earth. Small mountain ranges and open prairie, and different weather, different light, all within a 360-degree view.

I was known as a 35-mm photographer with a view-camera mentality.

There are a lot of ways to be expressive in life, but I wasn't good at some of them. Music, for instance. I was a distinct failure with the cello. Eventually, my parents sold the cello and bought a vacuum cleaner. The sound in our home improved.

The best lesson I was given is that all of life teaches, especially if we have that expectation.

Woman on the Plaza,' with its distinct horizon, snow-like surfaces, wintry wall, stunning sunlight, sharp shadows, and hurrying figure, would become the most biographical of my photographs - an abstract image of the landscape and life of northern Ohio where I grew up and first practiced photography.

Essentially what photography is is life lit up.

I wanted life to be episodic. I wanted to be a magazine photographer and I was willing to do what it took to become that.

My parents, grandmother and brother were teachers. My mother taught Latin and French and was the school librarian. My father taught geography and a popular class called Family Living, the precursor to Sociology, which he eventually taught. My grandmother was a beloved one-room school teacher at Knob School, near Sonora in Larue County, Ky.

Life rarely presents fully finished photographs. An image evolves, often from a single strand of visual interest - a distant horizon, a moment of light, a held expression.

I had luck, but I worked hard and I suffered. It's not just photography I'm talking about. It's about whatever dream you want it to be.