Fashion or beauty, which is more fun?

I love to shoot.  Fashion, beauty, lifestyle, portraits,  still life.  They are all fun.

How important is your personal work to your commercial work? Or is there a relationship?

All my work is personal work.  It doesn't matter if I am shooting a fashion editorial, a portrait for the NY  Times, fashion advertising for a designer, snapshots of friends, fine art projects, or a still life of umbrellas.  If I am pushing the shutter, it is personal to me.

My list of photo heroes is so long I am going to exclude many... here goes in no particular order:

Nadar, Matthew Brady, the Bechers, Pierre Molinier, Nan Goldin, Lee Friedlander, Larry Fink, Stephen Shore, Bruce Davidson, Larry Clark, Harry Callihan, Andres Gursky, Thomas Struth, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Larry Sultan, Richard Billingham, James Natchwey, Sebastian Salgado, Man Ray, Cindy Sherman, Bill Owens, and so so many more.

As far as fashion & portrait photographers, I would love to assist Steven Meisel, Solve Sundsbro, Richard Burbridge, Terry Richardson, Nick Knight, Craig McDean, Michael Thompson, Peter Lindberg, Mario Testino, Klang, Annie Liebovitz, Martin Shoeller, and more.  Actually, I don't want to assist, I would rather drink coffee and watch.  Assisting is too much work!