There is not a single destination in this great big world that holds more lure, love, attraction, pull, mystery...than India. Not even close. At least not for me.

I speak from the perspective of a wayfaring pilgrim, who has humbly travelled the globe several times over shooting commercial assignments and personal work. India is incredible! Make no mistake about this.

As a photographer, you have not lived until you have photographed India. It should be on the top of your list. And I don't care what sort of genre you shoot. Photograph India. It will change the way you see and shoot!

My first introduction to India came though shooting the infamous Pushkar Camel Fair. That was the beginning of a visual love affair that, I'm quite sure, will last a lifetime.

My relationship to and with India deepened as I became a vested partner in a Delhi-based stock agency called PhotosIndia (which continues to operate today, although I no longer have an ownership position in the collection). That partnership would introduce me to the real India. The India that most photographers only hope to catch a fleeting glimpse of.

I remember, in detail, a three week trip across India, all by train, from North to South, with our PhotosIndia production staff. It not only changed who I was as a person, but also how I shot travel photography. And actually how I see the world now. Here is a video we shot and edited from that trip.

Again, I beseech you, put India high on your priority list of places to travel and photograph. It is a world of sight, sound and smell that you will never forget. And never want to forget.

India, in my personal opinion, while growing leaps and bounds...is still one of the last remaining exotic cultures, countries and continents to photograph.

Instead of a second or third trip to the Caribbean, save those pennies and explore India. And explore it with your camera, heart, eyes and soul. You'll be a changed human being as a result of the encounter.

I don't have any specific details yet, but I do plan, in November of this year, on offering a phototour to the Pushkar Camel Fair. So I can ignite in you the same visual infatuation that I have with this mysterious, magical and memorable place.

If you're into shooting people, color, culture...then you won't want to miss this trip of a lifetime. We'll be sleeping in campground tents. Roughing it. Shooting from sunrise to sunset. We'll have the production support of an India-speaking creative team. We'll shoot candids, set-up shots, portraiture, scenics, urbanscapes, events...you name it. You'll come back with a photographic portfolio that will look like you've shot for National Geographic. And you'll be as proud of it as if you had.

Please, let me share India with you. Let me share my love for her. Let me introduce you to her faces, places and spaces...that you won't believe and will never forget.

I'll have more details soon so stay tuned. In addition to shooting the Pushkar Camel Fair, we'll also be photographing Delhi, Jaipur and Agra (where the Taj Mahal is).

Start saving your money. And get ready to meet a new visual and visceral love that will magnetize and fascinate you beyond belief. Be part of Incredible India. Join us in November.

Note: The phototours that I'll be operating under will be branded 'Hit the Road with Jack'. Start packing.

I've been busy editing my larger body of work. Not because I wanted to. I didn't want to. But because I was asked by my Dallas photo rep, Quitze Nelson (quitzenelson.com), to give her 40-50 shots which represent the heart of who I am and what I shoot. So she could showcase the images on her agent website and collateral promotions.

Mechanically, this involved me sloshing through literally hundreds of hard drives to find the zingers. The ones I am most proud of. And that I think best represent my vision and voice in the world.

As a general rule, I don't like editing. I'm a shooter at heart. I love shooting the most. As a matter of fact, throughout my career, I've hired staff editors to help me with this less glamorous side of the business. But since going digital, I've been editing my own work more and more (although I'm still not liking it much better).

I imagined this edit, while obviously tedious and laborious, to be painstakingly dull. I wasn't at all looking forward to the exercise. But, I must say, it's been anything but dull. It's been inspiring, invigorating, rejuvenating. Almost beyond belief. My past work has connected me to my current work in an almost unexplainable phenomena.

I encourage each of you to take a quick trip down memory lane and look back. As far back as you can go. So that you can look forward. And connect the dots.

Not surprisingly, after looking at my work, I still feel that my best and brightest moments came when I was shooting analog, not digital. Those analog moments had a tactile, instinctive, visceral, deep-seated feeling that can't be easily replicated or explained (especially to those who have grown up digital).

I'll never return to shooting film. It's not going to happen. Digital offers so much more freedom than analog ever did or will. But that doesn't mean I can't and shouldn't fondly look back at these nostalgic, split-second instances and see how, over time, my vision was forged and formulated.

By the way, as a side note, my favorite career shots still seem to be the ones that I cranked out with my reliable Mamiya RZ67. (I'm stoked about trying out the new Mamiya digital back for RZ called RZ33.)

Another key revelational epiphany I had during this edit was that my hero selects had more to do with my vision, mission and passion at the time...than my surface and fleeting mastery of tools and technologies. It wasn't the gear. It was about the vision.

It's so important for photographers to look back at their work, over time. It's a necessary right of passage. And one you should do annually. When is the last time you nostalgically looked back at your body of work?

It's really ironic that looking back helps you connect the dots to looking forward. At least it does for me. And I'll bet it would do the same for you if you take the time and go to the trouble to just do it.

This grand experience also taught me to dust off some of those tried and true techniques I've used when I was just starting out that I somehow forgot or ignored. Simple compositional, design and aesthetic techniques that somehow got buried over in the piles of tutorials, workshops, seminars and peer critiques.

Granted, many of my favorites came from personal, not commercial, projects. When life and times were a bit simpler and more liquid. But passion is passion. And vision is vision. What I had then, I can have again. Even more. More clear, more powerful, more focused.

It was also pretty apparent, in looking through this body of work, that I made a lot of technical mistakes. But so what? That fear didn't handicap me from experimenting then. It won't handicap me now. Brands and personal styles are built on the back of creative and playful experimentation.

My goal, in this coming year, is to get back to the inspiration, imagination, innovation that I first embraced with childlike naivety when I began my career in photography almost three decades ago. See it. Shoot it. Showcase it.

When I do my next body of work edit, I want to see new things. New images. New techniques. New tests. New styles. New subject matter. New exposure experimentation. New compositions. A new me.

Looking back at this point and time in my career may just have been the spark I needed to set ablaze a whole forest of originality and ingenuity. Stay tuned.

I look back...so I can look forward. I embrace my past. And revel in my future. I may not be the photographer I once was. But rest assured that I will not be the photographer I am. Today I am wistful, sentimental, romantic, nostalgic. Tomorrow I will turn these sensibilities and sensitivities into raw material for a whole new vision. Join me, won't you? Look back with me. So we can look forward together.

I resist, even resent, a blind allegiance to a priority hierarchy that goes something like this - God, Family, Work, Self. This may work for some folks, but it doesn't work for me. And it never has. As a matter of fact, this sort of hierarchy sets most of us up for failure. As obedience to this is nearly impossible.

My priority hierarchy is not a rigid, inflexible, linear diagram. My priority hierarchy is non-linear. It's shaped like a pie. With pieces of that pie...expanding and reducing in size, as life comes at me.

There will be times that the spiritual part of my life will take center stage and when I will devote full attention to it. There will be other times when my family will take top priority. And still other times that work and self will get all of my attention and resources. The point here is that it's never fixed. And never inflexible. And it's certainly not hierarchical.

In this fragile economy, I would argue that for most career photographers...it probably makes sense to prioritize work. And give that your 100%. Especially if you're just starting out. Don't ignore the other parts of your life. Just rearrange your degrees of relevance and applicability.

Does devoting yourself to career success mean ignoring your spiritual life or your family and personal life? Of course not. Don't be silly. But to give your career a fair go, it may mean that you need to temporarily subjugate to that priority so that you can devote your efforts to getting your career going.

Everything comes full circle. There will be times in your life that your family will be top priority. Other times, yourself. And still other times, your spiritual journey. You'll know when those times are. It should be obvious. And if you listen carefully, you'll know when to enlarge or reduce your pie pieces.

Stop being so ridiculously hard on yourself. You are human. You can't do everything. And you can't do everything well. Those that you surround yourself with will understand, even appreciate, this short-lived lopsidedness and inequality. Relax. Devote yourself, right now, to the piece of the pie that most needs your attention and consideration. Then when the time is right, move on to another slice.

This pie-shaped priority hierarchy system is realistic. It's practical. It doesn't create false guilt. It doesn't set you up for failure. It's manageable. And the best news of all...it works!

Lest you call me a heretic, it's really a matter of degrees in applying this practically to the whole of your life. Degrees of relevancy. And degrees of applicability. Only you will know, in your heart, what is right. No one will know but you.

I am 100% focused on reinventing my photography business. I've been obsessed with it for the past 24 months. And I suspect that I will continue to be obsessed for many more months to come.

When I started this remodeling process, I told my wife, children, God and self what the plan was. And what to expect from me. So we could all on the same page. It's far from being a bed of roses. I fail a lot. And my priorities seem to get out of whack more than most. But the failures lead to opportunities, and I'm back at it again. Rest assured, it's not always going to be like this. At least I hope not.

Obsession generally leads to imbalance. And imbalance isn't a good thing. When my reinvention obsessions begin to interfere with the other pie pieces, then I reassess. Again, think degrees!

I don't always get my priorities right (my wife and girls can attest to this :-) ). But I do try to keep these things in perspective. Because, as I've summarized here before...in my world, life and living are inseparable. You can't have one without the other. Spiritual, personal, family and occupational priorities all live on the same street. In the same neighborhood. Right next to each other.

Don't brow beat yourself if you find that you're spending more time, energy and resources in building your career than the other parts of your life. You're not alone. And, again, it won't always be like this.

Be thankful for where you are right now. At this juncture in your life. Do the best you can. Be prepared to fail often. And be prepared to succeed, too. If you don't prioritize yourself, then the other priorities don't have a chance.

"Don't be a time manager, be a priority manager. Cut your major goals into bite-sized pieces. Each small priority or requirement on the way to the ultimate goal becomes a mini-goal in itself." - Denis Waitley