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Favorite Gear: "I’m not much of a gear hound," Ed Kashi says. "I use Leicas, a Minolta CLE with Leica lenses, and the Canon EOS-3.

Recent Assignments: California Department of Forests’ firefighters for Smithsonian Magazine; indigenous peoples living on Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines for Natural History Magazine; a piece on Israel for National Geographic Traveler; went to Peru to do a story on shell fishing for Germany’s Mare magazine; did a piece on culture and lifestyle in Silicon Valley for French Geo.

Best Advice for Aspiring Photographers: "My best work is the work I’ve done that I’ve initiated myself. There is a fundamental difference between photographers who initiate and produce their own work whether there is backing or not, and the photographers who walk out the door only when they have an assignment. At the end of the day, name a photographer whom you admire, and I guarantee you 90 percent of the time it’s for the work they have done on a personal basis. And any photographer who does onlypersonal work and always gets paid, well, they’ve won the game."