I follow only a handful of photography blogs. Joe McNally’s blog has got to be my favorite. I was barely months into photography when National Geographic published the first cover story shot digitally. Joe shot it. I told myself, I wanted to be like Joe one day. Eight years later, I shared a stage with him when we spoke at “Let There Be Light” at Kuala Lumpur last February. I lost several nights of sleep, frightened by the prospect of presenting before Joe! I got through that alive. Phew!

It’s Joe’s birthday today. Just dropped him an email, tweeted him and wrote on his wall. There are a few things I admire deeply about Joe which I wanna share with you:

Humility
It is scarce amongst wedding photographers. While few of us have accomplished as much as Joe photographically, most of us are way too proud and full of ourselves. I had taken Joe’s 5-day class at Santa Fe and worked with him during his visit to Malaysia. Everyone on my team was impressed by how humble and real he was.

Hunger
You would expect a photographer, approaching his 60s, who has been shooting for 30 years would take it easy. Not Joe. He is one of the most determined human being I’ve ever met. When he had a camera in his hands and ideas rattling in his brains, he was like a kid in wonderland. I saw that assisting him in his Chinatown shoot. What a pleasure to witness that.

Love
This guy is full of love for his wife, staff and friends. You can tell from the way he talks about Annie. You can see from the way he treats Drew, his crew, the models that work with him and friends around him. There is a very good chance that nailing cool shots and getting famous aren’t the most important things to him. Just seconds before I started speaking at “Let There Be Light”, Joe came over and gave me a fist bump. “Go get them, Louis.” That was HUGE for me. I’ve learned from that experience how to lend a hand to younger photographers.

So blessed to have a friend like him. I hope I can be a friend like him to my friends. Happy Birthday Joe! Thank you for inspiring me!

p/s He is touring Asia in 2011. Details to be announced soon!