Early in life, I was inspired by the illustrations of Norman Rockwell, and how he depicted moments of real life, the joyful, the sad, the serious, and the funny. His paintings captured a moment in time like a photo.

Later, Henri Cartier-Bresson’s use of the decisive moment hooked me into a lifelong career of capturing moments that elicit an emotional response from the viewer, and hopefully, sometimes move them to action.

I’ve worked hard to become adept at many kinds of photography. I am as comfortable in a studio photographing food or a model as I am covering an event on-location. I enjoy photographing sports as well as politics.

I’ve also covered long-form individual stories — often shot and reported over the course of many months — which is always fulfilling. The hardest part is editing all the individual images down to the select few that tell the story the best without burdening the reader.

— Richard Messina