Thankfully – miraculously – I still have the energy, curiosity, and perseverance that I had when I was a twenty-something, self-taught photographer during the mid-1960s. Now, almost 67, my “modus operandi” remains unchanged.

I still think in terms of visual stories that would be fun to show and tell. My ideas still come from some magical inner source; but there’s a wellspring right in front of us everyday – in newspapers, television, the Internet, and on the street. There’s a story everywhere.

Telling them, showing them is our personal challenge.

Maybe the venues have changed through the years; online z-magazines, blogospheres and websites have replaced many of the traditional printed publications to show photography.

Nonetheless, as storytellers, we photographers need to see and think outside of the box to show our images. One unique photographer thinks out of this planet.

Jerry Uelsmann, 77, recently spoke at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, where his exhibition, “The Mind’s Eye: 50 years of Photography,” is on display through June 30, 2012.

The news that 271 works by Picasso valued at nearly $80 million recently discovered in an electrician’s garage, shocked the art world. Then there was the art fiasco that left egg tempera on the face of funnyman and serious art collector Steve Martin when his German painting was discovered a forgery.

The art business can be rough and tough. It’s a big business too.

“So Big!” was even the title of an exhibition at the Cotuit Center for the Arts earlier this year on Cape Cod.

I’ve been fortunate to have photographed some big time artists over the years: sculptor Robert Arneson, courtroom illustrator Howard Brodie, bigger-than-life storyteller in stone Korczak Ziolkowski, photographers Gordon Parks and Richard Avedon.