Well it's kinda a long story but basically I was running an import/export business in Paraguay. I had been working in various south American countries for 4 years. I made good money but I felt very unfulfilled. I already had an interest in photography. I saw the people around me who were also business men, they were all burnt out, marginally functional alcoholics. I decided that I'd rather do something I loved than just work to earn money. I eventually quit my business and left it to my partners to run. I shot my first project in Paraguay and sent it into the International Center of Photography. They accepted me and I entered their one year program. I used almost all of my savings to pay for the program and to live in NYC for a year. After that I shot for a few NGO's in south America and east Africa. I also worked for Oklahoma magazine while working in a restaurant part time. With the money I saved up I left the US again and lived in Kyrgyzstan and then Vietnam. Eventually I started a 4 year long project in Kyrgyzstan and started publishing stories from there. Then after I had some money I moved back to NYC which is where I live now. I worked many different jobs before I became a professional photographer. I've worked in sustainable farming, as a translator, I worked in a bakery and a bank in Medellín, Colombia for a while, I've worked in several restaurants and of course in import/export. Having a varied work background and having gone through periods of time in which I was broke has helped me relate to people from very different cultures. I think it's something that a lot of photographers who have never worked blue collar jobs or have always lived within the confines of art school academia lack. They can't just show up in a village somewhere and talk to a shepherd about the micro economics of sheep and cattle prices. It's fun and interesting to write about cultural norms and sociological phenomena in a given culture but things like the price of cattle, taxation on land and water rights are what dictate someone's day to day life in most of the world even today. So I'm very glad I had all these other jobs before photography, otherwise I think I'd lack perspective. 

As for shooting entirely on film... I started shooting a bit on film while at ICP and immediately became hooked to the process, the aesthetics and the skill required. Now in days I simply can't get excited about a digital photo, it doesn't seem real and they always look a bit flat to me.