My mission for the day was to deliver the check for a $5,000 donation to the Burn Center at Staten Island University Hospital from the sale of the NYC Firefighters Calendar. So I took the ferry to Staten Island, and then a train to get to the hospital. I’ve been making the calendar for 24 years, and so far have raised nearly $750,000 for the Burn Center and also the Fire Safety Education Fund.

“I’m not a foodie,” insists Alan Batt, or Battman, as he is known in culinary circles. However, anyone looking at his oeuvre of food photography might be surprised that he counts a Quarter Pounder with cheese and fries as one of his favorite meals. Batt, who began taking photographs professionally in 1981, boasts a varied career, with stints at his father’s sweater manufacturing company in Brooklyn and as a toy salesman in California.

My trip to Cancun was the first of two trips to work on a book about the Moon Palace Resort and...

A couple of weeks ago Adam Bosse, owner of Coffee Afficionado called me. During the conversation...