I thought the same vis-a-vis lack of mention of talent in this article, however go to his website and there is some good stuff on there, which I think balances this article
How Peter Hurley became a top portrait photographer
Posted by Chris Roubis on 9th, May, 2014
Source Article from http://www.dpreview.com/news/2014/05/09/how-peter-hurley-became-a-top-portrait-photographer
Started out doing photography at the age of 6 using an uncle's old 1940 kodak brownie box camera. At 15 years of age, I decided to buy my very own 1975 Praktica SLR camera. I now shoot with a Nikon D850. I do unpaid TFP and commercial paid work.