I discovered Los Angeles in the late '90s. The city was not at its best at the time, but I fell for it right away. There is something almost haunted about it, a vibrant mythology I find rather inspiring.
My hair is not really white; it's kind of grayish, and I don't like the color. So I make it totally white with Klorane dry shampoo. That is the best thing to do because my hair is always clean.
We all perform. It's what we do for each other all the time, deliberately or unintionally. It's a way of telling about ourselves in the hope of being recognized as what we'd like to be.--PERFORMANCE
I like simplicity. I like using natural sources. I like images to look natural - as though somebody sitting in a room by a lamp is being lit by that lamp.
What an utter disgrace it would be to find something truly magic and spend any time at all pretending and trying to convince yourself it is all just an unbelievably orchestrated and beautifully choreographed illusion.
It's insane, the Internet. Totally craziness. Like a little cancer. People can just do whatever they want, say whatever they want, be totally anonymous. It's totally out of control.
I do seem to try to make things harder and harder for myself. In some perverse way, obstacles interest me and I'm drawn to projects that end up being incredibly laborious.
I just think it's important to be direct and honest with people about why you're photographing them and what you're doing. After all, you are taking some of their soul.
I really knew when I started photographing I wanted it to be a way of knowing different cultures, not just in other countries but in this country, too, and I knew I wanted to be a voyeur.
If I hadn't become a photographer, I would have loved to become a doctor. I would have loved to have done something that actually helped people and changed their lives.
Negative thinking is subtle and deceptive. It wears many faces and hides behind the mask of excuses. It is important to strip away the mask and discover the real, root emotion.
Some people are at the top of the ladder, some are in the middle, still more are at the bottom, and a whole lot more don't even know there is a ladder.
I think that there are cancers of the body, but I think they are what I would call cancer of the emotional system, too. These are the kind of diseases or illnesses or sicknesses of the emotional system that are as incurable as cancer.
As I have practiced it, photography produces pleasure by simplicity. I see something special and show it to the camera. A picture is produced. The moment is held until someone sees it. Then it is theirs.
I had luck, but I worked hard and I suffered. It's not just photography I'm talking about. It's about whatever dream you want it to be.
In almost every photograph I have ever made, there is something I would do to complete it. I take that to be the spirit hole or the deliberate mistake that's in a Navajo rug to not be godlike, but to be human.
My father taught me photography. It was his hobby, and we had a small darkroom in the fruit cellar of our basement. It was the kind of makeshift darkroom that was only dark at night.
My allegiance was always to the act. I wanted them to be happy. I wasn't owned by a magazine or a record label. And I was a very naughty boy to boot!
I had done a directing producing job before on 'Big Day' and 'Jake in Progress,' and those are two shows where I directed the pilot and stayed with it in series.
I think it's not uncommon for new television shows to spend certainly the first year, but without a doubt, like, the first eight or ten episodes, kind of figuring out what the show is.
Ultimately, I made my range wider because I wanted to suit each publication that I worked for. Talk about reinvention - I'm like the Madonna of photography.
