I'm pretty solitary when I take pictures. Even when I take pictures of people, I just go about my own way of doing it.

I always thought that I was lazy because I could never tell if I was working or not. I was making things, which doesn't seem like work.

The place where I am is always my favorite place.

I do feel a kinship with anthropology or ethnography, although when you hear those terms you think of something exotic. Generally, photographic anthropology has that taste of the faraway or undiscovered place. But my anthropology has more to do with what's in my reach.

I had visited New York at age 12, and I loved the big buildings and the swarms of people. At 23, I decided to try it. I was going to go for six months, and I ended up living there for 18 years before I moved to California, so I am living the American Dream.

Dates can be important. It's a nice way to remember when I took the photo without having to rack my brain or look in the archives. It also makes every photo important, because there is the date. I can take a picture of nothing, but at least we know when I took it.

I am excited about more than just youth culture, and youth is also stretching a bit longer now. But I have to say resistance and disregard keeps me excited.