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.

My photography has really always been about what I feel I'm getting out of it. What people on the outside get doesn't concern me.

I think I'm predominantly known for my portraits. Obviously in my work there are landscape or stilllife elements, but mainly my work is people . . .

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.

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.

In Holland, things were pretty stale for me. Even though there were a lot of good influences and a certain openness to music and art and literature, I just wanted to go somewhere less familiar - somewhere bigger.

I'm a very curious person. And most people are charmed by curiosity - especially if you are curious about them or what they are doing . . . unless they are breaking into a car or something.