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 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.

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.

In New York, unlike Holland, there are newspaper stands on every corner. That was a big headline all over the city.

When you're with people that are aware of the fact that you're a photographer, they'll say, "Oh, look at that! That's something to take a picture of!" That's almost a sure sign that you shouldn't do it.

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 . . .

Sometimes when people look at the work I've done with my family, they think it's autobiographical. But it really isn't. It's more about the idea of family.