For me there's several components to picture-taking and it starts with my goals as an artist. It's capturing I guess the inner life of my subject and then it is giving them their idealized version of themselves.

When people are described as difficult and have a reputation as difficult it's 99% of the time because they've been disappointed over and over again by people who don't really know what to do for them, and I know I'm going to make them happy and I can't wait to work with them.

We all look in the mirror and see us a little blonder or a little thinner or a little younger, whatever that ideal might be and most of the people that I'm photographing are selling something, you know whether they're on the front of an album cover or a magazine or they're a corporate person ready to switch companies or a doctor selling a skincare line... so I want to help them achieve that.

I do select a soundtrack for each of my subjects and again my assistants you know they make fun of me because that is more important to me than the lighting, which I just do in a minute right before, but I spend a long time on the soundtracks.

My days are kind of controlled by my projects, so sometimes they're album covers. Sometimes they're commission portrait shoots. Sometimes they are editorial, so it kind of - I don't dictate it.

There are certain people that you don't have to even work at extracting their inner life. It is just there and they're happy to share it with you.

I think that people get into trouble when they photograph something that they... that is not in their world. It's like when they say "write what you know."