I think my most favorite subject was Lena Horne, because she embodies soul and grace and elegance and 'street'. She embodies everything. And beauty — great beauty.

When people warn me about someone - the label head or the publishing head - that somebody is difficult, I'm in heaven.

I can't tell you how many reshoots I've done from, you know, famous photographers who really love just to shoot models and failed at shooting a Patti Labelle or someone like that because Patti Labelle didn't turn them on, so you have to shoot what you care about.

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.

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.

Giving someone their style or bumping up their sense of style to be a better version of what it is, is part of the fun of what I do, and I actually approached Al Sharpton. They didn't come to me.

I kind of - you learn it, you master it, and then you make sure that it just disappears. You know, like if I could have invisible lights, I would, and invisible cameras. I'm just really trying to get at my subject and I respect the technical aspect, but it is not anything that I think about at this point.