Everyone hates their picture being taken and they're nervous and they're bringing all of that. When I meet with them they realize it is a collaboration and they look forward to coming back.

I think mentoring is essential in life, both being a mentor to someone and being mentored, and I think that when you are mentored it inspires a generosity in you to mentor others and that I know is what happened with me, so for instance, the people that come through my studio to work for me, it's not good enough for me to just give them a paycheck.

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.

Everyone hates their picture being taken and they're nervous and they're bringing all of that. When I meet with them they realize it is a collaboration and they look forward to coming back.

So sometimes it is an outright manipulation like that, but most of the time I'm just, I'm creating a mood that is a place of comfort for the person and a way for our dialogue to be more fluid.

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.

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.