As you are working on ideas, you are in a bubble, working on your images. What's important to me in my work, I like this idea of communicating through a piece of art so works don't have to be exchanged. They're okay and they're helpful but most importantly that the image will convey something in my mind that I was trying to communicate and then you have that connection.

I wanted it to provide an escape route, I wanted to make pictures that were fantastic and took you into another world, one that was brighter. I started off with this idea.

I never want people to be repulsed with my pictures; I always want to attract people.

People will get tired of overly retouched images soon and they'll want something different. If people have too much reality, they want fantasy. What matters most is what the image communicates. I remember the first roll of film I shot at high school, the contact sheet went from these really worthy images of cracks in the wall and ended up with all of my dancer friends naked in Renaissance poses.

I'm a photographer, period. I love photography, the immediacy of it. I like the craft, the idea of saying 'I'm a photographer.'

I never wanted to be famous. I always wanted to take famous photographs.

My dream since I was a kid was to show in a gallery.