When a photographer or a person sees your beauty, your inner beauty, it makes you feel special like, "Wow, someone saw that within me."

When I approach a person, I feel a certain way. If I don't feel that way, I'm not going to approach that individual. "I see something in you" - I want the person to know that.

There is just something about the common being. My education pretty much came from the streets, just connecting with people, different cultures. I gained the wealth just engaging at that level. I'm still like that. I continue to document everyday people versus the stars.

I'm shooting a gangbanger, but as a dignified man. That's pretty much what war photography did: seeing images of soldiers in a dignified way. They might have been killers in Vietnam, but I'm seeing another side of them, and looking at images of the the American soldiers, also the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong - I never saw an enemy.

When a photographer or a person sees your beauty, your inner beauty, it makes you feel special like, "Wow, someone saw that within me."

For the most part, as a society, we are not happy with ourselves.

My camera is my compass; it's guided me to so many different places.