I remember growing up and hearing the word "ugly" a lot. "I'm ugly." "She ugly." "He ugly." I hated it then, and I hate it now. I go past physical beauty; I tell people they have a beautiful spirit and that is something different.

I do believe in angels and I believe that a lot of these people I'm supposed to meet. The photograph serves as evidence; it causes me to reflect on when I met this person.

I wanted to go amongst gangbangers, to understand this war they were fighting amongst each other. I wanted to document it, [also] to show the human side of it.

I remember growing up and hearing the word "ugly" a lot. "I'm ugly." "She ugly." "He ugly." I hated it then, and I hate it now. I go past physical beauty; I tell people they have a beautiful spirit and that is something different.

What I strive to do through my work, is to teach compassion. You need to have a lot of it, in this day and time, and it's lacking.

I think that photography has allowed me to have a voice. I used to stutter, and once I overcame that struggle, it felt good to tell people they were beautiful and special.

I think what it was with the war photography was the concerned eye, the desire to document these situations to show the world the horrors of war. It inspired me to document prostitution; inspired me to document homelessness in America. We are the richest country in the world, yet we have people suffering, so it helped me to look at things in that manner.