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 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.

There was a time in my life that I may not have been that nice, and now I'm in a position to contribute to the education of young people, and teach them to be compassionate, be more loving, more caring, to not use profanity, to not pollute the environment - these are things that I address in my photography. I

The photograph is to a great degree evidence of the conversation I had with the person. It's a part of my visual diary.

I think that's what the war photography did for me. It showed me the human side of people and how certain circumstances can change people's lives.

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.

For me, the stars are the invisible people on the street that people don't really get a chance to know.