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 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

Photography is humbling, it really is, and it really allows for me to atone for some of the missteps I've made throughout the course of my life.

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

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.

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 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.