When you look at my photos, just look into the eyes of my subjects. The eyes say so much.

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.

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.

The images of war inspired me to create, to go to different situations and communities, to document the human side of people, to show a side that we don't see.

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.

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