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.

The majority of the people I've taken photographs of, I've had conversations with. "What are your goals and aspirations?" "What are you about?" It's not just about me capturing the image; I want to know what you are about.

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 read a recent statistic that eighty-seven percent of women are dissatisfied with themselves, and over forty-seven percent of men. My work is visu-medicine to heal people and see beauty within people.

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.

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.

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