There is just something about the common being. My education pretty much came from the streets, just connecting with people, different cultures. I gained the wealth just engaging at that level. I'm still like that. I continue to document everyday people versus the stars.

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.

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

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.

My camera is my compass; it's guided me to so many different places.

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'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.