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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.