I was doing a lot of web design at the time. And anybody that has an agent thinks, "Why do I need an agent?" Maybe it's a little different as an actor - of course you need an agent - but any kind of agency that's selling something for you, you think, "Why can't I sell this myself? It doesn't make sense."
Jeff VespaMy mom had a Canon AE1 camera and I read the manual and that's basically how I became a photographer. I was in the Baltimore punk scene. I knew it was a special time, so I went out and documented that whole era. I was the only person to really do it of my friends in real black and white, beautiful portraits.
Jeff VespaThere were just moments of the punk scene and I realized that I had to capture it. There was also this photographer in our preschool - I went to a Montessori school in Baltimore, Maryland - and they had this photographer come and take all these incredible photographs. They looked like they were from Life magazine.
Jeff VespaA lot of people have done that over the years. Many of the agencies today were started by photographers. It's a normal progression. It wasn't some crazy idea, it was just, "Can we start our own agency? Can we do this?"
Jeff VespaThe Canon AE1 - a fully manual camera. [My mother] had a 50mm, which is a standard lens, and then I got a 28mm. Then I started a little punk magazine, a zine, when I was 14 or 15 years old. I was shooting my friends skateboarding and it was the beginning of the Macintosh. We wouldn't do layouts on the computer; we would pick the font and then type up a paragraph and then print it out and cut it up and put it in a little mock-up and Xerox it.
Jeff VespaThat was my experience with everybody in the book. That was what was so cool. It's just an excuse to hang out with people. It's not for a movie; it's not for a magazine. No one's here telling us what to do. We're at my house shooting. I just get to go, "What do you want to do today?" We're only there because we want to be there because of each other. There's no other reason.
Jeff Vespa