It's important to not be afraid of failure and to push yourself to try things and jump in the cold water. There are incredible, beautiful opportunities out there.

The relationship I have with my mother now, and photographing her in front of the grave, it opens up discussions, and dealings with the conversations with my mother about, when I was little, how we lived and about suicide and talking about it, so it's something positive, it brought us more together, because people might never discuss that. Some families never go near certain subjects because it's too hurtful or too close or too dangerous. But within doing these photographs, I also wanted to open up a conversation with her about certain things about life.

I don't like taking a sly picture on the side. I like the direct approach. I want to be as honest to myself and the subject as possible. And I'm depending on their humanness to come through.

I don't care about fashion at all. And I know it's kind of a dodgy thing to be a fashion photographer, a kind of pathetic occupation, but I like it, even though I question it.

When you're a well-known fashion photographer, modeling agencies call constantly. They'll say, This great girl is in town for three days. She's excellent, she's exciting. You've got to see her... So I decided to really have a look at them. I opened up my studio and said, Send anyone... And I became quite addicted to the whole thing. I was curious to see how many girls would come. I couldn't believe that there really were so many around.

It's important to not be afraid of failure and to push yourself to try things and jump in the cold water. There are incredible, beautiful opportunities out there.

This beauty ideal is everywhere. You can't escape it - TV, wallpaper, posters, billboards, magazines. They put on these crazy perceptions about what people should look like. It's really shocking the way everybody is striving for this one thing, this ultimate beauty, but what is it?