I've often looked at the extremes as a way to shed light on the mainstream. Even though everybody says, "Money doesn't buy you happiness," I don't think that that's the principle by which people live. If you talk to kids and ask them what they want to be when they grow up, they say, "Rich and famous," but being rich and famous is not a job.

My first book, Fast Forward, was about growing up in the shadow of Hollywood and how kids are affected by the culture of materialism and the cult of celebrity, and I've often felt the reason my work has an audience in the UK is because it's everything the British love to hate about the Americans.

My photography is often a sociological look at American culture and it's been very well published in the UK.

I focus on a lot of women's issues.

The people in the popular group say there is no peer pressure because they are at the top of the food chain. Really what they are doing is just eating away at everybody else.

The economist Juliet Schor talks about how our reference group has changed over the last twenty-five years. As we spend less time with our neighbors, we're spending more time with people we know from TV and social media, and this becomes our new reference group. The media is full of images of people with wealth, and we're comparing ourselves to them and aspiring to what they have. Instead of keeping up with the Joneses family, we're trying to keep up with the Kardashians, even though it's completely unrealistic.

I've also been documenting an unsustainable way of life. And you see in peoples' stories that this world of consumerism does not support the moral and spiritual values - of family and community - that people feel are most important. From an environmental perspective, the quest for more and more is not going to be possible on this planet. This is a historical documentation of an unsustainable path, and my hope is that this work allows people to think about their own agency and the potential for change.