I was never afraid of getting old. I remember being young and thinking, Wow, I can't wait until I'm older because I feel like everything is going to happen then. I don't want to sound pretentious or anything, but I'm always one of the first ones to say, "Let's try that."

Now I love the act of creating a new image. When everything comes together, it feels like ecstasy. It's like a climax.

I try not to let the material aspects of different cultures distract me from getting to the essence of the person I'm photographing. Whether it's a man or a woman. Wherever they're from, I try not to let social status or cultural background affect me or affect the person. I strip all those things away to get down to the essence of the human being, the person.

I want to let [my photographs] be something that comes from the model in her own way. I don't want to take the models too much out of their own skin. I realized that I wanted to create a marriage between who the person was, the nature, the beauty in the figure, and how the models sat or posed themselves.

I guess my work is described a lot of the time as very sensual and sexy. When I take a picture, I'm very focused on trying to discover something about a person. Or about an idea. I try to be quite successful at it.

My work was my life, and my life was my work, and there was a kind of blur between reality and what was being created.

I got into photography because of the immediacy of the medium. I used to sit in front of a canvas for weeks trying to create something. Now I can see the image right away.