I don't aestheticize anything. I don't even use lights. The working girls do one thing all day: They make themselves pretty. That's their job and their money. In a way, I had the best makeup artists, hairdressers, and art designers in the world.

In Bangladesh a prostitute normally wouldn't even undress for a man. He pays, she pulls up her sari, and he's done in 20 seconds.

You can become an alcoholic working in an office in Los Angeles. It's very easy to say because I do this shameful job I take drugs or drink, but the real reason prostitutes take drugs and drink is because prostitution is a party area. It's not about desperation, it's the surroundings.

Sometimes the presence of a camera is like opening a door.

La Zona is such a closed area, a dangerous, outlaw area. My time in the Zona was a time outside of society, almost out of the real world. And the girls there had such a sense of irony and sarcasm. They were also really interested in my film. They'd be like, "Thank God we live in Mexico, because our kind of prostitution has a heart. We wouldn't want to sit behind a glass cage or be sold by our own mothers. We have free will."

In the Bengali language, there's not a real word for blow job. They call it "doing the ice cream."

Mostly I take photographs in times of research. Whores' Glory was shot in 30 days, 10 days for each segment, but the research for each part lasted a couple of months.