My work shows the beauty in so many different kinds of people because I never photograph anyone who I don't think is beautiful. I never take an intentionally mean picture.

The only time I went out was to go to bars at night and all the pictures were taken with a flash because there was no light at all. However now I'm very interested in light.

You know it's said that you make your own face. So you don't really have a face until you are 30 or your mid-20s. When you are starting to grow up and show your character in your face.

I also photographed Maggie Cheung - but these didn't develop into a friendship either.

The main thing that I want to say is that I don't think women are at their most beautiful in their adolescence or in their early 20s.

I was recently interviewed for radio in relation to the "Thanksgiving" show [2001] at the Saatchi gallery that I was part of. The interviewer said that people in London were very disturbed that I showed a picture of myself battered ("Nan One Month after Being Battered", 1984) and they thought that I set it up. I was accused of deliberately putting on a wig for that particular picture.

At the same time as the UK Vogue one, I did a shoot that took about 40 days of friends and people I admired in Paris, for French Vogue. This is how I met Maria Schneider in June and which began our friendship.