For me it is not a detachment to take a picture. It's a way of touching somebody - it's a caress… I think that you can actually give people access to their own soul.

If I want to take a picture, I take it no matter what.

A lot of people seem to think that art or photography is about the way things look, or the surface of things. That's not what it's about for me. It's really about relationships and feelings...it's really hard for me to do commercial work because people kind of want me to do a Nan Goldin. They don't understand that it's not about a style or a look or a setup. It's about emotional obsession and empathy.

I love all the Hollywood women. I saw all the films when I was a teenager. Jack Smith's "Flaming Creatures".

The complete disregard for the camera's presence indicates its complete saturation in their lives. The subject neither notices nor seems to care that someone has been invited into their private moment.

I'm very influenced by a lot of things, but my chief influence is my friends and what I see and what I feel and my own experiences and memory.

I did [heroin] maybe when I was 18 but I got over that pretty quickly.