I started photography more or less by accident when I was already 27. I was taken on as an assistant by a photographer who was a friend of a friend and I very quickly understood the potential of expression in photography.

The photographer, even in fashion and portraiture, has to have a standpoint. It's important to know what you stand for, no? Most people just take pictures but they stand for nothing. They follow trends and don't know why.

I didn't take inspiration from other photographers, which in a way helped to find my own images.

Your inspiration is better if it comes from many different sources and your sensibilities will transform all those influences and inspiration into your own visual world. It's like reading the book instead of watching the movie.

In 1990 I did a story with Helena Christensen about a woman who lives in a trailer in the middle of the desert and finds a little crushed UFO with a martian who has survived the crash. She takes him home, and they fall in love. Later he has to meet with his fellow martians who have arrived to rescue him. It's a sad ending. This was my first truly narrative story and apparently the first narrative story in fashion photography.

Inspired by words you have to create images to tell the story, while it's much more difficult to find your own images with a film for inspiration, because someone has already done it for you.

I have a very big apartment in Paris but you can't really move around there anymore; piles of books everywhere. I don't want any more books. I have too many books; sometimes I have to buy another copy of a book that I know I have somewhere in my house or office because I can't find it.