A lot of people, even my parents, thought, "Art school, I don't know. We'll support you but the success rate for artists is really slim."

A lot of my close friends have committed suicide or died of heroin overdoses.

I knew my ticket out of the suburbs was art school, so I worked really hard to develop my portfolio and get a scholarship.

Everyone started to have a camera. That's when I started to travel outside of New York and go into nature.

What I really believe is that there are no coincidences anymore.

You have to be able to observe life as if you were a camera all the time, constantly looking at light and the way that things are placed and the way people hold themselves. You need the ability to see something in someone or something that no one else really sees and be able to bring that to light. Basically, you have to be an obsessive crazy person.

All I do is make photos. It's my life.