It's weird being a photographer because you really have to divorce yourself from the image.

Growing up, my room was covered in posters. I was like, "I want to make posters."

I'm always interested in an atmosphere where dreams and reality mingle on equal terms.

Actually, I didn't study photography at first. I went to school for painting my first year, poetry my second year, graphic design my third and fourth year, and photography my fifth.

When I moved to New York, I was still in the closet.

In college, all my friends were graffiti writers, but I never wrote graffiti. I wanted to participate and do something cool on the street, so I'd make these portraits of people. I'd isolate them on a white wall, make a silkscreen of it, and do these portraits in bathrooms and all around. That's how I started the Polaroids.

My photographs are a celebration of life, fun and the beautiful. They are a world that doesn't exist. A fantasy. Freedom is real. There are no rules. The life I wish I was living.