From 8 to 19, I was skateboarding every single day. That was my life. I worked at a skate shop. I watched skate videos.

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.

Everyone I'm photographing, I feel like I'm remaking a family, in a way. My brothers and sisters are my heroes. So many of my models resemble them.

My dad was in the Korean War. He got shot seven times. He had seven bullet holes in him. And out of his troop of 35 guys, he was one of nine guys that came back. And when he came back from that he had seven kids in seven years.

A lot of artists need structure.

I was studying graphic design at the time, when negative scanners and all that stuff was coming out, and you could do it all in your apartment. So I would shoot, make contact sheets, scan all the cool negatives, and make all these zines and books of my photos to give to my friends. I was really into zine- and bookmaking from skate culture.

The cool part about New York is that you can do that. You can talk to all the people you admire.