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

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

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.

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

I went through a pretty big David Bowie period when I was younger, and that has affected me profoundly in my life and my work.

In a lot of ways I look at these old photos, and I don't know if I would have been able to communicate with these people on this level if I didn't have a camera. I think I would still be so shy.

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.