I think the driving force when I moved to New York was the fear of going home with my tail between my legs.

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

When I was in art school, the photo kids were separated from the rest. If you did sculpture or painting or graphic design, you were all taking the same classes, but the photographers just went straight into photography.

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

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.

I'm interested in reaching the masses with my work. It's one of my goals.

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.