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

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.

Most of the e-mails I get nowadays are from students who ask me how I got my start. In truth its from having a really supportive family but also having a good patron who will help you - like financing all those early trips I took.

I was never told, "Fags are going to hell." You just didn't talk about it.

I'm making the art for me first. I'm making it because these are the pictures I want to see. I'm making pictures that don't yet exist.

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

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.