I'm not going to hide behind anything.

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.

All my work, really, is based on my brothers and sisters. I had so many adventures with them and a big part of the work is to recreate those. It's easy for me to be around a lot of people, because I can retreat. I can watch everything.

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.

Whatever emotions you're going through, you somehow seek out the people that are going through similar emotions or that maybe have something you need.

My mom had seven kids in seven years, and then she had me 11 years later. So when I was born, my oldest brother was 18. And my youngest brother was 11. By the time I was 7 or 8, everyone had moved out. I went from being with ten people all the time to being an only child. It really freaked me out.

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