I was never raised with anybody telling me that gay was bad.

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

I can work with shyness, but for the most part I want people to feel comfortable with me. It's really more about the photographer feeing comfortable right when they walk in that makes the subject feel comfortable.

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

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

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.