I didn't do well in high school, but I took photography, and I loved being able to capture moments.

Because the filming process was so organic and there was no script, the film [Dream of Life] was literally telling us what it wanted to be in the editing room.

Over time it just got more and more intense as far as the trust factor. For example, when we started editing the film [Dream of Life], I thought, man, I need to make sense of all the footage I have; I need to ground the film. And one day I was hanging out in Patti's [Smith] bedroom, which is where Patti works, and in the corner of her bedroom is this great chair, and that's when she began showing her personal things to me. The camera was there, and we realized that we were really making the movie and making sense of the footage in the movie.

Fashion has also been a great outlet, and I'd like to do more fashion photography in the future. I also photograph a lot of artists.

We just grew to trust each other [with Patti Smith] more and more over the years. Most of the time I didn't even have a movie camera.

Patti [Smith] was my experiment, to be honest. And the film is what we got out of it. At the end of the day, I learned a lot about how to make a film.

Many of my family members are teachers in the arts, and I picked up the camera years ago, in high school.