We had a hodgepodge of footage. We didn't film [in Dream of Life ]all the time - we would just film periodically, so nothing was synced and nothing was slated.

Angelo Corrao was our editor [in Dream of Life], and he was just so diligent and so old-school in the way he looked at editing. He would take my far-out ideas and tame them and make sense of them.

I just wanted to be Patti's [Smith] messenger and get her word out there.

Fashion's been really good to me. It financed Patti Smith: Dream of Life.

I thought about how to film something, how to take pictures of it and how to mix it all together. And I was getting that through Patti [Smith] - because she takes pictures, performs, writes; she does so many things, and that was a big inspiration to me. It helped me realized that I'm not just a fashion photographer. I wanted to do all these other artistic things as well, and during filming my mind opened up to those possibilities.

We were just hanging out and getting to learn about each other. But I think trust was a really big thing. Patti [Smith] is a good friend, somebody I can talk to.

I like not knowing too much about somebody I'm photographing, because the process also becomes an experience for me to learn about .