I do remember, the first time we met [with Patti Smith], the door opening with a squeak. And then there was this very beautiful girl looking out.

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.

Hopefully I can inspire lots of people to learn about [Patti Smith], to read poetry or learn about William Blake or Arthur Rimbaud.

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.

For me, moving from photography to film was very easy.

[Through the making of Dream of Life] I learned about being patient, perseverance, having a dream, a goal. I learned that I can accomplish something despite not knowing anything about it when I begin.

I didn't do well in high school, but I took photography, and I loved being able to capture moments. It led to more and more photography, and fashion was the angle into photography for me. It was incredible to see photographs by Irving Penn or Helmut Newton. I was really intrigued by that, and that's what led me to New York City.