That was an amazing experience [making Dream of Life]. It's hard to imagine that we were editing every day for a year. And it was pretty extraordinary; it also went by super fast. But every day was an experiment.

I quickly realized that Patti [Smith] was somebody very special.

When I started photographing Patti [Smith], I knew that there wasn't a whole a lot of information out there about her. I was periodically interested in films, and so I just kept asking her if I could come around.

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

When I went to Detroit, I was very naïve, actually, and I think Patti [Smith] picked up on that quite quickly.

I think those moments in Patti's [Smith] bedroom really helped the film [Dream of Life] out, and those moments existed because of the trust between us. There isn't any real self-consciousness in the film because we all like each other.

It took 12 years to put this film [Dream of Life] together, but it was not until toward the end of those 12 years that I looked at Patti [Smith] and said, "Maybe we should do something with this footage."