[Some] times I'd have sound but no image. When Patti [Smith] was singing with her guitar, or doing something amazing with her clarinet, I'd just mess around and record the sound. So we'd use those sounds as another layer in the film [Dream of Life].

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

I wasn't familiar with Patti [Smith ]much at all. When I was asked to photograph her, my wife said, "Oh my God, Patti Smith!" So I looked at some Robert Mapplethorpe books and I recognized those pictures.

A lot of times I had footage that didn't have sound [in the Dream of Life film] - either I didn't bring a sound recorder, or I forgot to turn on the sound recorder - so we would have to improvise and build those scenes.

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.

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.

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.