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.

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

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.

I shot [Dream of Life] all on 16-millimeter, and I just wanted to learn about Patti [Smith].

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.

The film [Dream of Life] came together when we started editing; it was organic, it became nonlinear and it was its own animal. And I didn't want to tame it, either. I wanted it to be different. It's not your typical documentary.

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