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

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

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.

Because the filming process was so organic and there was no script, the film [Dream of Life] was literally telling us what it wanted to be in the editing room.

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 never went to film school, so I just sort of learned on my own.