[My advice to a beginning photographer is] sit down with a pencil and paper and think about what your life is about. What you are about. Don't even take a camera into your hands before you figure that out.

I usually know when I take the picture. There's always some kind of un-self-conscious thing going on, so that it doesn't look like they're there for the sake of having their portrait taken.

I look at art all the time. I go to the museums and galleries every week. That really is like food for me.

People aren't really looking at the result when taking a picture on an iPhone. And they don't print it. So to me, it's almost not a photograph. It's like looking in the mirror. It's a tool I don't relate to at all.

The idea of the portrait itself is my great love. The questions and answers in it can go on forever and ever. It is what happens in the eyes or with a tilt of the head. I keep going because it's too interesting to stop.

I know now that before I take a picture I have to be sure about how I feel about the subjects. What I don't know is if I should explain to them what I'm doing while I'm photographing them.

Color is very important in my work. That comes from style. My mother was a fashion model and an interior decorator, so that was me imitating her. My closest friend's mother was the same way, and her taste rubbed off on me, too. It's a domino effect of taste permeating through people.