I've always said that the Europeans subconsciously knew how to pose because of the culture or tradition of having your portrait made. They were surrounded by these portraits, and subconsciously they were already posing for them.

My theory is, the more pictures you take, the better you get. It's like a sport. I never wait to get a particular shot because wonderful accidents can happen when you shoot a lot.

Shooting great-grandchildren of some of the people I had photographed in the past, who are around the age of 15, is fascinating to me, because they're right on this fine line between still being children and starting to become themselves.

I'm at the point now where I don't really have an agenda. I kind of let things flow, and there's not a narrative. On the set it's usually one or two people, and I'm not trying to choreograph them as I did in the past. I'm really just trying to see what's going on in their minds and in their faces.

I feel as if most people are pretty much the same within a certain class, due to the schools they attend and the way they are raised.

[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.

The conservatism is extraordinary to me; just compare the way they dress to the way their parents dress. There are still no tattoos or piercings, which is interesting to me. Why does everyone who lives in one place dress alike, look alike, eat the same thing, and decorate the same way?