Does getting closer to the subject make the photograph more intimate? I'm sure it takes more than that. What comes next? The face, the nude? That's what I'd love to do. Who would even let me do that?

Does getting closer to the subject make the photograph more intimate? I'm sure it takes more than that. What comes next? The face, the nude? That's what I'd love to do. Who would even let me do that?

I never thought that my work was going to become well-known. It started happening slowly, without my realizing it. But when I did, it was terrifying. I still can't believe that people let me photograph them. The trust is amazing. But I've always put them in a context that is dignified, and that's really important.

I sometimes get commissioned to photograph families, and they see the results and say, "Oh, I look terrible." And that's when I realize the difference between the people I choose and the people who choose me.

[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.

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