For me, a good portrait shows the fragility and humility of the person, and at the same time a strength, a resting in themselves.

Big ideas don't make them selves known as big. They begin with the little, ridiculous ideas that most people would discard or reject. Every successful picture I've done has really been based on taking a very flimsy, fleeting little idea, grabbing hold of it, and taking it seriously.

I want the pictures to be working in both directions. I accept that they speak about me, and yet at the same time, I want and expect them to function in terms of the viewer and their experience. With these abstract pictures, although the eye recognizes them as photographic rather than painted, the eye also tries to connect them to reality. There's always this association machine working in the brain, and that is why it is important to me that they are actually photographic and not painted.

The true authenticity of photographs for me is that they usually manipulate and lie about what is in front of the camera, but never lie about the intentions behind the camera.

To look without fear is a good subversive tool, undermining taboos.

Boy George of course, was my idol as a teenager. I haven't photographed him, even though I know him now. He wants the pictures to be retouched, and I don't want that.

Always take yourself seriously... it's not the same as being pompous, or overly self-assured, but it is important to understand that the small little ideas that creep up in your mind, often contain the germ of a much larger project. All great art wasn't born as great art. It first needed to be recognized by the artist him/herself. Through his or her belief in it, it became true.