I have the great privilege of being both witness and storyteller. Intimacy, trust and intuition guide my work.
[A photograph] is a part of the evidence. I'm not saying it's the truth - it's part of the evidence.
The photograph is kind of a proof - a proof that I actually met these people, that they actually have lives, and that they're worth considering.
Since 1970, I've been using text and ephemera as well as photographs in order to tell stories of one kind or another. There's a thread that runs through all the work that is to do with bearing witness. The photographs are about asking questions, though, not answering them.
My only agenda is to bring attention to otherwise ignored and shunned lives.
It's always good to find things that you haven't found before.
Before I even took pictures I knew that I wanted to have them as hard copy memories.
There are many images which I miss on purpose. I've done too many of them before and photographing them again doesn't change the world, or me.
Every single immigrant is part of a larger history that needs to be communicated in all its ambivalences and complexities.
This was in San Francisco, in 1987. A bunch of kids were camped out in the Riviera Hotel - boy hustlers and their sugar daddy. One boy, Tank, showed us his gun. 'It's not loaded,' he said. He pointed the gun to his head, then out the window, and then to the ceiling. When the gun was pointed to the ceiling, he pulled the trigger and it went off. The gun was loaded after all.
I use my intuition. I tell my students: use your brains, but also use another part of yourself.
