I always like to meet the people I'm going to photograph. I need to have a conversation. I need to feel a vibe. I need to see what's going on in the person. I'm not just interested in physical beauty. I really need a personality.
My work was my life, and my life was my work, and there was a kind of blur between reality and what was being created.
I've had moments where I've felt like I was on another planet because I saw something beautiful. To me, taking pictures is being alive.
You should be constantly asking yourself: What do I want to say next? What do I believe in? Who am I? What is my image? To be a successful photographer, you have to have a unique point of view otherwise you'll get lost in the mix.
...you don't need to be technically great, because if you have a strong philosophy people will be moved by your pictures regardless.
I guess my work is described a lot of the time as very sensual and sexy. When I take a picture, I'm very focused on trying to discover something about a person. Or about an idea. I try to be quite successful at it.
I try not to let the material aspects of different cultures distract me from getting to the essence of the person I'm photographing. Whether it's a man or a woman. Wherever they're from, I try not to let social status or cultural background affect me or affect the person. I strip all those things away to get down to the essence of the human being, the person.
Now I love the act of creating a new image. When everything comes together, it feels like ecstasy. It's like a climax.
I want to let [my photographs] be something that comes from the model in her own way. I don't want to take the models too much out of their own skin. I realized that I wanted to create a marriage between who the person was, the nature, the beauty in the figure, and how the models sat or posed themselves.
I got into photography because of the immediacy of the medium. I used to sit in front of a canvas for weeks trying to create something. Now I can see the image right away.
I'm pretty open. I'm not afraid of men. I'm not afraid of women. I'm not afraid of sex and sexuality. It's part of me, and it comes out in the photograph. It's as if at that moment when I'm taking pictures, I'm not a man and I'm not a woman. If I see a moment that seems true to me, that seems honest, whether it's female or male, it's part of me as well.
I was never afraid of getting old. I remember being young and thinking, Wow, I can't wait until I'm older because I feel like everything is going to happen then. I don't want to sound pretentious or anything, but I'm always one of the first ones to say, "Let's try that."
