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.
[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 idea of the portrait itself is my great love. The questions and answers in it can go on forever and ever. It is what happens in the eyes or with a tilt of the head. I keep going because it's too interesting to stop.
Color is very important in my work. That comes from style. My mother was a fashion model and an interior decorator, so that was me imitating her. My closest friend's mother was the same way, and her taste rubbed off on me, too. It's a domino effect of taste permeating through people.
I know now that before I take a picture I have to be sure about how I feel about the subjects. What I don't know is if I should explain to them what I'm doing while I'm photographing them.
Can you see the deaths, divorces, job losses or changes, disappointments, surprises, and successes on people's faces? Have they been happy, sad, disillusioned, or gratified? I have been trying the single, vertically shot portrait with my 8 x 10 since 1985 and never felt I succeeded in finding what I was looking for.
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.
People aren't really looking at the result when taking a picture on an iPhone. And they don't print it. So to me, it's almost not a photograph. It's like looking in the mirror. It's a tool I don't relate to at all.
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 think people imitate actors - things they've seen in a movie or on TV, and before you know it, they're doing something with their face or their mouth. It's from some actor they think is cool. They might not even know they're doing it, which is kind of funny.
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 look at art all the time. I go to the museums and galleries every week. That really is like food for me.
I usually know when I take the picture. There's always some kind of un-self-conscious thing going on, so that it doesn't look like they're there for the sake of having their portrait taken.
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'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.
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.
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?
