I got a lot of attention when I was really young, and people have it in their minds that I'm still 24 years old. So I made the decision that I had photographed everything I was interested in in New York. New York is a town you have to embrace, but you also need to leave. I may revisit it one day, but for me it's a place to live rather than one to make work in.
I really don't want to be part of just one group. I'm interested in doing everything - making music videos, shooting campaigns, having -gallery and museum shows, making movies. Everyone wants to put you in a box, and I'm afraid I'm not that kind of person.
Everyone started to have a camera. That's when I started to travel outside of New York and go into nature.
I just remember how excited I was to have a boyfriend and be in love and to document it.
When I moved to New York, I was still in the closet.
In a lot of ways I look at these old photos, and I don't know if I would have been able to communicate with these people on this level if I didn't have a camera. I think I would still be so shy.
The camera gives you some control.
I think a lot about control nowadays, and I really want to let go and just be more in the moment.
A camera gives you a purpose.
The thing about being a photographer that's so cool is that you get to participate, but you also get to disappear. The camera is in front of your face all the time.
I spent all of my money on film. I remember I would do these set-design jobs or transcribe or just anything to get, like, a $100 check and go immediately to Adorama and buy expired film.
Whatever emotions you're going through, you somehow seek out the people that are going through similar emotions or that maybe have something you need.
You find the people that you need to find. There's this gravitational pull.
What I really believe is that there are no coincidences anymore.
Just being friends with people now for over 15 years, you realize what we all came out of. What we came out of was the intense feeling of growing up. It sounds kind of cliché, but it's true.
A lot of my close friends have committed suicide or died of heroin overdoses.
The cool part about New York is that you can do that. You can talk to all the people you admire.
Growing up, my room was covered in posters. I was like, "I want to make posters."
I was studying graphic design at the time, when negative scanners and all that stuff was coming out, and you could do it all in your apartment. So I would shoot, make contact sheets, scan all the cool negatives, and make all these zines and books of my photos to give to my friends. I was really into zine- and bookmaking from skate culture.
When I was in art school, the photo kids were separated from the rest. If you did sculpture or painting or graphic design, you were all taking the same classes, but the photographers just went straight into photography.
I didn't have much of a life in crime as a graffiti writer.
In college, all my friends were graffiti writers, but I never wrote graffiti. I wanted to participate and do something cool on the street, so I'd make these portraits of people. I'd isolate them on a white wall, make a silkscreen of it, and do these portraits in bathrooms and all around. That's how I started the Polaroids.
I didn't have to be friends with people who were into pop music.
I put all of my time into art because I couldn't go back to Jersey and work at Starbucks.
A lot of people, even my parents, thought, "Art school, I don't know. We'll support you but the success rate for artists is really slim."
Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Every day we present the best quotes! Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends
or simply: