The thing that really excites me about photography is the immediacy of it. How can you capture an image or see a person or an object or a place or a thing? If you have the right camera and the right eye, you can capture it and you can have it for a while in your possession. You don’t really own it but it’s sort of on loan to you. And so for me, especially in today’s world, because I came from the world of analogue photography and now being in the world of digital photography, the sense of immediacy is so much more enhanced, it’s much like the idea of having an abstract idea. Photographing that abstract idea and then actually making it concrete or touchable or seeable is just minutes away from the original thought. Before, you would have to take film to a lab and have it developed. Usually from idea to finish line it was maybe two or three days, but today it’s just a few minutes.

I love photography because it’s like being a psychotherapist. When I photograph people it’s so interesting to see their responses and their reactions. You often have to calm them down or bring them to a place that is comfortable for them and for you to capture them. People often say that when they come to my studio I make them feel comfortable, enough to let themselves shine through to the best of their abilities, so that they can be the best of who they are. It’s this interaction between people that I like a lot. I like doing portraits of people because it is intimate, it is singular, just between me and the subject matter, not like photographing crowd shots and all that.

That’s why when I’m photographing famous people their entourages have to kind of stay back. Somebody in the studio has to remind them that this is not a party. For me this is an intimate exchange between a photographer and another artist. So I don’t know if that’s the answer – but to me it’s one of the most important elements of why I take pictures and why I like to take pictures. I photograph people because they have been suggested to me, or I’ve met them, and what makes them a good subject is something more than just the superficial.