I would literally sit at home and have my friends take pictures of me on my little Canon camera that my mom gave me for Christmas.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I grew up as a photo nut. Every Christmas I would get a new camera. It's a huge part of my life.
I shot images of everything I could find over the course of a year. I would go all over the world and take pictures. In a day, I could easily take thousands.
I knew from the first moment I picked up a camera, on my first school assignment, what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I was going to find a way to travel the world and tell the stories of the people I met through photographs.
I'd go down to the end of my street, to a garage that had a certain feeling about it, or a particular light; I'd take a picture of a friend who needed a head shot. That's how I learned, instead of having school assignments and learning camera techniques.
As a 13, - 14-year-old kid, I'd sit on my bed with a tape recorder and a newspaper. I would do my own newscast. I would practice my diction.
My mom would take me to restaurants, and the first thing I'd ask for would be a pen and a napkin, and I'd sketch shoes and shoes and shoes.
I'd just like to be able to walk outside as everyone does and enjoy time with my friends, not feel bad for not wanting to take a picture.
I'd grab the camera and tell people what to do, and when I was 14, someone told me that it was called directing.
I would come home after school and begin to create videos, because there was people waiting to see new content from me.
My grandmother and I would go see movies, and we'd come back to the apartment - we had a one-room apartment in Hollywood - and I would kind of lock myself in this little dressing room area with a cracked mirror on the door and act out what I had just seen.