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I look at old photos of me, and I don't feel connected to them at all. I would never wish my upbringing on anyone... but I wouldn't take it back for the world.

I have an unusual hobby: I collect pictures of people I don't know. It started when I was a kid growing up in South Florida, the land of junk stores, garage sales, and flea markets, as a kind of coping mechanism.

My parents were journalists and friends with writers, artists, and just a really interesting assortment of people, so I was exposed to all lifestyles from a young age.

I still love to look at photographs but I couldn't do it myself anymore.

I told myself, 'When I grow up, I want to make pictures that can inspire and nourish people.' Immediately, when I was 10, I started photographing nature. I built a darkroom. My first really good darkroom, not just down in the cellar, was when I was 14.

I've been an amateur photographer since my teens.

I always had an easier time with adults. Somehow, I was always old! I still feel old.

In my 20s, when I was a photojournalist in Beijing. I joined an underground art group and put on clandestine exhibitions of my paintings.

I don't think I really realized what being an adult and being a real grownup was until I was at least twenty-eight.

When I was young, I did actually model and was much photographed by famous photographers. But I was always a bookworm.