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I actually used to smile a lot in pictures. I think I only stopped smiling when I got into fashion. Fashion stole my smile!

Sometimes when I'm being photographed, I hear the voice of this photographer who told me when I was about six while he was taking my school photo that I didn't have a nice smile, and I shouldn't smile in photos.

When I graduated, I felt a little burned out on taking pictures after so many years of churning out so many for classes.

My parents always got a kick out of my art. I was always able to make them laugh. As I got older, I remember the thrill I got when I graduated from making my classmates laugh to making adults laugh. Kind of a watershed moment.

I was never one of those surly teenagers who doesn't smile. My lovely godfather said it was always lovely to see me because I was the only teenager who smiled. And I was so in awe of him, I thought it was one of the best things anyone had ever said to me. So it made me want to live up to what he said.

The surprising thing is that I was not funny in high school. I was always jealous of the funny kids because they always got the girls. I couldn't tell a joke to save my life.

I had a hard enough time in high school, fitting in without having to keep up with Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook - all these ways you have to keep up your image.

It can make you sad to look at pictures from your youth. So there's a trick to it. The trick is not to look at the later pictures.

People often expect me to be very serious, but it's not like my record company told me not to smile in photographs, because I was like that anyway.