What affected me most profoundly was the realization that the sciences of cryptography and mathematics are very elegant, pure sciences. I found that the ends for which these pure sciences are used are less elegant. ↗
I wasted a lot of years working on my writing and very grandly saying, 'And now... My Novel!,' which would soon be reduced to a short story, then to a paragraph. ↗
What it all boils down to for me is having the enthusiasm to do something for enjoyment and being stimulated by what's around you. That's what photography does for me. ↗
My wife Mariana is a good photographer too and, like me, she just picks up a camera and takes a picture when she sees something, rather than looking too deeply into it. ↗
The problem for me is that I've never actually studied photography, so it's quite a steep learning curve. Cameras these days do so much for you automatically but I still think there's a point where you should actually know the technical side. ↗
I got out of autobiography because my story is, I was famous, it was hard for me, I got into therapy. I had trouble with food, I got a nutritionist. There's no story there. ↗
I just really wanted to do art, except when I was taking those photographs of people I would make the clothes that I would photograph them in so I could control the whole thing. ↗
The photograph, the clothes, the sets - this was about 1974, and I started hanging out with my friend Richard Sold, who was playing in a band with Patti Smith. ↗
