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You grew up in Greenwich Village and had an eclectic family full of artists. How did this shape your creativity?
I think it really had an impact on my way of thinking. We lived in artist communes, lofts (when there were real lofts in NY) and we knew some of the most amazing people: Shell Silverstien, Warhol, Allen Ginsberg. My grandmother was around with the Beats and a writer so we knew every writer and poet in NY. My mother was a painter and had me very young (19 years old) so I was really part of her life and development. I was brought to all the parties, openings, etc. New York was an amazing place in the late 70s and early 80s it’s something that is part of history as it’s so different now.
What inspired you to start High Fashion Crime Scenes?
Between shooting assignments for magazines I used to stop in bookstores to leaf through books and get ideas. About 10 years ago I was flipping through books at Book Soup (a little bookstore on Sunset) and a book called Evidence by Luc Santé was in the mix. It was a book of crime scene photographs taken in NYC btw 1912-1914. It scared me at the time, as it was something that I didn’t want to look at but at the same time couldn’t stop – I became totally fascinated with it. Later that night I actually had trouble sleeping and thought about it for days. A few months later I came across another crime scene book – much more horrific- but again I couldn’t stop looking, the more horrific the images the more I looked and this time I was more interested in the small details: what the victims were wearing, the objects in the scene, the décor etc. On my way home the concept for the series hit me – it came to me in a flood with the title etc. The series is about distractions and playing with desensitization, commerce and how powerful these things are.