"I GOT HIRED TO SHOOT THE COVER FOR MICHAEL JACKSON'S HISTORY ALBUM IN 1994.

It's Michael Jackson- like the biggest star on the planet. It was before the scandals.... just pure global icon. It was a pretty big deal.

He had this very specific vision that he wanted to shoot: a 3D version of himself on the cover. The tech was super low-fi by today's standards, but back then, it was ambitious. I had to shoot him from every angle- and I mean literally. A full rig of cameras set up so that when I pushed the shutter they all fired at the same exact moment. It took me days to figure out lighting, the shutter syncing, the camera angles, the tech...but I pulled it off."

"I remember the day I got the call to shoot Bon Jovi‘s album cover.

I was a Jersey boy and a fan—it was a big deal—and the album was called New Jersey.

So I jump in the Porsche and haul down the parkway to scout locations. I’ve got the long hair, the fast car, the cool gigs—I’m on top of the world…and then I hear sirens. Apparently I was going 90mph. Lucky for me the cop didn’t feel like going to court, so he downgraded it to 89. It was gonna be a good day."

“Pour yourself a drink, put on some lipstick, and pull yourself together.”

Pearls of wisdom c/o Elizabeth Taylor to celebrate the icon of film, fashion and philanthropy’s 93rd heavenly birthday.

I’ve been so lucky to have photographed some of my idols...one of the greats being Al Pacino.

The Godfather, Scarface, Dog Day Afternoon—all burned into my brain, a part of my personal library.

He’s always been this great influence on me—his career, his work ethic, and his approach to really just giving himself totally to his craft.

I’ve always been in awe of him. His stature is small, physically, but his on-screen stature transcends most actors, for sure, and most roles. So to get the opportunity to work with him for Scent of a Woman was really special.

"There was always something about Angelina that people grabbed onto—people were mesmerized.

The first time she really hit my radar was that movie with Nicolas Cage—Gone in 60 Seconds. Vintage cars, hot rods. That kind of thing always gets my attention. And I’d worked with Nic many times, but here comes this wild child—vials of blood around her neck, sort of gothic, sort of hippie, and just a beautiful and free woman. It was magnetic. People couldn’t stop talking about her.

Fast forward a bit, and I get hired to shoot her in Montreal for the movie Taking Lives. By then there was already this shift—she was more serious, more grown up. She had adopted her first child and was becoming a real citizen of the world."

I photographed Sharon Stone in 1988 for the 1st time—we were both about the same age and at a point in our careers where we were being recognized for our work. Fast forward 30 years later, and we get to work together again.

So I’m getting ready for the shoot, and I get a phone call from Sharon.

She’s like “Hi! I’m excited to shoot together again, but I did want to talk about it a little bit…I want you to shoot me like you shoot men.”

I always had this fascination with fire as a little kid.

My town had this crazy loud fire signal—when that thing went off, everybody heard it. My father and I would drop whatever we were doing, hop in the car, and follow the engines. And maybe I was a little bit of a pyromaniac…cause I was always fucking around with fire.

Later on as I started my photography career. I was on movie sets, witnessing pyrotechnics and special effects. I was blown away. It was like, how could I put water, smoke, or fire into any one of my pictures? So I started to hire a special effects artist for some of my shoots.

I was hired to shoot her album cover, and they sent me up to her place in the Adirondacks. It was up in the mountains, along a big lake. We did a bunch of pictures in and around the grounds, even strung a big black backdrop between two trees deep in the woods. It was summer—hot, buggy, wilderness. That shoot built our relationship.

I had this idea of shooting her nude in the water, so the next morning we went out to the lake before sunrise, when the lake was still, this amazing fog still lingering. She was all done up—makeup, hair styled, the whole thing—but she disrobed and got right in the water. I stood at the end of the dock, lens ready.

A few moments later she says, “Hmm...there are leeches in here.” And I’m like, “What?!”

I was working on a project with Sunset Sound Studios, and found out that Janis Joplin had recorded the Pearl album at their historic recording studio on Sunset Boulevard. I heard a wild story about her walking in after lunch with the lyrics to Mercedes Benz written on a napkin, and recording it right there. The studio still looks the same—same wood paneling, same funky vibe—they even have the original mic she used.

That’s when it hit me. What if Miley recorded a cover of that song at Sunset Sound? Same mic. Same room.

I called her up, and she was in. We set it up and filmed it, stills and video of her recording Mercedes Benz just like Janis did.