we've fallen asleep at the idea of what a photograph is and what a public image is. And watching that discussion play out on the internet, that's been pretty fascinating.

The place is small and shabby and you see paint marks on the wall, the wiring is done in a shabby way, and the desks can be messy, and it's—I guess it's a little bit like looking at middle management at a lot of companies.

My job is not to decorate a magazine, it's to show the viewers what the experience was.

“Oh, but you don't see her pores and her makeup mistakes.” And yes, it's true: she's a celebrity. I'm not there to photograph her for the same reason, in the same context, as I am there when I go to the West Wing as a journalist. She's a performer and she doesn't have the responsibility on her shoulders for the well-being of millions of people. And... See more

I wanted to give a sense of what it feels like in their office. The exposed wiring, the paint job of the walls, the art, the things they chose to put in their office. It's interesting, it's fascinating.

But I don't see it as my job to illustrate a story. I am there as a journalist in my own right, as sort of the eyes of the public ,to go in and observe and see what I see. I'm trying to do that in a way that's as observational as I can. I feel like my job is to offer the viewer the point of view of what I experienced in that moment.

“You know, you have a lot of power in the discretion you use to be kind to people,” meaning kind to people in my pictures. And I looked at him, and I said, “Yeah, you know, you do too.”

Photography, to me, is not necessarily about making something look pretty, it's about seeing and observing and communicating something about an experience.

but there is a discussion at this moment about what the photographic image means purely in this day and age of AI, of social media, of filters, how we present ourselves and sort of the whole discussion and perspective around the image and the photograph.