I slowly began making a few photos with animals over the years, and I liked how people reacted to them. When I would have the animals on set, I’d notice the way the models would interact with them and there was so much true emotion that you rarely see between two human beings.

True emotions and sincere words never perish. The great heart of humanity gladly receives and embalms every true utterance of the humblest of its offspring.

The Flower of My Secret is definitely more based in true emotions. I also wanted to make something more realistic, but not naturalistic or simple.

I like to express true emotions under the cover of melancholy: It includes fulfilment and pain, which describes human existence.

The hardest thing to get is true emotion. I always believe you need to earn that with the audience. You can’t just tell them ok, be sad now. Humor, you can add. Even to the last minute you can be adding little bits of humor. But the true earned emotion is something that you really have to craft.

If you ant to feel deeply, you have to think deeply. Too often we separate the two. We assume that if we want to feel deeply, then we need to sit around and, well, feel. But emotion built on emotion is empty. True emotion- emotion that is reliable and does not lead us astray- is always a response to reality, to truth.