When I got to David’s he was lying in his backyard. I had my two good friends, Maria and Linnea with me. David looked at the assortment of duffle bags I had brought then looked at me with a funny expression. Each of the bags was overflowing with random fabrics and other various props I like to incorporate into my shoots. Then he saw the bag full of marbles and exclaimed, “Oh! I love marbles!” So, right away I knew everything was going to be okay.

We got started. As the day went on, David and the girls got progressively more comfortable. We ended the shoot in his pool, all three of them totally nude and angelically floating around the clear blue water. I called, “THAT’S A WRAP!” and they hightailed it into his sauna to get warm again. Then we went inside and gathered around his fire to recap on the day and relax.

David LaChapelle was one of my earliest influences. He showed me, among other things, that you could successfully photograph your obsessions, so it’s only fitting I was eventually able to photograph David himself.