How did you get started?

I just picked up a camera and started to experiment. The first three years I didn't charge anyone and only did insane things. I shot a lot of Robert Mapplethorpe's models, and did a lot of body work because I really wanted to push the envelope, to learn. And it just happened that I was doing a lot of physique work at the same time as health and fitness really took off and I ended up working for four or five magazines.

How did you get involved with grooming models?

I started grooming models just by taking the time to explain why I wouldn't photograph them, and over time I was able to be more and more specific as my eye developed, and that evolved to helping them work out programs to make the changes they needed. I'm very familiar and comfortable with the body having been a dancer, and after I finished dancing I acted, taking my master's degree in theater and eventually teaching theater. So it's a very natural thing for me, I just end up teaching as I photograph.

Sometimes agencies will send me a model and say their stuff is too beefcake, we want him to still be handsome and beautiful but we want him a little more, for lack of a better word, I'll say noble. Other times, it's like a search and destroy mission - I'll teach the model how to correct or compensate for any 'characteristics' in their face. I'll take a photograph of them uncorrected, then corrected, and show them side by side, so they learn what they can do to create better photographs of themselves and I give them exercises to do in other shoots where the photographer isn't giving them any feedback.

Do you think the concept of male beauty has changed?

We're much more natural with what we expect in terms of looks for men now. This is not the 70's with blond Ken-doll boys anymore. We have ethnic boys, boys with scars, it's a more modern frame of mind. Second, our expectation of beauty is very different for men than it is for women. Women still have to line up with that perfect Barbie Doll '70's look. When they're a little old they can't work, when their faces are lined they can't work, when they've been seen too much they can't work, where with men it's exactly the opposite. You might have a scar right here and have someone say "I want that scar". The guy may be a little toothy or a little gangly and the client says, "I want that gangly look, I don't want a 'perfect' look".

We just have a different concept of male beauty today. You don't need someone so perfect themselves. What you need is someone that your product can make more perfect and makes them fit in with the trends, rather than vice versa, so a more natural person is attractive to a lot of manufacturers and designers. In most cases the only thing that's important for men is to be powerful through the camera. So as a photographer, I approach the camera with that awareness of power and know that you're documenting it.