PF: But you generally like the people you photograph?

DK: I feel the photographer has a responsibility to the people he or she photographs. Shows like Richard Avedon's Portrait of the West really bother me. It's not very hard to stand there with your camera and wait until someone is awkward before you push the button.

PF: What offends you about Avedon's portraits?

DK: I grew up in the West, and his interpretation is not representative of the West, and anybody who thinks it is, is wrong! I had good buddies who were deer hunters, loggers, truckers, butchers, and they weren't anything like what Avedon's pictures say. Those pictures are about Avedon, not about the people he is photographing. I always felt there is enough shit out there, and if you want to see ugliness in human beings turn on the news, open the Daily News, or visit the morgue. You walk out on the street and you are bombarded by it. I like to find the good that is out there. People seem to buy the bad and ugly interpretations of life. I see a lot of negative eroticism and outlooks in much of the photography of today. It's not the kind of stuff I want to put on my wall, but it seems that people are into it.

PF: You don't feel that a photographer has the responsibility to point out society's ills, and "man's inhumanity to man?"

DK: I have a great deal of respect for war photographers. That is not the same kind of thing. I think war should be photographed so we can understand what it is, and what we are doing to ourselves. But there seems to be a general swing where some people are into the negative aspects of others. I'd rather find the niceties in the people I photograph. In answer to your question, yes, I like most of the people I photograph.

PF: Who do you especially like?

DK: Dylan! I photographed Bob Dylan at his home in Malibu last December for Spin. There are very few people I get excited about in the industry these days, and he is one of them.

PF: Dylan has always been a favorite performer of mine.

DK: I liked him. But I was nervous before I photographed him. I grew up on his music and I had him on a pedestal. I didn't bring an assistant because I know Dylan hates to be photographed. I went by myself, with all my equipment, and it ended up where he helped me coil cords. We spent three or four hours together shooting, and he even made space for another shoot the following day for me. I know he had to keep other appointments waiting while I photographed him. He was good to work with, and one of the exceptional things about him was there were very few surprises, if you know his history and his music you can see it in him and hear it in him. I could feel his music in everything there.

PF: Have you encountered a celebrity who showed up for a shoot drunk or stoned?

DK: It's happened. Recently, as a matter of fact. You just keep plowing through and shoot a lot of film. Even when you get a nasty person who curses you out and says he is not going to do what you want, eventually, at some point, he will; you just have to keep working. It's difficult sometimes, because there is no formula or plan you can lock into.

PF: How do you direct your portrait sessions?

DK: I don't like to direct the sessions. I tell the people the less I say during the shoot the better it's going. We usually find out what the person likes to eat or drink beforehand, and we sit down at the dining room table and have something to eat, and talk for a while. My goal is to make the person feel comfortable, Then, we go into the studio and begin the session. It's not a conscious thing. It's more like I wonder what this person is going to do. I wonder what I'll find interesting about him or her. I try to make the whole experience enjoyable, because most people don't have fun in front of a camera.

PF: Do you like sitting in front of a camera?

DK: I love it! When I get crazy or unhappy, I'll get up in the middle of the night and put a camera on a tripod, hook a cable release and shoot pictures of myself, usually Polaroid, and the next day I'll look and say, "Yeah, I can see how I was feeling."

PF: What size format do you use for your work?

DK: Primarily I shoot with a 2 1/4 , 35mm is too grainy for me, unless I want the grain and then I shoot 35mm with Agfa 1000.