Steven Sebring and Patti Smith Courtesy of Steven Sebring

Photographer Steven Sebring's collaboration and friendship with the legendary Patti Smith began with a chance assignment for Spin magazine. Since meeting in 1995, the two have been working together on the documentary Patti Smith: Dream of Life. A visual artist known for his high-end fashion and celebrity portraiture, Sebring brings his unique visual style to this equally unique film, which is narrated by Smith herself. Dream of Life captures her visceral live shows and her intimate, everyday life with family and friends. Sebring discusses the person he calls "the Arthur Rimbaud of our time" and the documentary that's taken them 12 years to make.

You met and photographed Patti Smith for Spin magazine in 1995. What was that like?
It was great. I knocked on the door and we had an immediate connection. It was really cool. I didn't take pictures until the end of the day, and when I did, I took 8 rolls of film. We really wanted to keep in touch, and I convinced her to let me start filming after that.

What was she like when you photographed her?
I just found her to be really mysterious, and I didn't grow up with Patti Smith so when I photographed her, I knew only a little about her, like images of her with Robert Mapplethorpe. And then I listened to her music and I remembered a lot of her music, but I think she knew immediately that I wasn't this kid who was just praising her and feeding her brain with things. I was just discovering her on my own, and we had this immediate connection, which was a trusting connection. Now, over time, years later, we're like brother and sister. It's really just about trust, and it [has become] such a great relationship. I think the film shows that it was more discovering Patti through my eye because I ran a camera 95 per cent of the time, and it was just me and her, and there was never a crew. That is how I like to take pictures. I don't like a lot of people on the shoot when I'm shooting actors or musicians. We had this long relationship where I would just approach her or she'd approach me and say, "We should do some filming."

Were you at all intimidated, at first, working so closely with a legendary artist like Patti Smith?
Without a doubt, she can be highly intimidating. She doesn't say anything. There's a scene when the first time I started filming, she said, "We have to stop filming now," and that was Patti at the beginning, but over time we were just family. We'd collaborate and think of ideas. 90 percent of the time I'm with Patti and I never [have] a camera with me. It wasn't like a nonstop thing. It was when I had time or she had time. It was mostly just about the right moments.

I liked when you showed her going home to see her parents in the documentary. It was warm and touching to see her interacting with them.
I am so happy to have you say that because they're all gone now. The dog passed away first, and then Grant, her father, passed away and Bev [her mother] passed away. For Patti, it was like home movie footage that is really sacred to her.

Patti Smith Courtesy of Steven Sebring

What was your overall vision for this documentary?
I knew it wasn't going to be a traditional documentary. I'd been dabbling in film over the years, and I knew that there are people who do documentaries really well. I wasn't interested in making a talking heads film or a historical film, and she didn't want anything like that anyway so, really, it was just an organic project that, over the years, I was financing. I wanted it to be special and different. I wasn't trying to conform to what everyone else perceives is a documentary. It was me just being creative, trying to do something new with a great artist I was very fortunate to work with, like Patti.

How much did it cost you to make?
A lot! [laughs] Filmmaking is not cheap. I shot it all on 16mm. I didn't sway. We did a digital scan of my 16mm so we could put it on 35mm. I had a camera, and I loaded the film, and I bought whatever I could get. That's why some scenes were black and white and some were color. I just used what I had. A lot of the times, it was never planned. Sometimes it was incredibly frustrating, but that's how it became such an interesting palette with beautiful colors and graininess. Also, I didn't know what kind of situation I was getting into with light, because I never lit anything. You can't set up anything. You lose the magic. It was really hardcore Dogme-style, going into situations, getting what you can and pushing the film as much as possible and then seeing what you get. There was never a crew. I'd set up the sound mic in a room or I'd hand hold the camera and microphone at the same time.