I think the fact that you have long - term relationships, this is a very unusual thing in the world, and I thought it was fantastic because you build up a trust. Each time you photograph the person, you try to do something else.

I've done an incredible amount of painters. It's an area, for me, where there's more mystery left. I've photographed so many musicians, I've been in studios so often, I know the whole process. The mystery's gone from it. I think it's important to keep mystery into our lives. There's a longing connected with it.

I'm a very, very basic photographer. The main strength of my pictures, I guess, is the mood and feel I get out of the people that I meet. But technically I don't think I'm very advanced. That never interested me.

My way in for photographing people is really their work. I'm always interested in what people make, and then I photograph the person. Sometimes the person is a disappointment. But that's the risk. It informs me a lot about the character of a person if I know their work first.

I am a village boy, and Amsterdam for me was always the big town.

By self-analysis you can not change your character, but you may change your mentality.

For me N.M.E. was a very big thing. When I first came to the United Kingdom I started taking pictures for them and I became their main photographer for five years, and that's really been the basis of everything I've been doing since.