I don't have lights, I don't have assistants, I just go and meet somebody and take a photograph. That's really basic, and that's how I used to work when I was 17 or 18 in Holland.

I work using the Brian Eno school of thinking: limit your tools, focus on one thing and just make it work… You become very inventive with the restrictions you give yourself.

I think some people need the assurance of people around them and ideas worked out in advance. I think it keeps me an edge that to be creative on the spot. You have to think of things to do when you meet people. You limit your choices from the beginning. So I don't bring a lot of lenses, cameras, all these elements that can help the picture to a shooting. You confine yourself to, say, one room and you just make it work. You become very creative in that little space. You have left a lot of other options out of the game.

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.

My biggest fear always is that I’ll photograph an idea rather than a person, so I try to be quite sensitive to how people are.

I never really enjoyed getting a portfolio together then sending it out; whereas, putting up the website is quite an enjoyable experience. The net's just a much faster and more modern way to distribute things, and you have to embrace it.

Photography has taken me from isolation.