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

There's only one music video that had an emotional impact on me, and that's "Hurt" by Johnny Cash. That's exceptional. There is no music video I can think of apart from that one that really reaches you inside.

I have such a love of good music that I find even melancholic music uplifting. Maybe I'm a rare breed.

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.

Photography was the only thing that mattered in my life and I gave it everything.

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'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.