I always thought that I was lazy because I could never tell if I was working or not. I was making things, which doesn't seem like work.

Holland is a fairly small country, and in a weird way, somewhat conservative. That might surprise people because it is a very tolerant place, but it's also a somewhat Calvinist country. There isn't much flexibility in changing people's perspectives.

My photography has really always been about what I feel I'm getting out of it. What people on the outside get doesn't concern me.

I'm a very curious person. And most people are charmed by curiosity - especially if you are curious about them or what they are doing . . . unless they are breaking into a car or something.

I do feel a kinship with anthropology or ethnography, although when you hear those terms you think of something exotic. Generally, photographic anthropology has that taste of the faraway or undiscovered place. But my anthropology has more to do with what's in my reach.

I have always made films simultaneously, so they go hand in hand. I think that my books are like films.

In Holland, things were pretty stale for me. Even though there were a lot of good influences and a certain openness to music and art and literature, I just wanted to go somewhere less familiar - somewhere bigger.