I can photograph someone if I can touch them.

Photojournalist? With a few exceptions, those of us working as photojournalists might now more appropriately call ourselves illustrators. For, unlike real reporters, whose job it is to document what's going down, most of us go out in the world expecting to give form to the magazine, or to newspaper editor's ideas, using what's become over the years a pretty standardized visual language. So we search for what is instantly recognizable, supportive of the text, easiest to digest, or most marketable - more mundane realities be damned.

Approaching people is not - it's ironic that it's what I do - but it's not necessarily what I enjoy doing. Later on, I'm fine. Once we get talking I have a great time but not in the beginning.

...it is pretentious for photographers to believe that their pictures alone change things. If they did, we wouldn't be besieged by war, by incidents of genocide, by hunger. A more realistic assessment of photography's value is to point out that it is illustrative of what's going on, that it provides a record of history, that photographs can prompt dialogue.

I can photograph someone if I can touch them.

That's one of the troubles of photography; the implication that what you have in that photograph is the way it is, and of course a year later that's not the way it is. Life moves on and the picture stays. That can be a wonderful idea to be a part of history and on the other hand, you think pictures have a life that they don't have.

There's never a time that I'm not intrusive. That's the base of what we - photographers - do: we're intrusive. Anyone saying the opposite is silly. There's a process and a means of getting to know people and getting them to trust you, but I'm always very aware that I'm visiting - that I'm there, that I have a responsibility, but I am intrusive.