If a photographer cares about the people before the lens and is compassionate, much is given. It is the photographer, not the camera, that is the instrument.

I have been poor and I wanted to document poverty; I had lost a child and I was obsessed with birth; I was interested in politics and I wanted to know how it affected our lives; I am a woman and I wanted to know about women.

...if you think of modern art like sex in all its forms - heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, multipartnered, bestial, whatever, with absolutely no holds barred and with everything available and permissible - that would be modern art.

Themes recur again and again in my work.

I don't see anybody as either ordinary or extraordinary. I see them simply as people in front of my lens.

What I have tried to do is involve the people I was photographing... if they were willing to give, I was willing to photograph.

A studio session ... provides the greatest chance for control. Even though there is total freedom, I still dislike studio photography and the contrived images that usually stem from this genre.