Themes recur again and again in my work.

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

Recording sessions were stimulating to photograph, because everything was in motion: the subject, the musicians, the technicians and the photographer. You needed fast reflexes to keep up with moving targets, and sensitivity and skill to get the pictures while keeping out of the performers' eyeline so as not to break their concentration.

I realise that I had the best of serious picture journalism. There was an innocence in our approach, especially in the 1950s and 1960s when we naively believed that by holding a mirror up to the world we could help - no matter how little - to make people aware of the human condition.

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

What do you hang on the walls of your mind?

I love the idea I can go off with a single camera and a few rolls of film unencumbered... I was not interested in the illusion of reality, I wanted to get close to what was happening.