I didn't want to be a woman photographer. That would limit me. I wanted to be a photographer who was a woman, with all the world open to my camera.

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

Lesson number one: Pay attention to the intrusion of the camera.

What drove me and kept me going over the decades? If I had to use a single word, it would be 'curiosity.

If you are careful with people, they will offer you part of themselves. That is the big secret.

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.

The instrument is not the camera but the photographer.