I think if I ever get satisfied, I’ll have to stop. It’s the frustration that drives you.

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.

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 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.

It's the hardest thing in the world to take the mundane and try to show how special it is.

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

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