I find myself, after all these years, with a built-in safety-brake that stops me from doing certain things. And one of the reasons why I want to try so called hard pornography - I don't even know whether it's hard enough - is to see whether I will be able to overcome this. Because if there is one thing I hate, it's good taste, to me it's a dirty word.

Some people`s photography is an art. Mine is not. If they happen to be exhibited in a gallery or a museum, that`s fine. But that`s not why I do them. I`m a gun for hire.

I spend a lot of time preparing. I think a lot about what I want to do. I have prep books, little notebooks in which I write everything down before a sitting. Otherwise I would forget my ideas.

The point of my photography has always been to challenge myself, to go a little further than my Germanic discipline and Teutonic nature would traditionally permit me to.

It began when I was so ill that there was a good chance of dying. I promised myself that if I survived I would never again pander to a magazine's requests or follow the ideas of art directors. I would only make images which were personal, which arose out of my own life.

The photographs don't arouse me. All I can think about is the hard work it took to make them.

I hate good taste. It's the worst thing that can happen to a creative person.