I began after college, about 1972. I began to teach myself photography. I went to work for a local newspaper for four years as a kind of basic training.

When the truth is spoken, it doesn't need to be adorned. It just needs to be simply stated, and often it only needs to be said once.

There is a job to be doneto record the truth. I want to wake people up!

If Im feeling outraged, grief, disbelief, frustration, sympathy, that gets channeled through me and into my pictures and hopefully transmitted to the viewer.

If I can upset people, if I can ruin their day, then I have done my job.

I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated.

The worst thing is to feel that as a photographer I am benefiting from someone else's tragedy. This idea haunts me. It's something I have to reckon with every day because I know that if I ever allow genuine compassion to be overtaken by personal ambition, I will have sold my soul. The only way I can justify my role is to have respect for the other person's predicament. The extent to which I do that is the extent to which I become accepted by the other; and to that extent, I can accept myself.