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.

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

If you want to connect with people who are in distress and great grief and scared, you need to do it in a certain way. I move kind of slow. I talk kind of slow. I let them know that I respect them.

Photography can be perceived as the opposite of war.

I used to call myself a war photographer. Now I consider myself as an antiwar photographer.

Unfortunately, the world continues, history continues to produce tragedies. And it is very important that they be documented in a humane way, in a compelling way.

I became a photographer in order to be a war photographer, and a photographer involved in what I thought were critical social issues. From the very beginning this was my goal.